I have no issue saying that aspects of the movies are masterful. The John Williams score, the sound design, some of the visual design, costuming, and props, some of the sets, some of the choreography, and some of the performances especially Ewan McGregor and Ian McDiarmid.
But people take all of those things out of context and pretend they’re the whole thing. Duel of the Fates isn’t a fart joke or Jar Jar babbling. Palpatine with some nice subtle dialogue isn’t Palpatine with “Unlimited Power” or “Darth Plagueis the Wise was so powerful and so wise.” “You were my brother Anakin, I loved you” isn’t “Chancellor Palpatine is evil!” A cool asteroid chase sequence isn’t Anakin talking about sand or saying very weird stuff to Padme about how she’s in his soul tormenting him. The good CG doesn’t outweigh the amount of weird, blobby, highly noticeable bad CG. And on and on.
Personally I think some have, to me, took issue with some things that I don’t have that much of an issue with really myself. Like much of the CGI (which personally while I won’t acclaim the greatness of it in the majority, I think is more than not fine to me, with only a few that I think to be fairly weak for me). Or that Palpatine is evil line or the Plagueis line (which that isn’t the line). And even the sand line, which while I think the line is clunky and awkward, I think the intensity against is a bit aggressive. Anakin’s lines, to me, are really only that much of an issue in the romance scenes, and even then it’s not all of them to me, even if it’s most of them. The rest of his dialogue I think only really isn’t an issue that much to that degree.
Some go against Anakin being a child, for example, but it’s something I think really pulls the overall story together, even going through to the OT. Personally, I think the only effect this works against is his relationship with Padme, whereas I think it benefits all the others. I think Anakin being introduced as a child is apart of the contrast of what he will become as Vader, so I think it’s apart of the story and character journey, as well as him being a child, in connection to his relationship to Qui-Gon who carries the potential of a dad figure that Anakin never gets to have, that Obi takes on responsibility for, and Palpatine ultimately usurps.
And I think taking out him being a child in TPM strips a complete weight framework of a narrative that travels from the PT into the OT, as, to me, it shows Vader being the personal dad he never had in choosing to die to rescue his son, and not only overthrow his longest oppressor in Palpatine, but also reject fully the emotionally manipulative dad figure (his basically abusive dad in this case) that he’d been living with his whole life. The whole story for Luke is in connecting with his dad basically in the OT. By doing what’s done in the PT, I think this adds to that idea, but I do think it could use refining.
So, for this, I think it works to only age up Anakin a little bit, and to close the gap more for him and Padme, age her down only by about a year or so. Close enough to have a buyable romantic crush setup and peer dynamic. I’ve posted a redo for TPM here that I think does those things to refine the story moreso:
https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/The-Phantom-Menace-Outline-REWRITE/id/142856
I kept hoping the next one would be better. I thought clearly Lucas is rusty and II and III will clearly be better. And like many other people went to see them for the opening week and the spectacle of the lightsaber fights, what is ILM going to do this time. John Williams score. Hayden Christensen as Anakin never quite landed with me. I think his being an unlikable protagonist is a major problem for these movies. With the OT you have Luke.
I don’t think Anakin is the central or only protagonist in the PT, so it’s not really a concern for me. But I also think his likability is only an issue for me part of the time.
The unnatural dialogue, the space politics. The Midichlorians. The space politics is what these movies are about why complain about them. Well, I liked the original for being a swashbuckling adventure movie. It’s kind of why I initially liked the force awakens it was in the that style of being. But well later I realized this is just a remake of Star Wars.
The swashbuckling over politics seems maybe to be more a preference issue, to me.