In the biggest news since the last time the title of a Star Wars movie was revealed, the title of the next Star Wars movie has been revealed. Disney’s Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi – A Star Wars Story promises to be the next best film in the Star Wars saga for the three weeks after its December 15th release. Me, personally, I love the new title. But what can we predict now, 11 months before opening night, with nothing to go on but the title, a red outline, and the phrase, “the next chapter in the Skywalker saga”? Basically everything.
First, the “Star Wars” title text. The “Star Wars” title text is always yellow. But now it is red. I hope your mind isn’t too blown. This is yet another example of Disney absolutely changing the game when it comes to Star Wars. The Force Awakens had a map for a McGuffin instead plans for a space station, and Rogue One – A Star Wars Story invented new ways to inject meaningless references to past characters in a “standalone” story, but this is truly groundbreaking. What if the opening title crawl is red, too? I don’t think I could handle that.
Anyway, this red title clearly signifies that something red is going to happen. And what else do we know is prominently red in Star Wars? That’s right, C-3PO’s new arm!
Someone (maybe Chewie) probably rips it off and kills Luke with it. There’s also a slight chance that the new Super Weapon that the Republic will have to destroy in the third act is red in some way. Maybe the laser it shoots will be red this time. Maybe it shoots copies of C-3PO’s arm. The possibilities are endless.
From this red title text, it’s pretty obvious that Disney’s Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi – A Star Wars Story is going to be much darker than Disney’s Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens – A Star Wars Story, but could it possibly be darker than Disney’s Rogue One – A Star Wars Story? I think it’s pretty obvious that it will be. “The Last Jedi” includes the key adjective “last”, suggesting that the “Jedi” are coming to their end. Since “Jedi” can be plural or singular (like, “pants”), this either means that one person is the last Jedi ever, or that more than one person is the last Jedi ever. It also could be a magnificent fake-out from Disney, and there are going to be many more Jedi and they’re simply referring to the fact that currently Luke is “the last Jedi” but sometime in the future there will be more.
Personally, I would put a lot of credits on Luke being the actual last Jedi we ever see in the Star Wars Universe. Most fans of the series aren’t excited anymore by the Force or lightsabers. So I think it is a good choice to abandon the jedi concept in favor of something more entertaining and adventurous. Perhaps instead of following the exploits of ideological space knights empowered by a mysterious energy force, we can finally re-focus on what really matters in the Star Wars universe: Ewoks. Lots and lots of Ewoks.