as bad as the prequels were
they were fun to watch
I've rewatched them all quite a few times
there's good action, just enough of a coherent plot to let you go along for the ride
and the stupid stuff is mostly concentrated in the dialogue
they have a lot of warts for sure, by no means are they good films, but they are fun to watch - even if the plot that delivers that the race/battle/duel is a bit dumb and drags a bit, lucas really understood compelling action sequences
even if you don't like the films as a whole, each has lengthy sections which are quite enjoyable to watch even as a standalone youtube clip
i can't say that for any of the sequels whatsoever - even the parts which should be cool end up being stupid - they couldn't just have action for action's sake, there needed to be an underlying message behind it
i actually can't really think of any standout scenes, IIRC it wasn't even so much dedicated action sequences either but they were often cut scenes, there's some people inside trying to figure out their next moves, and then we'll cut to scenes of the battle happening outside - the battle isn't a battle there but instead a tool to drive urgency over a plot point we never cared about without or without that urgency
like exegol, they have this massive armada that's impossibly large (nevermind the economics of building and manning all those ships, entirely in secret, in the remote and fringe part of the galaxy...) and then we don't get the big battle but rather just a few cut scenes or snippets of it
like when they ran to that planet that had an old rebel base on it - everything about the battle was just stupid, they are in a fortified bunker and decide that they need more time to stall the impending troops so send out speeders in a sort - that seems reasonable, but... for some wild reason someone had this ridiculous image in their mind of a ski speeder (that's what they are literally called)
sure it's an interesting image, but then having a speeder ski doesn't make any sense if speeder technology doesn't require skis to begin with as they hover above the ground, perhaps if it were an ice planet and some vehicles got around on uniskis because they could save money without needing to build in hover engines as well... that could make sense
but they don't go that route, they clearly show how these speeders already hover as is, they then show there being turbulence and that lowering the ski would resolve that - which is just the stupidest thing in the world, the literal equivalent of a jet fighter dragging an anchor on the ground as it flies around
so that's why it's stupid, someone had a visual idea, and then they came up with whatever idiotic pathway required to justify it - the disney exec pats herself on the back, look at us everyone, we made ski speeders and ignore that nobody asked for ski speeders and the way they built them made it just a terrible thing to watch
and then don't forget that the entire reason why those ski speeders are out there are to slow down the incoming forces, they are out there purely to sacrifice themselves to give the people in the bunker more time to die
and then that stupid annoying girl is like omg the guy i like is going to get hurt so she crashes into him to prevent him from doing what they went out there to do in the first place - so they may as well have not even gone out there in the first place - but they wanted to have a scene about the annoying girl talking about love means more than anything so they do it, nevermind that the entire premise they built up for it was just stupid
then you get the luke skywalker thing where he dies simply because he projected himself as a hologram, again, for what, to give the others what, 3 minutes? again some exec saying "wouldn't it be cool if luke showed up, but then we reveal it was a trick, and best part is we can solve the problem we have of not having the first clue about what to do with his character and have him die when he does this"
and then on top of all that, ok they found a way out of the bunker, but that was just stupid, they chose to go in the bunker earlier, they could have easily left the bunker without using the secret path out - and taking the back door out of the bunker still left them with the same problem as before, they were on a planet surrounded by an enemy fleet...
just so dumb on so many levels
like that bombing run wasn't a scene to show cool action - but instead was done to give the worst and most annoying character in the history of star wars (that's not easy to do either) a dead sister and lame boring leader something to complain about - oh no we lost lives in the war
all the rey and kylo stuff was more about their personal relationship than their actual battles, can you imagine if when obiwan fought darth maul, they had them pacing around exchanging dialogue where obi wan talked about his feelings over seeing his master die?
battle vs praetorian guards was fine - basically the one action sequence that was decent