Rumour: STAR WARS: EPISODE VIII title revealed

Hey, it’s been far too long since we’ve had ourselves a good juicy Star Wars rumour! Rogue One releases this week, but hasn’t really enjoyed as much rampant speculation as The Force Awakens did, seeing as this is technically a story we already know the broader strokes of. Compare that to the run up to The Force Awakens where we seemed to have one crazy grapevine murmur after the other on a daily basis. And it continued even after the movie released as fans got even more eager to know where director Rian Johnson’s Episode VIII would take the story.

And the first stop is exactly what Episode VIII is actually called. You may recall all the speculation surrounding The Force Awakens’ title, as we hoped for any clue as to what this first Star Wars film in decades could be about. In the end we got a title that in retrospect makes narrative sense, but didn’t actually give away potential spoilers. And we will probably get the same for Episode VIII if this latest rumour is to be believed: According to the AVS Forum, Lucasfilm have submitted a trademark filing to the European Union Intellectual Property Office for something titled Star Wars: Forces of Destiny.

Now it has to be noted that with all the branching out Disney and Lucasfilm does with the Star Wars brand, this could technically refer to just about anything from a video game to a line of soap dispensers and not necessarily a movie. However, the trademark filing is a gigantic 2000+ word list that covers just about everything you can think of. Merchandising that extensive is usually only reserved for major properties like a new movie.

Personally, I’m not the biggest fan Star Wars: Forces of Destiny as a title as I find it a bit clunky and on the nose. But I felt the same way about The Force Awakens and that didn’t stop me one bit from loving that movie. Just like that movie though, it doesn’t really offer us any clues to what Rian Johnson is cooking up and with water cooler talk saying that Lucasfilm doesn’t want to steal Rogue One’s spotlight, it will probably be a month or two before we get an Episode VIII trailer and can start piecing this mystery together.

What do you think of Forces of Destiny as a potential title for Star Wars: Episode VIII?

Last Updated: December 12, 2016