Ep. VI - 16yrs- Ep. I.... why?
I may have at one time known the answer to this but I don't now. So could someone please tell me why there was a 16 year gap between the release of Episode VI and I?
I heard it was something with a divorce or a liscensing thing or something. Anyone with any solid proof or reason?

Thanks!

I don't know the reason, but I think Lucas went thru a divorce after episode IV and it was only in the 90s that he actually decided to go ahead with the new trilogy, even though it was planned much earlier.

The way Lucas tells it, he didn't think he could make the Prequels as he wanted until he saw what ILM was doing in Jurassic Park. From there, he released the Special Editions to test out the technology and also test the waters to make sure that the Star Wars franchise would still be well-received by the movie-going public, and then he began work on the Prequels.

that makes sense, he released the special editions to make sure he would make lots of money, and he made lots of money when he released the special editions and more lots of money when he did the prequels

i dunno... i heard about the divorce thinggy like 10 years ago. something along the lines of he had to wait a certain amount of time in order to not pay alimony based on profits from them.

I think he originally didnt want to do any prequels. He wanted to leave the trilogy as it was, but ppl pressured him and stuff and finally he agreed to do them. Theres probably more to it than that but I think thats part of it.

he was waiting cuz he didnt have the technolgy to do the stuff that are in Ep.1, 2, and 3.

yeah i think i heard somewhere that he didnt want to do the first three first because a lot of the things he would have wanted to do would have been impossible

I just think he didnt think them up, and decided to them now. He said his movies were incomplete, or something like that.