The point is that George said countless times that I - VI is meant to be one big long movie, with each “episode” being just a snippet of said story.
Lucas has said a lot of revisionist crap over the years.
You can say it makes no sense if you just watch the OT by itself, but that’s not the point, because I - VI is one long story.
Too bad the way the films were written and shot don’t reflect that, Lucas’ later cinematic mutilations and claims to the contrary nontwithstanding.