how come george lucas make star wars IV -VI trilogy ahead than I-III?

I'm always amazed, not in a good way either, at the answers people give when they try to answer this question. The only answer you've got so far that is even remotely close to the real truth is from Robert H and even that is not very close. I wish I could find this book "The Secret History of Star Wars" to see if they even asked Lucas for his explanation because I've never heard him say many of the things that seemed to get quoted from it. Anyways ...

When Lucas first came up with the idea for "Star Wars" he envisioned it as a 12 part story that would be told in a similar fashion as the old Flash Gordon series. It didn't take him long to realize it wouldn't work that way so it got cut down to a 9 part 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 The Empire Strikes Back. One of the other answers says that Lucas wrote 9 books and that we should be quiet or he will make the last 3 movies. First off, Lucas has never written a book in his life ... he wrote scripts ... yes he had the story in his head but he didn't put any of it in books. Second, the "haters" need not worry about 7 - 9 being made because the don't exist anymore. The were all basically condensed into what became ep 6, Return Of The Jedi. Up until the point were Lucas was almost done writing the script for ROTJ Leia was NOT the other Skywalker. When Lucas was writing the duel between Luke and Vader he was stumped on something that would make Luke attack his father in a dark side fueled rage. He solved this problem by making Leia Luke's twin sister and having Vader threaten her. That one change eliminated the "other Skywalker" trilogy so rest easy ... there will NOT be anymore Star Wars movies.

Back to why he did 4 - 6 first. Someone else said it was because the technology was not there to make it right. That's almost true except for the fact that the technology wasn't there to make 4 - 6 either. People have said that Lucas is a genius ... I don't know if I'd go that far but what really is the true genius of Lucas is that he surrounded himself with the very best people in Sci-fi movie making ... for the most part everything that we saw in ep 4 were things that they made up as they went along. Basically a "how are we going to do this", "I don't know, figure it out" kind of thing. Lucas had the vision but it was the people he surrounded himself with who made it work. When Lucas was first shopping the story of Star Wars around Hollywood he was laughed out of town. Nobody thought it would work including, to a certain extent, Lucas himself. Then came American Graffiti. The success of that movie gave Lucas credibility in Hollywood and FOX finally said ok ... we don't believe that it will work but here's some money ... prove us wrong. If you watch the documentary "Empire of Dreams" you will find that Star Wars came within a few "missed" phone calls of never being made. Lucas had a friend on the FOX board of directors and when FOX decided to pull the plug on Star Wars this friend called Lucas and told him not to answer his phone. Up until that point production of the movie was in chaos ... nothing was working right and it was a mess. In what can only be a stroke of luck (or proof that the Force does exist in some form) things started to go right with the filming of the movie. Lucas let the phone ring and instead showed up at a FOX board meeting with some of the footage that he had "in the can" for the movie. To say that what he had to show them blew them away is probably and understatement. They still didn't think it would work but they were willing, given what they had seen, to keep the project going. Even when the movie was finished the doubters, even Lucas himself to a certain extent, didn't think the movie would be a hit. If you really watch ep 4 you see that it could have been a stand-alone movie. By that I mean that if it was a flop then we would never need to know that there were 8 more parts. Of all the Star Wars movies ep 4 is the only one that can be said of. Good had defeated Evil ... end of story. Lucas, being a very good "business man" had made some "strange" deals with FOX before the release. He had the rights to all future episodes, probably because most thought there wouldn't be any, and all the rights to marketing all the toys and other stuff that came about because of the movie. I have to image the people at FOX had a hard time hiding the fact that they were laughing at Lucas for wanting the rights to all of this stuff. Kind of like ... Fine, you can have all that stuff ... it won't make a difference because there isn't going to be any of that stuff to make money from. I guess in the end it is proof that he who laughs last laughs best because Lucas ended up laughing all the way to the bank. As I said before, nobody, including Lucas thought they had such a monster hit on their hands. When Star Wars hit the movie houses people were blown away by it. I was all of 8 years old when I saw it for the first time and I remember sitting there absolutely spell bound by what I was seeing. It was and still is one of my best childhood memories. With the runaway success of ep 4 Lucas and FOX realized just what a monster hit they had and that the fans would want more. As somebody else said ... the rest is history.

So in short, Lucas made ep 4 first because it was the only one that could stand by itself and because it was the only one he could really make given the level of special effects that were available at the time ... even then he had to come up with just about all of it on his own. He had to make ep 5 & ep 6 because that's what the fans wanted. After the "afterglow" of Return of The Jedi started to fade fans then started asking questions like how did Anakin end up as Vader ... who was Luke & Leia's mother ... a whole bunch of other things too. Those questions started to fade because of the books and other stories that were written because for the most part they sucked. Marvel comics did a whole bunch of sets about Star Wars and the were the biggest "buzz kill" of all time to Star Wars fans. By the late 80s early 90s if you were to ask someone what they thought of Star Wars they would have said that it was the worst idea that Reagan ever had. Star Wars was on life support in a coma and was dying a slow death. In 1991 Lucas commissioned Timothy Zahn, in a last ditch effort to see if the fan base was still there, to write a 3 book set that would continue the story forward after the events of ep 6. I still remember my reaction when I first saw "Heir To The Empire" on the shelve at a local bookstore. It filled me with disgust thinking someone else was trying to further ruin the story. I didn't even pick the book up I just stormed out of the book store mumbling under my breath. After about two weeks I gave in and got it. I was prepared to be disappointed with it but to my surprise the book was awesome. I got the second book of the series and was further impressed ... so much so that when the third book came out I read it cover to cover in one sitting because it was so good that I couldn't put it down. The fan reaction to these books told Lucas that the fan base was still that and if it was a good story we, as fans, would be all over it. So, as the books continued to wow fans Lucas put out the "Special Editions" of the OT, ep 4 - 6. It was almost surreal but fans once again lined up for days to see the movies again. That finally told Lucas that if he were to make more movies the fans, IF they were good, would eat them up. Even as a die-hard Star Wars fan I have to say that I was a little disappointed in ep 1 & 2 but ep 3 made up for that big time.

Now Lucas is hard at work on a TV series that will bridge the gap between ep 3 and 4 showing us the formation of the Rebel Alliance and their early battles against the Empire and they are also working on more animated series that will delve deeper into the battles of the Clone Wars. Lucas knows that if he gives us at least a "decent" story we will watch it ... I hope he has learned his "lesson" well.

Anyways, I hope this helps ... as always ...

May The Force Be With You ...

Us "old folks" who saw the IV - VI when they first came out like to think of the I - III as a bonus. I still have a hard time thinking of the new ones as the beginning, I had 22 years between the "last three" and the "first three".

first of all the original Anakin was based on the man under the mask. without all the scars. This is the guy you see at the end of ROTJ when Luke sees the 3. next. The reason he made 4-6 first was that he had much bigger plans for 1-3 but the technology he wanted to make 1-3 wasnt there at the time to make what he had planned. In 1983 he wrote scripts for 1-3 and they had a lot of differences: the battle between Obi-wan and Anakin happens at the beggining of the movie over a powerful crystal, instead of at the end . just to name one So to answer your question, it was technology for the type of movie that made 4-6 come first.

I remember the first time I saw Star Wars - A New Hope. I also remember the first time I saw it AFTER having seen Eps I-III. I don't know how much of it is my imagination and how much is the competence of the actors, writers and directors, but A New Hope has so much more nuanced meaning when I watch it now.

George Lucas had written A New Hope with two sequels in mind. He also had a vague backstory in his head, but wanted to go right into the action, and then focus on the prologues if episode IV was successful.

The rest, as they say, is history.

I think they way he did it was cool because if you watch IV-VI first the story makes sense, but if you watch it from I-III then IV-VI it won't make much sense, at least that's how it was for me. I like it alot better as watching 4-6 first and then watching 1-3, i think they should remake 4-6 using better effects thought and lets hope they don't mess it up, 4-6 are alot better than the 1-3 ones.

He wrote Star wars in 9 books actually. Dont say anything or he will probably want to film the last three two. I've read them, han and leia's kids restore the jedi order. when he pitched it to Hollywood, they only thought the fourth book was worth making a movie out of. he also wrote all the Indiana Jones books too!

they only wanted him to make the first. cause sci-fi was a bit of a gamble at the time. then when that did well, he did the sequels. and then decided to go back and do the origin story.

Cause he had the whole story in his head all along but technology wasn't what it had to be to do I-III.