In my opinion, the only thing the prequels really needed was a better second movie. It's okay that Phantom takes its sweet time because it's the introduction to this world and the story picks up steam as it goes into the other movies. Attack of the Clones had ONE important job, which is to really make Anakin's 2 relationships work. To make you love the romance as much as everybody loved Han and Leia, and to make Anakin and Ben like brothers. Revenge of the Sith would have been coasting on that. If those 2 relationships could be made to work as well as Han-Leia and Luke-Han, then the whole thing would be elevated. Or just look at Jaws. It's those 3 characters that elevate that movie way beyond its cheap Universal-disaster movie roots.