Ever since the debut of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, which was released in May of 1999, fans of the original trilogy have been calling for the head of Star Wars creator George Lucas. He’s been called many awful names, and has been accused of selling out the franchise. Fans of the originals often criticize episodes 1-3 for relying too much on Computer Generated Imagery effects, as well as having, supposedly, sub par actors and story lines.

According to to the website Whatculture.com, “in truth, they really have no discernible plot.”

What the naysayers fail to see are that there are numerous contributions that the prequels have added to the Star Wars franchise. For one, the Star Wars prequels created an entire new generation of die hard Star Wars fans, something that the originals would probably have had a hard time doing. This is solely because of how incredibly old the original trilogy is, with the first of the three coming out in 1977, over thirty years ago. Although still entertaining to watch, it’s hard for many people to really enjoy watching one of the older films after being used to modern sci-fi movies such as Avatar or Star Trek: Into Darkness, which are known for having fantastic CGI effects animations

Building off of the success of the prequels would then spawn countless spin off TV shows, video games, and books. This further expanded the Star Wars universe, allowing even more people to enjoy something they would not have been able to without the prequels existence.

The sad reality is many people today can’t even appreciate the original films due to their age and arguably slow paced story lines, as well as their lack of action and special effects.

They’re just so used to seeing explosion filled movies such as Transformers to appreciate classics such as the older Star Wars films. Action scenes are where the prequels truly shine in as even the harshest film critics praise the prequels’ many fight scenes.