In the opening crawl, we are told that a political dispute has led to the blockade of a peaceful planet. These films come under fire for being too mired in political crap, but this is frankly better than the complete lack of worldbuilding in the Disney Trilogy. We understand who the Trade Federation are, what their relationship is to the Republic, and how the Taboo fit into the picture. Lucas spells out for us that the Republic is engulfed in turmoil and endless debates. It is literally in the opening crawl.
There is no getting around the fact that I will have to address the Plinkett Reviews here, so here goes: "Why would the Trade Federation want to blockade trade?" The only way this is a valid question is if you have never heard of a union strike. They think they are getting a raw deal and are shutting down their operations - and preventing the Republic from hiring scab labor - until they get a better deal. That is why the Trade Federation is blockading trade.
Is a dispute over taxes the most interesting impetus for a conflict? You tell me. But that's an artistic decision, not a logical flaw, so I'll go easy on it. I will point out in its defense that this is the story of how the Old Republic was corrupted by Palpatine and turned into the Empire. If you did not expect some space politics, you were a moron. This is like reading Paradise Lost and expecting that religion not show up all over the place. Could it have been done better? Well, there's the JJ approach of just glossing over the entire setup and forcing you to either read every tie-in book or make up your own headcanon. I'll let you decide which is less offensive.
So we have our setup. Naboo: peaceful. Trade Federation: greedy, evil. Republic: impotent. Jedi: problem-solvers. Is anybody confused by any of this? Are you paying attention, JJ? Rian? Good. Let us begin.
The Jedi arrive and are shunted off into a waiting room. Ra's al-Gin tells Obi-Wan that the Trade Federation types are cowards and that the negotiations will be short. On the bridge of the ship, Viceroy Hideki Gunray contacts Darth Palpatine, who tells the Viceroy to kill the Jedi immediately. Now I admit that if this was a standalone film, this would be very confusing. Who is Darth Palpatine? Why is he working with Gunray? Gunray seems to be pretty incompetent, so what's going on here? (Of course, if this was a standalone film, I wouldn't get to complain that Qui-gon is a plot hole because Yoda was supposed to be the Jedi Master who instructed Obi-Wan.)
Well, I don't think it's fair to treat The Phantom Menace as a standalone film, any more than I would treat Das Rheingold as a standalone opera. Yes, it has a beginning and an end, and tells a story, but we all know that this is merely a setup for the eventual adventures of Luke Siegfried. Moreover, it has Star Wars in the title. It is reasonable to assume that people watching this have already watched Episodes IV-VI. So we all know that Sidious is Palpatine and the prequels mercifully never try to treat that as a serious mystery. Indeed, because of our prior knowledge, the moment that Sidious shows up, we know who he is and we have a sense of how this is all going to play out. Contrast this with Darth Smeagol in Weekend at Yoda's and I think you'll see what I mean.
But, okay, for fun, I will pretend that The Phantom Menace can be treated in exactly the same way as The Farce Awakens. I will only do so in block quotes, because I am not remotely serious about this.
We don't know who this mysterious hologram-man is, and the movie never tells us. He's backing the Space Japanese (Space Japan has a huge merchant fleet, don't'ch'a know) somehow, some-why, because, what, he wants them to sign a treaty? The next movie better explain all this... oh...See, this is already falling apart. Once we have the complete picture, we understand why he was doing this. Yes, we could have had George spoon-feed it to us, but he didn't have to.
Okay, so the Space Toads are told to kill the Jedi. They fail at this. There are a couple of reasons why they might fail at this. One, the Jedi are basically demigods who aren't going to be slowed down by a battalion of spindly robots. Two, Sidious deliberately chose an only partly-competent ally. The Space Toads have enough resources to subdue the Naboo, but they can't possibly stop the Jedi. Remember, Sidious's ultimate aim is to create enough unrest in the Senate to dethrone Chancellor Zod and seize his crown. Killing the Jedi would not accomplish this. The Jedi would sense a disturbance in the Force and send a larger force to investigate. Or they'd just tell the Senate what happened. (This begs the question of why Space Jesus never testifies before the Senate later in the film, but I'll get to that.)
Anyway, we get a Dumb Action Sequence. We're going to get a lot of these before we get to Tattooine and the story actually begins, because Lucas is trying to replicate A New Hope, which had an action prologue before a small group of heroes made their way to Tattooine to meet a Skywalker. Here, because Lucas has chosen to tell a story more complex than "Rebels good; Empire bad," he feels he needs to explain things as we go, rather than infodump everything on Anakin once they reach Tattooine.
Obi-Wan and Space Jesus split up and stow aboard separate ships. Contra RLM, this actually makes sense, as it doubles the chances of at least one of them reaching the surface. Unfortunately, nothing comes of it. They reunite almost immediately on the surface. Therefore, splitting up was a pointless digression from a storytelling perspective. Minus ten points, first down.
It is at this point that a Jamaican giraffe/frog abomination is introduced. I analyzed The Farce Awakens through a lens of "does this make sense?" And the answer was almost always a resounding no. Jar Jar... Jar Jar makes sense. Yes, there would be a planet out there with mentally challenged frog/giraffe hybrids living underwater. This is a series that has already given us baboons, the Overlords, the abominable snowman, wrinkly elves and teddy bears. Yes, Jar Jar Abrams is offensive. But he offends good taste rather than sound logic.
They go to the Gungan city, donning the rebreathers from Thunderball. Why didn't they use those when they were being gassed on the Space Toad ship? I don't know. I can think of a few possibilities, but I didn't do JJ's job for him so I'm not going to do George's either.
Now we see Ra's al-Gin using the Jedi Mind Trick on BRIAN BLESSED. In contrast to previous uses (Obi-Wan on the Stormtroopers, Luke on Bib Fortuna), this one comes off as morally grey at best. Qui-Gon wants a transport so he can get to the surface and warn the Naboo, which is good, but he basically wants to steal it, which is bad. This is, if we ignore the whole "lying about what happened to Luke's father because George hadn't made up his mind what happened to Luke's father until it was time to make Empire" thing, the first time we see a Jedi do something morally grey. We will later learn that Space Jesus has some philosophical disagreements with the Jedi Council; his willingness to bend the rules in service of the greater good may very well be the source of these disagreements. Again, I feel like I'm not doing George's job for him here; he left some obvious inferences for me to draw. But that's just my opinion.
So then we get to the heart of the stupid. By which I mean the stupid core. By which I mean the planet core. As RLM correctly points out, if the quickest way to the Taboo is the planet core, then that means the droid invasion army landed on the other side of the planet from the Taboo city, which I'm going to call Space Constantinople because that's what it looks like to me. Maybe Space Constantinople a shield like the rebels had on Hoth, but the movie didn't tell me that, and there's no indication that the shield on Hoth covered half a planet. So minus another ten points, summary execution, first down.
I suppose it is just about possible that the Space Toads figured they could keep the element of surprise by landing on the other side of the planet, where the Naboo couldn't look up and see them coming. Although this is a somewhat plausible explanation, I'm going to say it's too speculative to be the definitive explanation. Judgment affirmed.
But I want to talk about something RLM missed. Earth has molten core at its center. Naboo obviously doesn't have one. No hot core means no magnetic field - oops, guess the planet's fried by radiation. No hot core also means no volcanic activity - oops, guess there's no atmosphere.
There's another problem with this invasion. At the end of the film, we will see that there are starfighters fueled and ready to fly in the Taboo hangar. The droid army captures a bunch of pilots, which the Jedi free at the beginning of the film so they can fly those ships at the end. My question is why there is no battle for the city at the beginning of the film. It doesn't look like the droid tanks or APCs can point their guns high enough to take out dive-bombing starfighters. In George's defense, there is a throwaway line about the Taboo army being made of "volunteers" who are "no match for the battle-hardened" droid army. Oh, and Queen Amygdala says she will not condone a course of action that would lead us to war, because this is what you get when you elect a fourteen-year-old girl queen of your planet.
All right, this brings us to the fourteen-year-old, elected, queen. This is stupid. Now I should point out that the notion of the queen being an elected position is something invented in Attack of the Clones, as far as I know. But since I'm not sure I'm going to do one of these for Clones, I'll digress a bit here. There doesn't seem to be any reason in the finished films to change Padme from being a queen to being a senator in the later films. Hilariously, the only time she gives a speech to the Senate is as a queen, not a senator. There are some halfhearted reasons that were left on the cutting room floor. Let's go through them.
1) The queen can't be a hereditary position because Padme's parents are still alive. In Attack of the Clones, during Anakin and Padme's vacation to Naboo, they were supposed to stay with her family. All of this was cut from the finished film and the only indication that her parents are still around is a silent cameo from them during her funeral at the end of Sith.
2) Padme needed to be a senator in the later films because she had a major role in forming the Rebellion. During Revenge of the Sith, Padme was supposed to have her own plot revolving around organizing political resistance to Palpatine. This was cut because, apparently, the audience got sick of space politics. But Padme needed to be a senator for this plotline, right? Right, because heads of state never try to do anything in the United Nations, it's always just their ambassadors. All international politics are handled by the United Nations. Or on a smaller scale, it's only Congress that can stand up to Trump right now. There's not an alliance of Democrat attorneys general organizing a resistance against him. Now I want to immediately point out that I'm just using this as an example. I am not comparing Trump to Palpatine, because I would never besmirch the good name of Sheev Palpatine in such a way. My point is that even if the "Padme forms the Rebellion" plotline had been left in, there was no reason she couldn't have done it as queen, rather than as senator.
But anyway, these are problems that crop up later, on the scripts that George had help with. I want to visit Earth-2, where Jar Jar was less offensive and we actually saw Lucas's true vision for Episodes II and III. But enough about those films. In this one, we have a fourteen-year-old queen. Not unheard of. I'd expect her to have a regent or something, but this film also has a nine-year-old podracing champion, so clearly Star Wars kids are special.
So the queen decides to surrender without a fight. I guess her character arc for this movie is supposed to be her finding her backbone, but she randomly decides to tag along to Mos Espa later in the film even though Space Jesus tells her it's not safe. Anyway the Space Toads show up and tell the queen that she has to sign a treaty, so let's talk about that.
Lucas decided to make "trying to get a character to sign a treaty" a major plot point. This is difficult - not impossible - to make interesting, and we need to ask whether a treaty signed under duress is legally binding. Or do we? After all, a treaty gives something the air of legitimacy, no matter how illegitimate it may be. Remember that the ultimate point of all this is to tie up the Republic and make Chancellor Zod look like a weakling who needs to be replaced. Coulda just had him played by The Actor Adam Driver, but I digress.
The Space Toads tell the Queen to sign a treaty and the Queen says "nah." The Space Toads then decide to send her off to a concentration camp. And here I thought the Nazis didn't show up until the next film. (Jar Jar Abrams's line earlier about a "big gooberfish" also sounded like "big Ubermensch" to my ears, but that probably says more about me than him.) They do this so that the Jedi can rescue the Queen without killing the Space Toad leadership then and there.
I'm going to take a moment to nitpick now. The Space Toads go back to their ship once after this, to holoconference with Darth Palpatine, but other than that they're content to hang out on the planet. This is mildly baffling to me because I assume from their general appearance that they would prefer a more humid environment. But no. Hideki Gunray goes wherever the plot needs him to be at any given moment. It's a slightly less obvious version of what's done with Krennic in Rogue One. Enough of that, moving on.
The Jedi duly rescue the Queen from the robots and decide to get her off the planet. Space Jesus explains that he was there to negotiate and the Queen's adviser notes sarcastically that the negotiations seem to have failed. He is surprisingly glib for a guy whose planet just got goose-stepped all over.
The robots have left a group of captured pilots in the hangar. The group decides to save them. Now, if you'd gone into this movie cold, with no knowledge of any behind-the-scenes material like who was playing Anakin Skywalker or where he's first introduced, you'd be forgiven for thinking that he would be among these pilots. Remember that we know almost nothing about pre-Vader Anakin from the OT, but we do know that he was "the best star pilot in the galaxy," a "cunning warrior," and "a good friend." I bring this up because these pilots are being recruited clumsily because the script requires pilots later on. Introducing Anakin here would have negated the need to spend the next 40 minutes on Tatooine, the sum result of which is still just the introduction of Anakin Skywalker.
It is at this point that I need to pause for a moment of silence. The name "Coruscant" first appeared in one of Tim Zahn's Thrawn books, and with the junking of the EU, Space Jesus mentioning the planet is pretty much all that remains of the Real Sequel Trilogy. (Lucas's name for the planet in draft scripts of the OT was Had Abbadon, to which all I can say is LOL.)
By the way, take a moment to appreciate the production design here. The Naboo starfighters are essentially two giant engines forward of a cockpit. I wonder if we'll be seeing this same concept later in the film?
So they get on the Queen's ship and take off, like the Falcon blasting out of Mos Eisley. Then they run into the blockade, which is deployed in a ring around the planet. The Queen's pilot demonstrates similar two-dimensional thinking by running straight at the blockade instead of going above or below it. This is done because the script needs to have R2 have a
Before R2 can fix the shields, the hyperdrive starts "leaking." They need a replacement part, because their current hyperdrive generator won't get them to Coruscant. Okay. We later see that the ship has a functioning communications suite, and we learn in Episode III that the Jedi have a series of interstellar signal codes. Why don't they just park out in the middle of space somewhere and send a distress signal to Coruscant? Because the script requires them to spend 40 minutes dicking around on Tatooine to pick up The Chosen One.
"Hold on, you're being unfair. A New Hope also spent 40 minutes on Tatooine picking up The Chosen One." Wrong. A New Hope introduced four major characters on Tatooine - Luke, Obi-Wan, Han Solo, and Chewbacca. Also we learn important things about their character. Luke is
And
Anyway, our heroes, who are out of gas, land on a desert planet. Space Jesus tromps off with a robot, who is not remotely suited for the desert terrain; a pet, who is not remotely suited for anywhere that is not special-needs kindergarten; and the Queen's
Intercut in this garbage are a pair of scenes featuring Darth Palpatine sending Darth Stuntman to go hunt down the Queen. One of these scenes was enough. This is a very minor nitpick compared to the much more serious flaws in this film, but I think it's instructive. Remember in A New Hope, how Lucas cut Jabba out of the theatrical cut and reshuffled all the important dialogue to Han's scene with Greedo? Well, in every Special Edition, the Jabba scene is stuck back in. The result is bloated and unnecessary. We have two scenes with the same information. It's the first instance of The Lucas Unleashed, if you will, what happens when there's nobody to ride herd on him. I understand that Lucas loves the editing process, that it's his favorite part of the movie-making procedure, but he really does need a more experienced editor holding his hand and telling him "hey, this is redundant."
What's even more galling about this is that we never learn how Darth Stuntman learned the Queen was on Tatooine. We see Darth Stuntman sending probes to the three cities, but we never see him sending probes to Tatooine. And give that the probes come out of his ship - they're not launched from a bay or anything, they come out the same door he does - I don't know how he could launch probes in space. Instead of a scene of Darth Stuntman on Coruscant, we could have had him on his ship, tracing the hyperspace trail OH RIGHT YOU CAN'T TRACK A SHIP THROUGH HYPERSPACE, RIAN.
Back on Tatooine, Space Jesus wanders into a shop. Everyone knows that you can see 3PO's skin in the background of this scene, but I'm fairly certain Watto has an R2 unit's head on his shelf as well. Space Jesus confronts the
Also, I can't believe I missed this, but Republic credits are no good outside the Republic, apparently. What the hell kind of galactic government is this? They fail at very basic things like having a military and having a currency. Which I guess is the point.
Anyway, Jedi Mind Tricks don't work on Watto because the script requires F-Zero chariot racing. I get that this convoluted setup is done so that Anakin has to leave his mother behind on Tatooine, but there are other ways to do this. Like, Shmi could be pregnant with Anakin's half-brother Owen and not be up for space travel or something.
Let's be clear, I don't hate podracing per se, it's actually one of the best action scenes in the film, but by the time it finally rolls around, it feels like we're in a completely different movie. We don't know that Padme is the Queen, so it feels like we've left half our cast - and half of what is recognizably Star Wars - off on the sidelines for quite some time. Although I suppose Obi-Wan didn't wander off into the desert because the jokes would have been predictable.
Oh, hang on, we've picked up some new character traits! Space Jesus is a compulsive gambler. Anakin has never finished a race before, but he really wants to help people.
Also, there's a throwaway line in here about the possibility of hocking the Queen's wardrobe to get money for the parts we need. Given that Keira Portman is going through about twenty more wardrobe changes over the course of the rest of the film, I guess George felt he needed to have a line of dialogue about how a girl on the run has so many outfits in her trunk.
There's a podrace. The effects that were finished (i.e., the ones in the theatrical release) look very good and the ones that were added for the re-release are not as good. Anakin wins.
Darth Stuntman's probe droid finds Space Jesus at the F-Zero chariot racetrack, but somehow Darth Stuntman knows to chase Space Jesus down right outside the Queen's ship. Was he using the Force? If so, how come Space Jesus couldn't sense him coming until he was right on top of him?
After the movie is halfway over, we finally achieve the original objective of getting the Queen to Coruscant so she can testify before the Senate. What happens is that the Senate does not believe her, so she goes back to Naboo with no new army or reinforcements, and wins with what she has. I guess the idea is that she thought she could surrender and spare her people, but she gets that message that "the death toll is catastrophic," which prompts her to realize that her original plan was a stupid plan to begin with.
Contrast this with Episode IV, where Luke and Han achieve the original objective of rescuing Princess Leia and getting her to the safety of the rebel base. But the Death Star has to be destroyed, so the Rebel Air Force is mustered to go back to the Death Star for the final battle. What Episode I does is go "psych! The eleventh-hour army was on the planet the whole time!" Great. Why did you spend half the movie running away from the planet where the eleventh-hour army was? Imagine this played out in Episode IV:
(The Falcon blasts away from the Death Star)Do you see the problem? There was important information a major character had but did not bother sharing with the rest of the team, thus negating much of the heroics that have happened up to this point.
Han: Not a bad bit of rescuing, huh? Sometimes I amaze even myself.
Leia: That doesn't sound so hard. Also, we need to go back.
Han: Wait what?
Leia: Yeah, when the Empire captured me, they also captured about a thousand of my personal bodyguards. If we free them, we can sabotage the Death Star from inside.
Okay, so having brought Amygdala to Coruscant, we now have to turn her around and send her back home. At the same time, we have to send Anakin off to the Jedi temple because this is where the Jedi are based. Which means, since we can't write Anakin out of the rest of the movie, that the Jedi will need a reason not to start his training immediately.
Do you understand the problem here? We need to get the Queen to Coruscant, only PSYCH! she's going back home. Anakin is too old to be trained, only PSYCH! they'll train him once the movie ends. These are actual problems with the story, not complaints about one giraffe/frog monstrosity, but everybody focuses on poor Jar Jar.
So let's address these plot developments on Coruscant. Amygdala goes to testify before Chancellor Zod, but nobody believes her and she ends up calling for a vote of no confidence. Okay, there are numerous problems with this scene, and no, it being Space C-Span is not one of them. First, there were two Jedi Knights sent to Naboo, by the Chancellor. They literally spelled that out in the title crawl, the Chancellor himself sent Space Jesus and Obi-Wan. Why does he not call them to testify here? Is the word of a Jedi so worthless in this chamber?
But let's say that, for whatever reason, the Jedi are forbidden from testifying on the floor (such as it is) of the Senate. Okay, well, don't you have that hologram on Padme's ship? "The death toll is catastrophic, we must bow to their wishes, you must contact me?" And does Padme's ship not have a flight recorder? Does R2 not have an accessible memory bank? I mean, was he not on the hull of Padme's ship while Trade Federation ships were shooting at it/him?
Now, there are easy fixes for this. You could have one line of dialogue about how Rule 804(b)(6) does not exist in this universe and also recordings can't be admitted because of how easy it is to doctor them with computer imagery. But George doesn't bother to do that. He spent half an hour setting up F-Zero chariot racing, but can't be bothered to explain why Padme can't present any evidence on her planet's behalf.
Meanwhile, Anakin is being sent to the Jedi Council to be evaluated. Does the Jedi Council evaluate every potential new trainee, or is this just because Anakin isn't a baby? Oh, let's not gloss over this, by the way: apparently the Jedi Council has a habit of tracking down infants, performing blood tests on them, and then whisking them away from their parents, forever. It got what was coming. And if it is in the habit of doing this, how come they missed Palpatine? Anyway, the Jedi acknowledge that Anakin has potential, but decide not to train him. Okay, so you have this nearly-Mary-Sue nexus of Force potential walking around and you're going to, what, let it go on its way? If he's that powerful, don't you think someone will try to use him at some point or another?
I guess I could be charitable and say that the Jedi don't think an untrained potential Jedi can fall to the Dark Side because there are no Sith around to tempt them. And at the end of the film, once they know the Sith are back, they realize they have to train Anakin before the Sith get hold of him.
There's also this stupid prophecy. There's a Chosen One who will "bring balance" to the Force. So the Force is out of balance? What does that mean, especially if my theory is true? How could the Force be out of balance if there were supposedly no Sith to unbalance it? Or, does "bringing balance" mean balancing out the number of Jedi and Sith? In a later movie, Obi-Wan says that Anakin was supposed to destroy the Sith. Is the prophecy that Anakin will "destroy the Sith" (Episode VI) and "bring balance to the Force" (Episode III)? How could the Council believe simultaneously that there are no Sith and that the Force is in need of balance? And why does Qui-Gon, the least orthodox Jedi ever, care about this stupid prophecy?
There's later evidence to suggest some truth to Palpatine's comments about the Jedi Council being "narrow" and "dogmatic," so perhaps the Jedi Council insists on parroting the party line that there are no Sith, therefore there is no need to bring balance, and therefore no Chosen One. Okay. I will award the film half a point because yes, all the Jedi go around with Rey's staff up their butts, so even though there's no direct evidence for this theory, it can certainly be implied from circumstantial evidence.
But realistically this diversion to Coruscant is so that Amygdala can inadvertently help Palpatine take over the Senate, because the Senate is run by imbeciles and they need a stronger man to run it in these hard times. That accomplished, it's time to return to Taboo.
Space Jesus says that he and Obi-Wan cannot use their power to help the Queen secure an alliance with BRIAN BLESSED. Again, this is Space Jesus, for whom a Jedi Mind Trick is basically standard operating procedure. This is the guy who cheated Watto out of his more valuable slave. This is the guy who cheated BRIAN BLESSED out of a vehicle earlier in the film! I guess Space Jesus knows that Padme is Amygdala and wants her to out her secret to the rest of the team, because that's the only explanation that makes a lick of sense. Or he has moral qualms about sending thousands of Space Jamaicans to their deaths. We'll go with that one, which I guess demonstrates that there's more depth to his character than RLM thought. (Actually, sidebar: I found the "character" discussion at the beginning of their Episode I review to be outrageous and dishonest. Qui-gon is the last DJ. That's his character. Well, that and a crippling gambling problem. Moving on.)
Jar Jar reports that the Space Jamaican city is empty. The droid army apparently chased the Space Jamaicans from their underwater city into a surface forest. Look, I understand that this was done so that Padme et al didn't have to swim underwater for an hour, but that doesn't mean it makes sense. Also remember that this is the army that the Queen hopes to recruit in order to fight the droid army... the droid army that just forced this army out of their homes.
Well, Amygdala solves countless years of animosity between the Space Byzantines and the Space Jamaicans by convincing BRIAN BLESSED that she doesn't think the Space Byzantines are better than the Space Jamaicans, even though the Space Byzantines didn't offend an entire generation of moviegoers just by existing. Maybe there is something to this teenage queen idea after all. Also note that she does this in part by revealing that she's been using a decoy. "Hey guys, I'm duplicitous and paranoid. Wanna join my army?"
BRIAN BLESSED makes Jar Jar Abrams a "
Oh, there's an important detail I missed from earlier. Remember the blockade that set off this entire plot? It's gone now. There's just one ship left. Well yeah, this is the Trade Federation, those are probably cargo ships, and they have deliveries to make. The Federation controls the planet now, so all they need is the one droid control ship. If you don't like that explanation, I have a far dumber one: there's no need for a blockade now that they own the planet, and it costs fuel to keep the ships in orbit. (Hey, this is Star Wars physics, where WWII dogfighting rules are in effect, capital ships only maneuver in two dimensions, and nobody ever turns around in order to slow down.) But again, I'm doing George's work for him. The characters point out that there's only one ship, but don't even speculate as to why the others left.
It sure is convenient that there are some "secret passages on the waterfall side" for Amygdala and the Space Byzantines to sneak back into Space Constantinople. They take Anakin into the war zone with them for one reason or another. Once there, Anakin gets himself into a starfighter, and have you noticed how basically everything Anakin flies in the prequels looks like either a podracer (early on) or a TIE fighter (towards the end)? Somebody cared about their work, even if it wasn't the writer/director/producer/scapegoat.
Also, I just want to point this out: when Anakin is flying into space and Artoo beeps at him, some text appears on Anakin's panel. This text reads "ANAKIN TURN THE SHIP AROUND AND GO BACK HOMIE [sic] RIGHT AWAY." This amuses me.
Darth Stuntman shows up and challenges Space Jesus to a dance-off. Obi-Wan is there too, but he's not very good at it and spends most of his time falling off of ledges. In the end, Darth Stuntman is able to defeat Space Jesus, but fails to take advantage of having the high ground. Space Jesus tells Obi-Wan to train Anakin because otherwise there won't be any Star Wars Original Trilogy. Then he dies.
Meanwhile, the Skywalker kid manages to implausibly destroy a large ball in space, and Padme captures Hideki Gunray, who promptly gets scapegoated for everything. Palpatine shows up and a big parade is thrown with some lovely music. The end.
The big problem with Episode I is that you're trying to tell 1) the Naboo story, 2) the Palpatine-takes-over-the-government story, and 3) the here's-young-Darth-Vader story, and they don't interlock particularly well. Each one is basically fine on its own, although Lucas needed to hang a few more
And that, I suppose is the difference between Episode I and Episode VII. Episode I needed a better script doctor to junk a few things that were muddling the story, insert a few lines of dialogue to explain why the apparently logical things weren't done, and make the existence of Jar Jar Binks something other than a valid reason to burn Lucasfilm to the ground and salt the earth on which it stood. Episode VII never made a lick of sense, its entire setup was confusing, it violated established lore in ways that the medi-chlorians could only dream of... and all the script doctoring in the world wouldn't have made a difference.
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