My take on the story so far is below. I think maybe I'll do one of these a day. I want to keep them short and relatively concise, but still have enough for discussion. Anyway, here is the first:
Ep. I The Phantom Menace: Lucas really wanted to play up the political intrigue in how the seeds of the empire were first planted. By and large, I think it worked. But the problem for him is that he also wanted to market the film to kids. This resulted in a film (and trilogy) that felt very bi-polar and unsure of what it wanted to be. By and large, I think this movie was okay. It had some brilliant moments, but was mired in some stuff that didn't work for me and a lot of others.
Three things that worked:
-1. Palpatine operating behind the scenes the way he did. Even though we all knew he was Sidious, it didn't matter.
-2. Maul: Probably self-explanatory.
-3. The pod race: I will grudgingly give this one, in the general sense. I have come around after a long time. But I still think it needed to be fixed.
Three things that didn't:
-1. The way Anakin won the pod race: It was too silly.
-2. Anakin's involvement in the final space battle: This and the previous point go together. I see what Lucas was going for. On one hand, Anakin's force sensitivity was off the charts, so he would be gifted in using the force even if he didn't know it. On the other hand, he was a gifted pilot as well. But the way Lucas tried to show both Anakin's force sensitivity and his piloting skills was completely ineffective and came across as him blundering into doing the right thing by just dumb luck. And "let's try spinning" was just stupid, as was randomly pushing buttons while shooting up the interior of the mother ship.
-3. Padme being so much older than Anakin. Not a problem just for this film. But knowing what was coming, it just takes me out of the moment SO much. And, yes, this bothers me more than Jar-Jar. I guess I could have gone for the low-hanging fruit and pick Jar-Jar. But, honestly, Jar-Jar wasn't that big of a problem. Yeah, he was dumb and over the top at times. But he didn't really distract me. The other three issues were bigger in terms of the whole PT.
Minor tweaks that could have made it better: Really, only a couple of things. Re-do the pod race so that (1) Anakin is not so far behind and miraculously catches the rest of the pack for no good reason other than...just because, and (2) he actually shows some skill and force sensitivity. Yeah, he can still be a kid who doesn't necessarily understand all the nuances of how or why he is so good. But we needed something. Similarly, fix the final space battle in a similar way. And lastly, have "Queen Amidala," the main political figure in this mess, be an older woman and be Padme's mom. Just have Padme be the princess who is much closer to Anakin's age, and have them immediately take to each other. She can still have some role in helping with the conflict to show that she will grow into an important, capable woman. And it somewhat eliminates the creep factor and suspension of belief in Ep. II, and actually works to make their later romance more believable.
More to follow...