vote_for_palpatine said:

I was in denial the whole time, sadly. It never hit me - I didn't let it hit me - until well after the fact.

Until ROTS came out, I kept thinking This will all work, it's all going to fit, Episode III will fix everything. Lo and behold, come May 2005 and ROTS was history's most expensive PowerPoint.

LOL

Similar experience for me. I liked TPM at the time, thought AOTC was even better, and re-watched them quite a bit. I knew they weren't as good as the OT but it was exciting to have new SW films. I lost interest in them a bit by the time ROTS came out, but I loved ROTS and still consider it a pretty good movie. Looking back at the completed picture, however, and with the excitement off, more and more the films didn't hold up. AOTC especially fell apart. TPM I still enjoy as a children's fantasy film--which is the reason I think I liked it in the first place--but failed to hold up as a Star Wars film. I think it took the full trilogy to be seen before the massive failures of the first two films became totally apparent because I just kept telling myself ROTS would make them work somehow. As good as that film was, it made the previous ones seem worse, and it made it apparent that they weren't really necessary for understanding anything in it as well.