Okay, this is probably THE stupidest thing I'm ever going to ask, but the title of this one has me confused. What exactly is "The Phantom Menace"?

This is just a wild guess, but is it Jar Jar? ;)

I believe the Phantom is Palpatine or Maul.

My guess was Maul. I just wasn't sure...

Could be either or. Not sure. Could be something we could look up.

Because the Sith were supposedly destroyed and no longer around the Jedi had no idea who was behind any of what was going on. They assumed it was the Trade Federation acting on its own. When Qui-Gonn saw Darth Maul for the first time and realized that there was a Sith around, it was thought that he must be mistaken. Therefore, the threat being there, but not being visible to the Jedi Council made it be phantom-like or a "Phantom Menace." Add to this all of the foreshadowing of Anakin's eventual downfall(Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering...") and that foreshadowing becomes a ghost of things to come.

I was gonna say basically the same thing.

Wow. Good answer, 6.