Cable-X1 said:

I think the PT made in the 80s would have rocked the hell out of us. One of the downfalls of the PT was that Lucas waiting too damn long. He shouldn't have let us catch a breath after Jedi. Maybe given it a year or two and then launched into it. That would have been much better.

So true about accepting the inferior ROTJ...I'll take the Ewoks over Jar Jar any day.

It's true. Without decades of "catching our breath" and "hearing all of the various plans and rumours as to how things would shake out" and "using our own imaginations which turned out to be better than George's" we would have all like the PT much better. It probably would have been made better, but who can say?

The other factor is that there wouldn't have been as much extensive EU before the prequels either. I know that Lucasfilm said the PT timeframe was off limits to the EU authors, but that didn't stop The Thrawn Trilogy, Dark Empire, Children of the Jedi, etc... from casting long shadows back on galactic history, especially in regards to the Jedi and the Clone Wars. It still makes me wonder what some of their other ideas were for the Clone Wars. Probably superior to the ones we got., or would have gotten in the late 80s. So maybe it's not all bad that the PT didn't come out right away.