One example is this. and feel free to respond to this if you think you can defend the pts portrayl of it. According to Lucas the story of star wars is the rise and fall of anakin skywalker.
Lucas said all through the early and mid 80s that the back story was about anakin skywalker and how he was this great jedi knight who was the hero of the clone wars and friends with ben kenobi who had a tragic fall from grace and was seduced by the dark side of the force and when you listened to bi wan telling luke about anakin in episode 4 and 6 and you see how powerful and strong vader is its easy to imagine and vision anakin young and him and ben being great friends and fighting side by side in the clone wars etc..etc and where the PT films droped the ball was showing anakins rise and then his fall.
We never got to see this great jedi knight who was such good friends with obi wan and was the hero of the clone wars and reached these great heights. From the very first scene with anakin in episode 2 he is being disrespectful to his master and he is being a smart ass. He is rude and nasty to everyone. He goes on violent killing sprees an hr after we first see his charcter. Even if you did not know he was to become darth vader the average person would be looking at this guy and saying "what an ass hole" You have to have a rise before you can have a fall.
Now if we would have been presented with an anakin skywalker that would have been like qui gon jinn or luke skywalker or maximus in gladiator or mel gibsion in braveheart...characters that we grew attached to and looked up to and admiried and then slowly start to see him through no fault of his own get seducded by the dark side of the force then we would have felt sad. we would have had an emotional attachment to the charcter of anakin skywalker. and then when anakin redemmed himself at the end of return of the jedi we would have stood up and cheered and said "our hero is back" cause we would have remembered anakin for what he was before he got seducded by the dark side...remeber what he was...a great hero and jedi knight...a great friend to obi wan a jedi who was looked up to and admiried by his peers. but we didnt get any of that. we got a teen age smart mouth little punk.
to get emotionally attached to a character you have top first LIKE HIM and respect him and admire him. just like the heroes I mentioned above. Remember how you felt when spock died? or when maximus died? or when william wallace died? or even when qui gon died?we liked these characters. we had an emotional attachment to them. the same as we SHOULD have had with anakin. this was the PRIME PLOT ELEMENT of not just the prequels but all 6 star wars films. the RISE AND FALL OF ANAKIN SKYWALKER. there was no rise. he was a damaged flawed rude disrespectful character from scene one.
is this so hard for prequel fans to understand? lets not even get into his rasons for going to the dark side. he turns to the dark side on purpose. because he thinks it will allow him to save padme because of a bad dream. where before in the 80s lucas always said anakin was seducded to the dark side through no fault of his own. like a person who tries drugs. they try it and then they become seducded by it because it is too powerful for them to handle or control. in the original return of the jedi script ben tells luke that "as a part of a jedis training he must confront and then move past the dark side of the force and that anakin when he confronted the dark side became seduced by it because he thought he was strong enough to control it and in the end as with drugs it was too powerful for him to controland it took him over" hence when vader would always go around saying "if you only knew the power of the dark side"
to add insult to injury when anakin turns to the dark side not because he was seduced but because he thought he could gain something by it he is then told by palpatine that he really doesnt even know how to save peoples lives but he thinks they could learn how to. dont you think anakin would be a little pissed off. that he turned on everyone he knew since a child and murdered kids cause thisguy said he knew how to do something and then after he does it he finds out the guy was lying lol...
and this is the worst part of all....he does it cause he thinks he can save padmes life...hmmm ddidnt he just find out that the guy who has been trying to murder his wife is the same guy promising him to teach him how to save her life? hmm maybe its just me but i would have a hard time trusting someone to save my wifes life who has been trying to MURDER HER for years.
so prequel fans please go right ahead and defend this to me and tell me how I and so many others are wrong for being upset at all this.