At the risk of offending George Lucas, I never bought his argument that the second trilogy was what he intended as the back story for the original trilogy. What is my evidence? The first three movies, which I practically memorized in dialogue and camera angles, and the novelizations which I also read.
1. In
The Phantom Menace, R2D2 is already in existence, while Anakin Skywalker is a child and Obiwan Kenobi is a young man. But all hints in
Star Wars: A New Hope (1977), was that the R2 units were the latest design in robotic technology, and hadn't been around all that long. When Luke says to Obi Wan Kenobi that Artoo claims to be owned by Obi Wan, Kenobi's response is "I don't recall owning a droid, certainly nothing as modern as an R2 unit." In the novelization C3PO says "I just don't understand" this new generation of 'droids. This would directly contradict what we saw in the
Phantom Menace, where R2D2 is old and 3PO is new!
2.
In A New Hope, Obi wan states that when he met Luke's father, Luke's dad was already an experienced fighter pilot, before becoming a Jedi knight. This contradicts the later presentation of the Jedi knights recruiting children and stating that ten-year-old Anakin was already "too old" to begin the training.
3. Lucas also originally conceived of Anakin Skywalker as much older than he was later portrayed. In the final scene
of Return of the Jedi (1983) , the spirit of the recently-deceased Darth Vader appears beside the spirits of Obi Wan and Yoda, and he is clearly an old man. I saw this in the theater (at least three times) and have seen later VHS versions with the original actor. After the second trilogy, Lucas saw fit to replace the old Anakin with a ghost of the young actor who played Anakin in the second trilogy. According to this re-done version, Anakin/Darth was only about forty-three years old at the time of his death.
4. Lucas also envisioned Obi Wan Kenobi as much older than he was portrayed in the second trilogy. In
A New Hope , when
Darth Vader tells Grand Moff Tarkin that "Obi Wan is here" on the Death Star, Tarkin's response is "surely he must be dead by now." Tarkin meant that just like old Nazi war criminals who were never caught, that eventually old age would get them. That's how old Kenobi was supposed to have been, and Tarkin is pretty old himself when he says that. So Kenobi must have been pretty old even when the emperor started wiping out the Jedi knights, much older than Ewan McGregor portrays him.
5. In
The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Yoda is a retired Jedi living on a remote planet, Dagobah, that is not even on the charts. Yoda has been retired so long that Kenobi is able to conceal his existence from young Anakin Skywalker, who has never even heard of Yoda. But in the second trilogy, Yoda is hanging out in the galactic capital, as public a figure as the Speaker of the House.
6. If the Jedi were a force to be reckoned with during the Old Republic, how did Palpatine and Vader wipe them out in one day? If the Jedi were so smart, why were they all just hanging around the capital city, ready to be picked off? Also, that burlap hermit's outfit made sense for Obi Wan to wear in the desert, and for Yoda to wear in a jungle, but it made no sense to wear a hermit's outfit in a mega-city like Corruscant. And if that burlap hermit's outfit was the official Jedi uniform, why would Ben Kenobi wear it while living under an assumed identity?
7. In
Return of the Jedi (1983), Princess Leia told Luke that she had some memory of their mother. In the second trilogy, their mother dies in childbirth, clearly omitting any possibility that Leia actually remembered her.
8. All the Jedi were not master manipulators of the force, according to Kenobi in a
New Hope. Most Jedi, he says, could not manipulate the force at all. But in later movies, al the Jedi were able to perform superhuman and magical feats on a daily basis.
9. Lucas did not intend the Empire to be as all-powerful as was implied later. In the opening titles for
A New Hope (1977), it states that "the rebels have won an increasing number of battles." The senate still had some power and its cooperation was still necessary for the emperor to remain in control. The problem was that some worlds, and their senators, were secretly supporting the rebellion. The Death Star was a last ditch effort by the Empire to maintain control.
10. Despite all the talk of the Jedi and the force and all that, its clear that in
A New Hope, the rebels were doing pretty well without the help of Kenobi, but still motivated by "reactionary religious fanaticsm". They even stole the Death Star's plans without the help of retired Jedi. Han Solo saves the day and he openly disbelieves in the force, motivated more by his admiration of Luke than any high ideals.
Which brings me to another point, especially if we are to now watch all six movies in chronological sequence. Put together, the combined story reveals a Jedi knighthood that was woefully deficient, not only because of the ease with which they were destroyed, but due to flaws in their training. The Jedi claimed that the child Anakin was too old to begin the training, and perhaps they were right, seeing how he turned out. But Luke barely even knew what a Jedi knight was until he was twenty, and he is a pretty good pilot and fighter before he even attempts to use the force.
And to top it off, Luke never succumbs to the Dark Side of the force, not even in the face of death. He willingly drops off the precipice in
The Empire Strikes Back , rather than submit to Vader, and again he refuses to kill his own father at the emperor's command in
Return of the Jedi. Luke never compromises his principles. He is the best Jedi of them all, and he has hardly spent any of his life under their direction, never read their documents (surely destroyed by the empire), and allied with non-Jedi (like Chewbacca and Han Solo, who calls Jedi-dom a "hokey religion.") who save his behind more than once. Even when he disobeys Yoda and Kenobi by flying to Cloud City, he actually does save the group because R2D2, travelling with Luke, re-activates the hyperdrive on the Millenium Falcon before Darth Vader can catch them in the tractor beam of the star destroyer. He still trusts his instincts and his principles and is still victorious.
"I am a Jedi knight, like my father before me," Luke proclaims proudly, throwing down his light saber, fearless! Still brings tears to my eyes.
Note: Check out the 1950s, Kurosawa's Japanese Samurai film
The Hidden Fortress, which Lucas used as the structure for
Star Wars: A New Hope. R2D2 and C-3PO were clearly inspired by the hapless peasants who open up Kurosawa's film, which is why they remain the heart and soul of Lucas's films as well. Part of the magic of the original trilogy was the intersection of the fiesty politically-motivated princess with the money-motivated Han Solo, the adventure-seeking Luke, and two droids who just aim to survive the whole mess day by day. This mixture of different charcter motivations, all somehow working toward a common goal was all present in
the Hidden Fortress.
Note 2: By refusing to kill Darth Vader, his own father, Luke, avoids the unholy act of killing one who gave him life. He also ralizes that to save his father, he must morally surpass his father. He invokes the best that Anakin was "a Jedi, like my father before me," even if his father fell short.
