For what exactly (not joking by the way)?
@Ghostse heavily disagree not unless aspects of the Phantom Menace were changed. As far as I'm concerned, the whole prequel trilogy should have focuesd primarily on the Clone wars and the Jedi. We didn't need to see Palpatine go from senator to chancellor or kid Anakin or even Qui Gon. Just start us off with teenage Anakin and Obi-wan and have say Anakin be the protagonist of the first two movies and Obi-wan the last movie.
I felt differently. Title crawl aside, we see leaders of the Trade Federation conspiring with a Dark Lord of the Sith to force a treaty with a planet they've surrounded & kill anyone in their way, which just so happened to be Jedi. This is preceded by them landing an invasion force on Naboo, as ordered by Lord Sidious. Pretty sure everyone watching knew they were the bad guys within the first 10 minutes, and wanted the two Jedi to win, despite neither of them being a farm boy or a rogue smuggler. They're mystical space samurai serving the galactic republic.
It could arguably have been more bloated and boring as a TV show or mini-series. Imagine how much exposition and idle babble they'd pad out each episode with. The only good side I could think of is getting to see more of the inner workings of the Jedi Order, including the trials Obi-Wan would've undergone sometime after the Battle of Naboo. Otherwise, the pacing isn't too bad: escape the TF control ship, go to underwater city, head to Theed via dangerous route, bust out the Queen and her entourage, narrowly break through the blockade and have to land on Tatooine for repairs, bet on pod-racing, go to Coruscant for Jedi business & The Senate, and finally go back to Naboo and wage a war against robots. Not as straight-forward as "save the princess", but between the coming-and-going and the occasional Jar Jar gag, it doesn't leave me too bored even during the political intrigue scenes.
I think a fair bit of bloat would have worked in favor of Phantom Menance: The Series. You'd have more space to set up the situation (and why we care; or I guess more specifically why we don't care, because I believe the utter banality of the mission was to be part of the point; being betrayed on a diplomatic mission, stopping an invasion, blowing up a battleship... another fucking Tuesday, with the characters having no clue about just how pivotal these events were until later. Again, I see what Lucas was trying to do, but I still don't like the execution). Something akin to Westworld or Game of Thrones, where there is action, but also a lot of plot, with time and space for long-germination plots to mature.
The movie would lend itself to episodes fairly well.
First episode is introducing the characters, the betrayal, escaping the blockade, the invasion force landing.
2nd episode is the invasion, meeting JarJar, making it to the capital - cut out the whole Gungan city; save that for later.
3rd episode is rescuing Padme and escaping Naboo.
4th episode is them deciding to head to Tatooine- discus the aftermath of the invasion, get our first glimpse of Darth Maul stalking them (action sequence would be Qui & Obi dispatching local thugs who try to jump them; maybe the Hutts are shown to have an open bounty on any Jedi in their turf, maybe its implied Maul hired them to feel out the Jedi), meet Anakin.
5th Episode is the Pod Race - the lead up, the race, the aftermath, the first engagement with Darth Maul.
6th Episode is Coruscant; we've been getting snippets of Pappa Palpatine doing political manuevering through the series so far, but this episode focuses mainly on galactic politics - less in the Senate Chamber, more in the back rooms and offices where the senate business actually gets done, letting Padme get thoroughly disgusted with the corruption. B-plot is Anakin going through the Jedi candidate process. The Epsiode ends with Anakin being rejected by the council and the Senate voting a meaningless, toothless resolution.
Episode 6 is them returning to Naboo, and Padme trying to contact & rally the resistance while Qui & Obi come along on the pretense of investigating Maul to see if it was a sith they encountered; Padme contacts the resistance, and convinces JarJar to try to get the Gungans to join the rebellion she's planning.
Episode 7 & 8 would be a nearly pure-action two parter where all the pieces are put in place, the ground battle starts, then the space battle, the fight with Darth Maul, then the wrap up. Maybe just for an extra rub, have Palpatine show up with a Republic task force immediately after the Trade Federation Battleship blows up, right as they are no longer needed (but definitely enough of a presence to keep the TF from sending reinforcements & trying again with Naboo already battered).
Maybe make it a round 10 episodes by adding more to the Podracing/Maul on Tatooine (Maul takes a contract from Jabba? Jabba working with Darth Sidious whether he knows it or not?) and more going on with the Senate/Jedi things on Coruscant.
#butwhatifitwasgood
Was it only 10 minutes till Darth Sidious showed up? It felt longer. You were told the chinese bankers of the Trade Federation were bad, but you never really got a sense for why they were bad, other than they were working with the Sith and had blockaded a world because of taxes or whatever. We're told they're bad, but not really shown that the Trade Federation taking over the equivalent of Gary, Indiana is all that bad other than that its obviously wrong.
A better villian might have been a mining guild or similar; the Trade Federation, there was some vague sense of unpaid debts or whatever. A mining guild, wanting to strip-mine Naboo, makes a more sensible villian; they aren't just wanting to topple the government and raise taxes, they want to evict the planet's population to turn the planet into a pit mine.
