This is the title you were looking for. Star Wars: Episode VIII will be called The Last Jedi, Disney’s Lucasfilm announced today.
“We have the greatest fans in this or any other galaxy,” the company said in a statement on the official Star Wars website. “In appreciation of the fans, we wanted them to be the first to know the title of the next chapter in the Skywalker saga: STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI.”
The “Last Jedi” in question likely refers to Luke Skywalker, who appeared at the very end of Episode VII: The Force Awakens and will have a larger role in the upcoming installment. Director Rian Johnson hinted that The Last Jedi will pick up right where the The Force Awakens left off, with Rey, the trilogy’s heroine, confronting Skywalker, who’s been in hiding on a mysterious planet.
“Jedi,” however, can also be plural—so perhaps Luke is not the only one remaining. The word also doesn’t connote gender, though a since-deleted Portuguese version of the tweet uses the singular male form, bolstering the theory that Skywalker is the protagonist:
The title of the film had been the subject of much speculation ever since The Force Awakens was released in 2015. One prescient Reddit user even predicted the title more than a year ago.
The news comes a week after Lucasfilm promised that the film will not digitally recreate Carrie Fisher’s performance as the princess-turned-general Leia, as it did for the late Peter Cushing’s Grand Moff Tarkin in Rogue One. How the film will deal with the death of Fisher, who figured prominently into the ongoing story, remains to be seen.
The Last Jedi comes out Dec. 15.