The prequels are terrible movies. And I even knew that back at the time even though most people seemed to love them at the time. But the terrible prequels never RUINED the Original Trilogy for me.
Funny enough though, the mantra for many fans has been that Lucas ruined their childhood because of the prequels. Anakin is whiney, Yoda is a CGI jumping frog, Padme dying too soon in the timeline, Jedi are idiots, etc. Things that undercut the things the OT had.
Personally, I think this new trilogy at least makes an effort to honor the OT; little things such as getting close to OT’s Yoda way of moving like a puppet. They also know to hold back, like with Luke. Inner child me wanted to see Luke actually duel with a lightsaber. Many people wanted badass Vader, which they got in Rogue One, but count me in the minority that didn’t like it. So I’m glad the writers didn’t give into temptation to show Luke go ape-shit, a la prequel Yoda.
My main issue is that they don’t seem to do well in moving the overall story forward surrounding the new characters. As some point out, it feels like we’re in the same spot when we left off in TFA. We already had the whole Finn struggling to fight or flee plotline. We already had Rey and Kylo face each other and leaving each other with basically the same mindsets. Rey is a ray of sunshine goodness, and Kylo is a black pit of anger and power hungry as always. The main highlights for me were the OT characters like Luke and Yoda. Leia, well, I’m not sure what to think given she lives.