[Haarspalter said:]
If you want to find out what George Lucas was thinking when he made the PTI think if George could have, he would have made the originals exactly like he made the prequels.
It shouldn’t be underestimated that Lucas’ creative judgement became heavily influenced by his fatherhood since the early eighties. Ewoks anyone? During the Phantom Menace production phase, his son Jett was at age of 4 to 6. Jett inspired him to create Jar Jar Binks’ name. Phantom Menace became so childish because he wanted that Jett enjoys the movie. During the Clones production phase his two daughters had to live trough puberty —> Anakin & Padme romance. One of Lucas’ daughters had a crush on N’Sync so Lucas wanted to put them into the Geonosis Arena battle as backround characters. Lucas’ alibi “I make movies for children” can be changed to “I make movies for MY children”.