Question about Star Wars?

Question

Can anyone explain why episodes 4,5 & 6 were released before 1, 2 & 3? This is the only film I know not to start off with 1.

Also when does The Clone Wars take place? Is it between episodes 2 & 3?

I admit I have not seen Episode 1.

Answer 1

Because 4,5 and 6 were the original trilogy but they wanted to make more, so instead of following on the story from where they left off, which would have been hard really, to continue the story without becoming samey and repetitive, instead they decided to tell the story of how the main characters developed into what they became.

Answer 2

George Lucas being the genius that he is did that because he wanted better special effects for the prequel movies.  It only took him 20 years to figure out how to make the annoying CGI character Jar Jar Binks and how to make the giant slug Jabba the Hut "walk".

Answer 3

I remember hearing George Lucas say that the storyline formula for Episodes 4-6 was the classic model of a romantic, swashbuckling story, and would work best as a movie series. I don't know that he ever originally intended on making the first three episodes into movies, but after the massive success of the franchise, it would have been foolish not to. I haven't seen The Clone Wars, so I don't Know when it takes place.

Answer 4

Do you need an explanation? I don't know, its just a cool gimmick. A strange idea. I don't think there is a REASON per se other than in the 1970s, episodes 1, 2 and 3 weren't written yet.

Yes, Clone Wars takes place between episodes 2 and 3. At least thats what I've heard.

Don't overthink things.

Answer 5

Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope was released in the year 1977

Now, George Lucas originally wrote the script for Star Wars as one film....

"I wrote it as one movie, about 800 or so pages but then I realized that I couldn't do the whole movie because it would be too long, so I took the middle act which I thought was the best part and made that into the movie" -  George Lucas in Starlog magazine in 1980

"But I had all this great stuff left over, so I thought if the film is ever successful, I'll take all this other stuff off the shelf and make the rest of the story. At the time nobody has really done anything like this before. It had droids, spaceships and wookies, it was all very strange to most people. There weren't any special effects houses that you see today because at the time Hollywood wasn't interested in making sci-fi films, so we basically had to make everything from scratch" - George Lucas from interview with Leonard Maltin in 1997

"The thing with the three films that are out there now, is that it deals with the story of this great man who became evil and how his son brings him back. I always planned to go back and tell the story of who Darth Vader was and why he turned evil” - George Lucas from interview with Leonard Maltin in 1997

"When it came to 20th anniversary of Star Wars I had the opportunity to not only re-master the three films (IV,V, & VI) which were in need of restoration but to fix many of the problems that plagued the films when I first made them. I even wanted to take it a step further and add in many of the scenes and sequences that I couldn't do in the late 70's early 80's simply because the computer technology wasn't available at the time." - George Lucas in 1997

"When it came time to do Episode 1, I had the opportunity to start fresh. I already had the back story from before and I had to put that in there. Now I could explore who everybody was, their interaction with each other & how they got there. But unlike before I could tell the story the way I wanted to tell it without many of the same problems I had to deal with when I made the first Star Wars" - George Lucas in 1999

"I just made the films that I would like to see if I was going to the movies and the kind of films the I grew up watching as a kid" - George Lucas in 2008

Watch the amazing documentary - "Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars trilogy" to learn all about the making of the Star Wars saga, featuring many interviews with the cast, crew and the many others that help bring these films to the big screen.

The Clone Wars - animated movie takes place between episodes 2 & 3. Think of it as Episode 2.5.  

Answer 6

Because the 4,5,6 were part of a story that Lucas wanted to tell, after he told the story he wanted to expand on it to give us the background info on the story. He said that he finally had the technology to do the special effects and money  to finish the story.

Answer 7

because it was telling the story that recently happened, the end of the rebellion, but it left it open to go back to the start but the graphics where no good back then so george lucas didnt want to do them, so when he had the opertunity 2 those films just he brought them out,

the new film clone wars takes place between 2 & 3 but unfortunetly its a cartoon. you must watch episode one its great

Answer 8

actually one should start with 1

that way you get the story in the order it was meant to be in

Answer 9

because they didn't have the special effects

Answer 10

It was because he knew that 4-6 would be better movies so he made them first.

Answer 11

Alright, when George Lucas started writing the original script for Star Wars in 1976, he wrote a really thick script, (about 250 pages.) He split that into three parts, hoping that he could get the second two movies made. After he finished with the first Star Wars movie, (Episode 4) he realized that he also wanted to tell Darth Vader's creation story. (Lucas has many times said that the Star Wars series is really just the story of Darth Vader, and to that end he wanted to tell his story.) So he decided to start numbering them with The Empire Strikes Back, (episode 5) hoping to one day do episodes 1,2, and 3. Then, in 1997 when the original trilogy (4,5, and 6) was re-released, Lucas realized that the technology was where he wanted it to be to do all of the special effects. So he got Episodes 1,2, and 3 made, making them all prequels.

And the new movie, The Clone Wars takes place between Episodes 2 and 3, and the idea of the movie is to show what happened during the clone wars. (Episodes 2 and 3 only show you the beginning and the end of the Clone Wars.)

Its a lot, but there's a lot of story there, hope it helps.

Answer 12

Because the studio didn't have the budget in place to release all 6.  Lucus had to cut it in half.  He had a terrible time with the films.  The actor who was suppose to play George Harrisons role quit the first day of filming.  George was a janitor who was lucky enough to be around when the ##$%^ hit the fan.

Answer 13

What kind of star wars fan asks such a dumb question?