What if the Star Wars saga actually started with Episode 1?

My sarcastic answer is there would not have been an Episode 2. But on a more serious note, here are my actor choices:

Anakin = Ike Eisenmann
Obi-Wan = Jan Michael Vincent
Qui-Gon = Charles Bronson
Padme = Cheryl Ladd
Jar Jar = Jimmie Walker
Darth Maul = Burt Reynolds

 

I actually like that you just supplanted most of the roles with the actors from the OT, and it would essentially work I suppose. Though I do find it odd to try and imagine Mark Hamill opposite Carrie Fisher for the romantic scenes...

 

So this leads to the question, if the OT started in 1999 who would play the classic roles?

 

If episode 1 came out first in 1977, then nobody today would care about Star Wars today and there wouldn't be any sequels. Most people wouldn't even know what Star Wars is and those that did would be the kind of people who go to midnight, sci fi, B-fest screenings. George Lucas would be visiting small sci fi cons every once and while and Indiana Jones wouldn't exist either.

 

Even if Episode I in 1977 would have been perfectly directed I'm not sure I'd want to see that particular story first.
It was awesome to jump right into the middle of events in ep. IV and discovering those characters along the way.

 

The "Episode 1" we know simply could not have been produced in the seventies, since it relies so heavily on effects that didn't exist then. But if by some magic a print of The Phantom Menace could be transported to 1977, it would surely have FLOORED audiences simply because of the thirty-years-ahead-of-their-time effects. People would have been scratching their heads in utter wonder about how a character like Sebulba was created. After all, how DID they get an actor into a suit with such obviously non-human anathomy?