generalfrevious said:
There was never meant to be three movies anyways. So clearly George made up the other films and claimed his first draft was split into three movies for time constraints. He got lucky only once.
Everyone knows SW was never meant to be episode IV until after Empire came out, so the PT was never meant to exist until George decided to make them in the 90s. When he made them it was clear to everyone that he haven't seen the originals in years, hence the obvious contradictions.
The PT had been been on the cards for a long time. Back in 83/84, Peter Mayhew stated in an interview with British magazine, Look In that any subsequent SW films would probably take place in the past and cover events that occurred before many of the major characters were even born.
This tallies with what eventually transpired with the prequels. Also, according to a feature that I read in another UK mag during 85/86, after the success of "Ep IV", GL had wanted to make prequels that provided a backstory but Fox wasn't enthused by the idea and so instead he proceeded with TESB and ROTJ.
Unfortunately I was only a child at the time and had no idea how significant these articles might become in the future, otherwise I would've held onto them.