The Prequels suffered from Lucas and his inability to work with human beings. Natalie Portman is a great actor. You couldn't tell in the Prequels.
I've heard in many interviews how George Lucas has a clear vision in his head how the actor should deliver the lines, rather than letting an actor... well... act. In the original trilogy the actors just steamrolled him whenever they thought his dialogue was unactable. Lucas wasn't famous enough to put up any resistance. In the prequells he had fully dressed himself in a godlike garb and would never back down.
Also, Lucas didn't have any fully fleshed out ideas for the prequels. And finally, when you watch the films, you start realizing that Lucas is pretty good at the beginning and ending of a movie... but often falls flat in between.
Really? He had worked on them a lot. I think they were pretty fleshed out. It's just that his ideas sucked. They were unfilmable. Which is why they suck.
I was juvenile, but really forced to be based on Anakin's age. The Clone Wars isn't a bad movie as long as you take out any scene with both Anakin and Padame. The third should have been epic... but the absolutely crucial moment in the film (Anakin's ultimate transition) was ham handed and poorly executed.
The tone of Phantom Menace was off. Where was the menace? It came off as nothing but a Disney movie.
The love relationship between Padme and Anakin in the Clone Wars was just badly written. Any shitty Hollywood writer could have come up with something with a million times more tension and drama. She's a princess, and senator, and he's a scrappy nothing Jedi apprentice. Not to mention the age difference, him being younger. That script writes itself. But nope... she falls in love with him instantly making the story arc dead. The rest of the film was a mess. Nothing really mattered. Anakin was an over-reacting child to everything. His anger and underlying flirt with the dark side could have been showed so much better. The film tells, but doesn't show. Cardinal error.
But... I have a friend who had kids who were 9 and ten when Clone Wars was out and they thought it was the best thing ever. So I guess Lucas did something right.
Revenge of the Sith was just boring to watch. Again... zero tension. Zero drama. Nothing mattered. His turn to the dark side isn't because of anything that actually happens. Nope. It's because of a dream he has about Padme. Ehe... dumbest idea to a story ever. His mutilation and ending up in the Darth Vader suit was a snoozefest. When he accidentally killed Padme because of his turn to the dark side, then why didn't he realize that the dark side was bad? Instead: "Noooooooo". Would have been way more effective if Padme left him and joined the rebellion. Now that's a story line.
The entire count Dooku story line was dumb. A confusing mess. If I don't get it, I'm guess a ten year old child won't either.
The only thing I liked about the films was Palpatine's palace coup. That was the only story line that actually worked.
The Last Jedi actually made me look more fondly on the prequels.
Star Wars is running into some troubles with vision... and poor scripting. The generalized plots have been nonsensical. The Force Awakens was a remix/reboot of A New Hope, and had the same type of overall weapon, and important climactic moments ended up being incredibly dull and stupid (I don't know, if that paying homage to the end of III?). The Last Jedi was convoluted. The two main characters seem to develop well, but the rest of the film is an absolute mess. And to make matters worse, there is all this needless noise about the gender and race of actors in the films. The only decent thing going on is that the final movie has a generally open slate, but the people in charge have very little in the way of trust of using it effectively.
So you don't think the Last Jedi was just a remix/reboot of Empire Strikes back and Return of the Jedi?