Darth Venal said:

The problem is, without convincing characters/performances, nothing else works.

Well who is to blame for that? I've watched Ewan give better performances. Natalie Portman. Liam Neeson.

To me it starts and stops with George. He wrote the script for TPM and co-wrote AOTC and ROTS. He also directed all three.

My biggest problem with the prequels is I don't think Lucas really had a fully fleshed out story for all 3 films. And he dragged his feet on writing the scripts, especially for the first 2 prequels. And it shows.

All I can say is I'm glad he's done with it because he'd clearly rather be making historical films like Red Tails, and documentaries, like the excellent mini-docs he produced for the Young Indy DVD sets.