End Wars

Sequels have no reason to exist as stories. If the original worked, it's because it moved successfully from one place to another, ending where it should. No need to have the same characters go somewhere else. Sequels exist so the original creators can make money, since the audience enjoyed the first bite, and wants another. (Ironically, the pieces that might find a sequel useful are the ones that failed to get their characters where they should be in the first place--but no one wants to see them.)

Anyway, here's a discussion of sequels, but what I'd draw your attention to is this comment (spelling errors in the original):

Many people think Gary Kurtz is what held the first two Star Wars films together. He reigned in Lucas. If you find one of Lucas early drafts for Star Wars (which are available online) it's drek, a total swipe of a whole bunch of things like Dune and so on. [I don't think Lucas denies he was inspired by a bunch of stories. The point is he made something new out of them.] As soon as Kurtz stopped working with Lucas his films took that creative nosedive we're all aware of....

And this one:

That's a good observation about Gary Kurtz. When Lucas redid Star Wars, I was amazed that he seemed to completely lose touch with the feel of the original movie. Star Wars had a very Kurasawa feel to it. It was Zen, it was clean, minimalist, yet deep. [Minimalist? That's nutty. Star Wars in its day was sleek and fast, sure, but was considered a cornucopia.] It felt thoughtful. The re-do suddenly disrupted the whole feel of the movie by filling every single blank space with something for the ADD crowd. To me, it was like covering a work of art with flashing neon. That told me that Lucas never understood his original movie. What you say about Gary Kurtz, might add credence to that.

For quite a while now people have been trying to figure how the George Lucas who came up with the first two Star Wars films was also responsible for the last three or four. To answer this, they'll accept almost any argument that gives credit to anyone but Lucas for the good ones.

This is absurd. There are a lot of people who worked on those films, but the central person, the man who created the Star Wars galaxy and the stories within, was Lucas. He gets the lion's share of credit for what works and blame for what doesn't. (He also gets credit for American Graffiti and a lot of Raiders Of The Lost Ark.)

How is it the franchise artistically fell apart? As I've said elsewhere, failure doesn't need to be explained, success does. But let me try.

1) A hit is when lightning strikes. Recreating those conditions is almost impossible. That even one sequel to Star Wars lived up to the original is a surprise, and we should be amazed that happened, not that the others failed.

2) George Lucas was at the height of his powers in the 70s, and more naturally hooked into the zeitgeist. Lucas 20 years laters was a different man--no longer hungry but trying to recapture an old spirit.

3) The prequels never had a chance. We already know where they're going to end up, and forcing a backstory that must conform to an outcome doesn't work. If Lucas wanted to return to Star Wars, he should have forgotten about all his ideas of Star Wars past, as clear as they might have been to him. We had our own ideas and his could never live up to them. Better he'd given his imagination free rein and told stories that continue into the open future.