I use A New Hope mostly for practical reasons, but I much prefer to call it plain Star Wars. The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi are both great titles, and I love hearing the narrator in the trailers gleefuly announcing them. Why can’t we have that in the new trailers, they’d get me so excited about the films.

The Phantom Menace I don’t think is such a terrible title. Having “Episode I” preceding it makes the title seem more ridiculous than it is. If it was simply Star Wars: The Phantom Menace it would open up a lot of interesting possibilities. Attack of the Clones is plain deceptive, I’d expect a truly awesome throwback film with intentionally campy dialog and production design from it (perhaps the title and crawl could have been fashioned in a font different from the norm that was more suited for that idea). Revenge of the Sith would make for a much compelling title if we knew what they were having revenge for.

The Force Awakens does start out nicely by breaking the “X of the X” pattern, but at the same time it feels like an obvious soft reboot title. I suppose it was the most logical choice for the time being. The Last Jedi is another deceptive title, which would seem to fit the film’s main drive to subvert expectations. However, on a closer examination it does make a lack of focus evident (the storyline about the Jedi hardly provides any more impetus than the other 3 stories at play).

And naturally I despise having “A Star Wars story” as part of the titles. We’re already reminded they are that because they exploit the tropes and imagery of the franchise. I would have gone with something like “Rogue One: Or how we stole the plans to the first Death Star”.