The original Saga is i like to think in its own pocket universe it includes, Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi the original cuts only. And it ends on an upbeat ending with our heroes on Endor.
Then you have Universe B which includes the Special Editions and Prequels which are Lucas So called Canon 1-6 Saga of Darth Vader.
Then you have Universe C which is the Disney canon and its the Rey Saga 1-9, or Palpatine Saga.
I completely agree with this.
As for George’s sequel trilogy treatments, I agree that bringing Darth Maul back as the main antagonist would have been an awful idea (if that’s what George had ended up sticking with). It would have been extremely confusing to the general audience, and so much would have happened outside of the movies that Maul would essentially be a completely different character from who he was in TPM. And while TCW and the EU were able to make Maul into a more interesting character, he’s simply not main villain material for a whole trilogy.
The thing about the EU is that, despite being very much a mixed bag, it offers a huge amount of events, characters, and concepts that could be played around with to tell new stories. It just seems like a waste to me not to take advantage of that massive fount of source material, grabbing the most well received aspects of it and ditching the worst of it, much like Marvel does with its movies. When you look at the EU and the reception of each of its stories, you can get a clearer sense of what works for fans and what doesn’t in the post-RotJ era.
Part of why I tend to be more lenient toward the prequels is because the prequels’ plot was much more constrained based on what needed to take place within just three movies. And there was little to no source material on which to base it (not that George would have used it, of course, but I digress). The sequels, on the other hand, had a more or less blank slate on which to tell any story they wanted, and a plethora of source material to draw inspiration from.