I once read a long theory that Lucas deliberately made PM mirror ROTJ; that may be giving him too much credit, but who knows?
Sometimes I find people watch these films from the lenses of what they want them to be instead of just viewing things for what they are. I’m fortunate I think looking back to seeing The Phantom Menace first then the Original Trilogy and so forth. I didn’t have years to think up how everything must go down. I think the same can be said for fans who grew up with the Originals on a similar level. They had time to form in their head what happened and grew up in a different yet similar time.
I grew up as the prequels were coming out and saw them with minimal knowledge/cursory views of the originals. I still thought AOTC and ROTS were terrible. In hindsight, with more knowledge of the series, I see how people were so disappointed and why the movies still don’t work no matter how many mental gymnastics and overzealous applications of “storytelling theories” one can mention. There really isn’t anything that separates this franchise from things like Star Trek or Harry Potter beyond window dressing. If anything, this franchise made the franchise model a more commonplace thing to the detriment of cinema.
As Patrick H. Willems said, these are just family movies about space wizards. It’s not that deep.