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'The Force Awakens' next year

Posted Thursday, November 6, 2014 at 12:40 PM Central
Last updated Thursday, November 6, 2014 at 12:41 PM Central

by John Couture

Star Wars: Episode VII officially has its title and believe it or not, it's already got a legion of haters. On December 18, 2015, Star Wars: The Force Awakens will stir from its slumber at theaters.

OK, OK I know that was a slight dig, but how can you not at least poke a little bit of fun at the title? Personally, I think the title is fine, but I guess I was just hoping for something mind-blowing. Again, the expectation levels were through the roof when I should have reminded myself that J.J. Abrams was responsible for Star Trek Into Darkness.

But the title is ripe for jokes and the jokes came fast and furious practically from the moment they tweeted the title treatment.

To be fair, it wasn't all negative.

So, Star Wars: The Force Awakens it is. So, in the spirit of overanalyzing everything to death, what does that mean? Is there anything that we can glean from the title?

Well, it implies that the Force has gone dormant in the intervening 30 years between the end of Return of the Jedi and the start of The Force Awakens. Remember, at the end of Jedi, there's what one, maybe one and a half Jedi remaining in that galaxy far, far away?

Sure, there could be other Jedi out there hiding like Yoda or Obi Wan, but they aren't exactly Spring chickens anymore if they are. And remember, I've stated before that The Force Awakens needs to start already well on its way to bad times. You don't check in on the Star Wars universe when everything is happy and hunky dory.

No, I'm guessing that in those 30 intervening years, the focus of the rebellion was split between squelching out the last remaining remnants of the Empire, setting up a new Republic and getting everyone on board with their new peace plan. Naturally, a Jedi Master like Luke Skywalker would be involved in all of those phases, but what he wouldn't have time to do is to search for other Jedi or to rebuild the Jedi order by training new recruits.

No, I'm pretty sure that the Force has taken a back seat to the realities of dealing with the aftermath of that huge celebration on that Forest Moon of Endor. In that case, whatever event or events we jump into with The Force Awakens, it makes them put an emphasis back on the Force. I'm not going to spoil things here, but this title makes some sense with some of the leaked plot lines that I've heard.

At the end of the day, I have faith in J.J. Abrams that the film will be great.

One other interesting thing that my colleague Tim pointed out is the font choice for The Force Awakens. In the past, the font has been pretty uniform, especially in the prequel trilogy and used Trajan heavily. This typeface is a departure from that and the name of the typeface is ITC Serif Gothic Heavy.

Now, that is interesting. The font was appropriately created in the 1970s and certainly lends that era's flair to the title treatment.

As for the title itself, it could always be worse.