I’d say his biggest mistake was thinking Star Wars should be “for kids”.

That’s his primary justification for making Han shoot second and Jar-Jar. And I’ll admit, being in 7th grade when Episode I came out I thought Jar-Jar was freaking hilarious!

That whole line of thought permeates the prequels, and unfortunately leads to them being dumbed down to bad saturday morning cartoon levels when it comes to story and script. It just looks like Lucas didn’t take his own universe seriously. Or perhaps he was more focused on “teaching” kids something and thought he’d have to dumb things down to get his message across to 7 year olds.

I’m surprised to hear some people like the prequels more than the TFA/R1. Sure they haven’t really gone anywhere new yet, but I’d rather have filler with decent characters and writing than a “new story” that makes no sense and makes cringe multiple times.