I don't really care about more Star Wars, Lucas had some pretty good story ideas, and always talked about wanting to go off and do his fancy little films once he was done with SW. Of course you can't keep churing out good movies in a series forever, but that is kind of a cop out excuse for the prequels sucking so much. Everyone always says that they could have never been as good as the originals and that their biggest problem was too high of expectations. But the fact of the matter is that they just simply sucked. They were terrible movies, and could have been done much better. I am pretty forgiving when it comes to inferior sequels, I love all the Apes movies, just not as much as the first one (and I hate the remake), I really enjoyed the James Bond movies, sometimes they got pretty retarded, but I was willing to forgive some flaws. Star Trek is another series I have been very tolerant towards, some of the movies I really hated, but I still gave it the benefit of the doubt and went back to the theater to see the next one, I knew it might not be the best ST had to offer, but I was willing to over look that for another adventure in the ST universe, a place I had become rather fond of. I cannot say this is the case with SW. The SW universe was my favorite universe in the universe, I went to the theater in 1999 knowing that whatever I saw on the screen was not going to be anywhere near as good as what I have seen already, but as a guy who spend years soaking up the EU and making my own stories in that universe, I didn't care, another journey into that universe on the big screen was going to be amazing, no matter what! Even with that mindset, TPM was very disappointing. But I still gave it the benefit of the doubt and decided to over look it, and I actually still enjoy TPM, it is by far my favorite prequel, and the only one I have ever seen more than a couple of times.
Anyway, what I am saying is that I was more than willing to forgive inferior prequels, but once we got down to AOTC, it was such a horrible awful movie, it was insulting to watch. So much more could have been done with it. The "come on guys, no series can go on for ever without loosing its magic" just isn't going to cut it. AOTC and ROTS were simple awful films that needed some love and care put into their making that just wasn't there. Instead they feel like an inferior product thrown on the shelves (or in this case cinemas) as quickly as possible to pull in some cash.
Lucas should have finished wit Star Wars after ROTJ, and went on to do more things. Things that he could have really put his heart into, as he did with the first Star Wars, instead of rehashing something he was sick and tired of just because he felt some sort of obligation (and obviously realized it would bring him more money than anyone should ever dream of having).
-1, I find it funny that you say "nobody ever calls Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi ground breaking, because since they first came out I have heard plenty of people using that exact phrase to describe them. They were both very much ground breaking.
And as for you saying, "thats how i would feel too, and so would most people....(otherwise, they'd just be
lying about it).."
Sorry to see you have such a shallow and pessemistic view on creativity. It doesn't matter how much money you have, why should that make your standards drop? If you have something you want to make, do it right. You have no excuse not to, especially if you are literally drowning in money fans of that series have given to you already. When you have such a loyal fanbase, you should care what they think, after all, if it were not for them you never would have made it that far.