Yes the SE was a mixed bag, and yes TPM was lame, and yes the romance subplot of AOTC was cringeworthy, but the actual shark-jumping moment for me was the one-two punch towards the end of that movie of C-3PO getting his head switched with a battle droid and spouting schticky one-liners for the rest of the movie, followed by that God awful Yoda fight. That was when I resigned myself to the idea that Star Wars was stupid now and would be as long as George had the keys.

Granted, I was a child/teenager when all of this was actually coming out, so I hadn't really thought it all through to the extent I have by now and my changing feelings were more gradual than it might sound like here, but looking back that was definitely the tipping point, even if I was only equipped to identify it as such years later.