Why Every ‘Star Wars’ Film Has the Wrong Title
The Star Wars movies didn’t even have subtitles for decades. Heck, Star Wars was just Star Wars until The Empire Strikes Back came along. The whole Episode element didn’t become a big deal until the prequels, which wanted to make it clear to general audiences that these movies were taking place before the original Star Wars trllogy.
The subtitles seemed to get more lofty and vague as the years went on. As a new TikTok video that’s gone viral observes, the subtitles are basically so generic they could apply to almost any movie in the franchise. In fact, this video argues (half-jokingly) that each Star Wars movie has the wrong subtitle.
For example, Star Wars: Episode I introduces Anakin Skywalker — so it should be called The Rise of Skywalker, not The Phantom Menace. Episode II sees the evil Darth Sidious raising an army to destroy the Jedi — hence it should be Revenge of the Sith, not Attack of the Clones — which would be better suited for the actual Revenge of the Sith, which contains the actual attack of the clones after Palpatine executes Order 66.
And so on. Watch the whole thing right here:
It’s a funny video, and in some ways a persuasive argument; The Last Jedi probably makes more sense if it’s called A New Hope, while The Rise of Skywalker was much more concretely about a “phantom menace” than Episode I ever was.
A grumpy Star Wars fan (is there any other kind???) might argue that some of this is all by design thanks to the circular nature of the Star Wars franchise. George Lucas liked to say that the various trilogies “rhymed,” which would explain why the themes and images reoccur. This is just one more example of that. Or the titles are bad. You decide.
Gallery — Every Star Wars (With the Wrong Title) Ranked From Worst to Best: