I totally think Star Wars could've pulled off a more political plot – I actually even think it could've been just as good for a popcorn flick as the OT and far better for the people who want deep, complex, meaningful lore while enhancing the OT. Palpatine's plan to instigate a war and play both sides, to me, is the actually perfect Palpatine backstory. Anakin's backstory in the (very) broad strokes is extremely compelling too, and Obi-Wan was overall fantastic. Problem is that George completely fucked up the writing, Anakin's character development and his relationship with Padmé, a lot of the acting, etc., and squandered so much of the potential the premise had.
This new wave of prequel apologia, that, imo, was catalyzed by the influx of memes, is pointing at criticisms of the prequels from like 15 years ago while totally ignoring the more nuanced, well-argued, and – I think – damning criticisms of the modern day. It's basically strawmanning when the criticisms are so old and so dead.
