>damaged the brand

George Lucas making three awful prequels did a lot more damage that some middling sequels have done.

Know what the difference is? Social media and the internet have absolutely exploded in use since 2005 so anyone on them is bombarded with nonsense. If the prequels came out in 2016 instead of 1999-2005 they'd be a global joke and Star Wars really would have died as a movie franchise.

Like Marvel, if you put out a lot of content, some will be good, some will be meh and others will be bad. Star Wars is going fine.