Why The Star Wars Prequels Aren't As Bad As You Remember

At their core, the Star Wars prequels centre around Anakin Skywalker's transition into Darth Vader. In Episode I, Anakin is introduced as an innocent child. In Episode II, the young Jedi begins wrestling with the Dark Side, despite his efforts to temper his rage and stay on the straight and narrow. But by Episode III, Anakin fully embraces evil and rules the galaxy with a literal iron fist.

Although it's obvious in hindsight that the prequels revolved around Vader's rise and fall, it looked like George Lucas had bit off more than he could chew at the time. Because the prequels need to show Jedi in their prime, the creation of the Stormtroopers, the Clone Wars, the fall of the Republic, the extermination of the Order, and the rise of The Empire, it would've been easy for all these sub-plots to collapse into each other, leaving the prequels an indecipherable mess.

But Lucas never lost sight in what he was trying to accomplish. He intended to show Anakin Skywalker's descent into villainy in a three-movie story arc, and that's exactly what he did.