In 2029 TPM will be 30 years old and aged excellent and in 2027 a New Hope will be 50 years old and still would be a Classic the generation who Grow Up with the Prequels will soon be Adults with Kids and Grandchildren and will remember the Prequels as Classics just like the OT i have a feeling there will be a lot of nostalgia for the Prequels in the coming years
I feel like the prequels would absolutely not be “ruined” if they were written well in terms of portraying Lucas’ intentions. In fact it’s kinda laughable IMO to say that making the audience care about and sympathathize with the Jedi, show them as kind and compassionate monks would make the movies worse. Imagine how much more heartbreaking Order 66 would’ve been if you actually cared about Ki-Adi Mundi and Plo-Koon, and the impact that Anakin betraying them all would have. The messages about not becoming too possessive of people and being selfish in your relationships wouldn’t be muddied. People would realize what Anakin actually did wrong instead of blaming the Council for his actions. You wouldn’t have people saying that the Sith “aren’t actually that bad”, despite the fact that the guy who wrote the Sith code openly said he was inspired by Mein Kampf and Lucas compares Sidious to Satan, that “bringing balance to the force means destroying the Jedi too”, or “the dark side isn’t inherently bad to use” (yeah, it is).
I feel that the PT does portray the Jedi as compasionate monks. The issue is with their dogma and theology. Given Qui-gon’s differences with the council and the issues Anakin has with the council and his training, I truly feel that Lucas wrote the Jedi to be slightly off from where they are supposed to be. George has a habit of speaking in generalities and not being terribly exact. I feel his comments about the Jedi are about the order as it was in Yoda’s youth and where the Jedi still think it is when it isn’t. When he was writing the PT he included a lot that made it into the films that counter what he said. To me the films speak more to what Lucas wanted than his interviews. He also said the force isn’t yin/yang and yet he wrote it in a way you can’t interpret it any other way. And Dave Filoni, probably George’s #1 student of the Star Wars universe, very definitely portrayed it as yin/yang - two halves of a whole. George is unreliable in interviews.
The prequels deserve more respect for the professionals who worked on them. Even if the story in the films and acting isn’t that good. ILM, John Williams. The people who did the visual designs from the art department, to the set builders and others. The editors, sound design. They deserved to have making of books on the same level of quality as the original trilogy. I would have liked to have read about how the Young Indiana Jones crew made the transition to doing a big show like the Star Wars prequels.