I liked it! Yeah, the podrace went on a bit too long, but then again, so did the fucking Ewoks in RotJ. And there was zero sexual harassment! (Unlike ESB...) Watching the other movies made me appreciate it more lol. I don't even particularly mind Jar-Jar Binks.
Favorite character: Well, Maul is iconic and I love his character trajectory from Sith zealot to Ezra's moderately evil uncle. For characters whose characterization mainly comes from this movie, I like Shmi! She's sympathetic and it's fascinating how much her personal philosophy ("you can't stop change", "the biggest problem in the galaxy is that no-one helps each other") resembles the Jedi's. Also a lot of potential for fanfic, in that she can easily be headcanoned as Force sensitive, given how that's shown to be hereditary.
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Favorite character: Well, Maul is iconic and I love his character trajectory from Sith zealot to Ezra's moderately evil uncle. For characters whose characterization mainly comes from this movie, I like Shmi! She's sympathetic and it's fascinating how much her personal philosophy ("you can't stop change", "the biggest problem in the galaxy is that no-one helps each other") resembles the Jedi's. Also a lot of potential for fanfic, in that she can easily be headcanoned as Force sensitive, given how that's shown to be hereditary.
The handmaiden thing is interesting worldbuilding, though Padmé is too rich for me to be able to give a fuck about her, and most handmaiden stuff is obviously Padmé-centric. I don't really have a least favorite character, though, as everyone ranges from "I like them!" to "well, I guess they're ... there?" The worst I can say is that I dislike the fanon treatment of e.g. Obi-Wan, but that's not really the movie's fault.