10 Facts Everyone Always Gets Wrong About Star Wars

8. The Prequels Were Just Made Up

The Misconception: In case this is your first day on the internet, on the whole people don't like the Star Wars Prequels. We don't really agree, but as the comments of that article show, it's a pretty strongly held belief. The general feeling is that while Lucas obviously cared enough to commit ten years of his life making three massive movies, he was really more concerned with keeping the finances paying dividends, with the creativity that once defined the saga replaced with ideas that best lent themselves to action figures. Oh, that and making things rhyme.

The Truth: Some elements of the prequels (Jar Jar, Samuel L. Jackson's stunt casting, the things that stole from contemporary movies) clearly come from being made over a decade after the originals ended, but that doesn't mean the prequels were made up on the fly. In fact, the general ideas - how the Emperor rose to power, the droids journey (including C-3PO being built by a child) - all come from Lucas' early plans for the wider saga written in the immediate aftermath of Star Wars' phenomenal release.

Heck, even Midichlorians were first conceived of then. For a real taste of what Lucas had planned all along, check out this run down of the biggest things he knew back in 1977. They may not be people's favourite movies, but there's no escaping the prequels were, in part, in the spirit of the originals.