KilroywasNOTHere
"BEEP!"
Enterprise was always bad.
The prequels had detractors -- and there are good reasons for that -- but were widely liked. Mind you, I'm not talking about hardcore fan reaction here, which is always tricky business. I'm saying most audiences liked the prequels well enough. And I think the key factor there is that they had a story with a beginning, a middle and an end. If you look back after watching all three, you can say "it started here, then went through that, and ended up there."
The sequels don't have that. They don't... cohere. Structurally, they're a big mess. And stories don't work when they have no good bones.
This is why the prequels will always be seen as flawed, but also having merit. There will be people who expected something else (something better), and will never accept the prequels. And that's valid. In fact, I greatly enjoy substituting my own fanon take on the prequel era and reading old EU books, all while pretending SW just stopped in 1999 or so. But that's always going to be a minority approach. Most people aren't so negative about the sequels--
And that was already becoming evident in the run-up to TFA. Generally speaking, most people who actually hated the sequels were invested fans, and so by definition a bit older than "kids" in 1999. But by the early 2010s, the kids of 1999 had grown up, or nearly so, and they'd enjoyed the prequels quite a lot, thank you very much. To them, it was never "my childhood is ruined". It was just "my childhood".
Are they too kind to the prequels because they have saw-them-as-kids nostalgia goggles? Are some others perhaps too unkind because the prequels didn't live up to expectations? (Honestly: would they have gotten any real hate if they hadn't been SW films?) Something to be said for both assertions, I think.
But here's a question: how many children liked the sequels? Say what you will of George Lucas, but he could make films that kids loved. Stories that defined childhoods. The sequels haven't done anything like that. Hence my prediction that the prequels will be remembered as flawed but possessed of certain merits, while the sequels will just be additions to the dusty ranks of "empty cash-grab sequels".
There are kids mainly preteens who do like the sequel so there is a chance it could become a cult classic that was overhated in hindsight, not a guarantee but possible. One thing that the prequels did that the sequels have yet to do is expanded material. Think of TCW as you will but both it and the Prequels did a lot to win haters over to the Clone Wars era not to mention tons of video games and the like.
Meanwhile, The ST in that same time period has had a short lived cheap-looking show, 1 video game and only a handful of books and a horrible short-lived overpriced hotel and a theme park that's dwindling in park attendance. The freaking HIGH REPUBLIC has had more promotion than the ST trilogy era has had. Not even Disney wants to touch the ST era with a 10-foot pole. That is the death knell to the ST more than anything.
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