With the successful release of Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith, filmmaker George Lucas says that he hopes this extensive backstory of Anakin Skywalker's transformation to the iconic figure of Darth Vader will influence fans' future viewings of the original trilogy.

"When I finished with Return of the Jedi I thought that was the end of it," Lucas confesses. "I thought I was going to go and raise my kids, then I'll come back and direct little artsy movies that I always wanted to do. So by the time my kids were old enough where I could go back and direct, I realized that I could tell the story the way I wanted to. And I thought it might be interesting to tell a story that changes and influences the way the first three films are viewed because it really is about Darth Vader, and not about Luke and Leia. And that would be more apparent when you see what the backstory really was."

However, in telling the backstory the way he felt was best, Lucas had to take what he regards as risks with the prequels.

"The first trilogy -- Book One -- is about the father, while the second trilogy -- Book Two -- is about the children," Lucas says. "When you combine them together they become one big piece. When I told people that Episode I was about a ten-year-old boy, people panicked, and they said it wasn't going to work because everyone wanted to see Darth Vader going around and killing people. But I really wanted to be thorough about telling the story about where Darth Vader came from. When I did the second film, people were mortified that it was going to be a love story. But we got through both of those films, and people were excited for Episode III to see the rest of the story."

One of the larger issues that surfaced in the telling of Anakin's fall to the dark side and his rise to becoming a corrupt figure was that of the fall of democracy at the hands of the very people who initially fought oppression.

"You have the personal issue of Anakin and his turn to the dark side, but then the children later bring him back to being a human being," Lucas says. "But the larger issue is that you've given up your democracy, and that the bad guys never took it -- it was handed to them. That theme was there 30 years ago which came out of the Vietnam War and Nixon wanting to change the rules so he could get a third term."

"I'm a big history buff and I was really into Caesar at the time," Lucas recalls. "I always wanted to know why the Roman Senate gave Caesar's nephew a dictatorship after they had gotten rid of Caesar. Why after the revolution in France did they create an Emperor? Why did the Germans after they had a Democracy after World War I, turn it into a dictatorship? Those were my initial questions 30 years ago."