I thought this was the correct title: Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back.

Technically, yes. But after years of reports asking for a title change, we decided (with Travis) to go with the shorter original titles.

The average fan knows its a Star Wars movie but someone who doesn't anything about SW will not know what TESB refers to.

They can check the alternative titles, the posters, the Star Wars collection, etc. I think it should be fine.

Can this please be re-evaluated? Other series are treated in a different manner (e.g. Star Trek, Pirates of the Caribbean, etc) and it would be useful to maintain a consistent behaviour.

Travis is king and owner of tmdb. So Travis decided. If you want to change it for your private collection. Override it locally in plex or whatever you use.

Deal with it, or not xD

@alltimemarr

Travis is king and owner of tmdb. So Travis decided.

While this is certainly true, TMDB boasts itself by saying it's a community based platform, so IMO it should respect the communities wishes. Especially, if you get a lot of people wanting more consistency. If I wanted a platform run by only one person, I can just go with OMDB or IMDB directly.

I would like to know the reason for going with the original shorter titles. IMO it makes no sense, as pointed out with other series which are much more consistently named.

I would like to know the reason for going with the original shorter titles.

Funny, that you mention it. Why would a movie database choose to actually use the correct original titles? I would hope that if someone at studio level decided that The Godfather should be called The Godfather: Part I, that we would decide to stick with the correct original title in such a case as well, no matter how much better such a new title would align with the two sequels.

(As for IMDb, they used to carry the correct original titles for all three titles, then decided to change number 2 and 3 (or 5 and 6 if you prefer that way of counting). Star Wars is still called Star Wars though, which is a curious decision.)

For my collection I prefer this:

• Star Wars 1 A Ameaça Fantasma
• Star Wars 2 Ataque dos Clones
• Star Wars 3 A Vingança dos Sith
• Star Wars 4 Uma Nova Esperança
• Star Wars 5 O Império Contra-Ataca
• Star Wars 6 O Retorno de Jedi
• Star Wars 7 O Despertar da Força
• Star Wars 8 Os Últimos Jedi
• Star Wars 9

I think it's more consistent.

@lineker It appears that movies are currently keyed on Original Title and not another field such as Title or Studio Title. It doesn't seem like TMDB provides a means aside from Alternative Titles to support a situation like this where the studio or rightsholder wishes to change the title of a given movie. Simply telling users to refer to Alternative Titles as is doesn't seem like a useful option either, as the user/client would need to know which Type to select the studio title from.

(fwiw, IMDB is showing the full title of Star Wars with the episode included, but they make a note of "Star Wars (original title)" below the full title)

(fwiw, IMDB is showing the full title of Star Wars with the episode included, but they make a note of "Star Wars (original title)" below the full title)

I have IMDb set to only show original titles, but what you write must be correct for any other setting I guess.

It appears that movies are currently keyed on Original Title and not another field such as Title or Studio Title. It doesn't seem like TMDB provides a means aside from Alternative Titles to support a situation like this where the studio or rightsholder wishes to change the title of a given movie.

That is true. IMDb has a unique way of displaying titles. I think the default setting is a simple region check. So if you visit the site from Sweden you will get titles in Swedish and so on. However, should Disney decide that they want a certain title used here, maybe that would be enough to break our rules for a special case. We are already accommodating, in a few rare cases, actors wanting a certain profile picture used or a director wanting a certain poster used for a movie.

(An interesting hypothetical case would be if the original version of a movie - that has been screened theatrically - features an actor that is then removed and replaced in a later version. With support for multiple versions, a feature that is planned, it would be easily resolved of course, but what to do with the current configuration should a rights-holder demand that the later version be represented here?)

@Bubbathegut said:

The average fan knows its a Star Wars movie but someone who doesn't anything about SW will not know what TESB refers to.

I don't think it has anything to do with who knows what. I think it's better for consistency in sequential naming in archives.

Instead of having all the star wars movies right next to each other, they're now starting to get thrown everywhere in the movies folder, since in order to have a no-effort meta scrape, you can no longer have sequential names for episodes 1 - 9

I also think this decision has no consistency (that is the most important thing when it is up to collections). I would like you to re-think this decision... PLEASE