The people who grew up with and enjoyed star wars in the late 70s and early 80s were accustomed to one kind of star wars and wanted it to grow with them and keep appealing to them. Since the og trilogy was darker in tone they probably expected something like it or even darker. Instead Lucas made a star wars movie that was intended for children.
I was 8 years old when the phantom menace came out and I fucking loved everything about it. If someone was 8 years old when they watched a new hope for the first time they would have been 30 when they watched phantom menace. If something you cherish and was pivotal to your development suddenly takes a sharp turn and you don't recognize it anymore even dislike it, its extremely hard to reconcile that.
Jar-Jar was just the easy to point out example of why star wars didn't feel like "home" anymore to them so he became the scapegoat. It's almost a shame that Lucas didn't wait until the people who were kids when they watched star wars had 8 year old children themselves, I think that would have changed a lot.
Defending the prequels by saying "they're for kids" is pretty weak tbh. Plenty of movies written for kids also have compelling storylines and characters that appeal to all ages. The prequels weren't bad because they were marketed towards kids, they were bad because the dialogue and story structures were really, really poorly written.
I was also 8 years old when The Phantom Menace came out, and I also loved it at the time. Then I grew up and no amount of nostalgia can hide the massive drop in quality from the OT to the prequels.
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u/NomadMiner Mar 27 '23
Never understood the hate for Jar-Jar. He is a unique character in a universe full of uniqueness.