Personally Revenge of the Sith is my favourite of all the films (unpopular opinion) but the prequel films as a whole are just...awful. They're uninspired and it genuinely feels like Lucas just wanted to destroy his own franchise for fun.
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Okay, George Lucas describes the original trilogy as 'the toughest, most awful shoot of his life' He was constantly on his feet, everything was breaking, he didn't have the biggest budget but he MADE. IT. WORK. Because he was a hardworking director who made good of his resources and made something revolutionary for his time.
This is how George Lucas made the prequels.
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Sitting comfortably in his directors chair at all times in a blue screen studio. Drinking his coffee. Try and find a sequence in Revenge of the Sith that doesn't use any blue screen. I d a r e you. This of course doesn't result in instant bad movie- it just shows that Lucas had gotten complacent and there is never any energy or dynamic force being put into any shot and y'know, nobodies gonna argue with him because HE'S GEORGE LUCAS.
He ruined most of the original elements of the original trilogy. (Sith shouldn't have lightsabers, The force isn't some spiritual, metaphorical energy- just some midichlorian shit, Jedi were basically as bad as the Sith, Anakin's turn to the dark side wasn't as subtle as you'd imagine etc.) And the whole experience of the films is just. So lacking. If your attitude to filmmaking is "Oh dont worry we can fill that all in later" then your film isn't going to have any substance or spirit.
The fights on the other hand in Revenge of the Sith & Phantom Menace, are FANTASTIC. Great choreography, but a story like Star Wars isn't all just about massive power sword fights- the final Luke/Vader fight had more dramatic meaning to it than any amount of CGI could produce.
