Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace - 8 Reasons It Will Be The Best Yet
5. A Cohesive Story
If theres one thing that the Special Editions showed us, it was that Lucas is very aware of his older work. When producing a late in the day follow up, its quite easy to get distracted from what made the original so great.
Last years Alien: Resurrection was about as far away from Ridley Scotts chest bursting original as possible. What irked most people was how it altered the existing Alien backstory; aside from making Ripley a mere shadow of the feminine icon she once was, the basic DNA of what made a Xenomorph a Xenomorph was tampered with (and the final showdown, with that weird almost human thing getting killed in the most disappointing of ways was plain stupid).
That seems unlikely to happen with Star Wars; Lucas knows his films well and wont . In decades time, people will look back on the two trilogies and see them as one whole cinematic experience, not two separate stories.