Ever since George Lucas decided to add in more stories to the original 1977 Star Wars film and label its sequel as Star War: Episode V-The Empire Strikes Back, the space opera science fiction franchise has been using "Episodes" to catalogue the films Lucasfilm has been adding on to the original Star Wars saga. However, it seems like the studio's been using the episode numbers in their official documentation and press releases as of late.
It's a small but noticeable change that was first spotted by Comicbook – in the Han Solo movie production start press release the studio dropped the title Episode IV and only mentioned Star Wars: A New Hope, in the Star Wars Rebels press release this week Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith no longer held its Episode title, and today's Star Wars celebration announcement skipped on the Episode numbers as well.
Fans may have also noticed that the new sequel trilogy films no longer hold their episode titles. While The Force Awakens was referred to as Episode VII before it got its official title, the episode name didn't remain. The same goes for The Last Jedi.
While this may not mean much for fans who can tell which Star Wars installment comes before and after which, this subtle change may mark a new Lucasfilm policy. The studio is still in the process of rebranding the franchise for newer film audiences, and Lucasfilm could possibly be taking out the episode numbers to categorize all nine film as The Saga instead of branching them off into different trilogies. Besides, saying the episode numbers of each film could be such a handful.
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