As a Star Wars fan, I felt it only appropriate that I add my own blog to express my thoughts and ideas to other fans who might find some value in them. The topic I'd like to look at is the importance of the six SW movies as we know them. Now when GL started writing Star Wars back before the movie was released in '77, he had a very large concept of what story he wanted to tell; however I feel that he did not fully realize at first the immense depth of the subject he was about to write a movie about. When GL finished the script to the original SW he realized he had in essence created three separate movies, each more complex than the first. When GL took those scripts to the studio the only thing permanent he asked for were the rights to produce the other two movies regardless of the success of the first. I believe one of SW greatest feats is that GL happened to come across a story everyone could relate to or revel in and gave it a face. It was the older fans and those 80's kids (such as myself) who grew up with it that took it to the next level. It's why today we have a whole EU section of SW and why GL has had to re-adjust his movies to this expanded universe.
Now what interests me about this is that as the EU has expanded and GL started making SW movies again and Lucas Arts started kicking out RP video games which expanded the story, more ideas and information started to churn out. And as the SW universe started to expand the fans began to ask more and more questions. What made Anakin turn to the dark side? How did the Jedi and Sith teachings start out? What's the history of Boba Fett and the Mandalorians? And with questions like this other authors and fans came up with their own answers. Many of which were from the SW RP game where you made up the story as you went along. Now all of this was happening in advance of the release (much less the production) of Episode 1. The original story was there, GL had planned on the clone wars, the seduction of Anakin to the dark side and the rise of the Empire, however as he got closer to making Episode 1 I am certain it dawned on him that the prequel movies needed to reflect a history and tie in (in some way) the EU that his fans had created over the years.
What makes me believe this is how GL has played into his 6 movies being the most important of all the SW timeline. From the beginnings of the Republic to the rise of the New Jedi Order and attack of the Yuuzhan Vong, these 6 movies hold by far the most reputable and impressive events to ever unfold in SW. Were the Mandalorian wars impressive? Yes. Was the Jedi civil war something to re-shape the Jedi? Yes. Was the Yuuzhan Vong attack a brutal awakening of the galaxy? Yes. However, none of these has the climatic ascent of evil into the very framework of the galaxy which literally destroyed the Jedi Order, crumbled the foundation of the Republic and allowed the Sith to rule uncontested for over 20 years. A story where a hero (the chosen one) falls into himself and becomes the evil he fought to destroy and who chooses to betray all those people and tenants he ever believed in. A story where that hero's son comes to train in the very arts his father trained in, and fights to bring his father back into the light. The son risking his very life to save his father from the evil that had consumed him, and the father saving his son and redeeming himself as the chosen one to bring the Force back into balance, allowing his son to redeem the Jedi Order and restore peace to the galaxy. No where else in all SW will you find a story so dramatic and so changing as to merit 6 separate movies.
Now, granted...GL already had the ideas for the prequel movies in place but I firmly believe he used the EU to show that his "Darth Vader" story was the real message of SW, and I feel he did an awesome job of melding the prequels into the Trilogy to show that although they are two different time frames, they both make huge impacts on each other. But...In the end they are just stories of simple farmboys from Tattoine, who get mixed up in the jumble of the and change it in incredible ways never seen before. Add your comments, may the Force be with you.