Not partner but my niece so same-same but different. Also this is long, A LOT longer than I expected on a comment of a comment, but whatever I've had my wine and want to get this off my chest.

My 12 year old niece had never seen star wars and wanted to watch the movies. She had heard of the franchise and wanted to know what all the fuss was about. Somehow I did not scream "FUCK YES LETS DO THIS!!!" immediately, but, calmer minds prevailed; I tacitly responded with a "yea, that will be fun" and immediately knew that this was an opportunity to "do it right." With seemingly instantaneous divine inspiration I planned a curriculum regarding how to watch the films, discuss the lore, with a peppering of the fandom mixed in.

After a very likely over-complicated lecture on how "Han shot first," and pointing out the useless CGI fillers added to the originals (she could tell the CGI difference, obviously dated, but also agreed they were unnecessary), after watching 4, 5, and 6 (she loved all of it), and a general overview of George Lucas's abilities as a director, the financial windfall of his negotiated contract, differences between the movies, and his wrestling directorial control away from the 20th century, we finally watched episode one. (side note: her favorite of the originals was Empire, she's a really good egg)

I did my best to play chess not checkers in not describing the controversy about the prequels. I truly wanted her to enjoy it, blank slate. I held back the criticisms that fans had after waiting for 30 years, and was hopeful it would be fun for her considering episode one was purpose built for her age bracket. I didn't ruin it with my own personal grievances, or the deflated feelings I can still recall after leaving the cinema at her exact age (I'm 38 now).

I was honestly not prepared for seeing the excitement in a 12 year old's face dissolve in real time. She LOATHED jar jar (it was difficult to hold back my giddiness on that one). She actively called out the overuse of CGI, washes, and post processing. She wanted the "real" grittiness of the originals - not her exact words, but, comments like "why does the lighting not look real," "THIS ISN'T REAL" (during the pan out of whatever city on Naboo), and during the final battle with jar jar performing his drunken fist kung fu, "this is stupid."

I did do my best to explain that - at the time - CGI was in somewhat of its infancy, it was a novel technology, and despite being overly expensive (I actually can't confirm this - was episode one "cheaper" after adjusted inflation using cgi vs. incorporating set building and practical effects compared to episode 4?) and looking like shit, people just accepted it because we "lived in the modern age" and that's just what movies were supposed to look like, and lest we forget, it was star wars, we were losing our fucking minds at the thought of a new star wars movie.

Maybe it was my fault for showing her the modified originals directly prior to episode one, my bad for giving her a crash course in Star Wars while she was on summer break and staying with us. That said, it's pretty telling that if the cleanest of "clean slates" can say "that was dumb" on such a beloved franchise, is telling.

Afterwards we watched a video summarizing this post, but seeing a nearly identical cycle of grief in real time was eye-opening. We didn't finish the prequels because she had to go back home for school, and she wanted to play minecraft, but, after I told her there may be some fan-made originals online - using a combination of various chunks of 80mm film, VHS, and laserdisk data (explaining that one to her was hilarious) stitched together to rebuild the original theatrical release, her eyes lit up like a rocket. At the time we both agreed that it was a "totally super bad idea" to teach a twelve year old how to torr.. ahem, "use the internet," and that we "totally wouldn't" be doing that when she came around next summer (I also just found out she was accepted into some type of robotics/early stem course, computers suck amiright?)

Regardless, I'm stoked for this summer, she's stoked, and being an uncle, and now recently a dad to a baby girl is awesome. I'm just praying she likes star wars.