Star Wars: 20 Worst Franchise Moments (So Far)
12. The Senate Meeting
Film: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
The Phantom Menace is not a terrible film, but it was still more or less the weakest installment of the franchise before Solo came along.
The senate scenes are often used to symbolize everything that's wrong with the film and that's fair enough. It was a very poor choice to focus so much on bland political debates over trade disputes of all things and that is certainly not what viewers wanted to see. No one ever watched Star Wars for the politics.
The emergency Senate meeting about the Trade Federation invasion of Naboo could've been a good scene, but George Lucas' clunky dialogue, the rushed nature of the debate and the fact that it's just a bunch of idiotic aliens talking about taxation of trade routes makes it impossible to enjoy or take seriously.
It is an exceptionally sloppy political debate and, in a film full of dull conversations, it stands out as one of the worst bits. The fact that Terrence Stamp is wasted in a meaningless and brief role makes it all even worse.
Frankly, if the Republic was this incompetent, maybe the evil Empire taking over wasn't such a bad thing?