Let me also jump in to the defense of Jedi and point out that, unlike the Gungans, a few Ewoks are killed onscreen, and are even given a moment to be mourned over. They may still be saccharin, merchandisable teddy bears, but at least the movie took what was going on seriously. That kind of honesty is what keeps Jedi several notches over the prequels. And, unlike his turn to the dark side, Vader's turn back to the good side is actually a pretty damn good scene.

I guess I could say the big difference between Jedi and the prequels is that, while Jedi was uneven, and yeah - teddy bears - the movie pulled through at the most pivotal moments. The prequels have their redeemable qualities, I suppose, but the key scenes are the worst scenes. You could even argue for an inverse ratio, where the more important the scene, the worse it is, with Anakin's Fall - the entire reason all three movies were made in the first place - the most colossal misfire of them all. I mean, seriously, if you're going to put all that time, effort, and money into a story about Vader's turn to the Dark Side, only to totally phone-in the moment when it actually happens... you might as well have turned the whole production over to Rankin-Bass. Really - if the rest of the film had been Shakespeare, that one scene would still ruin the entire trilogy.