In the OT you could easily have emotional ties to the characters...
That's thing with the OT, we had this whole film to like these characters and root for their success, but in the PT we're just not given enough (character-wise) to root for these guys. Lucas sets up these ambiguous situations which mete out nothing. Are Amidala's people REALLY being starved by "the thousands?" (in only a day?). Amidala doesn't LOOK like she cares. Qui-Gon doesn't seem to care a whole lot as he's mucking about this with stupid little kid and taking the time to sit through a pod race. If things really were truly dire, wouldn't there be a greater effort to stem it?
Oh right, we're suppose to comment on things we like. There's some good cinematography in TPM. Some nifty designs for aliens and vehicles. I like the TF hover-tanks. Battledroids wouldn't be so bad if they didn't sound like Donald Duck.