Jay is right, this is not the same guy who did THX, Grafitti or the OT. He's lost his edge or just plain lost his marbles.
I was watching a movie the other night that immediately made me think of the prequels and how they relate to the originals. That movie was Blues Brothers 2000. Now, I grew up watching the first BB film and it is undeniably an American Classic. I knew BB 2000 was going to be not as good, but what I got was the absolutely stupidest movie sequel that could ever be made. It totally lost the feel of the first film, was laughable at its stupidity, was of completely low quality, I mean the movie just left me thinking what the hell Dan Akroyd was thinking when he wrote this stupid piece of shit. My best reason to myself is that Aykroyd and John Landis aren't the same actor or director that they were in 1980. Plus the movie was missing a very important element: John Belushi AKA Joliet Jake. The replacement for him was John Goodman. Anything that made the first BB special was lost in the enormous amount of time in between both films.
I watched both films back to back and it just kept reminding me of how the PT went as compared to the OT.
In my own mind, I will forget the PT or the SE ever existed. I find I'm happier that way.