Back in 2010, I noted:
And is indeed a weak movie with a cliché storyline - eminently forgettable. Movies like it and the others represent advances in the technology of filmmaking but not in the art of storytelling.
Star Wars remains notable for being a tech breakthrough in its day and having a resonant storyline with memorable characters. By now, there are large gaps I’ve forgotten about the prequels, even though I’ve seen them far more recently. I guess Phantom Menace stuck with me more than the others in part because I was on a boring military exercise when a bootleg copy starting getting passed around and for lack of anything better to do, I watched the pod race a bunch of times. I’m a tad ashamed to say I eventually bought the DVD, but in fairness it was for the included “making of” documentaries - I never bothered rewatching the movie itself.