What if A New Hope Had Been Episode I?

The Blind Eternities forum

Posted on Jan. 27, 2025, 4:08 p.m. by DemonDragonJ

Not everyone may remember that the very first Star Wars film was entitled simply "Star Wars" when it was initially released, as George Lucas did not add the subtitle of "Episode IV: a New Hope" until production on The Empire Strikes Back had begun, and he chose for it to be the fourth chapter of the story so that fans would feel as if they had entered the story in the middle of an ongoing epic saga, and his tactic worked, because fans did eventually wish to see the first three episodes of the story, which led to the production of the prequel trilogy, whose reception was mixed, at best (although, as a side note, I believe that the prequels are not as terrible as many people initially believed them to be; they are still not as good as are the originals, but they certainly are better than the sequels), but I wonder how different the story would have been if the original trilogy had been episodes, I, II, and III. In this alternate history scenario, when Lucas decided to produce new Star Wars films, during the late 1990's, there would have been no demand or desire for a prequel trilogy, so what would Lucas have done, instead? My guess is that he could have make direct adaptations of Timothy Zhan's Thrawn trilogy, as the actors from the original trilogy would have been the proper ages to have reprised their roles, although he may have wished to tell his own stories, instead.

What does everyone else say about this? How different would Star Wars have been if A New Hope had been episode I, instead of episode IV? I certainly am very interested to hear your thoughts and speculation, on this matter!