Figirin' Dan was right on the money. I expected something more mature, something darker. If these are troubled times and something evil is moving behind the scenes let us feel this. The slaves (anakin and his mother) being held captive by...Watto...a flying CG character with a dirty Italian accent. Bad. It could've been darker there. No Jar-Jar, flat out, GL was lazy with CG and overused it. When CG is combined with slapstick and regular characters all I think of is...Roger Rabbit. Jar-Jar, Dex, Watto, Gungans, those retarded Roger-Roger droids...its overkill. The ships looked more real in the old trilogy when they were models. I say only use CG here and there to add to the movie not become the movie (LOTR used it appropriately). I really would've like to have seen more darth maul (didn't GL learn his lesson when he killed of Boba in a stupid way). Maul and Obi-wan should've been the main characters. There is no central character. BTW, dooku was stupid and not threatening in the least (unless we were given a darker back story). I expected Anakin to not be a whoopie type of kid and a whiny brat as a teen. Irritating, whether that is realistic or not, I don't want it. This is a kid held captive in slavery in a very seedy place, less whoopie and more harsh world quietly poignant (haley-joel osment in Sixth Sense for Episode I would've worked). The more music is a good point, there is music, but we needed more of the original score. The Yoda is Episode I is worse than the Yoda of 1981, why? No the CG worked pretty well for Yoda in Episode II, but still could be better to me (gollum?!)

What kills me is when I watch the deleted scenes with commentary in Episode II and every scene GL says this would've added alot to the plot or developed the characters. And they did, I liked almost all those scenes. Yet, he dropped them for time he says. So we get that crappy scene with Anakin riding that Bull thing in the pasture wooing padme...c'mon. We get a little brat telling Obi-wan the planet is gone...rrggh, that's irritating on two counts, Obi-wan is a jedi and its cooler for him to figure it out himself...but also GL puts a wise little kid here that has the good life, but a kid in poverty and slavery (anakin Ep.I) is all whoopie?!

As hypersonic5 pointed out in his editing of Ep.I the use of accents for aliens instead of languages (which Magnolia added back) was atrocious. Dex, Watto, Jar-Jar, Boss Nass...unacceptable.

I felt like someone stabbed me in the heart after sitting there watching Episode I for the first time, something I was so excited about went sooo wrong.

Basically, I feel like my signature down below. That's a long time to not get something right. Then when you see a new trilogy like LOTR look so polished, have extended cuts...it makes you sick inside to know that the greatest trilogy of all time didn't get a prequal trilogy on par with those. I feel like throwing up just speaking about this.