For a piece on structural repercussions of the way the prequels were joined up to the originals--essentially the 1-2-3-4-5-6 or 4-5-6-1-2-3 debate--I wrote something about it here:
http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/structuringtheprequels.html
I also looked beyond Star Wars for examples, since Star Wars is not the only series with prequels attached to it. In fact, one of the examples I looked at was a Chuck Norris film. :p