I watched the originals on VHS constantly and I’ve always been into the books, video games, and other stuff. I went to The Phantom Menace in theaters for my birthday (6 or 7 I think.) I loved it, loved all the merchandise and stuff. I fondly remember having some Darth Maul slapbands. When episode 2 came out I was hyped and I liked seeing it but something did feel kind of off, I didn’t like Anakin’s character and I didn’t care about any scenes with him and Padme, or C3PO and R2D2 (still feel exactly the same way.) I really liked the Tartakovsky Clone Wars. When episode 3 came out I was extremely hyped and I loved it, watched it as many times as I could.
As I got older I started to see why people didn’t like the prequels and I started developing my own opinions about them. I still like The Phantom Menace and Revenge of the Sith a lot more than Attack of the Clones. I think if the middle movie was altered significantly (particularly in regard to Anakin and the Jedi) it could have been a really nice complete whole.
I am much older than you (I was 7 when I saw ANH), and I felt the same way about the PT Films. I really enjoyed TPM (yes, even Jar Jar) and to this day think it was a great start to the new trilogy. Being a Star Trek fan as well, I was used to inconsistent movie installment and TPM felt like a great but not best installment. When AOTC came along, I felt something was off. A few places in the first viewing and then others as I have watched it over again. ROTS felt closer to TPM, but didn’t quite make it.
The part of AOTC I like is the romance. Some don’t, but to me it feels very much like a classic movie. And the ages remind me of my grandparents and how my grandmother told of their romance. My grandfather was 5 years younger and used to be friends with her brothers, then moved away. When he came back at 19 or 20, he romanced her and they got married in November 1929. Between that and my love of classic movie story telling (Check out Robert Donat’s Goodbye Mr. Chips and that romance) and the close parallel to a story in my family, there is just nothing about it I would change (even the “I hate sand” exchange).
What fails for me in AOTC is that it should be a buddy movie. Anakin is about ready to be tested and become a Jedi Knight. That should have been part of the story. Instead Obi-wan is the bossy teacher and Anakin is the petulant student. I think this totally ruins the movie. The issue with the droids I was able to fix in an edit, but the lack of buddy chemistry is just an absence from the film or from anything shot for the film. Just where they are at in their journey is wrong. He picked the wrong point. He should have taken his Jedi trials during the film (a training sequence similar to Luke on Dagobah) and become a Jedi knight before the Clone War started. He could have an incident during his trials that show how close he is to the edge. As I write this, I can see where it should fit. Just after Padme’s ship explodes and we see she is allright, it cuts to Anakin in his Jedi trials. Instead of arguing with Obi-wan in front of Padme, he almost slips and almost fails his trials, but he succeeds and they take the assignment to protect Padme before they have a chance to formalize Anakin’s elevation to knighthood (another opportunity for some conflict, similar to the master bit in ROTS) and then the rest could procced much the same. Just shorten that damned droid factory scene… or eliminate it. So many better ways to spend time story telling in a Star Wars film. And it would enhance ROTS as well and maybe make that a better film.
Also, Lucas was too subtle in his PT story telling. He needed to be more in your face with some things. With Palpatine subtle was good, with Anakin’s fall it wasn’t.