Despite all that, and despite it’s insignificance to the greater Star Wars saga, I still think that the Phantom Menace is the most watchable movie in the prequel trilogy.
JEDIT: Even if Jar Jar isn’t racist, you gotta admit the nemoidians accents are disgusting.
I must admit the accents reminded me somewhat of an Asian stereotype, but then again there wasn’t much else about those characters that seemed particulary Asian, so I view the similarity as coincidental. I think people were generally so upset about TPM, that they were looking for anything bad to accuse Lucas off, and so the whole racism angle was born. I think there’s plenty of evidence in the real world, that Lucas is anything but a racist, and so my belief is that dislike for TPM drove critics to embrace the worst possible interpretation of these characters and events.