In the mid 90's, Lucas announced he would postpone the prequels after he failed to work out a good story for them(which occurred shortly after Rick McCallum, his producer, died in a car accident in 1996). The script for his Episode 1 leaked(OOC: this is the first draft in 1996, not the 1999 film). He instead decided to direct, but not write, a sequel trilogy based on the Thrawn trilogy. Said movies were underwhelming, albeit watchable(OOC:the reception is more like the Hobbit films TTL), and got a backlash, but they are now seen as films ahead of their time. Sony bought Star Wars and made more movies later, including a standalone Clone Wars film about Mandalorians(it did not feature or directly mention Anakin, Obi Wan, or Palpatine, given Lucas made them legally unable to make the story of Vader in his deal), and a trilogy set before Episode 4 dealing with a reckless female rebel starfighter plot(OOC: Katee Sachoff's Kara Thrace in Star Wars is who his character is) and her and her comrades futile battle against the Empire(Han Solo cameoes in it). What if Lucas actually made prequels instead, given the sequels were so underwhelming as films that the only they were good at was not being terrible?