American audiences are already anxious about the upcoming Solo: A Star Wars Story, considering it debuts in four months and we’ve yet to see a single official image of video. Foreign markets are possibly even more apprehensive about the Star Wars brand, with one Twitter user pointing out that the film will be called “Ranger Solo” in China.
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According to local media Mtime, Official Chinese title of Solo: A Star Wars Story is Ranger Solo(ๆธธไพ ็ดข็ฝ). And STAR WARS(ๆ็ๅคงๆ) is abandoned in Soloโs local title after Star Wars: The Last Jedi flopped in China. pic.twitter.com/FsOTZcxENW
โ Gavin Feng (@weier1231997) January 26, 2018
As you can see in the tweet above, a fan pointed out that, when translated from the Chinese characters, the film isn’t referred to as “Star Wars” at all.
China isn’t the only territory where the film will be getting a title tweak, as it will be released in Spain as “Han Solo: A Star Wars Story” to avoid any sort of confusion about who the film focuses on.
It seems as though the title change in China, on the other hand, is a direct attempt to confuse audiences, or at least distance the spinoff film from the world of Star Wars.
With The Last Jedi being the third Star Wars film released in three consecutive years, China is seemingly overwhelmed by the amount of content necessary to understand the whole story. The Last Jedi was pulled from virtually every screen after less than three weeks, with its opening weekend numbers failing to even surpass Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
“For a lot of fans, the story of Rogue One made us think of our own country’s revolutionary history,” Chen Tao, who runs a Chinese Star Wars fan forum, pointed out. “A lot of characters in it were just like the Communist Party members who sacrificed themselves for the revolution.”
China might not have connected with the film the way Lucasfilm had hoped, but that didn’t stop the latest chapter in the saga from making $1.3 billion worldwide.
Solo: A Star Wars Story lands stateside on May 25.
[H/T Twitter, weier1231997]