The plot of Ep. 1 was mediocre, but not horrible.. it's execution was off, though. The direction seemed a bit choppy and the scenes intermingled too much to be relavent to each other 100% of the time. Jar jar was okay to me the first couple of times.. but then people started imitating him, and clips pretty much became "mesa this" or other such jamaican speak.. It became very annoying very fast.
The lightsaber duel and the podrace were undisputedly the best aspects of the movie though.. I saw a comic strip after the movie came to video about two star wars fans just fast fowarding through the movie and watching the duel and the podrace over and over, then a third fan came along and said "midi-chlorians" and they covered thier ears. ... I still don't know what the hell lucas was thinking about those midi thingamabobles.
All in all though.. what completely and utterly ruined Ep. 1 for me was Anakin.. I could have done better freakin' acting when I was a kid.. and I was ADD ridden, having all the attention span of a GNAT to work with..! Especially when compared to Liam and Ewan (even Natalie, who's relative acting skill showed through that dull monotone she was forced to use through most of the movie), the kid was awful... as was the mom. *shrugs* Other than that, I really liked....uh.. the Jedi battle and the podrace.
From what I am seeing though, Ep. II is going to be better.. even from just the snippets I have seen it looks as if it is going to be less kiddie-fied.. and Hayden is worlds better than the brat who played Anakin before. I haven't bought tickets in advance, though.. so I'm probably gonna need to go through the next couple of weeks plugging my ears during conversations.
Edit: Blinks. At. Yoda. .....*jaw drops* Good god!