How do you think the Star Wars story and narrative would have developed if George Lucas had filmed Star Wars chronologically, instead of the OT and then going back to the PT? How do you think this would have changed the series?

redrikki:

I don’t know as Lucas could have made it in chronological order, just from a marketing perspective. The PT is a tragedy. It’s just three increasingly dark stories about otherwise good people failing to live up to their own expectations. I think the first movie could have done well, and possibly the second one too. But after the third one, fans would have straight up rioted. They would have been so turned off by the ending, that they would not have tuned in for the sequel. As it currently stands, the PT is palatable because we know Luke and Leia redeem the failures of their parents. We know that Leia succeeds in restoring the Republic where Padmé failed. We know that Luke becomes the Jedi that Anakin should have been and brings Anakin back to the light in the process. If fans had to wait 20 years for that kind of positive closure? Yeah, no.

Then there’s politics and Lucas’ life experience to consider. The OT is a young man’s trilogy. It’s hopeful. It’s an indictment of the military-industrial complex and toxic masculinity that got us into Vietnam. It’s an ode to collective action’s ability to effect great change. It is the song of the 70s, post-Civil Rights, and post-Vietnam.

The PT is ultimately much more cynical. It’s the product of an older man who watched his once-promising generation turn to the right in the name of fear. It’s a warning about how fall we could fall in a post-9/11, Patriot Act era. A young Lucas could never have written it. 

I honestly have no idea how it would have turned out if Lucas had written it in chronological order and actually succeeded in getting both trilogies made. I’m betting that Episodes 1-3 wouldn’t have been a tragedy, but beyond that? IDK