CT The original Star Wars movie is subtitled "A New Hope"

It irks me when people stubbornly call the first SW movie to be released "Star Wars". I understand they used the simple title back in the day, but it was the only SW movie that existed at the time and they did not want to confuse people. Star Wars-Episode IV: A New Hope is a retronym(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retronym).

Its just like we renamed The Great War "World War I" to be consistent with World War II.
Like we now call George Bush "George H.W. Bush" after George W. Bush was president.
Like how the TV series Star Trek has been renamed "Star Trek: The Original Series" after so many other Star Trek shows and movies have been made.

"Star Wars" is the name of the franchise overall. I am not fond of the "Episode #" parts of the titles so in my mind it is "Star Wars: A New Hope". Thoughts anyone?

 

You can call it whatever you want. For most people, it will always be known as "Star Wars". The sequel will always be known as "The Empire Strikes Back". And the final film of the trilogy will always be known as "Return of the Jedi".

 

I remember going to see ESB opening weekend, and the theatre marque labeled STAR WARS 2.

 

Well historical events can be named for convenience and to describe what happened. But movie titles can be a little bit more than that. They can provide insight into some of the behind-the-scenes decisions at work. They can even serve as fuel for discussion. For example, what does it say about George Lucas's supposedly planned out saga that "Episode IV" wasn't even referred to as such upon its release? Did he actually not have it planned out, or was it just the studio influence that stopped him because they didn't want to confuse people? Either way, the discussion and dialogue that the title can generate are important. When a title is changed from its original release, it loses its historical value. There's no discussion to be had about why George Lucas titled it "A New Hope" back in 1977 because that never happened.

Certainly it's more convenient and less confusing nowadays to refer to it as "Episode IV" or "A New Hope". But that's not what it was called back in 1977. That's not the title that can be used to ponder Lucas's original thought process. If it was, people may come to the definitive conclusion that this was always meant to be a six-part story; but the title being just "Star Wars" raises some red flags and would bring into question the validity of that conclusion. So for some people, it is simply a matter of principle to call it "Star Wars" in order to refer to the movie by its historically significant name. But for others, it's just the name they've always known the movie as and grew up with it being that way. Personally, I like to call it "the original Star Wars" in order to reduce confusion.

 

I would never argue against your use of the original title, but... say what? New Star Wars fans pop up virtually every day. A few generations from now, it's most likely that a very small percentage of the worldwide fanbase will see ANH as just "Star Wars".

 

To people who don't know much about the series, I generally just say, "I'm going to see Star Wars," or, "I've been watching Star Wars." I've always referred to Episode IV as ANH, however.

 

people can call it whatever they want.

 

I think after almost 40 years it's pretty well established in our collective consciousness that when people say, "Star Wars," they usually mean ANH. Of course there are exceptions. Such as now, when there's a new SW movie in theaters. In which case people just call that Star Wars. "Have you seen Star Wars yet?" Etc etc..

 

I'd say it depends on who you are, where you live and who you know. When I say "Star Wars", or if someone that I know does, it's generally understood that we're talking about the franchise, or the movie series.

 

Star Wars or A New Hope or Episode 4 are how I refer to it.

 

Among fans, I can use ANH. Among the general public, it's "Star Wars".

 

Most of the time, I default to what a movie (or place or ride) was called when I was a kid. Hence its Star Wars or "the first Star Wars movie" 99% of the time. Also just "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi". The whole 'episode #' wasn't really a thing to me until the prequels started coming out. I call those either by their episode number or just "The Phantom Menace", "Attack of the Clones" and "Revenge of the Sith"...or just collectively as 'the prequels'. And its really just "The Force Awakens" to me.

I was aware of the Episode IV and ANH subtitles for Star Wars when I was a kid, they just didn't make a lot of sense to me. I remember thinking to myself "why is it called Episode IV, there are only 3 movies?".

 

It's been "Wars," "Empire," and "Jedi" for a couple, three decades now. Why does it irk you when people don't use "Hope?"

 

Well, it is a movie, not a major historical event. It was released as Star Wars, it won and was nominated for awards as Star Wars, and though I was born many years later after the fact, in my head it's Star Wars. Why? Star Wars is what was written in giant blue letters on the face of my VHS copy of the film. A New Hope was nowhere to be seen on that box, except in tiny, tiny letters on the spine, but underneath it? "STAR WARS." And yes, "Episode IV – A New Hope" prefaced the opening crawl, but still, the movie was Star Wars to me, and it still is. Regardless, for the sake of clarity I often call it A New Hope just so I don't have to go through conversations like:

"Hey, do you remember the lightsaber duel in Star Wars?"
"Which one?
"The first one."
"The one with Darth Maul?"
"No, the other first one."
"Oh, you mean A New Hope."

But I never call it Episode IV. I heavily dislike referring to the movies by their episode numbers, because to me that makes them mere installments rather than their own films.

 

The first movie was "Star Wars". You can call it A New Hope for clarification, and I encourage you to do so, but when someone refers to Star Wars, it can be

1) The current film in theaters
2) Episode IV
3) the whole series.

Any one of these is completely valid.

 

On the contrary, are you familiar with the term "lost films"? There is always the chance that sometime in the future, the other Star Wars films will not survive. When the day comes that only three remain, they will no longer require episode titles.

 

I call it either Episode 4 or "the original Star Wars" depending who I'm talking to.

 

Continue to be irked.

 

it doesn't bother me , although a couple days ago i did see someone on tv that said "i refuse to call it A New Hope !" which i think is rather rediculous. one more thing to be offended about

 

Star Wars Into Darkness is what I call The Empire Strikes Back.

 

"For most people". That is simply untrue.

 

someone I know: "I'm going to watch Star Wars"

me: which one?

I don't assume they mean "a new hope". SW is now a generic term meaning any of the movies, or the animation shows.

 

Perhaps there could be a poll done on ages or something, but obviously those of us old enough to have had Kenner-filled rooms like in E.T. and Poltergeist, we are going to automatically think of others from that time period when using the phrase "most people."
No one use to call it "Episode IV" or "A New Hope" and we were fully aware that was in the opening text when HBO showed it, The Disney Channel showed it, NBC showed it, USA Network showed it, the Sci-Fi Network (or Sci-Fi Channel, whatever) showed it. No toys, storybooks, read-along books, soundtrack records, videotapes used the subtitles. It was Star Wars, because the others were The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. If you're not just talking about the movie, it's all "Star Wars."
I think the subtitles just became more common in usage because of the internet discussion.
If I'm talking about something that happened, like referring to the asteroid chase or the Sand People, I really don't need to specify which movie.