But as time has gone on, the prequel fandom has gotten more and more fervent and unironic and sensitive to criticism, which is a shame. Now you have all these video essays about how the prequels are masterpieces and how the flaws aren’t actually flaws.
I feel this, at one point I was on this side before I kinda came around to the realization that they’re just not that well-written. Even ROTS I still mostly like more for it’s mythological motifs, themes, visuals, and music more then the writing. The best scenes are the ones with either Palpatine (because Ian McDiarmid is fucking awesome) or the ones where no one is talking. The opening act and third act are also pretty awesome.
A lot of time headcanon or supplemental material (a lot of which isn’t even canon anymore, which is why you’ll see people mixing up Legends and Canon all the time) is used to explain bad writing. “The Jedi come across as too bored and uncaring… actually you see, it was supposed to be that way! They’re supposed to be an emotionally repressed cult! It all makes sense now!”. Nope, George is just a flat dialogue writer who failed to get his intent across, making many people misunderstand the entire point. Among other things.
There’s a lot I love about Lucas because when you read what he was intending for for the prequels it really is brilliant, but man he needed someone else helping him with his scripts.