So TPM got mixed reviews when it came out. And so did AOTC and ROTS as well. But 6-12 years later, the stature of the PT has gone down considerably as some of the most disappointing films ever made. You could feel it in the theater when they first came out that they were subpar. The hype is gone for these films, and they are still not on par with the OT as PT apologists claim them to be. Watching them today, many people cringe at the dated CGI, the wooden acting, the illogical plot, and are bored by the action scenes in the film. If you really watch the films with a critical eye, the whole PT is DOA with the opening crawl of TPM. I might go so far as to say the PT is too highly rated based on the numbers at IMDB and RT.

If you want to really go back, ROTJ "crashed" the whole franchise, so they were doomed 15 years before they were even made (don't get me wrong- I love ROTJ, but nostalgia is what makes it good). ROTJ was a template for the PT, but magnified the little flaws into the major flaws that became the unintentional foreground of the later films.