The story line of Star Wars prequels is better than any of the other Star Wars movies.
Have you seen the Phantom edits? They're actually pretty good without Jar Jar! I mean, everyone loves the origin story, right? Where did Vader come from? How did the Emperor rise to power?
I think a large part of the success that the original trilogy operated off of was a combination of nostalgia & lack of Internet...people simply didn't have the exposure they had before CGI, before Netflix, and before Google, so Star Wars was pretty mind-blowing. I'm too young to have seen them in theaters, but my buddy said when Vader was all like "Luke, I'm your father!" the whole theater FREAKED OUT & just lost it, haha! You rarely see that happen today, plus everything back then had to be either made by hand or painted by hand, so all of the planets, starry backdrops, spaceships, etc. was all handmade stuff by very talented artists, so of course it looked wicked good.
But those original movies were also more emotional...you wanted to go on an adventure with Luke & Han, and use the Force, and fight with your lightsaber. The prequels were more story-driven with an explanation as what happened & why, which is always fun to see.