So uh, here's a lukewarm defense of it.
I'm not going to say it isn't flawed or that there aren't major problems. Anakin kind of fails upwards, and despite the majority of the plot hinging on Padme she ends up taking a back seat for most of the film. There are 55 separate wipe transitions, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are clearly the people who matter here but they have to constantly share screen time with unlikeable CGI monstrosities and well... You know. The accents.There are reasons to dislike this film.
But I was surprised at how much I didn't end up hating it on rewatch. I ended up liking it a lot more than I thought. The stuff that holds up still does. Pod Racing is great, Obi and QG versus Darth Maul is great, in fact any time Obi and QG are on screen together it's a pretty fun ride.
Coming back to anything after a long hiatus is kind of a tough feat and no one really knows what the best way to go about it is. I think The Force Awakens had more success than The Phantom Menace in that regard but it's clear just how many kinks the original trilogy left to iron out, and while The Phantom Menace is definitely not the answer, I do think it was at least a great shot in the arm for the franchise.
It's a little hard to quantify where I'd put it now. It's not a great film but I also don't think it's an unsaveably bad one. A couple edits here and there could easily put The Phantom Menace as one of the best Star Wars films of all time, but personally, the less George Lucas touches Star Wars, the better at this point.
If you haven't seen it, I'd still recommend it, if you haven't seen it in a while, I think you'll be surprised at how much holds up but either way, don't expect it to blow your mind. It's the phantom fucking menace, so, you know.
Prepare for all that entails.
55 wipes, man. Someone needs to bat Lucas's hand from the keyboard.
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