Episodes 4,5 and 6 are masterpieces, and actual movies; not expensive animations like these new star wars´.
While the story may be good, it can´t make up for the effects straight out of Shrek and terrible CGI characters, Jar-Jar Binks being the biggest mistake in movie - I mean animation history (and Yoda looking like a moving oilpainting). Casting went wrong too, especially in the case of Samuel L. Jackson - more camp than anything about this movie, and giving the only (yet unintentional) laughs.
I´m not a die hard Star Wars fan, but I can tell a good movie from a bad one, and Phantom Menace is nothing but an excuse for a lot of CGI action over good storytelling.
Really annoying movie.
But if you like it, you may want to check out some of Pixar - studios productions, since they´re as much movies as this.

darth maul is my fav sith and quigon is my 2nd fav jedi :)

I couldnt wait to watch this film when i first heard it was coming out and when i first watched i thought it was pretty good. However, after a couple more viewings later on i realised how wrong i was. This just isnt the Star Wars that fans like me have known and loved for all these years. Extremely annoying too, Jar Jar Binks is one of the worst film characters ever, if not the worst. He was just completely uneccesary. It just gave the many people that hate Star Wars an easy chance too make fun out of it even more. The battle scenes near the end just couldnt compare to the the epic battles seen in the other films. A huge mistake in what is a classic franchise.