Star Wars Episode VIII naming contest

[OP Tipping]

Just for larfs...

What is your guess about what Episode VIII will be called?

I'll lay down The Ways Of The Force

[jaap]

Just for larfs...

What is your guess about what Episode VIII will be called?

I'll lay down The Ways Of The Force

I think they'll want to give a three-act structure to the new trilogy, so the middle film needs to be a slightly darker one where the Empire New Order strikes back. The title will probably reflect that, so something like The Rise of the New Order, though that is a bit too cliché even for Star Wars.

[commodorejohn]

STAR WARS Episode VII: Aw Shit We Don't Have Harrison Ford To Class Up The Joint Anymore, What Do We Do Now?

[Zohar]

Ghost Harrison Ford, of course.

[freezeblade]

Star Wars episode VIII: Forces of Destiny

I didn't make that up, it's rumored to be the title.

[OP Tipping]

Damn, that's cornier than mine.

Supposedly we will find out in April.

[Lazar]

Using the word "force" in two consecutive titles seems a little… samey.

[Weeks]

Star Wars episode VIII: Forces of Destiny

I didn't make that up, it's rumored to be the title.

lol that's great

[podbaydoor]

Star Wars Episode VIII: Attack Of The Rey Skywalker Stans

Seriously, there's this entire weird contingent of fans that is vehemently emotionally invested in the idea that Rey is a Skywalker and they would be legit emotionally devastated if she turned out to be Rey Kenobi or Rey Random. I don't get it.

[Liri]

Forces of Destiny would be unfortunate, but I'd still see it for the hella handsome Adam Driver.

It's too bad he's a weenie.

[maybeagnostic]

I was thinking something along the lines of Fall of the Jedi but its probably too much of a downer for a title.

Forces of Destiny sounds really vague. If they stick to the normal naming scheme (no reason to expect they will, really), the first movie in the trilogy gets a rather vague title like A New Hope or The Phantom Menace but the next two get titles related to specific events.

[eSOANEM]

The force presses the snooze button

[Zohar]

The force presses the snooze button

Episode IX: The force dropped its toast on the floor and everything is shit.

[Soupspoon]

First-of-a-Trilogy films have so far been starting with an article (The A The; or A The The if you wish), before Ep7 it was "The/A Described Concept", Ep7 was more "The Concept's Actions Described", which I'm going to gloss over. Second and third films so far deal with "The Something" given an action (ep4 being the sole "The Foo Does Something" rather than "Something Done By The Foo", maybe consider it as Early Installment Wierdness, along with the A/The thing).

Symmantically, therefore, it will probably be Action Of The Somebody. As will be Ep IX.

In the other complete trilogies, it has alternated (arguably) Good and Evil entities as subject. Menace vs Clones vs Sith (yes, arguable given Order 66, but apparently that was enforced by inhibitor chip); Hope vs Empire vs Jedi. Assuming the Force is good (yeahIknowitshouldbeneutral) (alsoIknowthatitcouldeasilyreferencetheFirstOrder'sfirepower) then the subject will be evil. Also fits middle-of-Trilogy-is-dark. I'm going to assume no repeated terms, so not Menaces, Sith, Empires. Perhaps "Order"? I'll come back to that. Ep9, depending on how 8 goes, could be Rebels and/or Alliance.

The actions... Attacking and Striking Back for seconds, then Revenge and Return for thirds. I'm going to say 8 is sharply forceful, 9 more subtle. Assault followed by something like Flooding/Engulfing?

So, within a large error bar, I'm going to suggest "Assault of the First Order" (note the useful ambiguity, there: and at least no longer is it a spoiler if you had even managed to avoid seeing the pre-premier stocking of toy-shelves), if not using some in-universe term used to describe SuperGollum's Snoke's effective faction, that isn't Sith. And within a far bigger error bar, Ep9 is going to be something like "Flood of the Rebels" (again, ambiguity... could also be effectively Exodus if they want to surprise us).

If I'm wrong about The Force that awakens not being Bad Force, make that instead "Assault of the Rebels" and "Flood of the <Some Evil Concept That We Will Learn About In Ep8?>"... Plenty of dramatic tension, and ambiguity, in those titles...


But that's applying (dodgy) armchair linguistics in a field that it's likely not to be at all suitable to do so.

[Liri]

Ohhh shiiiit they're keeping Admiral Thrawn!!! He's in that "Rebels" show apparently.

No way he isn't going to be in Ep. VIII.

Episode VIII: Retaliation of the Thrawn

[OP Tipping]

The structure of the original trilogy was very much determined by the fact that when they were making the first movie, they weren't sure it was going to be a trilogy. It is pretty self-contained, with an opening, a conflict, and a win. Having decided to proceed with the trilogy, they then needed to make things as dire as possible at the end of TESB, leading to another win in ROTJ.

This is similar to the POTC series. TCOTBP could have been the end of it, so they had to end with a win with things satisfactorily finished, so DMC had to end on a major downer (Sparrow being eaten by the Kraken). The Matrix ends with smiles and sunshine, so Matrix Reloaded ends with the Nebuchadnezzar being destroyed and Agent Smith still at large.

So it is like 1, -2, 2

Similarly the structure of the prequels was determined by the fact that they have to end in the strife that sets up ANH. Things basically have to get worse and worse and worse.

0, -1, -2

But this sequel trilogy has no such constraints, as they could be certain that they were going to complete the trilogy, so they can leave things quite unresolved after the first episode. Where are we now? Yeah they destroyed starkiller base but the movie ends with tension and uncertainty, Kylo is going to get stronger, we aren't confident about how things will pan out with Luke etc. Things are not self-contained, danger remains. So I would expect this to be more like 0, -1, 2. Things will get a bit more complicated and conflicted in the next episode, but there will also be progress towards a resolution.

The Empire Strikes Back and The Force Awakens are sentences, all the other titles are noun phrases, three of them X of the Y format. So perhaps episode 8 will be a noun phrase NOT in the format X of the Y, and episode 9 will be in the format X of the Y.

[pseudoidiot]

Looks like it'll be The Last Jedi

[Liri]

It slipped my mind that it's coming out this year.

Sorta makes Return of the Jedi a bit of a "Mission Accomplished"

[OP Tipping]

I was thinking something along the lines of Fall of the Jedi but its probably too much of a downer for a title.

I am declaring maybeagnostic to be the winner, as that's pretty close.

[Liri]

OoO0oO0o0Oo0oOO0oh but "Jedi" is singular and plural o0O0o0oO0oO0o0Oo0oOO0oh

[Zohar]

That poses a big challenge for the translation of the movie name in Hebrew - "Last" will have to be conjugated differently if it's male, female, singular, or plural. Very curious to see how they finally translate it. Might possibly be considered a spoiler?

[pseudoidiot]

I saw someone say the Portuguese translation used the singular form of last. But I don't know if that was an official translation or someone making an assumption.

Also, I *think* in Ep 7 that Luke was referred to as the last Jedi. So maybe we're all just overthinking it.

I do like the ambiguity of it, though.

[Zohar]

Apparently Hebrew news translated it as singular-male, but I'm not surprised and wouldn't say that's an official translation. When movies actually start getting advertising in different countries, studios usually provide multiple possible translations - basically they give the distributors some autonomy to choose a specific name out of a pool based on what the distributors think sounds best. Often, in Hebrew, those are very bad decisions. But we'll see what they go for closer to the movie's release.

I wouldn't be surprised if they explicitly wanted the ambiguity in English.

[pseudoidiot]

Even movie studios like to do a bit of nerd sniping.

[Liri]

Yeah, it could totally be as simplistic as it sounds at first blush. I'm rather hoping it isn't, though. Galactic Basic is English, so translations can't be taken as canon.

The red 'Star Wars' is nice and ominous.

[Chen]

I saw someone say the Portuguese translation used the singular form of last. But I don't know if that was an official translation or someone making an assumption.

Also, I *think* in Ep 7 that Luke was referred to as the last Jedi. So maybe we're all just overthinking it.

I do like the ambiguity of it, though.

Luke is currently the last Jedi. He restarted the Order after Episode VI and then Kylo Ren massacred the entire bunch of them leaving just Luke again. If we consider the Jedi Order still active, anyone else he trains and gets to the join said Order though would also be considered a Jedi.

Kinda implies Leia never really did get into all the Force stuff. Or at the very least didn't join Luke's Order.

I could definitely see the Last Jedi being Luke at the start of the movie and then moving on to Rey or Finn by the end with Luke dying or something.

[Zohar]

I was pretty sure Luke will die in the next movie, but as they've said they don't want to CGI Carrie Fisher for the 2nd movie (though they didn't need to that much - almost all shooting was done), I'm assuming they wouldn't want to CGI her in the 3rd movie. So I'm guessing Leia dies in episode 8, Luke dies in episode 9.

[SlyReaper]

[Liri]

I like it.

I would be upset if they spent each episode knocking off the original cast, one-by-one. That seems pretty cheap. Luke probably will die though, and Leia already has, so... welp.

[mathmannix]

Following the pattern I want to see in the first two trilogies and Episode 7,
(and retitling Episode 2 in my head to "The Clones Attack Now"),
I suggest

The Empire Rises Again.

edit:
ooh, followed by

Rebound of the Ewoks. Gungans.

[Soupspoon]

I don't usually take notice of these things, but apparently Natalie Portman's current pregnancy is of twins. Fraternal twins, one boy and one girl. Much apart from her first child (apparently!¹) being called Aleph², the naming of these twins, and of course concern for her health, surely can't escape scrutiny from the geekverse...


¹ I told you I didn't take notice of these things. Even the existence of the first child is news to me...
² Thus Bet(ty) and Gimel?

[Chen]

So french title has been released as "Les Derniers Jedi", which still obfuscates the masculin/feminin questions by making it plural rather than singular.

[Soupspoon]

That actually begs a different question, then...

[Liri]

That actually begs a different question, then...

OoO0oO0o0Oo0oOO0oh but "Jedi" is singular and plural o0O0o0oO0oO0o0Oo0oOO0oh

see above

[charliepanayi]

https://twitter.com/starwars/status/834085576777175040

[charliepanayi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB4I68XVPzQ