I started getting into this franchise not long ago after years of avoiding it, so I have no nostalgic attachment to it. (I had watched some of it as a kid with my parents but the movies did not get my attention at the time so I mostly forgot what I saw then)
I don’t have anything new to say about the prequels but I want to highlight that the greatest problem in them is just how much TPM doesn’t advance anything in the plot or relationships.
In the grand scheme of all the trash that gets released into movie theaters, I think the prequels are fine action-adventure space movies, even good at certain points. I see the bad reception as a result of Lucas getting out of touch but also the fans have massively high standards set by an overrated perception of the originals. Prequel fans are accused of being nostalgia biased but the same is true for OT fans who can’t see the issues in those films.
I respect ANH knowing the time it came out and the limitations in technology and budget, but it is a movie that didn’t age well. RotJ has many of the flaws that plague the prequels but it’s not acknowledged enough even by those who criticize it. ESB is the only Star Wars film I believe deserves it’s legendary status, the only things that rival it in quality are the 03 Clone Wars cartoon and a few episodes from TCW.
Original Star Wars aged plenty well. I think people see the Tantive IV explosion at the beginning and start immediately going “oh nooooooo 1970s cheesy baddd” but the effects generally are really well done. Everything feels tactile and real. It would be nice if the audio on the dialogue were a little bit higher quality but it’s unfair to expect that.
Same with Return of the Jedi. I think you’ll find that a lot of people do criticize it and compare it with the prequels. I completely disagree with those people. It’s a fantastic movie in so many ways.
The high standards are not unreasonable given that the whole point of the prequels was to make money by filling in three more slots in a story that was already finished. If three movies in a row were all incredible, and you now have the effects budget, the technology, the time, and the momentum to supposedly do things even better than before, why don’t you do that?
For what it’s worth, both my youngest brother, and my wife, who had not seen the Star Wars movies before, watched all six with me on two separate occasions. (My wife didn’t even know Vader was Luke’s father.) We watched them in release order. Both of them independently thought the original trilogy was better. Granted you might argue that I had conditioned them in some way or told them that I liked one more than the other, or told them what parts I liked or didn’t like. That might have happened a few times but in general I tried to avoid it. My wife really liked Jar Jar, and they thought the incest thing in the OT was funny, but in almost every way they had the same praises and criticisms people have always had about the prequels before the 2010s pseudo-revival.