Why was the fourth star wars episode filmed first?

Question

yes, why was it filmed first?

and are there going to be any more episodes coming out?

thanks :)

Answer 1

george lucas is addicted to star wars so it wouldn't surprise me too much if 10 years from now we see another one.

i think (just a guess) that the 4th one is in the middle of this really really long story & w/o knowing if he'd ever get a chance to make any other star wars film, probably wanted to make the most exciting movie possible, while still having it make sense as a story. star wars IV has a lot of the elements in it that all great stories have. look up story archetypes and you'll see that star wars pretty much has all the ingredients from all great stories.

that's all just speculation. Im quite sure there is a star wars website out there w/ the answer. star war fans are fanatical about having all, and i mean all, the info there is to know.  

Answer 2

George Lucas had this idea in his head called "The Star Wars".

While he was busy trying to get a studio interested in letting him film it, he sifted through his very vague ideas of what the story would be like.  In the original drafts of "Star Wars", Luke had a brother, the rebel leader was called "Anakin Starkiller" and many of the plot points we know so well did not exist.

As Lucas wrote and re-wrote, he decided that he had outlines to cover at least two trilogies.  Of course he decided to film what he felt had the best and most developed storyline first.

Years later, as the computer technology he helped create while making Star Wars caught up to his vision of alien races, complex alien landscapes and human characters interacting, he decided to revisit the second outline he originally wrote.  He wanted to tell the story that he only hinted at through the first three movies.

He also felt that the audience would want to see how Darth Vader fell from hero to villain, and what germ of humanity remained that brought him redemption.

Answer 3

It was a great marketing strategy....sequels are so cliche, a prequel will want to make you figure out how it all became what first grabbed your attention. So Lucas made 2 sequels and then dragged it out for 20 years and broke out the prequel.  

Answer 4

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. There have been many insane rumors floating around saying that Lucas is going to make ep 7 – 9 … he’s not because the don't exist anymore. They were all basically condensed into what became ep 6, Return Of The Jedi. A little known fact is that up until the point where 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 third trilogy in its original form.

As for why he did 4 - 6 first. It has been 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.   Another, and just as important, reason is that ep IV was the only one of the 6 movies that could have been a "stand alone" story.  By that I mean it had a beginning and and end and showed that no matter what the odds are good wins in the end.  If this movie was a flop then nobody would ever have to know that there could have been 8 more movies made.

May The Force Be With You ...

EDIT:  The answer given by "chocolahoma" is about 95% wrong.

EDIT:  The link provided in the answer by "wild1974" goes to a site that is a complete fraud.  It's actually mind boggling that someone could read those pieces of c**p and think they are Star Wars.  They are not authorized by Lucas and never will be because the story line is to whacked out even for him.

Answer 5

I'm not sure why Episode IV was filmed first. As for other episodes, I don't know when they are going to be made, but you can read the stories for Episodes 7, 8 and 9 here...

http://www.starwarssequeltrilogy.com/