I give the side-eye to people who call it “A New Hope” or “Episode IV.”
Nope. It was originally just Star Wars.
George Lucas (who lies all the time) claims he always planned for it to be Episode IV, but that introduction was only added when it was re-released before after The Empire Strikes Back came out… and when people initially saw it, they laughed.
Edit: Got the chronology wrong
The best star wars was when George didn’t have total control, the first movie was saved in the editing room
Maybe, maybe not - but I do remember the review of “Return of the Jedi” in my teenage magazine from 1983/84, where indeed they quoted Lucas as saying that there would be 9 movies in total. I think there was even mention of 3 prequels, but it’s been 40 years so… I might be wrong on that.
Am I misremembering? I saw it when it came out and I thought the film had a title card that said Episode IV and everybody in the theater laughed at that. Sometimes different cuts of a movie get released in different areas.
1981: In April, Star Wars was re-released, with the addition of the subtitles “Episode IV” and “A New Hope” added to the opening crawl.[13]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changes_in_Star_Wars_re-releases#Release_history
Well I’ll be damned. TIL!
Although even if he did plan it to be “episode IV…” WHY START AT 4?! lol
Partly because it fit in with the whole idea of being a modern Flash Gordon serial, where you drop in partway through the story. I think it worked pretty well, personally.
Unfortunately, all of his references to old Republic serials (especially the wipes) go over the head of most audiences and even did in 1977. He’s a better movie nerd than he is a director in my opinion.
Because he outlined the story from the events of Phantom Menace all the way to Return of the Jedi before the first movie even went into production.
Then he decided to tell the second part of the story first, THEN realized the script was too long for even that and split it into three movies.
He wasn’t sure he’d be able to commit the whole story to film, so he thought the introduction of Vader’s son and the destruction of the super weapon was the most important part and was able to stand up on its own.
When he realized he could actually finish the second act of the story, he surprised the viewing audience by calling Empire Strikes Back “Episode V” and retroactively calling Star Wars “Episode IV A New Hope”.
Yeah, I’m completely convinced that this story is all just Lucas retconning his career.
