A New Hope. The Empire Strikes Back. The Return of the Jedi. The Phantom Menace. Attack of the Clones. Revenge of the Sith. The Star Wars franchise is full of dramatic-sounding subtitles, and now they have finally – finally! – added another one.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens is now officially the title of Star Wars: Episode VII. Directed by J.J. Abrams (Star Trek Into Darkness), the new film reunites the cast of the original trilogy with an all new group of characters. And now, presumably, it appears that The Force will awaken at some point as well.
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Considering that The Return of the Jedi ended with Luke Skywalker as the last Jedi in the universe (unless Leia decided to undergo some training, anyway), the new title does appear to provide some hint as to the plot of Episode VII. We clearly haven’t seen the last of the Jedi. Heck, it may even be time to make some new ones.
The only other curious thing about this new title is how short it is. Whereas the official title of most of the Star Wars movies actually includes the episode number, StarWars.com is officially calling this new installment just Star Wars: The Force Awakens. As opposed to Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens.
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Although we may be reading too much into this, it’s possible that removing the roman numerals is a calculated effort to make the upcoming spin-off movies from director Gareth Edwards (Godzilla) and Josh Trank (The Fantastic Four), feel like part of the new franchise as opposed to mere sidebars.
In any case, The Force Awakens is a classy title, and offhand we definitely approve. It sounds official, it sounds like a new beginning, it just sounds like Star Wars.
As for how the movie actually plays, we’ll find out when Star Wars: The Force Awakens strikes theaters next year, on December 18, 2015.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast and The Blue Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
