I agree that AOTC has a very good story buried in there somewhere, when you disregard all the lines and most of the movie itself. I rememberer enjoying the beginning very much when I first saw it. It has some really cool moments (again, disregarding the execution). The assassination attempt and R2 in a dark room surveying it meanwhile the Jedi were discussing in the next room, then some chasing in the Coruscant underground and bars, Obi-Wan going alone on his mission like a detective, meets the assassin, meanwhile the kids have same alone time of their own… Okay the rest of the movie goes more pointless to me, even story-wise. I hate the arena battle and Geonosis etc. Anyways, too bad the execution was just poor. Lines were cheesy, the chase was trying to be funny, it’s too cartooney, the underground wasn’t interesting or menacing, and the love story… ugh. Obi-Wan’s mission was pretty good though, even though the whole cloning/cloners thing was bad as well.
So… most likely, Harmy is right. It just depends how much you disregard what you see. Is the whole cloning mess part of the story too? And Dooku’s weird plan? I haven’t seen AOTC in 7 or 8 years so I don’t remember exactly how the story progressed actually. Anyways, nice analyzing. Too bad the end product is probably the poorest (or is it…).