You're right in just about everything, I feel. None of my friends who were there in 1977-1983, and even some slighlty younger who saw it on VHS, think much of the prequels.
A big problem of the prequels, as you suggest, is that the story feels like a soap opera.
This is best exemplified by your example of the droids. I can't even begin to imagine how many millions of droids exist in the Galaxy Far, Far Away. But of all the droids in all the systems in all the galaxy...
I remember The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles , although I never watched much of it, and wasn't a fan. But it shares one common feature not only with the Star Wars prequels, but say, with Don Rosa's outstanding The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_and_Times_of_Scrooge_McDuck)
In both cases, Indiana Jones & Uncle Scrooge have been almost everywhere, have known almost everyone, and have taken part in almost every major event in history in their youth, so to speak.
I can accept it in the the Young Indiana Jones, because it was clearly meant as history lessons to children. I was too old for that sort of thing, but I could appreciate that at least. And Rosa's work on Uncle Scrooge is of course simply magnificent. I not only accept it, but love it. This is just a duck, after all!
Not so with the Star Wars prequels. The wish to have as many characters from the first films be as prominent as possible earlier in life is just too much. It feels exactly as what it is: fake.
Take "General Chewbacca." I liked Chewbacca the Smuggler. But I can only pity Chewbacca the Fallen General Turned a Lowlife.
Curiously, TFA does the same, but inversely: where the prequels made people more important in the past (General Chewbacca, Grand Master Yoda, etc.), TFA makes people less important in the future.
So I choose to disregard the latter. Just like I choose to disregard the former. Where in the prequels was the great Anakin, the good friend Ben told us about in the first film? I never saw him. All I saw was the insecure, emotional wreck of a stupid boy.
Much like in TFA, I might add.. What does that say of our times?
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