New member from Germany here. I've been a long-time fan of the original trilogy. They've been my favorite films since I first watched them as a kid in the early 90s or so. I also loved Timothy Zahn's books, and all those great Lucas Arts games, from Dark Forces / Jedi Knight to the X-Wing / TIE Fighter series. Playing Jedi Knight online, I joined a clan and met guys from around my country. I have many fond childhood / teen memories that are in some ways related to Star Wars.

I've been thinking about signing up on a Star Wars themed forum for a while, but there's one big problem with most forums:
The majority of people there regard the prequels as legitimate Star Wars movies, and users who strongly disagree are bashed as "prequel haters". I'm really glad I found this forum where I can freely express my opinion on the prequels. And here we go:

For some reason, prequel lovers seem to think that people like us hated the prequels from the beginning.

Quite the opposite is true. Like many of you, I WANTED the prequels to be good. From the awful title crawl of TPM to the last dull CGI battle of ROTS, I knew that something was wrong. And yet I thought "maybe you have to watch the movies again so they can grow on you". They didn’t.
However, I tried to find comfort in the fact that AOTC was a tad better than TPM, and ROTS a little better than AOTC… maybe even a good film. Maybe even a Star Wars film, just for a different, younger, more action-oriented audience.

In short – I was in denial.

I never really felt comfortable with the prequels. I knew that I liked the original trilogy much, much better, but I didn't really know how to feel about Episodes I-III.

Then came the Plinkett reviews, and they felt like therapy! They helped me put the finger on what’s wrong with the prequels (without having to watch them again). They helped me form my current opinion on the prequels: They should never have been made, and I cannot accept them as "canon", especially in those parts where they contradict the OT.