Christensen and the romantic scenes with Amidala, especially men. But Ep. 2 didn't feature Jar Jar Binks and had a better plot, so it is less awful, IMO. I just re-watched them with my kids and was surprised at how much worse Ep. 1 is than Ep. 2.

Ep. 3 and Ep. 8 are way better than those two dogs, they don't even belong in the same poll.