Principate
Saint Titanfall
Much like TFA, from around a year after ROTS until... a year after TFA's release, the reception to the prequels was largely negative for many in online discussion. Hell, this year is when folks began the "Are the prequels really bad?" line of articles and whatnot.
Here, look at the Lucasfilm buyout stories.
The Verge
Actual headline for further articles:
Random comments:
The Atlantic
BBC
Ars Technica
No, folks weren't happy with the prequels prior to a certain point. Folks were high on every film when it was released and then turned on them later. Once ROTS was out, folks turned on all three for quite awhile.
Some folks. The general audience wasn't which is why your whole the prequel trilogy soured people on star wars whereas tfa righted the ship does make sense. Like you said this exact same phenomena is happening with tfa.
Also Lucas buyout stories have absolutely nothing to do with this. That time difference is so great that it describes the very turn I was explaining. If you were to make a point you'd have to point at articles when the films were released or a year after and a number of articles to describe such a wide spread turn. Rots released in 2005. With a 7.6 Imdb a 79% rotten score and 68 metacritic.
Those are better scores than a lot of modern blockbusters. Especially the metacritic. To say they were widely derided at the time or shortly afterwards is just plain incorrect.