As an example, there's plenty of backstory in LOTR and it's only briefly mentioned in the books. There really is no need to write a whole story behind it, although Tolkien did explain it in other books.
Lucas could have gone that same route and just not bothered to do any more stories or done an entirely new trilogy completely seperated from the OT, but maybe introducing some elements. It's an interesting point and I agree that Lucas does not have the creativity to have done a whole new trilogy.
Damn that's good. It puts it into a whole new light if you just want to watch the OOT and forget everything that came afterward.
A part of me still thinks that the Anakin backstory would still make a good set of movies.....but with the point you make, I wonder if my (and others') thinking is just the result of there being and EPISODE (insert roman numeral) at the beginning of each movie. Since you have that, you think this is a series and you're obligated to be interested in the other episodes of the series.
Interesting....very interesting......was the whole PT even necessary. Definitely strengthens the whole argument that Lucas is doing this only for money. Perhaps some of us (like Gomer) give Lucas far too much credit as an "artist."