Everyone criticizes Phantom Menace. My daughter was about 5 and she loved it. PM introduced a lot of new characters and the battle with Darth Maul was great. I think it had record sales. I didn’t like it but came to like it. Attack of Clones sucks but Yoda is great at the end. Christian Hayden, worst actor ever.
Darth Maul and that light saber were intimidating.
The 2nd trilogy was basically telling us how terrible Obi-Won and Yoda were at being Jedi masters. They basically presided over the extermination of the Jedi and fostered the rise of the Empire by their tremendous bungling and blindness. No wonder Yoda went and hid on a swamp planet.
Freegards
The Phantom Menace makes no sense whatsoever.
That sounds reasonable to me.