Back in the era when the Original Trilogy was released, what were the names of the movies? Now they are called Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope, Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back, and Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi, or just Star Wars: A New Hope, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, and Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. But how were they originally called? Episode IV was simply called Star Wars, but what about the sequels? Were they called Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back & Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, or simply The Empire Strikes Back & Return of the Jedi? Was "Star Wars" part of their official name?
The original is the only one that had it's name changed. ESB and ROTJ were always Star Wars Episode X: Title.
During its production (according to the genuine studio set blueprints), The Empire Strikes Back was at first "Episode II", but became "Episode V" and was premiered as such once George Lucas had decided that the "Adventures of Luke Skywalker" should be the middle trilogy of a larger body of works.
It was in fact called Revenge of the Jedi long enough for posters to be released and distributed, though not for very long. As one would think, such posters are very valuable today
I like that in the trailer the announcement for Leia is "the strength of a leader". SW was always diverse.
It also made it into quite a bit of the kenner marketing material in the package inserts for later ESB related toy releases
The three films were sold and marketed as Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi as late as 1997. The Special Edition theatrical release and subsequent release were marketed as such. I believe it was with 2004 DVD release that the title of the saga and the episode numbers were featured prominently, probably to tie them together with the prequel trilogy.
That's true, but what were the "actual" title of the films? (what can be considered a the actual title of a film? The title you see on screen or the title that is used to advertise the movie?). Because on screen, the titles where originally: STAR WARS STAR WARS Episode V THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK STAR WARS Episode VI RETURN OF THE JEDI
