re: Rewatched Phantom Menace this weekend

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Yes it was actually him and it was explained in Clone Wars

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Yet another failure, then. No one should have to look beyond the boundaries of a movie to figure out what the frick is going on. If you want me to do homework just to understand the basic plot of your movie

No one isn't saying that wasn't a problem. It is a strength of Filoni to work these things out

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Because everyone else in the movie is speaking the same shitty dialogue, and none of them come even close to how bad she is.

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I would say everyone except McGregor, Jackson, and Neeson phoned in their performances in the prequals. And even they had some scenes where they phoned it in. Portman was pretty damn horrible throughout though.

The CGI was way over used. Lucas went too far with it and it was noticeably bad. He should have used a mix of CGI and practical effects. Using the CGI to enhance the practical effects.

I don't hate the prequals, but i won't ever go out of my way to watch them like i will the originals. And i refuse to rewatch that garbage recently labeled as Star Wars.

They took on the ruse after his death

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The prequal story is actually a pretty good one at it's core.

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Not really. Overly complicated trade deals and negotiations, with mafia like hit twists at the beginning is more like a Bond film set up than Star Wars.

The story doesn't really have any real movement, just a move from set piece to set pieces, show the toy you want to sell, next set piece.

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It could have been really good if fleshed out,

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A complete reworking around some of the basic premises could have been done.

My modest proposal (some my ideas, some I cribbed from others over the years in trying to fix this terrible fricking movie):

Qui-Gon and Obi Wan sent by the council to investigate a facility on the outer edge of Republic space. Was supposed to be an abandoned research/military observation station, but there is a manufacturing facility here making military hardware. They trip an alarm while scouting, get into a big fight, but make it out fairly roughed up. Qui-Gon is badly injured and needs to recover.

Obi Wan starts poking around on his own and asking questions. Yoda and other members of the council are concerned and go to the civilian authorities who uniformly act completely ignorant of the situation. Qui-Gon directs Obi Wan to an old contact of his who works for Senator Palpatine. The aide seems concerned and offers to help. He lets Obi Wan and Qui-Gon in on a suspected conspiracy within the government - a conspiracy poised to take over and replace the Republic with a dictatorship that will assume control, put the military in charge and replace the Jedi Council. This conspiracy is run by the Sith, he tells them.

Qui-Gon is concerned, but Obi Wan thinks the Sith are a boogeyman, told and retold by the old Jedi to keep the youngsters vigilant. They are also concerned that some of the Jedi Council are compromised, so they keep some of their findings and revelations to themselves.

The aide, working for Palpatine ultimately leads them into a trap where a weakened Qui-Gon is killed. Yoda leads a rescue team to extract Obi Wan and he finally spills the beans to Yoda about what they were looking for. Yoda explains to him that the Sith have reawakened and are rebuilding their dark counterpart to the Jedi order. The council suspected he and Qui-Gon were being lured to the dark side and discovered too late that they were being led into a trap. In the epilogue, while they are mourning Qui-Gon's sacrifice (first Jedi to die in the line of duty in decades), Yoda explains they will have to rapidly expand the corps of Jedi to meet the new threat. Without naming him, he refers to a young man across the room and says, "But we must screen carefully. See that one? The force is extremely strong with him, but his passions and impulses cannot be trusted."

Now, maybe that doesn't sell a lot of toys, but that's a better story than any of the movies since Return of the Jedi. Period. Full stop.