Nothing Bob has really said is new, but to be honest I think even he kind of undermines his overall point by saying that Phantom Menace is an average or below average movie, when by rights it should have been at least an above average one.
Your correct that Star Wars can't recapture long-lost innocence in the generation that worshipped the originals, but at the same time this was a dark, edgy prequel that was supposed to ultimatly be telling the story of the tradgedy that put all of the moments of the original series in motion. It could have grown up with it's audience in telling this kind of story.
I also notice that important points are being overlooked, it's not about failing to live up to expectations, but actively taking a dump on them. Basically all of the cutesy and kiddified elements. People complained about the Ewoks as not fitting with a serious, if campy, space opera, despite excuses made about needing to cut down Wookie costumes (which according to many sources is actually BS damage control). George not only ran with those elements which the fans made clear they did not want despite his disasters with "Star Wars Cuteness" in the form of things like "The Ewok Adventure", but actually wound up infecting the original movies with them in his remakes where he added cutesy CGI droids, muppets, and other things. Despite all of the "compromises" he might have made in the later movies, these elements were STILL present.
Honestly, I notice a lot of people saying nice things about George and Star Wars recently. I'm sure ToR has something to do with it, but he also made that speech about not doing any more because the fanboys would not be happy... you know, instead of acknowledging the stuff that pretty much everyone almost universally detests and deciding that he's going to go back to treating this stuff fairly seriously, so it came out closer to his original works whether that was his intention or not.
See, when George kiddifies the movies, when in part they appealed to kids and adults both because they weren't totally clean, that's what kills them. A bit of cuteness here and there is fine, but when it's non-stop, we have actual little kid "heroes" like a disney movie, and a flawed, badass hero like Han Solo has to be turned into a white knight (which undermines the whole character and point of the Greedo scene where he shot)... that is what slots people off. The movies might technically be fine, the FX might have been good in the day, but you have to look at the whole and people are slotted off by more than just fanboy rage.
I doubt your saying this now either because of George's comments or ToR, but honestly I think Phantom Menace deserves the scorn it gets when viewed in an overall context, there is more behind it than just the movies themselves, or the fanboy backlash, there is such universal hate because of where the movie failed and certain central desicians that should never have been made.
As odd as it sounds I'd like to see more Star Wars, but honestly I'm not sure if George should be the one to actually make them. Of course the problem is he's the original creator and finding a successor who can be seen as the new official voice of a series like this is rough, since nobody (not even Timothy Zahn) has succeeded, in part because of Lucas's voice always being there, and really he's not the man he used to be 25 years ago he might have been able to make another good Star Wars movie, but not the guy he is today who seems more interested in selling cute toys to kids (which is a big part of the hate, since the motivation for the cuteness is obvious) than turning out a worthy work of space fantasy.
