During D23 Expo’s Star Wars portion of the live-action feature film panel, many exciting announcements were made, including the reveal of the official logo of Star Wars Anthology: Rogue One and a photo of the main cast.
SEE ALSO: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story – Cast Announced
Except, Rogue One is not a Star Wars Anthology film anymore. It is, per the logo, a Star Wars Story.
Have a look at the logo below.
Officially, no reason has been given for the alteration. But there are at least two reasons for changing Star Wars Anthology to Star Wars Stories that we should consider.
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1) Star Wars Stories is an easier title to market to the general public. Not everyone may know what an “anthology” is, or, they may mistake Star Wars Anthology to mean an entirely new saga of Star Wars movies and not just standalones. Star Wars Stories, on the other hand, is easy to define. If a movie, such as Rogue One, is called a Star Wars Story, than it means Rogue One is its own story, apart from the Episodes.
2) Star Wars Stories is an easier title to market internationally. Our own Kyle Warnke suggested to me what he read or heard someone else say: “Anthology” is more difficult to translate in to foreign languages than “story” or “stories.” Since Star Wars has a large international presence (Star Wars Celebration: Europe and the Jedi Academy in Shanghai are good examples of Star Wars’ global footprint), it makes sense that Disney would want to cater to non-English speaking fans, as well.
Fortunately, since the first Star Wars Story, Rogue One, won’t be released into theaters until December 2016, there is plenty of time for fans to dispel their confusion. General audiences, especially those who don’t follow Star Wars news, likely won’t even notice the difference.