ReggaeDuncan

First time poster, so take it easy on me(?).

There was no one moment for me. It was a culmination of many different things that when added up, some time ago, I admitted to myself that I really don't like the prequels. At all. Sometimes I think it's because I'm from the in-between generation of SW fans: born during the first trilogy, I never experienced any new SW material during my more formative years. I remember ANH coming to HBO around 1980/81 and watching it religiously (y'know, for a 4 year old). Then, I convinced my uncle to take me to see ROTJ when I was 6... I had no idea ESB even existed (and I was even a bit confused while watching ROTJ in the theater). It wasn't until I was around 11 or 12 (late 80s), my mom would allow me walk to the video store and rent movies (being poor this was a welcomed source of entertainment, might I add). I started renting the OT on a regular basis during a time when the OT was pretty well kind of forgotten and overlooked in the zeitgeist. Some years later (1992?), they rereleased the whole trilogy in the movie theater. I watched all three movies back to back on at least three different occasions. 

Fast forward to the mid-90s. The SEs are announced and subsequently released. I was kind of excited since George touted these new releases as 'definitive' and certainly, many aspects of the VHS tapes from the 80s could use some fixing. In my personal life, I was an adult now and had joined the Navy. So, with the little money I now had (which was a whole more than compared to when I was 12), I bought the SE VHS collection. Some things I liked, some things I didn't. Though, in general, I was happy to have some version of the OT as my own (sidenote: little did I know how much money ol' Lucas would sucker out of me over the years).

I know the above paragraphs seem like random ramblings from a random rambler, but I feel it helps sets up the context for watching the prequels. Many people in my age group didn't "grow up" with Star Wars, at least from my perspective. There was general knowledge of what Star Wars was, but if you really wanted to enjoy it - it was definitely something you had to seek out.

So to try to answer the question again: when did I realize the prequels sucked? I don't know exactly when because only when you have the ability to view all three can you really surmise how bad they are but I would be lying if I didn't say we weren't warned early on. I do remember watching TPM in late 1999. I was on deployment with the military and through the 'Haze Grey Mafia' my ship received a bootleg Chinese copy of the TPM. We immediately wired into the ship's video system for a command-wide viewing. This was no easy feat.

There were problems right off the bat. First, there was the crawl. I remember thinking, 'Huh? What the hell is this taxation federation blah blah crap?" However, I assumed it would be easier to digest if I wasn't watching a bootleg. I let it slide. Then, Jar-Jar hit the stage. I hated whatever this abomination was. However, again, this was Star Wars and there are other character-types and profiles I absolutely loathe, like Ewoks. So ok, moving on. I let many problems slide during the first 30-45 minutes of the movie. Then the unholy 1-2 punch of WTF hit me when the movie lands on Tatooine and these two details are revealed:

Anakin's origin is a re-telling of Jesus Christ, complete with immaculate conception...

Star Wars Jesus also happens to build C3P0.

That's when I subconsciously knew, nothing good was going to come of these new stories. Nothing. Those two points in the plot were my worst nightmares come to bootlegged life that day. It told me, George Lucas wasn't interested in trying to make a compelling pre-OT adventure. This was going to be all about Anakin who was super special even before he was born. This was going to be Anakin's illogical story: the story of how a semi-adorable kid turns Jedi and eventually becomes Darth Vader. And it was all going to be driven home with over the top, fantastical, shoddy, nearly-whimsical storytelling. Jesus, just thinking about it now irks me to no end. A pauper woman being knocked up out of thin air - George, are you kidding me? This is where we start? 

And then, we find out Anakin also builds C3P0. That sealed it for me because this also meant, every ancillary character we already knew from the OT was going to be retrofitted into the PT regardless of necessity to the story. Which is exactly what happened in one way or the other in subsequent films. Chewbacca is buddies with Yoda. Boba Fett is actually a clone of Jango Fett who also supplied his DNA to make a bunch of clones who end up being all the Stormtroopers. It was painful just writing that last sentence.

At some point I tried to like AotC but it was more of what I feared and less of what I liked. To this day, I still don't know what the movie is about. In fact, the complete PT political system is more confusing than trying to explain how escrow works. I also went into the theaters hoping RotS was going to be the great PT redemption. But it's not. In fact, it had an impossible task. RotS carries the bulk of the responsibility of trying to tie the OT in with the newer films. And really, after TPM and AotC that's an impossible feat. No one was going to be happy and while it is arguably the better of the 3 PT films, it's still pretty mediocre.

I kind of feel like myself and people of my age weren't looking for a re-invention of the wheel. I don't have memories of the spectacular opening of Star Wars in 1977 that blew everyone's mind. Hell, there wasn't even much of an EU I can remember in my teens (though I could be wrong since I'm not that fanatical). In reality, my expectations were pretty low. If George just had gone back and told a decent story in the same universe I think everyone would have said, "hey this is cool." But instead, he retrofitted a plot that's at once both cheap and easy (like Anakin's progression), and over-the-top complex and arduous (trade federation politics, for example). In the end, the PT just doesn't fit. So much so, he's ended up damaging the source material from which it was created in his quest to make them fit into a newer narrative. That's really a bummer.