I mostly think that the Star Wars Prequels get slammed because they didn't grow up with their initial fan base. Lucas started making them for kids, and kept doing so, even though video games, comic books, and most of geek culture had allowed itself to be mature, (by which it meant naked chicks, hyper-violence, and bad language.)

I enjoyed watching Phantom Menace. (All the way to the point where they killed Darth Maul. Seriously, you kill off a villain who could have ultimately matched the appeal of Vader and replace him with the villain from the FREAKING CHRISTMAS SPECIAL??? Sorry.) I enjoyed all the prequels. They weren't perfect, but what Star Wars movie has been? If they weren't the great mythology I'd hoped for, well, they were still good in their own right. You can't blame a movie for not being what it wasn't trying to be in the first place.

But that is beside the point. No Star Wars movie, no individual film franchise, could possibly contribute as much to modern movie making as ILM. He didn't just make great movies, he changed the way that movies are made. Forever.

So who the hell cares if he introduced an army of teddy bears? They led to the victories of the proud Space Smurfs from Fern Gully!