"1) In general, I like the prequels better - better story, better acting, better special effects." It's hard to "argue" with a non-fan because sooner or latter someone calls you biased, but I will try to address those three myths with short answers. First, "better story", from a pure cinematic point of view the amount of nonsense in all 3 scripts would take an encyclopedia, but I think we can address to the most obvious and big one. Senator Palpatine aka Darth Sidious aka the Emperor convinces the Trade Federation to start a war to promotes his own agenda, then since the thousands of systems that composes the Republic cant gather enough men (god knows why) he pulls out an army of cloned humans (which by the way is illegal in their own universe). So, he owns the second army and virtually the first one too, which begs the question, why not use both to conquer the Republic? why all the lies and complicated political issues? It's clear that not even the Jedis can face him or either one of his two armies. You mentioned the Roman Empire but there are examples there that Generals marched on Rome simply because they had a good army. So in SW it doesn't make sense to have two good armies and make them fight each other. Second, "better acting", really? Padme and Anakin have the same sexual chemistry as two cousins. Samuel L. Jackson is just cashing the check, he is better in more aggresive roles. Yoda (yes, the muppet) is babbling nonsense. Obi Wan Kenobi is not a wise master Jedi but a reckless fool who jumps in action at every chance. Yet not everything can be blame on the actors because it's very difficult to show any kind of emotion or connect with anything when all you have is blue and green stuff around you. Third, "better special effects", well I guess that's kind of true, but they should help develop the movie and the story, not carry the whole movie. Take for example Sector 9, a great movie with special effects that doesn't distract from its story, but instead it helps to create a world where all the drama can develop. That was longer than expected but I hope you can cope with it since I was a big fan that lost all faith in the franchise because of these crappy movies that doesn't tell a good story and, worst of all, don't connect at all with all the established cannon of the original. They may not have all the visual "wow" of the new ones but they made us care about characters with real problems, real emotions, real dangers and real grow (I use the word real not in the strict sense of the real world