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Star Wars vs. A New Hope - Which do you say and why? — Page 3

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DarthCendiary said:

I never use the Episode IV bit; not for any principled reason, but just because Star Wars is too deeply embedded in my soul as “the first one”.

Yup.

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I used to say ANH most of the time, but a few years ago stopped when I realized just how much the SE and constant reworking had affected the overall film and devalued all of the original team’s hard work.
So now I just say Star Wars, and if needing to clarify to the uninitiated, Star Wars in its original 1977 unaltered form.

VADER!? WHERE THE HELL IS MY MOCHA LATTE? -Palpy on a very bad day.
“George didn’t think there was any future in dead Han toys.”-Harrison Ford
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I love the fact that there are people out there that discuss Star Wars so frequently that they not only need a policy on naming conventions, they need that policy to take efficiency into account.

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Really it depends who I’m talking to and what the context is. If it’s not clear which one I’m talking about by the context or if I’m talking to somebody who would get confused by me just referring to it as Star Wars, or if I’m talking about it as in reference to the overall story of the saga, I’ll refer to it as A New Hope. Otherwise, it’s Star Wars. I’m not like some people on this forum getting all upset if somebody calls it A New Hope though. Been that way since 1981 and it was attached to an otherwise original version of the film. For most of us, it’s probably the first way we saw the film. It does no harm to have a subtitle to help differentiate it from the other movies.

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Now that’s true; it was there when I first saw it. In fact seeing the original crawl without the subtitle was news to me!

Ol’ George has the GOUT, I see.

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 (Edited)

A New Hope. It doesn’t take anything from the movie and makes it easier to sort.

Plus it wasn’t A New Hope only at it’s premiere. All releases since were A NEW HOPE.

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The first (and the second through to about the two hundred and thirteenth) time I watched it was on a VHS tape recorded from the tv. I have no idea what the crawl said, as my father had missed the beginning. The movie started with the rebel scum already lined up and facing the door about to be blasted open by stormtroopers.

That might skew my thoughts on ANH and EpIV nomenclature a bit.

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This thread touches a nerve for me. I’m still dreaming of a preservation/reconstruction of the 1981 version of the movie that looks as HD as Harmy’s.

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Although I exclusively refer to it as Star Wars today, I only ever remember calling it A New Hope up until I joined this site in late 2013. I never remember my dad calling it Star Wars, and my brother still calls it A New Hope, since the only version he and his wife own are the letterboxed Faces tapes that I gave them. His wife is lucky enough to have never even seen the Special Edition, eliciting quite the scowl when I showed her some of the changes.

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Considering this is the only change made before the Original Trilogy was even completed, it seems a lot less revisionist than others. It’s also just a subtitle change. Not a huge deal. It does make it easier to differentiate which Star Wars film in particular you are talking about. Though I usually just call it “the original.”

Of course, the first version of the movie I saw had it. Not that I ever paid much attention to it. The VHS box art and label just said Star Wars and I don’t remember calling it A New Hope.

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Screw you, George, for forcing us to even have this discussion.

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Density said:

Considering this is the only change made before the Original Trilogy was even completed, it seems a lot less revisionist than others. It’s also just a subtitle change. Not a huge deal.

Theoretically, that was the idea. But in practice, as with the SE changes, they paid little to no attention to the excellent (and Oscar-winning) editing work of the original when splicing in a change. Thus, what could have been a simple and inobtrusive change to the crawl and flyover ended up screwing up the musical cue for the appearance of Tatooine. So while it’s not as intentionally revisionist as the SE changes, it’s actually pretty well in line with the sloppiness of those later changes.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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I call it Star Wars.
The New Hope thing I will use if I’m talking to someone who I think prefers that title, but yeah, to me it’s Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back (or Empire for short),
Return of the Jedi (or just Jedi for short)

I am actually pretty sure I never knew anyone called it A New Hope until 1990!

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I usually go with “The Journal of The Whills: Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope (From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker)”.

Though I frankly prefer “Luke Starkiller”, before Lucas messed it up by specializing it and changing the name to Skywalker.

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I call it “A New Hope” or “Episode IV” because nobody outside of a minority of fanboys cares what it’s called.

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mapet318 said:

I call it “A New Hope” or “Episode IV” because nobody outside of a minority of fanboys cares what it’s called.

I’d try to parse this sentence in a way that isn’t unintentionally self-deprecating, but why?

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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I usually refer to each film by its Episode, or one word of the title, ie; “Menace, Clones, Sith, Hope, Empire, Jedi, Awakens.” But if I’m online I’ll usually abbreviate the subtitles (TPM, ANH, TFA).
I tend to use the Episode number more though.
It’s probably because I’m in my 20s, I grew up with the '97 SE and the Prequels so I guess I’m more used to it.

I was quite disappointed TFA dropped the Episode subtitle from everything except the crawl though. I’m a massive Star Wars home video collector first and foremost so having almost every single DVD have the numbers on the spine and match up nicely, it makes TFA look even more out of place.
Not a fan of the cover art of TFA for the DVD/BD in general actually. But alas, I’m getting off track now.

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I like the standard BD slipcover quite a lot. I’ve never been wild about the theatrical poster so I’m not thrilled that it’s on the case insert, but it’s not a terribly important issue for me.

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CatBus said:

mapet318 said:

I call it “A New Hope” or “Episode IV” because nobody outside of a minority of fanboys cares what it’s called.

I’d try to parse this sentence in a way that isn’t unintentionally self-deprecating, but why?

My point was that most people who I come across have always known ANH as ANH or Episode IV, and not just “Star Wars”. So to call it “Star Wars” would then require me to give them the whole run-down of it being given a subtitle and episode number and whatnot. Using “Episode IV” just makes it easy to identify what you’re talking about to everybody. I could call it “Star Wars: The Adventures of Owen Lars’s Charred Corpse” and it would be a better description than just “Star Wars”. And I seriously can’t imagine anyone in real life getting fussy about word choice.

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mapet318 said:

And I seriously can’t imagine anyone in real life getting fussy about word choice.

My point is, you just did.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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To be fair, I think he’s right in that most people simply don’t care. Most people don’t care about most everything we discuss here, actually.

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Oh absolutely. The first clause of “It’s silly to even care about this and here’s my considered opinion on this and why I think I’m right” is hard to dispute, the second is hard not to giggle at.

The fact that nobody cares or even knows that the name got changed is kind of a given, and part of why it took Lucasfilm a couple decades to bother changing the primary name on the packaging.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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CatBus said:

mapet318 said:

And I seriously can’t imagine anyone in real life getting fussy about word choice.

My point is, you just did.

Eh, I guess you’re right :^)

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I’m pretty darn sure that if I asked almost ANYONE, regardless of age, out on the street, “Have you ever seen A New Hope?” They’d say, “No. Never heard of it. What’s that? Is it new?”
And then if I asked, "Have you seen Star Wars, THOSE SAME PEOPLE would say, “Of course. I’ve seen all of them.”
That is all.