Will it feel as if we skipped a trilogy?

Growing up with the OT, I was hoping the ST would have been made in the late 80's 5-6 years after ROTJ.

Han/Leia would be married and a have few kids. Luke would be a powerful Jedi who trained Leia, and we'd have another Trilogy of their adventures relative to the Thrawn Trilogy Novels.

This Trilogy would then be Episodes 10,11,12 about the adventures of their kids. I honestly never thought about Prequels and wasn't interested in any backstory.

 

I suppose - first and foremost - I always expected there would be a "generational gap" between the original trilogy and any sequels. I mean, that is what we have always been told from the very beginning:

So it would seem weird to just follow on straight where ROTJ left off - that wouldn't be a new trilogy to me, it would just be like "Episode 6.1" or something.

I guess I never really gave much thought to sequels or prequels in the 80s. Of course we didn't have the internet back then, so you couldn't sit there and compile all of the quotes above in the same way, but I was definitely aware of the general plan for the nine-movie saga and the format they were supposed to take - a couple of years between each movie and a 20-odd year gap between each trilogy. So I must have picked that up somewhere when I was still just a kid.

I suppose the idea of a prequel trilogy did intrigue me for a while (I never thought it would actually get made one day) purely because of the whole "starting with episode 4" thing, and the fact that certain things were alluded to in the original trilogy. It was also out there that this fight had taken place between Kenobi and Vader in the past which ended up with Vader "being thrown into a volcano". Again, I'm not sure where exactly I would have picked that up from - I definitley remember it being discussed on the letters page in the Marvel ROTJ comics - with the hindsight the internet provides, you can go back and see that Lucas did refer to this backstory several times in various places.
And with the hindsight of actually having seen the prequels, it was probably as much of a backstory as was necessary...

When the Thrawn books and Dark Empire first came out, I remember thinking - well, these are fun... but I don't really want to see films like this. These stories are entertaining, but they don't seem like Star Wars films at all. I kinda felt like the whole sequel ship had set sail once those stories were out there - besides which, ROTJ was always as good an ending as any for me.

 

@Get In Gear Its funny cause I never read any of those quotes by Lucas until the advent of the internet so the ST and PT were always 'my interpretation.'

I honestly thought Episode 7 was just another adventure of Luke, Leia and Han a few years later while incorporating their kids down the road. I figured it was another Trilogy with a new self contained story arc with a new threat. I didn't think much of a Prequel Trilogy and it being a narrow focus on Darth Vader's story as I looked at it in broader terms.

I never really thought about the 'bigger' story or themes of the movies back in the early 80's as I just wanted more movies about Luke, Leia, and Han. The ironic thing is I honestly didn't even recognize the Episode #'s because I always watched them on HBO and would catch the movies once they started.

The first time I really thought about the bigger story was around 1985 and a friend of mine in middle school told me about the Prequel and Sequel Trilogy that Lucas was going to make in the next 2 decades. I remember being blown away that we would be getting more SW movies for the next 15-20 years!

 

I think it's interesting Lucas was worried in the early 80's about casting the original cast in ST, but was worried 'if they look old enough' and even going as far as telling the actors that they will cameo 30 years in the future.

Say what you will about the guy, but that is textbook visionary.

 

I'm sure uber Disney will have this covered maybe in the next animated series after rebels. I for one will not wrestle the ears from a gundark just yet to search what happened in the missing 30 years when snippets could well be revealed that will ultimately build the story in the episodes 7 to 9.. like others have stated a little mystery is good .....For nowpatience

 

As others have said I do hope it will feel like we have missed a bunch of events and we can jump right in to some mystery(even though I am coming into these new films thoroughly spoiled lol).

I'm sure we'll get plenty of side dishes about Han Luke and Leia's adventures in the gap. I wish they would have focused on that time frame in the comics and such rather than having Luke confront Vader for the first time in a comic and visiting Jedi temples between the OT films. It just doesn't sit right with me. Before you know it we'll find Luke was training a padawan on the side between ESB and ROTJ or some craziness like that.

But yeah I don't even read the comics so I guess it shouldn't bother me.

 

The more I think about, the more I would like to see a rotoscoped rendition of the events after OT - IF they are planning to do a gap series later.

Not only would it be different, I think the costs could be low enough to make the faces like our main heroes when they were younger.