Yeah, that is exactly how most Prequel fans defend this.
To be fair, again, he thinks they’re bad movies, he just enjoys them. He tears into a lot of the movie quite a bit. But perhaps some of the overly charitable defenses are coming from his subjective enjoyment and familiarity with the old EU.
Or they say “it doesn’t matter, it’s just background details”. Except, it’s not background details. It’s actually like… the entire plot. Plinkett emphasizes this at one point, saying something like (paraphrasing) “the Trade Federation invading Naboo is the entire plot of the movie so it’s important to understand what everyone’s motivation is and why they’re doing it.” I recall countless debates about this on online forums in the “Dark Age” pre-social media era of the Internet.
The Phantom Menace portrays the Trade Federation as the bad guys, and shows us Trade Federation armies marching through Naboo and bossing people around. We know they’re the bad guys, and the entire movie revolves around defeating them and freeing Naboo. But it’s hilarious how nobody can provide a straight answer to the question “WHY are they even invading Naboo at all?” Possible Prequel-defense answers include:
- “Because taxes!”
- “Because Palpatine told them to! Also taxes!”
- “OMFG can’t you read?? it’s all in the opening crawl!”
- “Here’s my fan-fiction 10,000 word essay explaining Palpatine’s plan OMG it’s so obvious”
- “It’s so obvious this is all explained in 5 EU novels you’ll never read”
- “LMFAO OMG you’re so stupid this movie is for kids I understood it when I was 10”, etc.
This I definitely agree with. First time I was watching I didn’t really understand anything. “Why is the Trade company being taxed to trade? What’s a trade route in space, doesn’t everybody just fly around? It’s space, there’s no traffic? This trade company has an army? What the fuck? And why this planet?”
And yeah the gaslighting technique where come up with so much with no direct reference from the movie but then go “It’s so obvious!” is really annoying. I’m not immune necessarily, maybe you could say the same with my defenses for Luke’s plan in ROTJ, but at least for that everything I say is based on direct lines from the movie.