

Disney has finally announced the official title for Rian Johnson‘s Star Wars: Episode 8. The sequel to The Force Awakens will be titled Star Wars: The Last Jedi.



Episode 8 is Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Lucasfilm released the following statement:

We have the greatest fans in this or any other galaxy. In appreciation of the fans, we wanted them to be the first to know the title of the next chapter in the Skywalker saga: STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI. THE LAST JEDI is written and directed by Rian Johnson and produced by Kathleen Kennedy and Ram Bergman and executive produced by J.J. Abrams, Jason McGatlin, and Tom Karnowski. STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI is scheduled for release December 15, 2017.

I think Star Wars: The Last Jedi is such a great title despite not fitting the previous Star Wars title format, which would have meant the title would have been Dark Side-focused. Of course, Disney is now running this ship and not George Lucas, who seemed to have a thing with the symmetry of the titles. It’s also interesting that Disney seems to have completely abandoned referencing episode numbers in the press release, instead taking on the “Skywalker Saga” terminology that Kathleen Kennedy has been using in interviews for some time. The film will surely still include the episode title in the opening crawl.

Lets see how this new title looks in line with the other live-action Star Wars film releases:

Episode I: The Phantom Menace

Episode II: Attack of the Clones

Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Episode IV: A New Hope

Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

Episode VII: The Force Awakens

Episode VIII: The Last Jedi

The title seems like a reference to Luke Skywalker, who Rey finds on Ach-To at the end of The Force Awakens. Rey exhibits force sensitives abilities, but the title suggests she is not yet a Jedi. So if she did have Jedi training as a young kid, she never passed the padawan stage, which should be obvious. Unless, of course, the “Last Jedi” being referenced here is plural, because the plural form of Jedi is, in fact, Jedi (this will be quickly resolved once we see the foreign translations of the title). It should also be noted that Yoda calls Luke the last Jedi in Return of the Jedi, and that the opening crawl of The Force Awakens uses the same phrase to refer to the missing Jedi Knight.

Naturally, Pablo Hidalgo of the Lucasfilm story group had to add his two cents:

The full Star Wars: The Last Jedi teaser poster can be seen below. I love the red title treatment of the Star Wars logo, which we haven’t seen since Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. However, I kind of wish they would revert back to having the subtitle below the logo.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi opens on December 15, 2017.