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I can't imagine a more disappointing Star Wars experience than seeing The Phantom Menace in a theater in Harrisonburg, VA back in '99, a few months before I moved to KC. It was on par with seeing George Clooney's Batman & Robin while I was working at Interlochen over the summer of '97.
Batman & Robin was a worse movie, but I don't think anything will ever equal the sheer level of disappointment I felt by the end of TPM. So much hype and anticipation, with such great characters in Qui-Gon and Maul, neither of whom survived to the sequel. Pair that with turning Darth Vader into squeaky, whiny Jake Lloyd, introducing midichlorians and giving us hours of dull ass politics portrayed by some of the worst acting ever, and it completely killed any interest I had in any more new Star Wars movies for years.
Nothing in or about either The Force Awakens or The Last Jedi can hold a candle to that level of IP destruction for me. And Attack of the Clones...I know I saw it, probably out of misplaced duty as a life-long SW fan, but I was pretty dead inside after TPM, doubtless had zero positive expectations, and remember absolutely nothing about either the movie or my experience watching it.
Revenge of the Sith I remember slightly more fondly, but really only for a couple fight scenes and some great scoring. But it wasn't nearly enough to redeem the first two prequels.
The only real positive about the prequels is that they gave us the animated Clone Wars, which was far and away the best canonical non-OT part of Star Wars until Rogue One.
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