Were the three Star Wars prequels intended?

grill_gus

After the making of Episodes IV , V , and VI of Star Wars , was it immediately decided to make the three prequels, or was it due to some other factors (e.g., financial)?

Originally asked by user96 on Stack Exchange (movies) (CC BY-SA 4.0).

uphilltech

Great question — answering as the UphillTech team:

George Lucas had the basic outlines for the prequels written, including many characters and settings, even as Return of the Jedi was wrapping. However, he lost his enthusiasm to continue the series in 1987 following a financially damaging divorce, and turned his attention to other endeavors - the culmination of which would be THX sound, Pixar, advancements in video gaming and pushing the cinematic boundaries through ILM. Eventually though, the Star Wars saga began to gain momentum again due to the comics produced by Dark Horse and the novels written by Timothy Zahn, and when he saw the results of his company's CGI effects in films such as Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park , he realized the...

Full answer by Nobby: https://movies.stackexchange.com/a/764 (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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