Posted on by Dunc

Episode VII has a title: The Force Awakens

the-force-awakensWe all knew we’d be here eventually. We have a title for Episode VII, and it’s… Well, it’s kinda weird. The Force Awakens has completed principal photography, StarWars.com tells us.

The Force Awakens. TFA.

My first reaction: “Really?”

Well, yes. Okay. It’s not like we haven’t been here before. The only title I can recall being welcomed with open arms was Revenge of the Sith.

The Force Awakens. TFA. We’ll get used to it. We always do.

UPDATE: As expected, the reaction has been fairly mixed. But! Jokes!

Jason at Making Star Wars has some good points on the title not including Episode VII. I don’t find the choice – and it’s very much a marketing choice – to be that big a deal. The movie will still be Episode VII regardless.

16 Replies to “Episode VII has a title: The Force Awakens”

    1. The first film in each trilogy is in an “(article) ____ ____” format, so that makes sense. “____ of the _____” for Episode VIII!

  2. But at least the use of “The Force Awakens” for Episode VII follows the three-four-four word pattern of the OT and PT.

    The more I think on this title, the more I like it: in RotJ, the Jedi was Luke, but also Anakin’s redemption back to the light side and dying a Jedi. Putting aside all those EU stories of Luke forming a Jedi Academy within a decade of RotJ, imagine the galactic effects of Palpatine’s Jedi purges not just with Order 66, but over the 19 years he was Emperor and the purge’s continued effect on new borns with Force sensistivity (although not explicit in films, I can imagine that all such children were “dealt with” in some form or another).
    Now after three decades since Palpatine’s death (just over a generation), the Force is reawakening throughout the galaxy and a new generation of Force sensitives arise.

    1. I like it, too. And in “Rebels” Vader tells the Inquisitor that “the children of the Force must not be allowed to become Jedi” (as seen in that special opening scene from the broadcast of “Spark of the Rebellion” on ABC.

  3. Yes, but the first film in each of the first two trilogies is an “(article) (adjective) (noun)” format. Now we have a verb-action sentence that would’ve fit for a second film (“Awakening of the Force”?). The pattern is broken!

    1. So, even “The Awakening Force” rather than “The Force Awakens” doesn’t fit – is that right?

    1. I don’t think they’re dropping Episodes and the numbers entirely, it’s just for the marketing. And hell, what are we going to call Episode VIII and such if they did?

      1. Episode numbers are likely gone from the titles, but not the opening crawls. OT didn’t have Episode numbers in their official titles when originally released in ’80 and ’83. Not on the posters, not in print, not spoken. It wasn’t until the SE and PT that Episode numbers were used on posters and everywhere else.

        1. Thinking back to 1998/9 and the marketing campaign for Episode I, I believe the use of Episode I in the title was there so that the “avaerage” film attendee, ie non-SW fans, realised that TPM was a prequel film and not a sequel.
          Of my own memories of attending opening day screening in the UK where my workplace organised around a dozen of us to go and see TPM. only two of us were big SW fans (EU and all) and it was the number of people who asked us where were Han, Leia and Luke? And how we had to explain that Ewan MacGregor was a younger Obi-Wan and that young slave boy was Anakin, the boy who would eventually become Vader.
          So leaving out “Episode VII” in the title makes more sense as, I hope, people will realise that there wontcan’t be an “Episode 0.5” and that TFA is a sequel to the OT.

    1. it was used on some posters from Ep IV–so just another thing to reference the original trilogy spirit of the new films.

  6. Not my favorite title, but certainly not bad. It could have been a lot worse; Star Wars of Darkness.

  7. This title has huge ramifications for Force mythology. The original trilogy had a Force that was basically good and that was perverted by the followers of the dark side. The prequels had a Force that had to be balanced between good and evil, and this new trilogy may bring yet another version of the Force, think new Testament in the Bible, with Luke and Vader being the Messiahs that bring a new covenant version of the Force that acts differently and is now in a state of awakening. Maybe everyone will be able to use this new Force? Maybe there will be a huge increase in Force users? Maybe I’m completely nuts? : ) Only time will tell.

  8. Does anyone know what the rating will be? I have a seven-year-old who will be incredibly, terribly disappointed if its PG-13…

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