It was definitely before I saw Phantom Menace. It was probably the Special Editions or when they came to tape... It might have been the revisionist history interviews with old George at the beginning of the tape... I don't know. But I still had no concept of how terrible Episode 1 was going to be.
At the risk of diverting this back on topic... I still hope Avatar is good. I just hope Cameron doesn't destroy his reputation like some others...