However, as I said, one thing I found Star Wars did was open my mind to a large fantasy universe. Just watching the original trilogy, I find myself wondering what else has happened before, after, and during the adventures I see in these films. However I'll never read an expanded universe novel because I don't really want that question answered--my imagination does it better than any franchise book... that and, to be honest, I HAVE read a few Expanded Universe novels and found them to be completely dull, and moreover the answers they gave were ones I didn't like.
The prequels, to an extent, suffer from that latter problem, of giving answers nobody likes. Midichloriens being a popular example. However I think the bigger problem is simply that they're prequels. Prequels of any stripe are usually made for one reason: To answer questions posed by an existing story, to show how it all came to be... to explain things. Prequels almost universally suck because the answers they give are never totally necessary, if they were ever necessary to begin with. Come to think of it I can't recall a single prequel I'm familiar with that ever enhanced or shed light on the thing that it was a prequel to. Did we really need a prequel to The Exorcist? to Amityville? to Dune? to Superman?
But since this is a Star Wars topic, let's discuss the Star Wars prequels: The Prequel Trilogy fell into the common trap of feeling like it needed to "explain" the original trilogy, so we get things like the origin of the Empire, Palpatine's rise to power, how Anakin met Obi-Wan and became Darth Vader, how several important characters came to be where we find them in the original trilogy, and so on and so forth. And of course, no one likes the answers. This is both because they deny our imagination, replacing our various hypothesized scenarios with concrete answers, and as I said earlier, because the answers the movies give us suck. Moreover, these answers simply were never necessary in the first place! There were no aspects of the original trilogy that didn't or couldn't make sense on their own without any external knowledge. We don't need to know the backstory of the Star Wars universe to understand the original trilogy any more than we need to know the complete history of Arrakis to understand Dune.
On a more personal note, I've always felt the prequels were too much like an entry in the Expanded Universe--suddenly we have terms such as "Padawan" and "Sith" being thrown around. I also never liked how the EU introduced this "Star Wars naming convention" where every character has to have this name made up of three syllables--two for the personal name and one for the surname, and the more flat it sounds the better, names such as Quigon Jinn and Jar Jar Binks, and bad guys have to have some derivitive, "evil-sounding" name such as (to use an example from the novels) Thrawn or General Grievous. I mean, watch the original trilogy: The heroes had names such as Luke Skywalker, Lando Calrissian, Leia Organa and bad guys had names such as General Tharkin. The sudden change from mostly nominal (if a little exhuberant) or even just plain "normal" names to these suddenly comic book-esque "alien" or "evil-sounding" names has always been one of my pet peeves with the Expanded Universe.
Personally, and excuse my arrogance, if I had written the Star Wars prequels, I would not have done it as George Lucas did. The empire would already be in place and making motion after motion to sweep aside and eliminate the Republic, the rebels would already be in place and striking back. The Jedi would be a widespread religious order that is slowly being driven underground. These would not be explanations of the original trilogy but rather events previous to the trilogy that may or may not have a bearing on future events. And so many things would be different that I have honestly considered doing my own Star Wars prequels in the form of a fanfic, being held back only by the thought that if I have the imagination and inclination to do that then I should darn well write original stories.
That's my thought, anyway.