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After all these years, what does everyone else think?
Ep 5 > Ep 4 > RO > Ep 3 == Ep 6 > Ep 7 > Ep 1 > Solo > Ep 2 >>>>>> Ep 8. Episode 8 is the only one of these movies that I have disdain for; it has some good, some even great, moments, but largely it is worthless. The rest of them, including The Phantom Menace, are good to great movies.
Having ranked the series as such, I'll say that The Phantom Menace gets way too much hatred. It was not the movie that I necessarily expected over 16 years (between May 25, 1983 and May 19, 1999) of anticipation, of considering how things might play out, etc. But it was a Star Wars movie that gave us a look at a galaxy far, far away that was not currently in a state of war.
Lucas once said that he never expected the first three episodes to be as successful (don't have a link for that, just something I recall reading in a magazine, likely Starlog). I tend to agree. Had he not presented himself as a numerically challenged filmmaker and started his saga with the actual first story back in 1977, I rather doubt we ever would have seen a second part.
My wife has, to my knowledge, never actually watched the entire movie from beginning to end. She claims it to be too boring. She has a point, to a degree. All the governmental machinations, the Senatorial stuff, the behind the scenes maneuvering that Senator Palpatine does, yeah, I can see that for some being boring. I took a somewhat different perspective on it, though, and compared it to how Adolf Hitler worked within the system of government in early 1930s Germany to get himself elected Chancellor (and we know what happened next). That to me was a compelling story and the comparison was likely intentional.
One thing that always bothered me when watching TPM, specifically during the Naboo fighter attack against the Trade Federation battle cruisers - it looks like those starfighters are plodding along like turtles in some scenes. I never had the sense of such slowness in any similar sequences in the original trilogy.
I loved the design in this movie. Those Naboo starfighters being chrome, or stainless steel, or whatever that metallic finish was supposed to be, as well as Amidala's ship, was a neat look. The battle droids were cool (up until they spoke, Roger Roger in a voice I didn't expect), the destroyer droids, the various pod racers which were basically jet engines attached to cockpits, all of that stuff was great. CGI Yoda never quite looked right when compared against puppet Yoda. Darth Maul was fantastic with what, half a dozen words?
The musical score was inarguably TPM's greatest strength.
