The first link in a continual cycle.

Rating: Null/10 (19 May 1999)

"Star Wars," "The Empire Strikes Back," "The Return of the Jedi," and now, "The Phantom Menace," are *not* films.
On average, films last about an hour and a half. You pay your money to see them, and they can be good or bad. Either way, most films have a plot, with conflicts that are all resolved within the course of one sitting. Furthermore, most films usually end on a "High note," or open-ended enough to foster a sequel if it makes enough money. There are plenty of examples of this.
The entire "Star Wars" saga isn't like that. These aren't films...they're LEGENDS. Classic storytelling dating back to the Middle Ages follows much the same structure. When you read about the Round Table or the quest for the Holy Grail, those are stand-alone stories within a much larger framework. There's likely not much plot development about Sir Lancelot or King Arthur within those individual pieces of legend, because that's all they are: pieces.
If you've not figured it out yet, there's a reason why the films are in trilogies of three. It's parallelism. Expect to see a lot of elements of Episodes 4, 5, and 6 used in Episode 1. (And 2 and 3, eventually.) Episode 1 matches with Episode 4, and so on, right down the line.
There aren't going to be very many big surprises or suspenseful moments of the first three films in the series. Because "A New Hope" is Episode 4, by the time "Return of the Jedi" rolled around, we already knew that Luke and Leia were siblings and that Anakin Skywalker, their father, was Darth Vader. Going into Episode 1, we already know that Obi-Wan isn't going to get killed, and that Anakin will, at some point, end up with Queen Amadala. It's like reading about Merlin telling Uther Pendragon what will result from his actions in the first few Arthurian legends...we already know what's going to ultimately happen at the end.
And yet, even though we already know the outcome, those stories have lasted for centuries. There never will *be* a standalone "Star Wars" film, because the legacy created transcends the time you spend in the theater. You can look at specific pieces, but it all comes together as a whole.
Finally, if you're disheartened because you were disappointed with "Episode I," remember that this is only Lucas' vision of what "Episode I" is. You may not have liked a bit of dialog, or the acting, or the visuals...it's much the same thing as disliking a translation or the way an author conveyed his ideas. Consider this "The bad chapter" in the entire story, and take into account that the first three films aren't going to have a pleasant outcome, and you're probably not going to be terribly surprised with anything that happens.