Why did they release the Star Wars movies in the order; 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3?

In the early 70s Lucas began working on a massive "Space Opera" called "The Star Wars". What he ended up with was a 12 part ... yes, 12 part story that was to be told in the manner of the old Flash Gordon series of the late 50's & 60's. He saw the changes happening in the industry and realized that it wouldn't work that way so he then cut it down to a 9 part 3 trilogy story. The first trilogy was to be about the rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker; the second trilogy was to be about the rise of Luke Skywalker and the redemption of Anakin Skywalker; the third trilogy was to be about the "other Skywalker" that Yoda mentions in ep V and again in ep VI. Lucas started showing the story to all the big movie production companies of the day and was told by all of them that the paper the story was written on wouldn't even make good toilet paper. Disappointed but not discouraged Lucas continued to work on the script and with the success of American Graffiti he gained a little clout in Hollywood so he started around with his Star Wars story again. Most still thought it wasn't worth making but FOX decided to roll the dice, still thinking it would be a flop, and gave Lucas the start up money that he needed to get to work on Star Wars.

As for did he have them all written and just start in the middle ... yes and no. Yes, he did have a general outline and what would happen in each trilogy set down but nothing was written in stone. No because that general outline that he had was NOT what we ended up seeing on the big screen. You can trace it right back to the event that changed the story and sent it in a different direction ... Lucas changed things so that Anakin and Vader were the same person ... yep, in the first outlines of the story they were two different people. The other thing that can be seen as changing the way the story went was when Lucas decided to make Leia the "other Skywalker". The duel between Luke and Vader in ep VI was the main reason why this change was made. Lucas was stumped on how to get Luke to attack his father in a dark side fueled rage, he did this by making Leia the "other Skywalker" and having Vader threaten her. This change had 3 major effects on the saga, first, everybody went EEWWWWW ... he kissed his sister ... on the lips ... lol ... second, it eliminated the third trilogy ... third it brought Harrison Ford back on board for the last movie. Ford thought that ending up frozen in a block of carbonite was the perfect way for Solo to die but when Lucas told him about the change and that the character would live on Ford changed his mind and came back for ep VI.

When Lucas decided to make the prequels he had a couple very huge things standing in his way. First, how was he ever going to make 3 more movies as good or better than the OT ... it couldn't be done. Second, much of the back story that he had laid out years ago was now junk because of the events of the OT so he had to go back in and write new scripts for them.

Source
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081007152125AAu750N
 
Super short summary:

He only wrote episode 4, 5, 6 at first (all at once). But he realized there was limitations that would prevent him from telling the full story so he split the story into 3 segments. Lucas liked the idea of a prequel story in the 80's but decided to not go ahead with it. In the 90's he outlined and worked on what would be episodes 1, 2, 3 (this was during the "remastered" time of episodes 4, 5, 6).Cited from the Star Wars Documentary. Also, Obi Wan Kenobi had a chance to be the main character of episodes 1, 2, 3 at one time.

Fun note: George Lucas also decided to leave the writers guild and directors guild due to him being fined for putting credits at the end of the movie (this had not been done before when the episode 4 came out). Because of this, his good friend Steven Spielberg was never allowed to work on his movies.
 
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The bigger question is had he made 1-3 back in the 70-80's before he lost his mojo, would we now be complaining about how bad the 4-6 movies were.
 
They would of had to use a child actor from back in the 70's? You mean they may of actually had a half decent young Anakin???
1f672809ec9abd07dc6b3fec45f5d641.jpg
 
ChocolateVillain said:
In the early 70s Lucas began working on a massive "Space Opera" called "The Star Wars". What he ended up with was a 12 part ... yes, 12 part story that was to be told in the manner of the old Flash Gordon series of the late 50's & 60's. He saw the changes happening in the industry and realized that it wouldn't work that way so he then cut it down to a 9 part 3 trilogy story. The first trilogy was to be about the rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker; the second trilogy was to be about the rise of Luke Skywalker and the redemption of Anakin Skywalker; the third trilogy was to be about the "other Skywalker" that Yoda mentions in ep V and again in ep VI. Lucas started showing the story to all the big movie production companies of the day and was told by all of them that the paper the story was written on wouldn't even make good toilet paper. Disappointed but not discouraged Lucas continued to work on the script and with the success of American Graffiti he gained a little clout in Hollywood so he started around with his Star Wars story again. Most still thought it wasn't worth making but FOX decided to roll the dice, still thinking it would be a flop, and gave Lucas the start up money that he needed to get to work on Star Wars.

As for did he have them all written and just start in the middle ... yes and no. Yes, he did have a general outline and what would happen in each trilogy set down but nothing was written in stone. No because that general outline that he had was NOT what we ended up seeing on the big screen. You can trace it right back to the event that changed the story and sent it in a different direction ... Lucas changed things so that Anakin and Vader were the same person ... yep, in the first outlines of the story they were two different people. The other thing that can be seen as changing the way the story went was when Lucas decided to make Leia the "other Skywalker". The duel between Luke and Vader in ep VI was the main reason why this change was made. Lucas was stumped on how to get Luke to attack his father in a dark side fueled rage, he did this by making Leia the "other Skywalker" and having Vader threaten her. This change had 3 major effects on the saga, first, everybody went EEWWWWW ... he kissed his sister ... on the lips ... lol ... second, it eliminated the third trilogy ... third it brought Harrison Ford back on board for the last movie. Ford thought that ending up frozen in a block of carbonite was the perfect way for Solo to die but when Lucas told him about the change and that the character would live on Ford changed his mind and came back for ep VI.

When Lucas decided to make the prequels he had a couple very huge things standing in his way. First, how was he ever going to make 3 more movies as good or better than the OT ... it couldn't be done. Second, much of the back story that he had laid out years ago was now junk because of the events of the OT so he had to go back in and write new scripts for them.

Source
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081007152125AAu750N
Click to expand...

This.

My wife hasn't seen the movies in either A)a long time or B)hasn't seen them at all (all the prequels) so we've been talking a lot about going back and watching all 6 to get ready for EpVII. But we've been wondering in what order to watch, release or sequential - or are the prequels even important?

EpIV, V, and VI are the meat of the Star Wars story. The prequels simply setup/expand (or, in some cases, totally break the story.....I'm looking at you, midichlorians) the story of those three, and VII, VIII, IX will play off of what happened in the original 3. I'm really starting to think I'm going to start my wife on IV and just explain the prequels.

Although subjecting her to Jar Jar Binks might be fun.....
 
xFiveSevenx said:
They would of had to use a child actor from back in the 70's? You mean they may of actually had a half decent young Anakin???
1f672809ec9abd07dc6b3fec45f5d641.jpg
Click to expand...


Just saying that the Empire missed a lot of Jedi during the purge.
Here are some Jedi from legends (formerly canon material. rest in peace) and canon that survived the purge

Bardan Jusik
Callista Masana
Ferus Olin (though he kind of died when the Empire eradicated Alderran)
Ikrit
Djinn Altis
Scout
Kina Ha
and few more
 
In regards to the "purge" or "order 66", there was an estimated 10,000 Jedi before the purge. After the purge there was an estimated 100 Jedi left. Over the course of the next 20 years (between revenge of the sith and a new hope), that number would dwindle down to a hand full.
 
I'm thinking of watching all the star wars movies again, in which order should I watch them?

Shall I watch them in this order: Episodes IV, V, VI, then I, II, III?

Or in this order doing I -> II -> III -> IV -> V -> VI.

Wanting to refresh star wars memory before the new star wars movie comes out :P
 
I tend to switch it up when I watch the whole series. Sometimes 123456 and sometimes 456123.
 
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