CNN is reporting this morning that the official title of the next (and presumably final) Star Wars movie will be Revenge of the Sith. Representatives of Lucasfilm made the announcement at this weekend’s massive gathering of comic book and science fiction fans in San Diego, Comic-Con International, where the crowd’s response was reported to be generally positive. My own response? I’m not sure yet. I sorta like it and I sorta hate it, which I guess is fitting because that’s been my reaction to the Star Wars prequels in general.

One of these days when I have a lot of free time and I’m all amped up on mocha lattes and Pop Rocks, maybe I’ll try to make some sense of my tumultuous reactions to The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. (Executive summary: I’ve vacillated wildly between adoring fanboy, defensive apologist, and disillusioned hero-worshipper, with a hint of disappointed lover and just a spoonful of angry reactionary thrown in for color.) For today, though, I’m going to confine my comments to this particular wrinkle in the Star Wars tapestry.

So, let’s start by swirling the new title about on our tongues like a dram of fine whisky, shall we? Hmmm… Revenge of the Sith. Yes, it flows pretty easily… no jarringly unpleasant consonants…

First impression: it’s a nice bit of symmetry linking the prequel trilogy back to the original trilogy. Any Star Wars fan worth his spice knows that Return of the Jedi was originally titled Revenge of the Jedi, and that Uncle George (my little pet-name for Star Wars creator George Lucas) changed it at the last second, supposedly because he decided a Jedi wouldn’t seek revenge. (“Return” also made more sense thematically speaking, because the big moment of that film is Darth Vader’s redemption. He turns away from the Dark Side to save his son, Luke Skywalker, and so is reborn as a good Jedi instead of an evil Sith Lord. You can also explain the word “return” as referring to Luke’s presumed imperative to bring forth the next generation of Jedi who will restore the glory of the Galactic Republic.) The Sith are the opposite of the Jedi and so revenge naturally would be one of their defining attributes. Therefore, seen from the perspective of the real-world history of the Star Wars films, Revenge of the Sith is a very fitting title, a kind of self-referential homage.

However, this aspect of the title is also one of its potential weaknesses. A self-referential homage can either be heartwarming or unspeakably lame, depending on your own point of view, and I imagine there are already critics out there carping on about Lucas’ lack of originality in recycling an unused idea from twenty years ago. It’s a valid criticism, at least to a certain extent. The prequels have generally been pretty uninspired, and I personally remain undecided as to whether this is because Lucas is a cynical moneygrubber just trying to make a buck off us fanboys while he advances his agenda of digital filmmaking, or if his creative well ran dry a long time ago and this is genuinely the best he can do. Certainly a number of fan-suggested titles for Episode III are more creative and exciting than this official one. The Fall of the Jedi and The Rise of the Empire are two I’ve heard bandied about quite a bit, and I think either of them would have made an excellent title. But then many fanboys (and girls) have forgotten that Star Wars was based on old cliffhanger serials that were anything but epic in scope, and the titles of Lucas’ episodes reflect the same bluntly small-world sensibilities as the old serials. For example, consider the chapter titles from the 1936 serial Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars, one of Uncle George’s inspirations for the Star Wars films: “New Worlds To Conquer,” “The Living Dead,” “Queen of Magic,” “Ancient Enemies,” “The Boomerang,” “Treemen of Mars,” “Prisoner of Monga,” “Black Sapphire of Kalu,” “Symbol of Death,” “Incense of Forgetfulness,” “Human Bait,” “Ming the Merciless,” “Miracle of Magic,” “Beasts at Bay,” and “An Eye for an Eye.”

Hardly soul-stirring stuff about rising and falling civilizations, but then these were very simplistic, fluffy entertainments and I think that George originally intended for his Star Wars movies to be the same. It is the fans who built them into a fantasy version of The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, something that the fans themselves often have a hard time accepting. For that reason, I tend to discount the whining of fanboys who think the prequel titles are too mundane or silly. I understand the effect George is trying for (and, for the record, I actually quite liked the title Attack of the Clones.)

My biggest concern with this new title is what meaning it will have within the context of the story. What, exactly, do the Sith want to avenge? In The Phantom Menace, one of Sith Lord Darth Maul’s few lines was “Soon we will have our revenge.” But we never find out what exactly he’s talking about, just as it was never entirely clear what “the Phantom Menace” actually was. There were hints, and the fans have filled in the gaps with supposition as have the various spin-off novels and comics, but I can’t recall any on-screen explanations. If Uncle George doesn’t give us a few answers in this third and final prequel, specifically the meaning of this “revenge,” then the title will be a failure, just as The Phantom Menace fails as a title (whether the movies succeed as films is another issue). The other films in this series have successful titles in the sense that they describe what’s happening within the film. I’ve already discussed Return of the Jedi, and Attack of the Clones and The Empire Strikes Back are self-explanatory. Even the episode title added retroactively to the original film, A New Hope, is pretty easy to define based on the film’s plot. But I defy you to explain The Phantom Menace to me. Does it refer to Darth Sidious? To the Trade Federation’s underhanded manuvering? To the vague Jedi prophecies? To the smell produced by Jar Jar Binks after eating that frog-thing he swiped from a Mos Espa street vendor? You got me…

I’m not just being a nit-picky fanboy by raising this subject.

Alright, so I am being a nit-picky fanboy, but there is a genuine point to be made here, which is this: one of the ways in which the prequels have failed is their tendency to explain things that nobody questioned while ignoring those things that should be explained. The most glaring example is the introduction in Episode I of the midichlorians, microscopic symbiotes within living cells that give people the ability to use the Force. Why was it necessary to create a physical explanation for the Force? Has any moviegoer anywhere ever questioned the Force? I doubt it — the rules of the Star Wars universe said that there was a mystical Force that certain people could access and use. Simple enough, everyone got that and accepted it, and there was no need to explain it. So why bother? On the other hand, there are things that I’d really like to understand based on on-screen evidence (as opposed to after-market explanations), and we don’t get very much to satisfy the curiosity. For example, what the hell is Palpatine’s game? Where did the Sith come from? What is their ancient grudge with the Jedi? Why is Darth Maul so pissy? What is the nature of the Trade Federation and what do they hope to gain by blockading Naboo? In Attack of the Clones, who are these Separatist Forces that have allied themselves with the Trade Fed, and what is their grudge against the Republic (beyond the murky issue of trade-route taxes, of course)? These things should have been clear to the audience, at least, if not to the characters on the screen, and I think a lot of the fanboy dissatisfaction with the prequels stem from these questions going unanswered.

And now we have Revenge of the Sith, a title that raises many questions. It remains to be seen whether we will get the answers to those questions. I hope we will. I hope Uncle George manages to pull a rabbit out of his hat and give us a satisfying, rousing send-off to the Star Wars saga, a movie that will answer questions, tie up loose ends, connect the prequels with the original trilogy, and generally redeem the whole damn franchise. But somehow, I doubt it will happen. It seems like too big a job, even for a Jedi.

FYI, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is scheduled to open on May 19, 2005.