When going to The Apartment tonight, I was disappointed to find out that Nick Sprague had already came and left this momentous occasion. Having been looking towards this epic debate, I immediately called him up. He replied by saying, "I'm scared of you, Brandon." Regardless, I pushed him into admitting why he preferred The Phantom Menace among the other prequels. In a nutshell, he found the lightsaber fight at the end of The Phantom Menace* to be the most exciting event, and I pointed out that a scene does not make an entire movie good. After some conversing, he admitted he was wrong. While it would appear his preference leans towars The Phantom Menace, I made him realize that it was the inferior film.
*While I do enjoy the action in Revenge of the Sith, I may be inclined to agree that Qui-Gon & Obi-Wan v. Darth Maul may be the best lightsaber fight of the series. However, I have yet to watch all of the fights in the vicinity of each other to properly compare them.