I just watched The Phantom Menace again. When you look at the credits at the end of the movie, it says: Based on a Del Rey novel.

 

Now isn't that a bit weird? I always thought that GL was the big brain behind the movies...

Perhaps it was GL. He just feared of the results, and was gone incognito..

very odd indeed....

Del Rey ae the publishers, it was probably part of the deal they struck.

What Elvis said...

When hasn't Lucasfilm acted weird???

 

I must admit, though that this exceeds their usual weirdness. The whole deal sounds pretty absurd, SW: TPM is Lucas's franchise...

 

I' wondering whether it really wasn't an original story written by some writer rather than GL..., that was then adapted for screen by GL...

This maybe a tradition explained by the following:

http://www.starwars.com/eu/news/2004/05/news20040518.html

 

Perhaps someone should check whether Del Rey is given credit at the end of the other movies as well.

So, GL first published under Del Rey license before making a movie?

Well... the book was released befor ethe movie.

GL actually had the problem that his first story was too big to make a film

GL actually had the problem that his first story was too big to make a film

How so?

The first version was ep 1,2,3,4,5,6 all together so he cut at ep 4 decided that he would do the others if he had time. he said it in an interview

In The Adventures of Starkiller Thread I posted some links to download different drafts of ANH, if you read them all you'll notice how the story evolves, and you can even recognize parts from the prequels in it.

So, he actually wrote the entire saga before publishing it?

yep