This is not a new idea, but I'd like to try to make a good, quality discussion on it and develop an AH.com consensus on it and the likelihoods involved. There have been other discussions, but I don't believe they've achieved that, and I'd like to try to.
The idea is that George Lucas could very well have made the prequels in the late 80s and into the early 90s, which certainly he did not. But what if he did decide to start them, and released Episode I in the late 80s, continuing the prequel series into the early 90s. What would those films look like, how would they affect the culture, and what would be needed to get Lucas to have done them?
Something I'd like to mention as well, since if people bring it up it's going to annoy me: Episode I, II, and III of this alternate universe are not going to be the Episode I, II and III of 1999 and the early 2000s and just transplanted to an earlier time. George Lucas did not actually have everything planned out, much as he says he did. In reality, he made it all up as he went along. Certainly the stories as they were put into place, outside of just the elements of this universe, would be entirely different. And the elements of the universe are different as well. All you have existing so far are those elements we know of the period from the Original Trilogy: there was something called "The Clone Wars" in which Obi Wan was a General, there was something called the Republic which maintained peace for a thousand generations, Anakin Skywalker (father of Luke and Leia) was Obi Wan's friend and apprentice and the best pilot in the galaxy according to Ben, Anakin was lured to the Dark Side and became Darth Vader, and at some point the Empire and the dark times surrounding it rose up. That's it. No Jango Fett was thought up, nor Padme, Darth Maul, nor even Coruscant (the name Coruscant came from a Timothy Zahn's novels and Lucas used it due to the fans wanting it; originally, he had another name for the capital planet of the Republic). There were preexisiting elements I know George Lucas had in mind, however, such as Vader being burned and thus forced to become a cyborg after a battle on a volcano (not a lava planet, mind you).
The idea is that George Lucas could very well have made the prequels in the late 80s and into the early 90s, which certainly he did not. But what if he did decide to start them, and released Episode I in the late 80s, continuing the prequel series into the early 90s. What would those films look like, how would they affect the culture, and what would be needed to get Lucas to have done them?
Something I'd like to mention as well, since if people bring it up it's going to annoy me: Episode I, II, and III of this alternate universe are not going to be the Episode I, II and III of 1999 and the early 2000s and just transplanted to an earlier time. George Lucas did not actually have everything planned out, much as he says he did. In reality, he made it all up as he went along. Certainly the stories as they were put into place, outside of just the elements of this universe, would be entirely different. And the elements of the universe are different as well. All you have existing so far are those elements we know of the period from the Original Trilogy: there was something called "The Clone Wars" in which Obi Wan was a General, there was something called the Republic which maintained peace for a thousand generations, Anakin Skywalker (father of Luke and Leia) was Obi Wan's friend and apprentice and the best pilot in the galaxy according to Ben, Anakin was lured to the Dark Side and became Darth Vader, and at some point the Empire and the dark times surrounding it rose up. That's it. No Jango Fett was thought up, nor Padme, Darth Maul, nor even Coruscant (the name Coruscant came from a Timothy Zahn's novels and Lucas used it due to the fans wanting it; originally, he had another name for the capital planet of the Republic). There were preexisiting elements I know George Lucas had in mind, however, such as Vader being burned and thus forced to become a cyborg after a battle on a volcano (not a lava planet, mind you).