‘The Force Awakens’: Star Wars Episode 7 Gets a Title

We now know what the new Star Wars will be called.

Today, Disney announced the title of the upcoming Star Wars Episode VII… “The Force Awakens.”  So there it is.  Certainly better than the hokey prequel subtitles, as far as I’m concerned.  And also worlds better than the rumored– and overly twee– “The Ancient Fear.”  I always thought that subtitle and it’s forcible attempt to mirror “A New Hope” made it seems annoyingly aggressive in its cleverness, but also very plausible considering JJ Abrams is the guy who redid the Wrath of Khan finale by– GASP– reversing Kirk and Spock’s roles!  Thankfully, we dodged that photon blast.

Honestly, I have to admit I’m pretty okay with the title we’re getting.  It doesn’t fill me with uncontrollable geek excitement like I got as an 18 year old who heard the enigmatic title “The Phantom Menace” for the first time, but this seems to make sense, based on what we know of the upcoming sequel.

The thing that has me most excited for Episode VII is how it turns the happy ending we all presumed played out after the Rebels’ rager on Endor directly on its ear.  A new Republic, run by the Rebels, a resurgence of the Jedi under Luke Skywalker’s tutelidge and no Imperial presence of note in the galaxy have always kind of been assumed by fans post-Return of the Jedi.  I am incredibly excited that what we will see play out is set upon an entirely different set of expectations, and a drastically different world than the one we expected, 30 years after the death of Darth Vader.

In that respect, “The Force Awakens” seems totally promising, a sign that we are picking up the threads of this saga at a very not random moment.  I was hoping there would be a reason we’re resuming Star Wars 30 years later (outside of the real-world time that has passed since Jedi), and this title hints that we will see just that on the big screen one December from now.  So yea, in that respect… maybe I do kind of love this title?

Source: Coming Soon