Is it just me or does almost nothing of importance happen in The Phantom Menace? Anakin is found and Palpatine becomes Chancellor. That’s about it.
I see this complaint often, but it’s a surface level one. No different from saying “Is the only point of Empire to show Luke training and Vader being his father?”, or, "Is Fellowship of the Ring just about Frodo starting to walk towards a mountain?"
The latter examples are a bit extreme but it’s the same sort of principle.
TPM adds to Obi-Wan’s character development and begins to show Palpatine’s rise to power (not just him becoming Chancellor), but how he manipulates those around him, which comes into play more and more in the next two films. It also adds to the development of Anakin and seeing where he originated, which is a big driving force for his actions in AOTC, and in turn, ROTS.
That’s not to say every frame of TPM is super relevant to the trilogy, just that there’s more than surface level plot points.
I mean you can argue it’s all crap and pointless and you’re entitled to your opinion, but it’s a bit unfair to take a couple of main plot points and declare that’s all there is to the movie.
EDIT: Also Lucas’ worst decision is burying the OOT. There’s nothing wrong with there being a SE, but it shouldn’t come at the cost of the originals.
Also selling Star Wars, it’s pretty hypocritical to spend decades championing indie filmmaking and then sell out to the biggest studio there is. Though in saying that though I don’t really blame him for just saying f*** it after a decade of people yelling at him.