I decided to watch all the star wars films after seeing the new ones, started with the prequels. I liked them all as a kid but although I'm pretty fond of star wars I haven't watched them much since.
The prequels were indeed bad, PM was just very boring (no convincing character development, not actually much action and the drama was pretty undramatic since you already know who Darth Sidious is) AotC was a bit better (more pew pew and whatnot) and Revenge of the Sith was better still (even more pewpew.) Palpatine's manipulation and real agenda were frankly far too obvious, it makes no sense that the Jedi didn't see there was an enemy within the senate (unless they are meant to be distancing themselves from politics but they really don't seem to be.) Also why wouldn't the portugalwits of the trade federation make sure they have recordings of their dealings with him in case he did what he was obviously going to do? I also really don't understand why Anakin's mother was left on Tatooine, even if Qui Gon didn't want to free her by force (and why not?) couldn't they have sent someone to buy her freedom and bring her to Coruscant? The jedi seem like a bunch of dicks to be honest, I can't see how they think they were upholding peace and justice throughout much of the prequels.
To be honest the original films didn't seem that great when I got around to them either though, perhaps because I've seen them before and already know the plot, but there was a whole lot of stupid in them. portugaling ewoks destroying the legions of the empire was unforgivably bollocks.