Revenge vs. Return

I've been going over my old notes on the ROTJ scripts and wanted revisit the discussion on the switch in titles from Revenge of the Jedi to Return of the Jedi. I would like a place to collect all of the relevant information regarding the timeline and motives for this change.  Mind you, I have misplaced my downloaded version of Secret History of Star Wars, so I can't remember what it had to say about it. 

I was thumbing through Peecher's book and found something I'd like a little more clarity.  On pages 55 and 56, we find a international press release that reads:

 

LUCASFILM LTD.

 

FOR RELEASE MONDAY, JANUARY 11, 1982

 

Contact: Sidney Ganis

            Susan Trembly

 

Principle photography begins today (11) on REVENGE OF THE JEDI, the third film of the STAR WARS saga, at EMI Elstree Studios on the outskirts of London.

…

 

The same day, a teletex was sent to Fox announcing the production of the film:

 

ATTN: BOB GREBER

FROM: HOWARD KAZANJIAN

 

PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT PRINCIPLE PHOTOGRAPHY HAS COMMENCED TODAY JANUARY 11^TH, 1982 ON ‘RETURN OF THE JEDI’

 

Do we really know if Return was the intended title the whole time?

It was the intended title. But GL was advised to change it because of the way it sounded. So for a time it was Revenge of the Jedi In the end though he decided to go back to Return of the Jedi due to the simple fact of what the Jedi stood for.

Wasn't it publicly called REVENGE for like, almost 3 years? That's a pretty long time to be the not-title.

Silverwook wrote: There's also this...

I'll take your '7TH APRIL 82' and raise you a '17TH FEBRUARY 82':

From the General Madine Deleted Scene on the 2011 set.

*EDIT*

As they already had the Blue Harvest title floating around, having a different title during production from the final film added a second layer towards obfuscating their work.  If a leak happened and it was attributed towards, Revenge, they could know it was person on set.  Probably only about 4-7 months before premiere would they have needed to alert all the toy and book companies involved of the final title.

I remember being over a friends house in the summer of '82, and her mom told me she read somewhere that the 3rd Star Wars movies was called 'Revenge of the Jedi.'   Always stuck in my head because thats the first I heard of the movie at the time (no internet at the time), and I remember getting totally juiced for the summer of '83.

Here's a newspaper article from May 22nd, 1980:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=m98zAAAAIBAJ&sjid=SzIHAAAAIBAJ&pg=3761,2500650&dq=revenge-of-the-jedi&hl=en

The first trilogy concerns itself with the young Ben Kenobi and the early life of Luke Skywalker's father when Luke was a child, according to Lucas.

The next chapter is the end of the second trilogy entitled "Revenge of the Jedi" and is the conclusion of the conflict between Vader and Luke, he said.

and there's about 20 others with 'Revenge' mentions from just 1980.

*EDIT*

and yet here's another 1980's article with 'Return of the Jedi'

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=6aUuAAAAIBAJ&sjid=KAgEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6778,4601824&dq=return-of-the-jedi&hl=en

So, three years from now, he will not have to spend six weeks in Hollywood, in a sound-mixing room, to complete "The Return of the Jedi," the third "Star Wars" movie.

I wasn't thinking that 'Revenge' is the fake out like 'Blue Harvest' but more of a way to differentiate the information flow.  They had two titles one which was going to be final and one which was semi-fake.  If they wanted to treat trusted sources with more proper information they could have gone with Return, and people they dealt with who they liked less could have been given the 'Revenge' title.  It's a 'people in the know' kind of thing, if a reporter back then went up to someone at LFL and asked about Revenge of the Jedi, one storyline could have been dished out.  While Return (which was less used) they might trust more.  /speculation

*EDIT*

'Revenge' Posters, patches and other images: http://www.evan.org/othrpost.html

I'm tending toward zombie's hypothesis in The Secret History of Star Wars, that Lucas fully intended for "Revenge" to be the title until the final change. I know that there was that one "Return" mention from '80, but I can't really buy that "Revenge" was a fake-out title. Secret History goes into full explanation of how the "Revenge" title goes all the way back to 1979. "Return" *may* have been kicked around early on, but Lucas obviously settled on "Revenge." Until Lucas and co. got second thoughts, "Revenge" was the real title.

The "it was originally called 'Return'" spin goes back to '83. For example, when Nickelodeon's "Standby, Lights, Camera, Action" had a segment on ROTJ, the film had already been retitled, but the documentary footage they showed referred to it as "Revenge of the Jedi." Leonard Nimoy explained that "Revenge" was the working title, but repeated the Lucas spin that "Return" was the original intended title. (And I'm not sure if the film was even out yet when this aired!)

In the newspaper article search there's others from 1980, NYTimes:

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0617FE345D17728DDDA10994DD405B8084F1D3

and Chicago Tribune:

http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/chicagotribune/access/623612852.html?dids=623612852:623612852&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:AI&type=historic&date=May+25%2C+1980&author=&pub=Chicago+Tribune&desc=The+Force+is+with+%27Star+Wars%27+sequel&pqatl=google

There's also two from 1981:

The Victoria Advocate: http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=tlAdAAAAIBAJ&sjid=_FcEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6768,1403634&dq=return+of+the+jedi&hl=en

same article in The Palm Beach Post:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=gf4sAAAAIBAJ&sjid=wcwFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1141,4271232&dq=return+of+the+jedi&hl=en

a year later the Victoria Advocate is again talking about Return in conjunction with GL's vacation time:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=YMFHAAAAIBAJ&sjid=UoAMAAAAIBAJ&pg=6980,129432&dq=return-of-the-jedi&hl=en

Here's that Nimoy doc, the 'Revenge' part is right up front: (the youtube title listing it as released in 1983)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lr8s-CDOSMI

Here's 'The Star Wars Collector Archives' 'Revenge' listings:

http://theswca.com/index.php?action=disp_items_by&items_by=film&id=3

Lots 'o' shit.  Shirts, paper weights, video game, stickers...

OK, so there were more instances of "Return" being mentioned. I still don't buy the "Revenge = fake title" story, especially because zombie quotes the findings of a market research study conducted by LFL at the end of 1982. The footnote citation says it comes from Steve Sansweet's "Star Wars Vault" book, a Lucas-approved publication.

I find it very hard to believe that they'd have conducted a study on reactions to "Revenge" vs. "Return" if "Revenge" was a bogus title and they were intending to call it "Return" the whole time. It's just more of this whole "everything was planned out"/"Lucas is infallible" bullhonky.

It would have been much more honest to admit that during production and up until the end of '82, "Revenge" was the decided-upon title, and that it was changed to "Return" because Lucas decided that a Jedi wouldn't take revenge (i.e., he changed his mind) and/or the fans didn't like the idea of Jedi seeking revenge (i.e., Lucas realized that calling the film "Revenge" was a mistake). Of course, we're supposed to believe that George Lucas doesn't change his mind or make mistakes, hence "Return was always the real title and Revenge was a fake title".

I wouldn't hold out hope for the tape deck...

...or the Credence.

timdiggerm said:

Which does remind me of the question: What are the Sith revenging?

doubleofive said:

I love how I remember somehow that it was changed because "A Jedi doesn't take revenge." Then I remember hearing that it was too similar to "Star Trek II: The Revenge of Khan", so they both changed their titles.

You're half right. The change from "Revenge" to "Return" had nothing to do with Star Trek II, which had been out for months when ROTJ's title was changed. Paramount changed the subtitle of Star Trek II from "The Vengeance of Khan" to "The Wrath of Khan" because at the time, ROTJ was still to be called "Revenge of the Jedi."

ST2 came out in June 1982, ROTJ in May 1983. Even though ST2's release date was a full year before ROTJ's, Star Wars was so big and anticipation for the third film was so high that Paramount worried that releasing a film with a title containing "Star ____" and "Vengeance of ____" would cause confusion and/or raise the ire of Lucas' legal department.

Irony: It was Paramount who came up with the "Vengeance of Khan" title in the first place. Obviously, someone else at the studio (maybe *their* lawyers?) then realized it wasn't a good idea. Memory Alpha says that Meyer himself brought up the ROTJ issue - he hated the studio's retitle and wanted them to go back to his original title of "The Undiscovered Country". I think William Shatner brought this up in his book "Star Trek Movie Memories".