So much of my education as a writer can be boiled down to “Look how good Star Wars IV-VI are. Look how bad I-III are.”

Christopher Hastings, creator of one of my favorite webcomics, The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, tweeted the above the other day. I thought it was a pretty great quote, because I’m a huge fan of the original trilogy and I like to pretend that the prequels simply don’t exist. Then I started thinking about it-thinking about what it was, exactly, that made IV-VI so timelessly good and I-III so, well, bad.

The universe George Lucas created for Star Wars, 1977, was in many ways a familiar one. There was nothing particularly original about the story or even the setting. The themes were as old as Homer-the hero with a thousand faces, the damsel in distress; Lucas had merely transplanted them into a universe that was a mash-up of high fantasy, science fiction, and western (with nods to Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will thrown in for good measure).

The Star Wars universe wasn’t very original, then, and the myriad books and videogames that started appearing in the 90s didn’t really do much to elaborate upon it. The universe of Star Wars ’77 was the universe fans knew and loved-why change anything?

Then came 1999, and the release of The Phantom Menace, and the beginning of the debacle that is the Star Wars prequel trilogy.

The prequel trilogy is flawed in a great many ways. Its overreliance on CGI creates something of a disconnect-the gleaming futuristic worlds of the prequel are at odds with the gritty, grimy, run-down worlds of the originals. It focuses too much on characters (who shall remain nameless) who don’t serve the narrative in any other capacity than comic relief. There are gaping continuity errors. (Take the younger Yoda, for instance. In Return of the Jedi we learn that Yoda is 900 years old. Only about 30 years have passed from the time of the prequels until the time of Jedi, yet apparently Yoda has aged more significantly in those 30 years than in the previous 870. It may be argued that living in a swamp will do that to you, but still, it seems like a stretch.) The acting-from otherwise gifted actors who’ve gone on to win BAFTAs, Golden Globes, and Oscars-seems sub-par.

The one area of the prequels I don’t think is a weakness is storyline.

The storyline is fantastic. Whereas the storyline of the originals isn’t anything particularly new, the storyline of the prequels is unique and complex. The mysteries and political intrigues are actually quite well-crafted, especially considering we already know how the story ends. In many ways, it’s a deeper, more mature storyline than that of the original trilogy.

So, from a writer’s perspective, how are episodes I-III so much worse than episodes IV-VI?

I think a major issue is that the prequels don’t pack nearly the emotional punch of the originals. Some of that is due to the technical problems listed above. But, mainly, I think the blame can be ascribed to the characters. Star Wars ’77 drew from a deep and diverse well of cultural and historical influences, but at its heart it was a familiar coming-of-age story. What makes it stand out is the characters. The three main protagonists are immensely likable and relatable. Anakin, on the other hand, isn’t likable or relatable at all. He’s bratty in The Phantom Menace, whiny in Attack of the Clones. By Revenge of the Sith we’re just waiting for him to go ahead and be full-fledged evil already. Padmé, meanwhile, doesn’t have any of Leia’s endearing snarkiness. She’s cardboard. She’s the intelligent one, supposedly, so why she’s drawn to Anakin is beyond me. She falls for Anakin because that’s what the story requires, no organic reasoning about it.

Characters are what transformed the original trilogy from a familiar retelling of an age-old story into a memorable, culture-defining phenomenon. Characters are what took the prequel trilogy from a complex, quasi-Shakespearian tragedy to a wincingly bad melodrama.