The point is to inject some excitement into a movie that spent too long on trade agreements. As Miller said above (and I agree with), the pod race is terrible for the plot and there’s no justification for it in that regard. But as a standalone sequence, it was a lot of fun.
If you’re making the point that there are other reasons to not like that segment besides not seeing it in the right environment, then I’ll agree with that. My question above was asked in the interest of learning why people didn’t like it, not asking “what the hell is wrong with you?” The entire plot was such a hot mess that one more bit like this didn’t even register for me. But it certainly is a valid reason to not like the scene, so consider me edified.
Naboo was a cool planet, and they had cool ships.
When Qui Gon meditates in the middle of a sword fight. It’s the only time he seems like a badass to me.
I thought there were quite a bit of fun/good moments in the prequels that were overshadowed by the bad moments. However, I did think the overarcing storyline of a crumbling Republic was a good, and in that story, Ian McDiarmid’s scheming Palpatine was great. I also thought Ewen McGregor’s Obi-Wan was quite fantastic.
I do believe that getting someone else to write the dialogue and as someone said above, adding a handful of scenes that added connective tissue would have made the prequels as decent but not great movies (maybe aside from Episode 3, which I really enjoyed as is) rather than what they are remembered now.
someone said lucas should of had larry kasdan do the screen play and the guy who directed empire do them …