Wikipedia lists the following release years for the Star Wars movies:

  • Episode IV: A New Hope (1977)
  • Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
  • Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983)
  • Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999)
  • Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002)
  • Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005)
  • Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
  • Episode VIII (2017)
  • Episode IX (2019)

Why are there two 10 year plus gaps between the movies?

  • Related, my answer here: movies.stackexchange.com/questions/41191/… – cde Feb 10 '16 at 14:10
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    AFAIK Lucas didn't plan to film anything beside Episodes 4-6. Then he probably needed money so he made the awful prequels. And then he needed even more money and sold the franchise to Disney... – Thomas Feb 10 '16 at 14:11
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    Also, multi-era trilogies are pretty rare anyway. I don't know of any aside from Star Wars. – cde Feb 10 '16 at 14:11
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    It is important to note that the franchise owner has changed over time, so no one party was missing out on this revenue. And unlike the Fast and Furious franchise, or something similar, where they decide "let's make another one", the original Star Wars trilogy essentially forced the franchise to produce "another three" at a time, all while adequately, if not deftly, connecting to the existing material. That takes time. – raisinghellyer Feb 10 '16 at 15:06
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    Not sure why this has been downvoted. Even with the franchise owner change from Lucas to Disney, it's still not immediately obvious why there was such a gap between the originals and the prequels. – Andrew Martin Feb 10 '16 at 16:52


  1. Delay between original trilogy and prequel trilogy

    • Lucas' marriage ending resulting in a potential lack of finances, a possible lack of interest in producing sequels, inability of technology of era to reflect what Lucas wanted to achieve.
  2. Delay between prequel trilogy and new/sequel trilogy

    • Lucas not wanting to pursue sequels, Lucas selling to Disney.

Long Answer:

We can break down the series in to three sections:

  1. Original Trilogy
  2. Prequel Trilogy
  3. New/Sequel Trilogy

Lucas wrote in a preface to Splinter of the Mind's Eye:


This explains why the original trilogy takes place halfway through the overall Star Wars storyline.

Return of the Jedi was released in 1983, but Lucas was divorced in 1987. A number of online sites reference a few sources (including The Secret History of Star Wars) that claim the settlement from this divorce left Lucas without a lot of his fortune, and with little desire to develop his next Star Wars film, he had cancelled his originally planned new/sequel trilogy.

Whether this is true or not is debateable. For example, in 2004 Lucas gave an interview where he said:



However, although Lucas states he wasn't interested in a sequel trilogy, he had spoken of a prequel trilogy, but didn't want to pursue this due to the technological limitations of the time - as technology developed, he gained more interest in the prequels as technology advanced and he felt he could realise his dreams. For example, in this article, he comments:


Due to the enhanced interest, he began work on the prequel trilogy and the films were released from 1999 - 2005.

Even in 2008, Lucas said:


However, in October 2012 Star Wars was sold to Disney. They immediately recognised the huge monetary potentials for the films and began work on a new trilogy immediately, with the first instalment releasing in late 2015.

Loss of revenue:

I will point out that the Star Wars Universe (before Disney purchased the franchise) extended far beyond the films. The canonicity of the universe was as follows:

G (George Lucas) canon is absolute canon. This category includes the final releases of the seven films, the novelizations of the films, the radio dramas based on the films, the film scripts, and any material found in any other source (published or not) that comes directly from George Lucas himself. G canon outranks all other forms of canon.


C (continuity) canon refers to the main body of EU work, and is the next most authoritative level of canon. All literature material published under the Star Wars label that doesn't fall into either G, T, S, or N canon is C canon and is considered authoritative as long as it isn't contradicted by G or T canon. S (secondary) canon refers to older, less accurate, or less coherent EU works, which are immediately overwritten by anything in the main continuity of G and C canon, but are fully canon whenever they do not contradict something of higher canon.


Across these various levels of canon, there was substantial revenue generated in the form of books, video games and TV series.

So whilst the films had a huge gap which resulted in a potential loss of revenue, revenue did continue to flow given the huge sales of Star Wars related products (and arguably helped the overall revenue of the franchise as the market wasn't flooded with new movies).

  • Wait, Lucas was involved in the Holiday Special. Though he disavowed it later and expressed a desire to destroy every surviving copy, does that still make it T canon? – Darrel Hoffman Feb 10 '16 at 22:25
  • I actually left off two levels of canon: S (secondary) and N (non-canon). Both are actually non-continuity, and the Holiday Special falls under the "S" category. – Andrew Martin Feb 10 '16 at 22:36

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