Disney sneakily revealed a new logo for Star Wars: A New Hope. The saga set in a galaxy far, far, away started back in 1977 when George Lucas released his film called Star Wars. There have been several additions to the franchise over the years, but it wasn't until The Empire Strikes Back that Lucas would start making changes to the films' titles.
When it was decided that Darth Vader was going to be Luke's father in The Empire Strikes Back, Lucas also decided that there should be a back story for Vader. Because of this, he chose to call the second film released in his trilogy, Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back. Around that time, Star Wars was given an episode number as well as the subtitle A New Hope to be consistent with Episode V. The prequel trilogy finally gave fans the story's beginning with Episodes I-III, but the new Star Wars films lack episode numbers. Now, it seems as if Disney is also trying to change the names of the original trilogy.
A picture of the official timeline for the Star Wars franchise has been shared from D23 (via Kristian Harloff) and it makes some changes to the original trilogy. The titles for the prequel trilogy still have episode numbers, but the original trilogy films are now officially titled Star Wars: A New Hope, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, and Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. The logos for the latter two films are the same, but the logo for A New Hope looks different as it takes the original Star Wars logo and adds the subtitle A New Hope beneath. The timeline also breaks the three trilogies up into three eras called the Age of Republic, Age of Rebellion, and Age of Resistance. An image of the full timeline can be seen below:
All of the already released Star Wars movies will be available on Disney+ when it goes live on November 12th, but there are several other Star Wars shows that will be released on the streaming service. The most well-known Star Wars series that is coming to Disney+ is The Mandalorian, which just got a trailer. A prequel series for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is expected to air in 2021 and it was also confirmed that Ewan McGregor is returning as Obi-Wan Kenobi for his own Disney+ show.
It was reported back in April that Disney had officially retitled A New Hope, but having the logo appear on this timeline makes the new title and logo official. Since the sequel trilogy isn't being advertised with episode numbers, it makes sense why Disney would try to make the original trilogy more consistent with the entire franchise. That being said, one can't help but wonder if at some point they will implement the same thing with the Star Wars prequels.
Source: Kristian Harloff/Twitter
