TV - Movies
The Real Reason
George Lucas
Started Star
Wars With
Episode 4
By LEA VAN DER MERWE
The “Star Wars” saga began in ‘77 with Episode 4, “A New Hope,” and George Lucas’ reasoning for this had to do with how he crafted the story. "The Star Wars series started out as a movie that ended up being so big that I took each act and cut it into its own movie [...],” said Lucas, later allowing him to go back and provide some context in the prequels.
Saga Storytelling
Another reason why the franchise began with Episode 4 was because Lucas' first drafts were trying to cram too much into just one film. As much as Lucas intended to make an entire series of “Star Wars” movies to follow A New Hope, even he was fuzzy on the details at the time of the original film's writing.
Ideas and Plans
Handwritten notes on early drafts of the film indicate that “A New Hope” was supposed to be the sixth movie, not the fourth. The numbers changed over the years as Lucas wrote through his numerous drafts, and the first film was released without an episode number after Lucas removed "Episode IV" from the opening crawl at the last minute.