# Star Wars VII, VIII, IX possibly to be retconned away {Warning Spoilers for other Star Wars movies} **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [June 30, 2020, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-vii-viii-ix-possibly-to-be-retconned-away-warning-spoilers-for-other-star-wars-movies/913809 "2020-06-30T16:38:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 20
**Author:** ![Oredigger77](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oredigger77/32/3181_2.png) [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2021, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-vii-viii-ix-possibly-to-be-retconned-away-warning-spoilers-for-other-star-wars-movies/913809/381 "2021-07-10T17:52:37Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > What does that say about the directors/writers and producer of that trilogy? Can you truly be called incompetent when your product makes millions? Possibly. If they make millions at the expense of turning fans off so completely that they won’t even watch good content in the future then their overall return may be much lower. We’ve seen in this thread that they have turned of some people that way. On the other hand the directors job is just to make money not be responsible for the future revenue of the franchise. So no, you probably have to say that the directors were successful. Anyone who was responsible for writing that crap probably doesn’t get to claim success since they were clearly trading on the brand for revenue and their writing cause each successive movie to make less. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2021, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-vii-viii-ix-possibly-to-be-retconned-away-warning-spoilers-for-other-star-wars-movies/913809/382 "2021-07-10T17:54:57Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Can you truly be called incompetent when your product makes millions? As we all know, the studio’s profit is the sole criterion of of how good a movie is. 😉 …and yet, even by that standard they are failing dismally. The finances have already been discussed in this thread. See my post #192. Disney is running at a loss of nearly $2 billion from their $4 billion purchase of the franchise. ---
**Author:** ![gdave](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gdave/32/3683_2.png) [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-vii-viii-ix-possibly-to-be-retconned-away-warning-spoilers-for-other-star-wars-movies/913809/383 "2021-07-11T03:54:38Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > Disney is running at a loss of nearly $2 billion from their $4 billion purchase of the franchise. Are they? By what calculations? I genuinely don’t know, so I’m not contesting, I’m genuinely asking. Is that just looking at film revenue? Didn’t they also acquire the licensing rights? Or is the $2 billion including licensing, theme parks, and the rest? Does that account for ancillary benefits, like subscriptions to Disney+ driven by _The Mandalorian_? ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-vii-viii-ix-possibly-to-be-retconned-away-warning-spoilers-for-other-star-wars-movies/913809/384 "2021-07-11T06:33:51Z")
> [@gdave](#): > > Are they? By what calculations? I genuinely don’t know, so I’m not contesting, I’m genuinely asking. See the links in [post #192](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-vii-viii-ix-possibly-to-be-retconned-away/913809/192) ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-vii-viii-ix-possibly-to-be-retconned-away-warning-spoilers-for-other-star-wars-movies/913809/385 "2021-07-11T11:22:18Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > I don’t think Lucas knows what he’s going to have for lunch any given day, Epic diss! 🙄 ---
**Author:** ![gdave](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gdave/32/3683_2.png) [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-vii-viii-ix-possibly-to-be-retconned-away-warning-spoilers-for-other-star-wars-movies/913809/386 "2021-07-11T11:40:03Z")
Thanks! I Am Not An Accountant, but…I’m personally not very persuaded by that analysis. They seem to be looking at profits from each Disney-era film in the year it was released. The numbers don’t budge from the original to the 2020 update, for example, they just tack on the numbers for _The Rise of Skywalker_. According to their analysis, Disney didn’t make _any_ money on the Star Wars franchise in 2013, 2014, or 2015, which seems…unlikely. And going film-by-film, they’re just ignoring any other revenue not directly attributable to them. Star Wars is a _big_ franchise, and the IP extends well beyond the tentpole movies. I’ll grant you the licensing fees from Dark Horse Productions’ _The Old Republic_ comic books are trivial in this context, but the licensing fees from the _Battlefront II_ and _Jedi Fallen: Order_ video games are probably significant. Not in the billions, certainly, but probably enough to make an impact. And the Original Trilogy is _still_ generating revenue, which they don’t take into account at _all._ They also explicitly ignore profits from theme parks and attractions, and classify that as just savings on licensing fees. It seems to me like a pretty odd assumption that if Disney hadn’t bought Lucasfilm, the “Galaxy’s Edge” attraction would have been built anyway, and the only difference would be that Disney would be paying licensing fees to Lucasfilm. And they don’t take into account any ancillary benefits, like how many subscriptions to Disney+ are driven by _The Mandalorian_ and access to Lucasfilm’s back catalogue. And sure, Disney hasn’t released any new movies for Indiana Jones, but that analysis just ignores _all_ licensing and merchandising from _all_ Lucasfilm properties other than Star Wars. In short, I think that analysis is an interesting first cut, and it makes a pretty good case that the Star Wars film franchise isn’t close to the MCU-level juggernaut Disney was hoping for when it made the acquisition of Lucasfilm, but I just don’t buy that Disney is currently still down $2 billion on that acquisition. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-vii-viii-ix-possibly-to-be-retconned-away-warning-spoilers-for-other-star-wars-movies/913809/387 "2021-07-11T11:59:50Z")
Even if they’re 1 billion or half a billion down, that’s still significant. It’s very difficult to get hard data, because Disney doesn’t release the breakdown of their profits, so there will always be guesswork involved. But I think we can say that the franchise hasn’t been as successful as they hoped it would be in 2013, and they have some ground to make up. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-vii-viii-ix-possibly-to-be-retconned-away-warning-spoilers-for-other-star-wars-movies/913809/388 "2021-07-11T12:09:04Z")
Even if they’re a billion up, that’s still significant, because Disney was hoping for and expecting profits much greater than that. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-vii-viii-ix-possibly-to-be-retconned-away-warning-spoilers-for-other-star-wars-movies/913809/389 "2021-07-11T14:17:23Z")
I’ve got no opinion about various offshoots from Eps 1-9, because I haven’t seen them. But just talking about those nine movies, here’s where I’m coming from: 1. Eps 4-6 are canon. The rest can be tossed. 2. The name of Ep 4 is _Star Wars_, thankyewverymuch. It was known by that title, and by no other name, for a couple of decades. And if anyone’s confused by the name of one of the movies also being the name of the series, well, God bless 'em. 3. I watched Eps. 1-3. Well, actually, I watched _most_ of each of Eps 1-3. I fell asleep during each of them. 'Nuff said. 4. Ep 7 wasn’t _bad_. Its main flaw was that it was trying too hard to re-create the plotline of Ep 4. 5. By the end of Ep 8, there isn’t enough left to the Resistance (if that’s what it was called; I can’t remember) to regain a small planet from the First Order, let alone defeat them overall. It’s over, the Good Guys not only lost, they got all but wiped out. Maybe in another generation those kids you see at the end can master The Force and lead a new resistance to the First Order. But for now, it’s done. 6. So there was really no point AFAICT to watch Ep 9, and I didn’t. Judging from comments, looks like it wasn’t the wrong decision. 7. There’s also what I’d consider some major contradictions between the original trilogy and Eps 7&8, but I don’t care enough about Eps 7&8 to argue about them. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-vii-viii-ix-possibly-to-be-retconned-away-warning-spoilers-for-other-star-wars-movies/913809/390 "2021-07-11T14:39:53Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > It was known by that title, and by no other name, for a couple of decades. More like four years. “A New Hope” was added to the film in the 1981 rerelease prior to the premiere of Empire. ---
**Author:** ![ZosterSandstorm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e0b2c6/32.png) [@ZosterSandstorm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZosterSandstorm)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-vii-viii-ix-possibly-to-be-retconned-away-warning-spoilers-for-other-star-wars-movies/913809/391 "2021-07-11T14:55:49Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > More like four years. “A New Hope” was added to the film in the 1981 rerelease prior to the premiere of Empire. At the top of the crawl within the movie itself, but the packaging of home video releases didn’t use the subtitle until 2000. Hyperfixating on this does seem like the worst kind of “things should be the same as they were when I was a kid” complaining just to complain, though. There’s lots of movies where you can’t just refer to them by their original title. The film released as _First Blood_ is now _Rambo_ because it needs to connect to movies called _Rambo 3_ etc. Nobody knows what you mean if you say you watched _Batman_ on TV last night, because there’s 1966 and 1989 movies by that name plus dozens of TV shows and other Batman-themed movies. Adding “A New Hope” to distinguish the 1977 movie from the multitude of other _Star Wars_ media is just communicating clearly. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-vii-viii-ix-possibly-to-be-retconned-away-warning-spoilers-for-other-star-wars-movies/913809/392 "2021-07-11T15:47:07Z")
> [@ZosterSandstorm](#): > > Hyperfixating on this does seem like the worst kind of “things should be the same as they were when I was a kid” complaining just to complain, though. Strongly disagree. First of all, even now it’s been ‘A New Hope’ for less time than it was _Star Wars_. Second, the title only makes sense if it’s a story that started with Ep 1 and went forward from there. But it didn’t. Eps 1-3 are _backstory_, pure and simple. Ep 4 isn’t ‘a new hope’ because there isn’t anything old to compare it with in the actual story arc; this is where the story begins. And even ‘hope’ doesn’t work: we’re following Luke here, and he’s just a kid going day-to-day but wanting more out of life, and then he stumbles into bigger shit. He’s only a ‘new hope’ to maybe Obi-Wan, and we’re not seeing this story through Obi-Wan’s eyes. So it’s a _stupid_ title. I’m not impressed by your counterexamples. AFAICT, all they did with First Blood was change it to Rambo: First Blood. And the Batman canon is so messed up by this point that I have no idea what the canon is, anymore. But either the original Star Wars trilogy is central to the SW canon, or it **is** the canon. And AFAICT, other SW materials that use the phrase ‘Star Wars’ all add some other distinguishing verbiage; nobody’s going to have any doubts about which movie _Star Wars_ is. (Personally, it always takes me a minute to remember that ‘A New Hope’ isn’t Ep 1. But that’s probably just me.) ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-vii-viii-ix-possibly-to-be-retconned-away-warning-spoilers-for-other-star-wars-movies/913809/393 "2021-07-11T15:59:57Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > (Personally, it always takes me a minute to remember that ‘A New Hope’ isn’t Ep 1. But that’s probably just me.) Same here. Don’t wear yourself out trying to explain stuff like this to people too young to remember when Star Wars was just a single film _called_ Star Wars. If you really want to make their head explode, tell them about the after credit debates with your friends about who would _get_ Leah; Han or Luke? ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-vii-viii-ix-possibly-to-be-retconned-away-warning-spoilers-for-other-star-wars-movies/913809/394 "2021-07-11T16:08:49Z")
Obviously, Luke would get Leia - there was a whole book about their developing relationship (Splinter in the Mind’s Eye). Han isn’t even in the book. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-vii-viii-ix-possibly-to-be-retconned-away-warning-spoilers-for-other-star-wars-movies/913809/395 "2021-07-11T16:12:29Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Strongly disagree. First of all, even now it’s been ‘A New Hope’ for less time than it was _Star Wars_ . It’s been “A New Hope” for forty years. > [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > Same here. Don’t wear yourself out trying to explain stuff like this to people too young to remember when Star Wars was just a single film _called_ Star Wars. If you really want to make their head explode, tell them about the after credit debates with your friends about who would _get_ Leah; Han or Luke? I love a “trufan” argument that misspells the name of one of the principle protagonists. Personally - and speaking as someone who saw it in it’s initial theatrical run - I always thought the idea of naming the first episode in a big saga “Episode IV” was a cool idea. It’s a neat little way to re-enforce the “media res” aspect of the first film, and help set up that, “Seeing part five of a ten part matinee serial without seeing any of the rest of it,” feeling. Pity Lucas either didn’t think of it for the first run of the film, or didn’t think he could pull it off before the movie turned into a cultural phenomenon. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-vii-viii-ix-possibly-to-be-retconned-away-warning-spoilers-for-other-star-wars-movies/913809/396 "2021-07-11T18:13:30Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > It’s been “A New Hope” for forty years. Only if you’re referring to [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_(film)#/media/File:Opening_crawl.jpg). ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-vii-viii-ix-possibly-to-be-retconned-away-warning-spoilers-for-other-star-wars-movies/913809/397 "2021-07-11T18:14:46Z")
Yes? What else would I be referring to? ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-vii-viii-ix-possibly-to-be-retconned-away-warning-spoilers-for-other-star-wars-movies/913809/398 "2021-07-11T18:22:20Z")
Well, nothing, and that’s your problem. STAR WARS in big letters in the font everyone recognizes. Yeah, it says, “A New Hope” in much smaller print lower down, below “Episode IV”. Hell, if people noticed that phrase at all, they probably thought it was an intro to the rest of the crawl. Hell, look at this: [the 1997 poster for the 20th anniversary theatrical re-release](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_(film)#/media/File:Star_Wars_(1997_re-release_poster).jpg). What does IT say the name of the movie is? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-vii-viii-ix-possibly-to-be-retconned-away-warning-spoilers-for-other-star-wars-movies/913809/399 "2021-07-11T18:48:57Z")
Sorry, are we discussing movies, or movie posters? I thought you were talking about a change to the film made back at the beginning of the Reagan administration. If your complaint is about how the movie is marketed, I don’t know that I have much of an opinion about that. ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-vii-viii-ix-possibly-to-be-retconned-away-warning-spoilers-for-other-star-wars-movies/913809/400 "2021-07-11T18:53:08Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Eps 4-6 are canon. The rest can be tossed. I don’t have a real problem with the overall story arc of I-III, they were just poorly executed. The sequels were just disasters all around. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-vii-viii-ix-possibly-to-be-retconned-away-warning-spoilers-for-other-star-wars-movies/913809.md?page=19) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-vii-viii-ix-possibly-to-be-retconned-away-warning-spoilers-for-other-star-wars-movies/913809.md?page=21)