TL; DR: Ja, George Lucas har upprepade gånger sagt att han avsåg prequeltrilogin att parallellt med den ursprungliga trilogin i många avseenden, och kritiker har talat om det på något sätt.

Det liknar (men kanske något annorlunda) som ofta kallas " Star Wars Ringteori ".

George Lucas:

The interesting thing about Star Wars—and I didn’t ever really push this very far, because it’s not really that important—but there’s a lot going on there that most people haven’t come to grips with yet. But when they do, they will find it’s a much more intricately made clock than most people would imagine.
— George Lucas, Vanity Fair, February 2005

och:

[Star Wars] is purposely written like a piece of music, with themes that repeat themselves in different ways, and ideas that reprise from one generation to the next.
- George Lucas, quoted in Scott Chernoff, The Plot Thickens, "Star Wars Insider", July/August 2002.

och:

Instead of destroying the Death Star [like Luke], [Anakin] destroys the ship that controls the robots. It’s like poetry. Every stanza kind of rhymes with the last one.
- George Lucas, The Beginning: Making Episode I Disc 2, The Phantom Menace DVD

och:

It’s very, very clear in the two trilogies that I’m putting the characters in pretty much the same situations sometimes even using the same dialogue so that the father and son go through pretty much the same experience.
- George Lucas, Audio Commentary, The Phantom Menace DVD

Kritiker:

[Anne Lancashire, professor of Cinema Studies and Drama at the University of Toronto] contends that Lucas began his “carefully designed interrelationships” between the six films by deliberately basing Menace’s narrative on A New Hope’s:

"Anakin Skywalker (eventual father of Luke) is [Menace’s] version of A New Hope’s Luke, going through narratively similar situations and experiences. Anakin, like Luke, is a young boy on the desert planet of Tatooine, from a “broken” family, who is suddenly given the opportunity to embark on an epic quest involving a beautiful, royal young woman in need of his help and a Jedi knight who becomes his mentor. Like Luke, Anakin accepts the opportunity and is flown through space with his mentor to face a test (for Luke, the Death Star rescue of Leia; for Anakin, a literal test before the Jedi Council). Like A New Hope, the film then ends with the boy’s special powers (including his capacity for friendship and love) permitting him to save his friends from annihilation by destroying an enemy battle station. Details of the narrative also correspond from one film to the other: the Jedi mentor’s advice to the protagonist to rely on his feelings, the death of the mentor in a light-saber duel, the association of allies with ancient sacred ruins."

Also, as Lancashire points out, in repeating the narrative pattern of A New Hope, Lucas deliberately repeats that film’s mythological pattern as well:

"Like the plot of A New Hope, that of [Menace] takes us through the three stages of [Joseph] Campbell’s monomyth: the hero’s departure (on his quest), initiation (testing experiences), and return (the emergence from tests to achieve a final victory). This is also both the plot pattern of each of [Star Wars: Episode V—The Empire Strikes Back (1980)] and [Jedi] (with Empire’s “return” phase completed only at the start of Jedi) and, as well, the overarching pattern of the first-made trilogy as a whole (A New Hope as departure. [Empire] as initiation. [Jedi] as return). The integrating viewer can now perceive that Star Wars 1 through 6 will give us the same pattern arching over all six films, in relation to Anakin as hero: with his departure in [Menace], initiation in episodes 2 – 3, and return in 4 – 6 (beginning with his discovery of his son Luke in 4 – 5, and ending with his self-sacrificial death for Luke, and therefore resurrection, at the end of 6)."

Repeating the patterns of plot and myth, Lancashire argues, gives the saga, among other things, “a sense of repeating, increasingly complex cycles of human experience,” within individual lives, from one generation to the next, and “within the overall movement of Anakin’s entire life from boyhood to death.”

In addition: “[The repeated patterns] also allow, through variations, an emotionally and intellectually complicating emphasis upon difference and change. The broad pattern of human life, from youth to maturity to death, remains constant, but individual circumstances within the pattern inevitably differ, creating different possibilities and problems.”

It’s also worth mentioning that the sense of repeating cycles is not only personal, but also political as the films, taken as a whole, reflect the perpetual rise and fall of democracies (the Republic) and dictatorships (the Empire).
- Source

Minaegnaobservationer(ochexpansionpåovanstående):

• EnungSkywalker-pojkefrånenbrutenfamilj,somharenenormForcepotentialochärenovanligtbegåvadpilotförsinålder,borpåTatooinetillshanträffarenellerfleraJedi,varavenärObi-Wan.

  • EpisodI-PojkenärAnakin,JediärQui-GonochObi-Wan

  • EpisodIV-PojkenärLuke,JediärObi-Wan.

• DenhärungaSkywalker-pojkengårpåettspännandeäventyrsominvolverarenungkvinnligkungligsombehöversinhjälp.

  • EpisodI-denkungligakungenärPadme

  • EpisodIV-denkvinnligakungenärLeia.

• Skywalker-pojkengårmedJediförattmötaetttest.

  • EpisodI-ettbokstavligttestföreJedi-rådet

  • EpisodIV-testetatträddaLeiafrånDeathStar.

• EnlightaberduellsominvolverarObi-Wan,enäldreJedimentorochenSith,händerinomenungJedi-trainee.denäldreJedi-mentorndödas,denungaJedi-lärarenskriker"NEJ!".

  • Episod I - den äldre Jedi-mentorn är Qui-Gon, den unga Jedi-läraren är Obi-Wan, Sith är Darth Maul.

  • Episod IV - den äldre Jedi-mentorn är Obi-Wan, den unga Jedi-läraren är Luke, Sith är Darth Vader.

• Filmens klimax innebär att den unga Skywalker deltar i en rymdstrid för att förstöra en rund stridsstation som kretsar en fredlig planet och räddar sina vänner.

  • Episod I - Kampstationen är Trade Federation-fartyget, planeten är Naboo

  • Episod IV - Stridsstationen är Death Star, planeten är Yavin.

• Slutet på filmen är en prisutdelning på några trappor där Skywalker-pojken, R2-D2, den unga kungakvinnan och några utomjordingar deltar.

  • Episod I - Anakin, Padme, Gungans

  • Episod IV - Luke, Leia, Chewbacca.

• Filmen motsvarar den unga pojkens avgång, rättegång och seger.

  • Episod I - Lämna Tatooine, träffa rådet, spränga Trade Federation Ship

  • Episod IV - Lämna Tatooine, rädda Leia; blåser upp Death Star.

• I den andra delen av trilogin förlorar den unga Skywalker sin högra hand i en lightaber strid med en Sith som involverar Anakin.

  • Episod II - Anakins hand är huggen av Dooku

  • Episod V - Lukas hand är huggad av Vader (Anakin).

• I den tredje delen av trilogin kommer den unga Skywalker in i en lightsaber-kamp, och det slutar med att Anakin förlorar en eller flera lemmar.

  • Episod III - Obi-Wan pwns Anakin och lops av båda benen och en arm

  • Episod VI - Luke pwns Vader (Anakin) och slår av en arm.

• Trilogin fokuserar på den unga Skywalker och hans progression som en Jedi, tills Anakin har en hjärtförändring och plötsligt byter sidor, dödar en mentor; detta händer ungefär samma gång som ett lightaber-slag som involverar Palpatine; En förändring av identiteten mellan Anakin och Vader händer.

  • Prequel-trilogin - Anakin blir en kraftfull Jedi, men under en tjusig kamp slår han på Mace Windu, hjälper Palpatine att döda honom och ansluter sig till Sith och upphör att vara Anakin och blir Vader.

  • Original trilogi - Luke blir en kraftfull Jedi, men under en ljuskamp slår Anakin (nu känd som Vader) sidor och dödar Palpatine, blir Jedi igen, och han upphör att vara Vader och blir Anakin en gång mer.