They're all "switch off your brain and go for the ride".
All 6 are built around that idea.
I never said that they were all equal in quality though.
But I do say, and will always say, that I wish that people would judge the PT using the same criteria that they use to judge the OT.
Jariten, I get your point, and it is 100% valid. As you know I disagree, based on different criteria:
The OT were open and honest homages to science fiction books, serials, and films. Some other films famously were used for inspiration as well. We all had fun watching them, and yes as a child I had already seen Flash Gordon on tv and recognized those references. I learned of Dune and the Lensmen much later; these tidbits of trivia enriched the experience, much in the way that PULP FICTION is more interesting when you get the numerous references it makes.
By the PT Lucas claimed that all of his inspiration had been myths and legends, and not science fiction at all. He had publicly disavowed his sources and named only one, Joseph Campbell, who of course was not a source at all, and stuff completely irrelevant, like the Aeneid and Metamorphosis.
It is therefore impossible to look at the PT with the same optimism I had when watching the first three films. Even though I don't really like JEDI, it is in its own way at least an honest attempt to end the series. Weighed down with delusions of grandeur, the prequels are a load of pretentious bullshit. It becomes impossible to shut your brain off and enjoy the ride when the author tells you that it is all a part of an ancient mythological tradition. Moreso, it is impossible to keep your brain ON, looking for those references and the weight of historical storytelling, since, well, it's not there. The PT is not as clever as it promises to be, and not as fun as it should be. It's somewhere in the middle: dumb and pretentious at the same time, managing to insult on the one hand and bore on the other.
To say nothing at all of Jar Jar, who on his own could have ruined any series.
"I had a lot of different ideas. At one point, Luke, Leia and Ben were all going to be little people, and we did screen tests to see if we could do that." -George Lucas, in STAR WARS: the Annotated Screenplays (p197).