danny_boy said:

Lucas could have shot the Phantom Menace with lens flares,shaky cams and rapid fire editing(ala Michal Bay) in 1998 but chose to preserve the static compositions and conservative editing(by 1990's standards)of the OT.

:D If Abrams turns TFA into another "michael bay", it may require careful fan-editing to slow down the scenes, but how to fix shaky cameras and lens flares?

danny_boy said:

But one factor that affected the prequels which hardly anyone notices is that the audience already new where the plot and the characters were headed(they just did not know how) across all 3 episodes(I,II and III).

What was the main attraction of the OT whilst it was unfolding?......the idea that you had no idea where it was heading and who would survive and who would not.

Big difference.

If you think about it, the only character we knew would survive were Anakin, the Emperor, Obi-wan, the droids and Yoda. Vader's motives were at the core of the prequels and kept the audience's interest high, but in the end they didn't carefully handled them :\