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Eh... not exactly. Read The Secret History of Star Wars. (It used to be free, but they are charging money for it now. You can probably find a pdf somewhere.) George didn't know what the hell he was doing. It certainly wasn't 9 movies. Sure, he said he was making 9 movies after some point in time, but the facts the author dug up is absolutely amazing. Here's some gems and the page numbers (in the copy of the book I have):

1) Star Wars was the 1st "episode", not the fourth. The Episode IV was decided during the scripting of Empire Strikes Back. Page 164
2) Anakin and Darth Vader were two separate characters up through the first draft of Empire Strikes Back. Page 165
3) The prequel trilogy was formed due to the Anakin / Vader merging. Page 169
4) Leia was never to be Luke's sister. Page 193.
5) Darth Vader was not to be redeemed at the end of Revenge of the Jedi. Page 193.

It wasn't really nine parts... even if Lucas said it was. It was supposed to be a just a movie like the old serials that Lucas used to watch. A dry, but very fascinating book anyway, is The Secret History of Star Wars It used to be free, but it looks like they are selling it now. Supposedly, the first 100 pages are free. It's amazing how much research this guy did. It will change your way of thinking about how Star Wars developed.

An interesting piece about his ex-wife.

Not going to happen. Read about how the "restoration" literally replaced the original film. The Theatrical versions only exist in memories now.

Actually someone has put together the entire history of his edits to Star Wars and makes the case that it was exactly as you said. Most of it came about through chance and by bending existing story lines to link it all together.

There never was "9" movies in the series or anything that George Lucas has suggested in the past.

The history used to be available as a free PDF, but in any case it looks like the author has made it into a read book now.
http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/

pretty obviously forced- wedged in like a wrench in a cheesecake

Darnit, now I have to buy a new Internet to replace the one you just won.

Your actual comments are right, of course. I recommend The Secret History of Star Wars for a documentation of exactly how the story was tortured into its final shape.

There is an exellent article outlining what Lucas has done to the original negative. tl;dr: in the 90's Lucas restored the negative of the original release, and then subsequently nearly completely butchered it while at the same time destroying all copies of the theatrical release (except privately owned vhs and laserdisks, of course). At this point the only thing that exists is a 1080p scan of the film. All of the restored negative does still exist, though. It's just not assembled into something that could produce anything. It is possible to re-assemble that restoration, which by all accounts is stunning.

They didn't digitally copy it back in 1994. They had the film cleaned up and then the colour re-timed because it had faded really badly. It was a completely chemical process though.

Then they did some re-compositing from the original separate shots that make up many of the scenes. That was done digitally and the film the original material was on had survived much better than the main master. Finally they added some CG. All the digital stuff was done at 1080p back then, pretty low for something that was being projected at cinemas.

Back then ILM was moving to digital but was still using film, chemicals and compositing printers too. The original plan was to just release home video versions of the re-master but they decided to do a cinema release too.

Have a read: http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/savingstarwars.html

You will not see Star Wars again in the original version: the original movie no longer exists (a very awesome long article about the quality and treatment of the original Star Wars negatives.)

Not officially, but it certainly isn't lost completely:

Because this was supposed to supplant the original, all prints in circulation of the original were recalled (studios control all rented prints--none are sold privately, though a black market exists), and possibly destroyed (studio print masters are, of course, kept).

or, even simpler:

Of course, it would be very easy to simply put the original pieces back and conform it to the original version, or use the separation masters and IPs, or simply scan the old pieces for a digital restoration, but I digress.

The film's original negative was in bad condition in 1997 (color fading badly) when they took it out of the can for the creation of the special edition, and they actually spliced in restorations, and inter-prints that were better quality that the damaged original, along with the new optical composites from the camera negatives, and the 'special edition enhancements' into the original negative of the film to create a new 'original negative'. After the SE film release, all prints of the original film still in circulation (always owned by the studio) were recalled and probably destroyed. There is no more Star Wars-The Original Version.

In 2004, to do a DVD release, they digitally scanned the film and did digital restoration to make a 1080p restored master (no, not 2k or 4k or even 8k, 1080p is the new digital master) with scratches and dirt digitally removed, along with the color being re-timed badly. This 1080p version is now the canon, It has been show as the HD version on tv and printed on film for further cinematic releases, and the Blu-ray will probably get a hardly-fixed version of this digital transfer. You will not see Star Wars again in the original version: the original movie no longer exists (a very awesome long article about the quality and treatment of the original Star Wars negatives.)

1. Leia was raised by the Organa family. She was also hailed as a Princess because people believed she truly was the child of Bail Organa. The person she believed was her mother wasn't actually her mother.

2. Lucas said for I think 20 years in various interviews that he always envisioned the Vader/Obi-Wan duel would take place on a volcano planet. I think Starlog magazines were writing about this in the early 80's. I'm not sure why anyone is surprised by something that has been somewhat canon for decades.

Anakin has a lengthy, exhausting duel in the heat and then has his legs chopped off. In the pain and anger of that moment, he didn't think to move himself with telekinesis. Perhaps the pain of dual amputation distracted him. Using telekinesis seems to require full concentration. Yoda couldn't deal with Dooku and use telekinesis at the same time.

3. Never is it suggested that the Sith power in question raises people from the dead, but rather stops one from dying in the first place. And even though he wanted that power to protect Padme, it wasn't enough to push him to the dark side. He stays loyal to the Jedi beliefs basically right up to the point he inadvertently leads to Mace Windu's death. I'd have to assume he'd be expelled from the Jedi order over those events.

It would seem he felt he could never go back, and had no choice but to change allegiances at that point. Immediately killing kids after that seems like a bit of a stretch, but it certainly doesn't directly contradict the original trilogy as you suggest.

Lucas never had a grand vision. He changed his mind all the time. He was just largely stealing from Flash Gordon, Dune, and Hidden Fortress and accidentally created this masterpiece with the original trilogy.

After Episode 1 he promised Ric Olie was going to be a major character in the trilogy, along with Aura Sing. He promised Episode 2 would explain Force Ghosts, and the Episode 3 would.

Early drafts for Star Wars had aliens who used spice to fold space. General Skywalker/Starkiller was the old war veteran, not the farmboy.

He also said when making the original trilogy that the overall storyline was about Luke and restoring the Jedi order. After the prequels, he says the larger story is all about Anakin/Vader.

Lucas is full of shit. But, your three points aren't contradictions.

If you're *really* curious, you should read this:

http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/

For those wondering about this post. Here's another one.

In googling around I haven't found any relevant cites but this article would seem to dispute the claim of Norse origins for Tatooine. I hope butterflysrage replies here and posts some nice links. It's an interesting theory and should be widely spread if true.

In addition to comic books, Lucas began devouring science fiction magazines such as Amazing and Astounding Tales, magazines which were the regular homes of science fiction writers like Robert Heinlein and E. E. Smith. "As a kid, I read a lot of science fiction," Lucas recalls. "But instead of reading technical hard science fiction writers like Isaac Asimov, I was interested in Harry Harrison and a fantastic, surreal approach to the genre."

"One of my favorite things were [sic] Republic serials and things like Flash Gordon."

Later, it is established that the rest of Lucas' borrowings are mostly from the realm of film, specifically Kurosawa. I would not really call the book a sympathetic portrayal, but the author (Michael Kaminski) goes on to contend that Star Wars is basically as original as any film, and that George Lucas' primary failing was to overly involve himself in the production of the script, an area which was never really his forte (and which he apparently did not enjoy, and found very difficult at the time he was writing the first three films). In fact, Lucas' university projects apparently included mostly documentaries and art films with little or no dialogue.

I don't know if I would say Lucas was a hack from the beginning, but I would agree that wholeheartedly that he had/has absolutely no interest in science fiction except insofar as he finds the future a compelling setting. He exists in...a galaxy far, far away from Asimov's.

The real problem is that George Lucas wrote it. As a generic sort of idea man, Lucas is great, but the more involved he is in the film, the worse it gets. The reason The Empire Strikes Back is probably the best of the bunch is because Lucas was at his most distant from the whole process.

You may not know how right you are. According to the Secret History of Star Wars, not only was much of the story borrowed directly from other material, but he got extensive help from Hollywood friends to make it into a workable movie. Also that book makes the excellent point that Empire and Jedi really only rehash the original movie in more depth. Which can't exactly be that hard, when you look at it that way. Read that book, if you get the chance. It puts this Definitive Evisceration in perspective.

Anyway if he skipped both the borrowing steps and the getting help from others step the result probably should be a rather unimpressive ball of crap.

I wouldn't personally list The Empire Strikes Back in the list of sequels that turned out great simply because it was an anomaly. Star Wars was great as a one-off that turned into a surprise hit, Empire was great, and the rest were awful. Empire was great only because Lucas hired a real film maker -- Kirshner -- and turned him loose, and Lucas almost had a heart attack when he realized the direction Kirshner was taking it. Empire succeeded in spite of Lucas' best efforts to the contrary. Its being great is more along the lines of finding a Baby Ruth in the pool in spite of all of the people who have crapped in the water since.
http://www.secrethistoryofstarwars.com/

You might have read about it in The Secret History of Star Wars, which was discussed here a few months ago.

It's a very interesting read, and puts the whole saga into a new light. The basic premise is that Lucas didn't have it all laid out initially, but just made it up as he went. I have no idea how accurate it is or not, but due to the crazy amount of information he has, at least some of it has to be true.

One side affect of this book is that if you ever read it, and then listen to the commentaries on the DVDs, you end up yelling at the screen every time Lucas talks about having something planned out from the beginning, which he clearly didn't.

Incorrect. It was always "Episode IV" [...] The subtitle "A New Hope" was added for re-release prints when "Empire Strikes Back" was confirmed for production.

http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/

"The Secret History of Star Wars is a new full-length e-book exploring the writing and creation of the Star Wars saga. Culled from over 400 sources and filled with quotes from people such as George Lucas, Gary Kurtz and Mark Hamill, The Secret History of Star Wars traces all the way back to 1973 to examine how the first 14-page treatment that began the series came to be and was slowly built, draft by draft, year by year and movie by movie. Covering a period of over four decades, you will discover how George Lucas got his ideas for the original film, how Darth Vader was made into Luke Skywalker's father in 1978 and forever altered the arc of the story, what happened to the infamous third trilogy in the series and how the prequel stories came to be. The book also reveals the style and method of Lucas himself and how his personal life affected and shaped the story, for better and worse. This is a book which challenges many legends surrounding the series and places the films in a new light. For the more casual fan this will be a mesmerising read and for those who think they know everything about the series, prepare to be surprised! "