I HATED the prequels. I've STILL only seen bits and pieces of the...sith revenge or whatever, because, yeah...I seriously hated the other two THAT much, to where I couldn't stomach any more of it.
The OT is first hand holy gospel.
Ergo, TFA mirroring ANH was fucking PERFECT for me. And if they'd just done the same thing with the next two, I'd have been very, very happy.
Would I like a slightly altered mirror image of my favorite memories from 1985 or whatever, decades later?
FUCK YES.
Say less.
8 would have been great on its OWN, just as a film, but I DO blame Rian for subverting expectations a bit TOO much. I mean, me and @
thelastdisciple spent at LEAST a couple hundred hours speculating on the identity of Snoke, and Ray's lineage, (if you look at the original plans, she was going to be a Kenobi), and what Luke meant by tossing the light saber. (Grey Jedi?!)
Annnnnnnnd, Rian came in, and Rey was nobody, Snoke wasn't important, Luke had a blue milk mustache, Luke was acting 100% out of character, trying to murder...his nephew, (right?) in his sleep and Leia can fly through space and, well, yeah. Fuck.
Yeah. I guess I'm one of those people who blames 8 and Rian.
They fucked up. Subverting expectations and having a dark third in a Hero's Journey story is one thing. But Rian pretty much burned the gorgeous thing JJ built to the ground.
After 8, TLD and I were no longer speculating about SHIT. Rather, we were just sort of praying that 9 worked, SOMEHOW.
Edit: spoiler alert- it didn't. They called JJ and he did his best.
But at least it was far, far better than "I don't like sand" and fucking mitochondraphils or whatever.
That's just me, though. 1-3 aren't canonical in my mind, and 7, alone, atones for the godawful slap in the face I received from the prequels in my 20s.