Because if 4 1 was first, the others wouldnât have been made?
edit to strike 4
English: Jane will go to the store.
German : Jane will to the store go.
Arabic : To the store Jane will go.
Yoda: Go to the store, Jane will. Confront the Dark Side there, she must.
Real answer - it was a homage to sci-fi serials from back in the day, and to make it look like it was part of a bigger story.
Though later Lucas said he had an outline of 9 movies, and took the middle part to tell first. By outline I think he wrote âI should make 9 movies.â because there was very little in the prequels that had the same feel as the originals and the story of the prequels was way too disjointed and contrived.
Also, better Yoda joke:
Where there are Whills, there are ways.
Have we not had this argument over on another thread? 
The story of the prequels may have many problems, but disjointed and contrived is not necessarily one of them. Except in the sense that all fiction is contrivedâŚ
I can well imagine that Lucas did have a vague idea about Luke, Leia, Han and their children in mind when he started, but may well have realised that heâd probably not be around long enough to see it made properly (and Iâm pretty sure that the story Zahn gave us wasnât really the one Lucas had in mind - and nor will the upcoming version.) But a story that is not only set decades later but is actually being filmed decades later with many of the same actors is quite cool. Richard Linklater, eat your heart out. 
I absolutely agree. The disjointedness and contrivance were utterly unnecessary, and all the more destructive for being so.
I really canât see a way to defend the prequel. It was thematically disjointed, the characterization didnât make sense, and the plot was riddled with contradictions. None of it made any sense.
It all built up to the âincredibleâ scene of Annikin (or whatever his name was) being incinerated. To provide an excuse for the Vader outfit. But unfortunately, in context, looking a bit stupid for falling for Kenobiâs strike. Bouncing around on inflatables on a lava river.
Gosh all so dramatic. Gosh all so naive.
They stitched so much rubbish together they certainly (CERTAINLY!) had no time to actually watch the movies.
It was cereal box rubbish, through and through. Lucas didnât care.
But I did. And I do. And I brought my children through the shame, clearly informing them of the lack of authenticity.
sigh
My mother went to see Star Wars in the theater not long after its release. When the scroll started, she thought âCrap, I missed the first three? This wonât make any sense.â
Have you read any of the early scripts for âThe Star Warsâ that are floating around? They bore even less resemblance to the original trilogy as filmed than the prequels do.
I watched that bit and thought âimagine how differently things would have gone if Obi-Wan had mercifully finished off his former friend instead of leaving him to slowly die in agony as his skin melted off.â
But 4 was first and the others were made.
If she saw âEpisode IVâ in the crawl for Star Wars, she didnât see it ânot long after its release.â That wasnât added until a year after The Empire Strikes Back came out.
Funny joke, this is.
Well, if so, he didnât clue Alan Dean Foster in on this. Foster wrote the first Star Wars spin-off novel* Splinter of the Mindâs Eye, in which Luke has rather romantic feelings towards Leia. This book came out between the first two movies, so it would seem that Lucas hadnât worked out the whole family relations that early on.
*Foster also wrote the original filmâs novelization although George Lucas got the credit on the cover.
