TPM felt like Star Wars, and we could still pretend that there was a reason for its shortcomings. Maybe Jar Jar would become a decent character in the sequels, maybe midichlorians would be explicitly a part of Jedi superstition rather than science, maybe ending slavery would be an important part of Anakin’s drive to establish a powerful galactic government, maybe the only droids capable of holding off Jedi Knights would make more of a presence…

AOTC marked the end of my canonical Star Wars, and after ROTS the entire prequel trilogy was tossed.