I don't really give much of an airborne fornication about the Star Wars prequels, as I consider them all a massively wasted opportunity. I've written about this on Medium before, so won't reiterate all of that here.

However, since you are positioning yourself as Fan Fare's most vocal Phantom Menace apologist, I will grant you this much: The Machete Order thing is nonsense. Either watch all three prequels, or don't watch them at all.

I still won't stick up for the film though. Yes it's great on a technical level - visual effects, sound effects, production design, music score, etc - but everything else about it frustrates the hell out of me, give or take an excellent lightsabre duel. I've not been that disappointed in a film since The Godfather Part III.

On the other hand, we all have our guilty pleasures. For instance, I have a soft spot the 1984 Supergirl with Helen Slater and Faye Dunaway. It's rubbish, but I think Slater and Dunaway are great fun to watch, and it also has two of my favourite Peters (Cook and O'Toole) on comic relief and mentoring duties respectively. Plus it has a fantastic Jerry Goldsmith score.