Other than Revenge what is Palpatine’s endgame, Ian is brilliant but the story makes no sense if you bother to ask questions. What was the trade federation boycott of Naboo about, Tariffs? What in the force does Sidious need taxes for. Why does he want to ruin the Naboo. And that is just in the first episode. In II he makes the Jedi the Generals of his army to then in III just murder them all because he sets Anakin on a path to betray them.
The writing in the Prequels forces the audience to fill in lots of gaps, especially in Phantom Menace, because the script is loaded with hand-waviness. I think AOTC and ROTS are a bit more straightforward: Palpatine’s goal is to kill all Jedi and become an absolute monarch. He does this by forcing the Republic into a civil war and making them use an army he created in advance. He antagonizes the Jedi by abusing his emergency powers, then when some Jedi representatives confront him, he kills them and accuses the Jedi of insurrection. Then he presses the “off” button on the Separatist army (???), and sends Anakin to kill their leaders. Then he builds a Death Star over the next 20 years and then fires the Senate. Finally, after all that, he finally gets to relax and enjoy his absolute unlimited power… for about a few days or so, before the Death Star explodes.
I kind of feel bad for Palpatine now… like, he did all that work and he put up with those stupid Nemoidians and the stupid Senate and their boring meetings for 20 years and then some random whiny kid blew up his cosmic fear machine.