Microbes = Jedi Powers
After 20 years since the very first one was released George Lucas brings back the Star Wars universe using state of the art computers, video techniques, and filming technology. A lot has changed in the special effects division since A New Hope was in production. Even things have changed since the rerelease with the added scenes and effects. Computers today allow Industrial Light and Magic(ILM) to produce some of the best visual effects on the big screen. Lucas seems to be a man of technology and he wants to push the envelope of computer animation.
One of the most advanced features of this movie was a computer generated character acting alongside live actors throught the whole movie. 
I know you probably didn't like Jar-Jar Binks but it was an amazing creation that took 2 years to animate and get the physics correct. This was achieved by filming a person do the moves that the animated character will do and then matching the 3d model's movements with the actor's. Not only do you have to get the movements to look realistic but the interaction with the other actors has to look natural too. Unlike in Toy Story where it was all computer generated images(CGI) this was closer to a movie like Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Another very cool computer effect was the whole battle scene that was completely created using 3d computer models and surfaces. This was a truly beautiful scene, the valley, hills, and fields of troops brings memories of movies of shogunite Japan.
While those movies took hundreds of paid people, costumes, and camera set up the 3d cgi scene only took a team of artists, computers, and rendering time. Not only did the artists have to make the landscape and lighting natural feeling but all the models had to interact with the land and each other. While some thought it was fake(I bet if there wasn't any robots or Gungans they wouldn't be able to tell that it was CGI), I would appreciate another battle scene done in CGI in the upcoming movies.
All-in-all the CGI in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace were incredible and very appealing. More powerful orchestral music in the backgrounds would make those scenes even better, but that is just my opinion. No matter how annoying Jar-Jar is Star Wars must be seen on the big screen. The guys at ILM deserve whatever high salary they are getting because they have constantly done a great job in all the movies they do.