Read the interview over at Empire Magazine:

http://www.empireonline.co.uk/starwars/transcript.asp

where he says things like “I did not have the big problems that everybody had with The Phantom Menace.”

Of Attack of the Clones he says “From the get-go, Lucas captures my limited imagination with one simple proposition. Darth Vader was once a teenager. How pedestrian, yet how profound!” Source:

http://www.titanmagazines.com/books_chat_kevin_smith.html