The rebuttal: As CS Lewis once put it, a children's story that appeals only to children is not a good children's story. I think it is easy to see, from an objective perspective, that Han Solo, Princess Leia, and Luke Skywalker, are a damn sight more charming than the central trio in the prequels. Furthermore, my own children largely eschewed the prequels, despite me showing them all the films when they were young (in the order of release, naturally), but watched the original trilogy again and again. Without any critical comment from me, I might add. They chose accordingly, and that extended also to the Star Wars related merchandise they wanted to play with - ie mostly original trilogy stuff. I really don't think the merchandise question is here or there. An equally great line of merchandise could have been made had Lucas made a better film than The Phantom Menace (see the link in my article for how I would have written the prequel trilogy).