I HATE it when people refer to Star Wars as "A New Hope."
It's disrespectful to the franchise. It's tantamount to saying Greedo did shoot first. It's the only way of saying "I'm not a fan of this franchise" in less than 12 parsecs.
I don't exactly understand the psychology of it, but there seem to be two classes of "ANH" people: loons and everyday people. One "ANH" guy I know is an everyday joe sci-fi nerd. You wouldn't think anything is wrong with him until you say "let's watch Star Wars" and he says "which one?" If I wanted to watch Empire I'd say "Empire," if I wanted to cry I'd say "Episode 2." Unfortunately some readers might think its a sensible question to ask--but try another context. If I said "let's watch Jurassic Park" would you know what movie I'm talking about? What about if I said "Jaws"? Would you ask which JP, which Jaws? Probably not.
But that guy is probably an exception to the rule. Another friend is a more typical ANHer: he thinks Twix candy bars are cookies and "Episode 3 > Star Wars." That tells you everything you need to know about his respect for the film and, more importantly, his IQ.
Still, wasn't Star Wars always called "Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope"?
Nope. The "Episode IV" and "A New Hope" were added to the scroll in one of infamous revisions 4 years after the film was made.
But doesn't it make sense to say "A New Hope" for consistency since we say "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi"? NO! By that logic we should just be saying "Episode V" and "Episode VI" to be consistent with the new movies--a terrible thing since we usually want to forget they exist.
Now, I will admit, a lot of my argument so far has been sophistry and ad homenim attacks, so for the record: the most important reason no one should ever say "A New Hope": It's a bad title. It's terrible. It's the worst of the six--by a wide margin.
Now you know where I stand: on this blog, Star Wars is a movie and A New Hope, if anything, is this blog.
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