I’ve softened on the prequels ever since the new movies started coming out. When it looked like the series was over forever it seemed like a bigger deal, but now that Star Wars movies are going to continue indefinitely, I’m not bothered by three of them being pretty bad, in much the same way that I don’t get angry about a bad James Bond or Star Trek movie.
I get exactly what you mean, however 3 bad movies in a row that “technically” are at the start of the series is a lot to swallow and forgive in the larger picture that at this stage is still only 7 movies (not including RO since it’s not part of the actual episodic series).
But yes, with the PT no longer being where Star Wars “ended”, it’s not such a sour point anymore and the more good movies made on the other end of the series, the easier it will be to forget and not really care about the whole PT debacle (especially with plenty of fan edits to help make them somewhat watchable).
Regarding the prequels suddenly somehow becoming “cool”, to me it just smells of a bunch of millennials (read - not all of them by any stretch) trying to justify having childhood nostalgia and love of the PT. There’s nothing wrong with that but for them, they cant continue to love these movies if they are generally considered to be bad, cringeworthy movies so they’re trying to find creative ways on “explaining” how they are in fact “cool” movies if you would only understand it from a certain point of view… 😉
.Val