VOTD: The Academy Digs Up 'Revenge Of The Jedi' Teaser From 1982

No, that's not a typo. Any Star Wars fan can tell you that the original title for the final installment of the original trilogy was Revenge of the Jedi. Franchise creator George Lucas eventually changed the title to Return of the Jedi before release because he had determined that getting revenge was not something a Jedi would seek out.

However, the Star Wars sequel was teased so far out in advance of the release that some marketing materials still had the title Revenge of the Jedi. The teaser poster featuring that title is worth a pretty penny, but there was also a teaser trailer that had the abandoned title still intact, and The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has dusted it off and posted it online.

Watch the Revenge of the Jedi teaser trailer after the jump.

Here's the rare teaser trailer from the United Kingdom from The Academy YouTube page:

We'll let the video description from The Academy explain what makes this one even more unique than the US teasers that feature the same title

The Academy Film Archive holds several trailers from the United States with the initial Revenge title, most of which announcing a May 25th 1983 release date which coincided with the anniversary of the original Star Wars stateside release in 1977. However, this peculiar and very brief Revenge of the Jedi teaser trailer originated from a cinema in the United Kingdom, where the film was originally being considered for a Christmas 1983 release. This teaser was apparently shown with the U.K.'s May 1982 double feature re-release of Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. American audiences would not get a glimpse of the third film until Star Wars was re-released in the U.S. in August 1982, meaning that this may be the earliest Revenge trailer distributed – and fans from across the pond got the first peek!

That's right, Return of the Jedi almost had a Christmas release in 1983, just like The Force Awakens did last year. But the film ended up getting bumped up to a summer 1983 release just like the previous Star Wars films. Now December seems to be the new home for Star Wars, leaving a whole month after the holiday where the films will have little to no competition at the box office.

Teaser trailers have certainly come a long way since 1982. This teaser doesn't even feature any real footage from the movie. There are only snapshots of characters from the movie itself, basically making it a PowerPoint presentation about Return of the Jedi. As a point of comparison, just check out the teaser for Beauty and the Beast that debuted earlier this week and just happened to top the record for number of views in 24 hours previously set by Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

If you want to know more about Revenge of the Jedi marketing, check out The Academy's full post here.