Disney's Titling Problem With Its Star Wars Movies 279
An anonymous reader writes "When George Lucas produced his Star Wars movies, he subtitled them 'Episode I,' 'Episode IV' etc. But that style will become inappropriate and confusing with Disney producing a new Star Wars movie each year, observes blogger Christopher Knight: 'Those were individual chapters of one story in an epic fantasy setting. And it suffices for that one multi-generational epic on film. Except now, there is the intent to produce several stories in that same setting. And they aren't necessarily going to pertain to the tale of the Skywalker family from Anakin to Luke to whoever it will be in the next trilogy.' Knight's solution is to retroactively amend the titles of Episodes I through IX to reflect it being the Skywalkers' saga, just as Lucas retroactively subtitled the first movie to be Episode IV."
Re:Retroactively? (Score:5, Informative)
Didn't the original scrolling intro always say "episode 4"?
Not in the original showing of the film. The "Episode IV" part was added later when the film's popularity made it viable for a sequel. OR something like that.
Re:Retroactively? (Score:2, Informative)
Didn't the original scrolling intro always say "episode 4"?
Nope [wikia.com], that came later.
Re:How about this (Score:5, Informative)
Disney? Come up with a new idea? Hahaha, oh wow, are you kidding? They've finished sucking classical childrens stories dry, and now they've moved on to modern culture, Disney hasn't had a single original idea since the ink dried on Steam Boat Willy.
Re:Retroactively? (Score:3, Informative)
Didn't the original scrolling intro always say "episode 4"?
It did when I saw the original theatrical release on opening day in1978. Seeing that go by, I thought they were showing a serial out of order by mistake.
Re:Retroactively? (Score:5, Informative)
Except that Star Wars premiered in 1977. And it did not say "Episode 4" when it did. I was there, and it didn't. It did get a 1978 re-release, but "Episode IV" was not placed into the title crawl until the 1981 re-release (after The Empire Strikes Back proclaimed itself "Episode V" in its original 1980 release).
Re:How about this (Score:2, Informative)
Disney hasn't had a single original idea since the ink dried on Steam Boat Willy.
Perhaps not even then... [wikipedia.org]
I've got it! (Score:4, Informative)
I've got the PERFECT name for the next Disney-produced Star Wars film:
Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money
You're welcome.
Re:How about this (Score:5, Informative)
Disney hasn't had a single original idea since the ink dried on Steam Boat Willy.
Are you implying that Steamboat Willy was original? Nope! It was a parody of Buster Keaton's Steamboat Bill Jr.
Re:Retroactively? (Score:5, Informative)
More like a reason to strip his geek card. Not only was he off by a year (opening day was May 25, 1977), but he's outright wrong or misremembering the episode number being there. They didn't add "Episode IV: A New Hope" until Empire Strikes Back came out a few years later (it wasn't even there for the 1978 re-release, which is what he may be thinking of). The original film, when first released, was simply titled "Star Wars" and nothing else. No episode numbers, no "A New Hope", no nuthin'.
Re:How about this (Score:4, Informative)
Also Hamlet and Macbeth.
Re: Retroactively? (Score:5, Informative)
Citation please! I clearly remember "Episode IV" appearing in the scrolling intro to the original, 1977 release and until someone can give me non-anecdotal evidence to the contrary I am sticking with what I know I saw,
I can't tell if you are just extremely arrogant, or just clueless as to just how incredibly susceptible the human brain is to false memories. I don't even trust all of my own memories, let alone yours.