This movie should not have been made

Rating: 1/10 (2 March 2011)

And no I don't say that because it was so terrible (which it was) I say that because in the grand story arc of the prequels (as a trilogy unto themselves) and in the extended Star Wars saga TPM adds nothing to the narrative. They should have just started where the Clone Wars started.
I suppose the plot of the movie is that Palpatine is trying to gain power in the senate by manipulating the crisis caused by the Trade Federation invasion. Unfortunately, this takes up maybe 3 scenes out of the entire movie. The rest of the film is the completely unrelated and focuses entirely on the invasion itself.
The film is also written terribly as the opening act of a trilogy, and is wrapped up far too neatly and completely at the end. I know this is because Lucas wanted to pay homage (rip off) the original Star Wars, but the problem here is that it doesn't work. The reason why Star Wars was a coherent complete plot in itself (although also sufficiently open ended as to have sequels) is that it could have been a total commercial flop and been canceled before Lucas could put out sequels. This wasn't the case with Epi. 1, we all knew there were 2 more films to come.
The first third of a trilogy should introduce the characters, set up the plot, and set the stage for the action to come. The overall story of the original trilogy was the victory of the rebellion over the empire and Luke learning to be a Jedi. We meet all our characters, mostly focusing on Luke and we see his first steps to learning the ways of the force. In the prequels the story is Anakin being seduced by the dark side and Palpatine's creation of the empire. In epi 1 other than suggesting a vote of no confidence, Palpatine doesn't do anything. And Anakin is just some kid. Qui-Gon dies, Obi Wan didn't do anything, Padme is flat and 2 dimensional, nothing has been achieved in any of the plot lines.
This leads me to conclude this movie serves no function in the broader 3/6 part story. This movie could have been condensed in a 10 minute scene and still have had the same impact on the story at large. The movie should have focused on Obi-Wan finding and TRAINING a teenage Anakin.