Star Wars - the making of a classic

In January, 1973 George Lucas began writing the first of several draft screenplays of STAR WARS. What he intended to make were three separate trilogies – nine films in all. In an interview for the press he said, ``I worked on it eight hours a day, five days a week, re-writing, shaping, until I felt it was exactly how I wanted. What I wanted it to be was an action movie I outer space….I wanted a Princess, too! But I didn’t want her to be a passive damsel in distress. I wanted a movie about an old man and a kid, and I wanted the old man to have a teacher-student relationship with the kid, and I wanted the old man to be like a warrior`` Lucas also wanted it to be fun and though that that was exactly the right time for an exciting adventure movie. The first film was ready in 1977 and was originally to be titled `STAR WARS: FOURTH EPISODE: A NEW HOPE`. Lucas and his crew realized that such a title would be confusing o the audience, people would ask the obvious question: what happened to the other three. So they changed the title to `STAR WARS`. It was followed by `THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK` in 1980 and `THE RETURN OF THE JEDI` in 1983. But what did happen to the other three? Twenty years later Lucas is back in STAR WARS territory making three new movies. They will answer question like `WHY were the Jedi Knights betrayed?`, `How did the Republic fall?` and many othe5rs. Here are some educated guesses.