I’m just gonna look at the saga films, but feels free to discuss the titles of any Star Wars content you want.
I don’t think I could pick a best Star Wars title, but I can definitely pick a worst: The Last Jedi. Now I’m not one of those people who hated the film, I thought it was pretty good (although it’s no exception to my rule of “movies shouldn’t be much more than two hours”), but that’s not what we’re here to talk about. I really dislike that title. Every episode up until that point had been entirely unique. No nouns were recycled. Then The Last Jedi comes along and now there’s a second film with Jedi in the title. It just feels so, so wrong in an intangible way. I guess it suits the film’s love of subverting expectations, but to me it’s equivalent of skipping the opening crawl. It just irks me to a probably irrational degree.
Had it been up to me, I think I would’ve called it The First Order Makes Chase. It fits the plot of the film as well the theme of retaliation second parts tend to have in the saga. Although I don’t want to adhere to closely to “poetry” if it becomes restrictive, I think it’s nice to have when possible. If we follow this logic, I’ve determined that the best title for IX would be…Rebirth of the Bendu. Not sure it’s actually the best, but within the context of matching Return of the Jedi and Revenge of the Sith, it fits perfectly. I figure it’d be about Rey and Kylo uniting to revive the ancient order of the Bendu, Force-wielders who use both sides of the Force.
Now I’m guessing some people will say Attack of the Clones is a bad title because the Clones don’t technically attack anything, but given how vague SW titles are, I don’t have an issue with it, as it still fits the gist of the film.
On a different note, am I the only who kind of wishes we had a “Rise of” title? I’m sure many of you will say it’s too generic, but I like and think it would fit in incredibly well among the titles. I guess we could take my earlier suggestion and make it Rise of the Bendu, but really, the final chapter in the saga, or any story for that matter, should not have “Rise” in the title. It’s more appropriate for the beginning or middle of a trilogy.