A casual Twitter conversation between a member of Lucasfilm’s story group and a few fans released a bombshell over the weekend: “The Force Awakens” wasn’t the original title for Episode VII, as it turns out. No, for a while, they were going to go with “Shadow of the Empire.”
If you were a reader of Star Wars novels, a player of Star Wars video games or a collector of Star Wars anything around 1996, you can immediately think of what’s wrong with that title: it’s cool, but it’s TAKEN. It’s one letter away from “Shadows of the Empire,” a multimedia extravaganza Lucasfilm put out in the mid-90’s. Novelist Steve Perry wrote an inter-quel that took place between Empire and Jedi, introducing new characters like hotshot bounty hunter Dash Rendar and the villainous lizard prince Xizor, both of which conveniently met their explosive ends just before the story ended and Luke decided to rescue Han.
It wasn’t just a book, it was also adapted into a high-profile video game, a Dark Horse comic, and it even had its own soundtrack despite not actually being a movie. If the story proved popular, George planned to actually film the inter-quel….but it didn’t catch on and he changed his plans, some might say for the worse.
Disney has since announced that most of the Expanded Universe material, of which Shadows of the Empire falls under, is considered non-canon. Pretending certain titles didn’t even exist in the cultural zeitgeist, however, was taking it a touch too far. So the title was thrown out and they thought of something else. Which do you prefer?
The post “The Force Awakens” Was Nearly Called “Shadow Of The Empire” appeared first on ToonZone News.
The post “The Force Awakens” Was Nearly Called “Shadow Of The Empire” appeared first on StayTooned.