Nobody walked out of Phantom Menace hating it. We have the second movie and then a snarky YouTube video where a man talks funny to blame for that. And people younger than us think they’re all great.
The Prequels Strike Back [wiki link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prequels_Strike_Back:_A_Fa...) is a fun documentary to watch sometime on the subject too. Lucas actually did have some intentional writing and directorial stuff going on in the prequel trilogy that I definitely missed even as a fan.