Was the entire Lucas starwars saga (ep 1-6) written before ep iv was made or were 1-3 written after movies 4-6

Answer 1

Lucas wrote Star Wars Ep 1-15. However he filmed them in this order 4,5,6 and then 1,2,3. He filmed them in that order because when he started to film them he realized the special effects in the movies where not as up to date as they are today. He hade to develope certian effects as he shot the films. There was no ILM Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) is a motion picture visual effects company, founded in May 1975 by George Lucas and owned by Lucasfilm Ltd. Lucas created the company when he discovered that the special effects department at Twentieth Century Fox was shut down after he was given the green light for his production of Star Wars. The studio originated in Van Nuys, California, later moved to San Rafael, California, and is now based at the Letterman Digital Arts Center in The Presidio of San Francisco in California. ILM continues to maintain and use part of its film studio building in San Rafael, which was built in 1991 specifically for ILM, for the Model Shop. It was in the late 1980s when Adobe Photoshop made its first appearance on the world stage. It was used at the Industrial Light and Magic studios as an image processing program.
Lucas wanted his 1977 film Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope to include visual effects that had never been seen on film before. He first approached Douglas Trumbull, famous for 2001: A Space Odyssey. Trumbull declined, but suggested his assistant John Dykstra. Dykstra brought together a small team of college students, artists and engineers who became the Special Visual Effects department on A New Hope. Alongside Dykstra other leading members of the original ILM team were Dennis Muren, Richard Edlund, Joe Johnston and Phil Tippett.
When making Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, Lucas reformed most of the team into Industrial Light & Magic in Marin County, California. They have since gone on to produce special effects for over two hundred films, including the Indiana Jones films, the Harry Potter films, the Jurassic Park films, many of the Star Trek films, as well as less dramatic effects in films such as Schindler's List, Snow Falling on Cedars, Magnolia, and several Woody Allen films. ILM also frequently collaborates with Steven Spielberg, with Dennis Muren acting as Visual Effects Supervisor.
Star Wars saga began with a 14-page treatment for a space adventure film that Lucas drafted in 1973, inspired by multiple myths and classical narratives. According to one source, Lucas initially wrote summaries for fifteen stories that would make up the Star Wars saga. Out of these fifteen stories, Lucas originally planned to film only one of them as a feature film. Then, in 1978, following the success of the first released Star Wars film, he publicly announced that he would create a total of twelve films to chronicle the adventures of Luke Skywalker (in the original scripts, the character’s name was Luke Starkiller). In 1979, Lucas retracted his former statement, saying that he would instead make nine films.[4] Four years later, having completed Return of the Jedi, Lucas announced that he was putting Star Wars on indefinite hold until special-effects technology had improved to his satisfaction. Finally, in 1994, (after seeing the effects results of ILM's work on Jurassic Park) Lucas decided that he would produce the trilogy of prequels (Episodes I, II, and III), for a total of six films. He also claimed at the time that he had always envisioned "the whole thing as a series of six films".
Other sources, including publicly available draft scripts of Star Wars, show that Lucas had an incomplete and quickly-changing conception of the Star Wars story up until the release of the first film in 1977. Story elements such as the Kaiburr crystal present in early scripts are missing entirely in the films, while names were freely exchanged between different planets and characters — "Organa Major" being the original name for Alderaan, for instance (Organa later became Princess Leia's surname). Even as late as the production of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, there were significant differences from the films which emerged — for example, Lando Calrissian being a clone from the Clone Wars and the climactic battle of Return of the Jedi taking place against two Death Stars orbiting the Imperial capital planet, then known as Had Abbadon.[5] Another version of the Return of the Jedi script had Luke turning to the dark side after killing Darth Vader. Leia would then become the next Jedi to fight the dark side. This did not happen, however, because Lucas felt that the ending would be too dark, especially for children, who were a major target audience. Also, George Lucas had the script of The Empire Strikes Back saying that "Obi-Wan killed your father," all the while having the "I am your father" line in mind. Since Darth Vader's voice was overdubbed by James Earl Jones, the true line was revealed in post-production.[6] In addition, the story released as the novel Splinter of the Mind's Eye was intended as a possible direction for a low-budget Star Wars sequel - however, the success of A New Hope allowed Lucas to pursue the more ambitious The Empire Strikes Back instead.
For his part, Lucas claimed in a segment filmed for the THX-remastered VHS release of the original trilogy that the original Star Wars story was intended as a single film but was later split into three because the story was too long to be told in a single film. In the DVD commentaries for the original trilogy, Lucas claims that many story elements were changed within the production of the films — for instance, the attack on the Death Star in A New Hope was moved from the end of the trilogy in order to strengthen A New Hope on its own merits, while the character of Chewbacca established the Wookiees as a technologically advanced race, necessitating their replacement with Ewoks in Return of the Jedi. Other changes, including the death of Obi-Wan in A New Hope, were made during the filming. Lucas also stated in the commentaries that the prequel stories existed only as "notes" explaining the backstories of characters such as Obi-Wan. In an interview with Wired prior to the release of The Phantom Menace, Lucas remarked that he had allowed the publication of novels written as sequels to the films (see Expanded Universe) because he would never make the sequels himself.
Lucas's history of different statements regarding his future and past plans for the Star Wars saga have caused a great deal of popular confusion, while drawing criticism from some. For example, some still believe that Lucas's original plan was for a "trilogy of trilogies," based on early statements made by Lucasfilm regarding sequels. For more information on the supposed sequel trilogy, see Sequel trilogy (Star Wars).
It has been reported that Lucas's original script was almost 500 pages long. The title, originally The Adventures of Luke Starkiller, was changed several times before becoming Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.
Production and release
A photo that appeared in a 2005 issue of Vanity Fair of the majority of the cast from all six films, along with Star Wars creator, George LucasThe Star Wars film series was shot in an original aspect ratio of 2.35:1. The "original trilogy" was shot with anamorphic lenses (Episodes IV and V were shot in Panavision, while Episode VI was shot in J.D.C. scope), while Episode I was shot in Arriscope film format, and Episodes II and III were shot with Sony's CineAlta high-definition digital camera.
The 1977 release of Star Wars also marked a paradigm shift in film sound effects. Lucas heralded this new era of sound effects in three main ways. Sound was no longer only loud or soft, it was a spatial element as important as any actor or visual effect. Ships passing by on the screen were heard passing by from speaker to speaker in the theater through the use of the new Dolby surround technology.
Another of the important ways in which Star Wars achieved this shift was the use of "physical sound" to increase the sound space of the film. The use of sub-frequencies allow the audience to feel a physical vibration as the Star Destroyer comes into view during the opening scene of the film, establishing both its menace and the enormous size difference between it and the rebel ship.
Finally, George Lucas hired Ben Burtt to oversee the sound effects on the film. Burtt created a new kind of sound texture that had never been done before. All of the unique laser blasts, droids talking, voices, and other effects expanded the audience's immersion in the universe of Star Wars. The enormity of Burtt's accomplishment was such that the Academy of Motion Pictures: Arts and Sciences gave him a Special Achievement Award because they had no award for what he had done. It is also telling that every sound effects award since Star Wars has gone to a film recorded in Dolby.[7]
There were countless problems during the production of Episode IV, and few critics expected the film to achieve the measure of success it did. Many problems with effects, editing, funding, and shooting caused the film to be pushed back from its expected release date of December 1976. The production company, not to mention many involved in the actual production, had little faith in the film. According to reports, it was a daily struggle merely to complete the film on time. Despite these difficulties, the first film was released on May 25, 1977, and became a surprise hit. Though its novelization had hit the shelves six months earlier, the book had not seen nearly the amount of interest that the film would draw.
Many consider the phenomenal popularity of its first release due to the need for escapism after the experiences of Vietnam and Watergate. Throughout the first half of the 70's, baby-boomers (like Lucas himself) were getting more involved in filmaking along with Coppola, Scorcese, Freidken and others only to express dark and gritty realism in their films. Star Wars offered an escape from these confining realities.
Filming locations
Episodes IV, V, and VI were shot at, among other locations, Elstree Studios, in Hertfordshire, England. The outdoor scenes from the ice planet Hoth in Episode V were shot at Finse, Norway. Also, one shot of the Rebel Base on Yavin IV in Episode IV was of Mayan temples in Tikal, Guatemala. The scenes from the forested Endor's moon in Episode VI were shot in Redwood State Park, in Humboldt County, Northern California. The Phantom Menace was filmed at Leavesden Film Studios and the subsequent prequels were filmed in Sydney, Australia. A scene in Attack of the Clones is shot in Sevilla, Spain. Tunisia, and the sand dunes of Yuma, Arizona, have served as the location for filming scenes set on the desert planet Tatooine in A New Hope, Return of the Jedi, The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith. Italy's Caserta Palace was used to create the Theed palace on Queen Amidala's home planet, Naboo, and some scenes were also shot at Italy's Lake Como. Also some scenes in A New Hope were shot in Death Valley National Park, California, USA and Cappadocia Turkey .[8]
Both the "original trilogy" and the "prequel trilogy" were released over a period of six years (1977–1983 and 1999–2005, respectively), each film taking three years to produce.
wikipedia.com

Answer 2

George Lucas had written episodes 1-15 or so before he even started making the movies. He chose eps 4-6 to make first because they had a good starting point and good end point and would be suitable to be made as a stand alone trilogy if they flopped. He also has plans to make eps 7-9, but does not believe they will ever be done in his lifetime. Maybe by his son, who is also a movie director?

Answer 3

Actually, it's mainly Episodes 1 & 2 that people dislike from the prequel trilogy. The main reason was cheesy acting, particularly from Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman. However, in the case of Christensen, he was **told** to act that particular way by Lucas, and he did, even though at the time it didn't make sense. Episode 3, however, made up for the other two and explained why Christensen's acting seemed so "off" in Episode 2 ... since the prequel trilogy is ultimately about Anakin's fall to the Dark Side and the events that led up to it, of course he's not going to be behaving normally. There's still not much excuse for Portman's acting, especially in Episode 1. The low point there is in the Naboo throne room near the end, where she tells the Viceroy that "now we will discuss a new treaty." However, the story being about Anakin's fall helps explain why Christensen seemed so "wooden" in Episode 2.

Answer 4

actually they were all conceived simultaneously. the origional draft included all 6 and three more (789) which were never made. however lucas viewed each trilogy as one movie not three. so that star wars was inteded to be a trilogy about 3 generations. episode one would be 1-3 2 would be 2-6 and 3 would be 7-9 . sadly the movies would have to be 7 hours long each. he decided to make just the middle and split it into a trilogy. he later decided to make the first part. the third part will never be made (he already said this)

Answer 5

Actually he wrote Episode's I - IX.

He decided that Episode's IV - VI would be the easiest to make, and have the best chance at success just as a trilogy.

Answer 6

No. It was originally written as a trilogy (three parts).

Answer 7

From what I understand they were written in order. That doesn't meen he didn't go back and edit the first three episodes.

Answer 8

i think he wrote them all before episode 4. otherwise, how would he have made vader and ben know each other?