I didn’t understand what Lucas originally meant by that term.
Like an operatic story in space?
Later on, considering all the twists and turns of the original trilogy, like, “No…I’M your father,” and
“wait a minute, LEIA is my sister??”
Thinking about it some more, I later assumed Lucas meant that Star Wars was supposed to be a continuing soap opera, since the way some of these revelations unfolded felt more at home in day time soap opera, than a saga that was carefully planned out since the beginning.