This analysis might be really interesting even for those who haven't seen the movie, because it is a love story:
In regard to this, I think that there is much going on in the film that is deeper than what appears on the surface.
Some of the die hard fans hate the movie, but that is because it did not conform to their expectations. It seems like everything in the movie was deliberately designed to be different than what people were expecting.
There is likely a connection with the lightsaber to all the scenes in the forceback, but we can't really discern Rey's parentage from that. I think that it is highly likely that Rey is a Skywalker for 3 reasons: 1. Star Wars is the story of Skywalkers. 2. Who is Luke talking to in the first The Force Awakens teaser trailer when he says "The Force is strong in my family, my father has it, I have it, my sister has it, you have that power too"? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCc2v7izk8w) 3. Near the the release date of The Force Awakens there was an officially commissioned painting of Rey that had the caption "Rey Skywalker", which maybe later was changed. BTW, on the day of the release of The Force Awakens, the wikipedia page referred to her as "Rey Skywalker", but "Skywalker" was removed the next day. Did they know something we didn't, or were they just guessing?
I was 17 when the original Star Wars came out. I have seen it maybe 18 times, but my favorite movie of all time is The Empire Strikes Back. But I also think that The Phantom Menace is the second or third best Star Wars movie. It is very good. Every Star Wars movie has been different. Each one has had a unique flavor to it. It is a testament to how strong the Star Wars movies are. However, some people are disappointed when a particular movie doesn't turn out like they expected. I can't imagine why anyone would dislike The Phantom Menace, but I suspect that it is because they dislike the character of Jar Jar. Every serious move needs some comic relief to relieve the tension, so I enjoyed the character of Jar Jar quite a bit.From a science fiction point of view, if you had two sapient races sharing a planet, it might make sense for one to be less intelligent and/or less sophisticated. It would be unlikely that both species would have the same level of intelligence and sophistication.
