Akwat Kbrana said:

Blindly accepting everything that comes out of Lucas' mouth is as absurd as blindly hating everything the man has ever done post-1980. Criticism isn't about being slanderous; it's about thinking for ones' self and discussing a myriad of views intelligently. I don't think you'll be crucified over here if you happen to enjoy The Phantom Menace. You may get a good deal of arguments and heated discussions as to why it's an inferior movie, but not crucified as seems to be the Modus Operendi on most gusher forums I've visited.

I can pretty much attest to this as well. We've had plenty of new folks join recently and quite a few of them love the PT. Myself, and others, have wondered why they love it so much, but none of us have tried to keep them from having their own opinion.

I haven't visited TFN forums in more than 3 years (ever since ROTS came out), so I don't really know how bad it's gotten over there. I don't care to find out either. The last time I went there, one of the headlines couldn't help but feel sorry for GL that he couldn't find a home for the latest Clone Wars series. Despite everything that's happened, as far as they were concerned, it was the network executives fault for not simply taking Star Wars on the name alone.