How do you feel about Star Wars being re-titled A New Hope in 1981? — Page 4

Handman said:

Dek Rollins said:

The DC of Star Trek II isn’t a different movie, it’s just a better version of the same movie.

No.

My feelings on this issue are pretty standard for a Star Wars purist. Dumb title and it messes up the timing of the music to the crawl. I call it Star Wars when I can. “The original Star Wars” when people get confused.

Mind elaborating what you’re responding to here?

Handman said:

Dek Rollins said:

Handman said:

Dek Rollins said:

The DC of Star Trek II isn’t a different movie, it’s just a better version of the same movie.

No.

My feelings on this issue are pretty standard for a Star Wars purist. Dumb title and it messes up the timing of the music to the crawl. I call it Star Wars when I can. “The original Star Wars” when people get confused.

Mind elaborating what you’re responding to here?

Star Trek II’s Director’s cut is not better than the theatrical cut.

I beg to differ, but that wasn’t the point of what I was saying anyway.

Handman said:

That wasn’t the point of my original post either. But you asked for me to elaborate on the Star Trek quote like you couldn’t figure out what I meant.

“No” is a bit vague. You could have meant that the DC of Star Trek II is a fundamentally different film and that it is considered such, disputing the point I was making.

Handman said:

I’m not going to argue semantics with you over something that doesn’t matter.

That’s fine. I was simply explaining that I had reason to ask for clarification on a one word response to a six month old post.

Shopping Maul said:

Anakin Starkiller said:

Expecting or worse demanding the film not to get a subtitle to match the others is completely backwards. I just can’t wrap my head around the concept of people wanting to call it just “Star Wars”. That’s needlessly confusing and makes it stand out like a sore thumb.

As for the title itself I think it’s simple and elegant, and I like it.

It was called ‘Star Wars’ for 20 years and no-one got confused. Just saying’…

It was just called Star Wars for 4 years, actually. As soon as Empire started the whole subtitle thing, they changed the previous movie to make it match. And the “Star Wars” title may have worked in a time when it was the first Star Wars movie chronologically, but with the prequels I don’t think it makes sense. It just causes unnecessary confusion.

Shopping Maul said:

StarkillerAG said:

Shopping Maul said:

Anakin Starkiller said:

Expecting or worse demanding the film not to get a subtitle to match the others is completely backwards. I just can’t wrap my head around the concept of people wanting to call it just “Star Wars”. That’s needlessly confusing and makes it stand out like a sore thumb.

As for the title itself I think it’s simple and elegant, and I like it.

It was called ‘Star Wars’ for 20 years and no-one got confused. Just saying’…

It was just called Star Wars for 4 years, actually. As soon as Empire started the whole subtitle thing, they changed the previous movie to make it match. And the “Star Wars” title may have worked in a time when it was the first Star Wars movie chronologically, but with the prequels I don’t think it makes sense. It just causes unnecessary confusion.

Yes, it was technically retitled in '81 but no-one bought into it. Even the video releases up until 1992 or thereabouts simply called it ‘Star Wars’. We bought ‘Star Wars’ action figures and ‘Star Wars’ lunchboxes and no-one said “hey, can’t wait to get ‘A New Hope’ on video” until the prequel era.

I know, but that’s because the prequels didn’t exist yet. When “Star Wars” stopped being the first Star Wars movie chronologically, I think a rebranding was necessary, and the title they needed was already right there.

I’m not necessarily disputing the current logic of the subtitle but to say it’s backwards is actually backwards. Like all of Lucas’ retcons he should’ve crafted his future movies to be in line with what was established rather than roll with his usual ‘original intent’ crap. Star Wars was one of the most groundbreaking movies in cinema history and a) we can’t buy it on blu ray and b) we don’t know what to call the damn thing.

Well, the original version is a different issue, and like everyone here I agree we should have it. But I don’t think it’s always necessary for creators to be constrained by what came before. Lucas intended the father reveal in ESB to set up a prequel trilogy, and he was a big fan of that serial episode number thing, so why not change the title to make room for another trilogy? Remember, he had no intention of making the Special Editions back then, it was just one change that didn’t even affect the content of the movie.

I still like the ANH title and yes it’s totally to match the Flash Gordon serial chapters. But years ago I went back to just saying, writing and referring to the original film as Star Wars to differentiate the original 1977 release version.

Shopping Maul said:

This will sound crazy but I just had the most bizarre flashback whilst watching TESB last night. I remembered (after 40 years!) that when I first saw TESB in the theatre and ‘Star Wars’ flashed up on the screen, I thought there had been a mistake and the cinema had accidentally loaded the first film into the projector. Of course the ‘Episode V’ thing followed and all was well.

It’s ironic given that we’ve been discussing the confusion of not having episode titles post-TESB but for me, however briefly, it was the episode title thing that threw me. Did anyone else have this experience?

I had the reverse experience. Star Wars didn’t throw me, but “Episode V” had me thinking I was watching the wrong movie, until “The Empire Strikes Back” came onscreen and all was well. Eventually I just retconned the weirdly high episode number into my Star Wars world and figured Episodes II through IV were left intentionally blank for fans to imagine things that happened between Star Wars and Empire. I didn’t realize Star Wars had been retitled Episode IV until I saw it on home video, long after seeing Empire.