Actually, The Phantom Menace would have been brilliant if Lucas had followed the amazing story arc theorized by this guy at Reddit.

For me, what killed TPM were the character clichés: Jar Jar Binks shuckin and jiving like something out of “The Song of the South”; the inscrutably Japanese Neimoidians; and the hook nosed greedy merchant Watto.

In ROTJ, I looked the other way with the ewoks. But at least they played a vital part in the secondary story of how an indigenous people might try to protect their world equiped with only primitive weapons against an invader with powerful futuristic technology. (Just that one storyline by itself with some 3D bells and whistles made a gazillion dollars for Avatar)