I like not seeing the lead up. It's refreshing. Del Toro made a good point how that was inspired by Star Wars. The prequels start off at the beginning and are boring for it, where's the originals start off in the middle of the story and end up being more interesting.
In my opinion.
To me, it just seemed like it contained too much and was told too fast. It would've been great to see more of it.
Star Wars narrative was meant to mimic the old movie serials, that why it was there.
Wish he would've left those alone and not expanded on them.