I've never been much of a Star Wars fan, but Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith were always my favourite of the bunch, and I never understood why people disliked them. As a kid, and now, they're films that speak to me but if I had to hazard a guess, it's generational. That is to say, I grew up in very different times from my Gen.X parents, who would have enjoyed the original trilogy as kids. They lived in peaceful times, but with an omnipresent shadow of "fascism" over their heads, culturally and politically. A narrative about some plucky rebels saving the galaxy from an evil empire that, when you get down to it on an individual level didn't even seem that bad, sounds reasonable to them. They're just trying to make everything better, after all, and more free obviously means more better! Now contrast that with Zoomers' upbringings. We're born into a peaceful world where that same shadow of evil is little more than a lingering memory foisted upon us by our elders. Many of us receive little in the way of guidance, little in the way of recognition, our hopes and dreams are treated as silly and we're pushed to be pseudo-monastic bots serving a civilization that feels increasingly alien. Literally so, as more and more problems arise, the threats encroach closer and closer, and those same people charged with preserving order- the people who supported those rebels decades prior- invite the foreign enemy into the hearts of our civilizations. We reach adulthood asking how we can fix this, begging for our elders to do something about the problems, only to be told we're the monsters. Anakin's 'fall', then, reads as a pseudo-mythological parallel to the Zoomer man's. Born gifted, far beyond his peers, and never rewarded for it. Never recognized. Denied the status he by all rights deserves, for reasons that remain unclear. He wants to protect his loved ones, he wants to save his civilization, and he is shunned and punished for it. It's no wonder, then, that he turns to the dark forces; at least they humour his desires. And so, I think that Zoomers and Young Millennials appreciate the Prequels because Anakin speaks to us, and our experiences, while Gen.X, old Millennials and Boomers hate them because they're a warning for those generations; telling them directly, through the mytho-poetic formula of classic Star Wars, that their sons will burn everything down if their concerns aren't taken seriously. Of course, this warning was ignored, and now there is a generation of Anakin Skywalkers just waiting for their Emperor Palpatine to rouse them. And if you think that you can deceive them into following you, into supporting the failed projects by presenting yourself as their Palpatine, only to hoodwink them, all you'll be doing is trading a Palpatine for a Caesar, or a Hitler.