Star Wars Weekly: What's up with Episode IX's mystery title? Plus, BB-8 rolls out

Time again for STAR WARS WEEKLY, the SYFY WIRE series that rounds up the most important news of the week from a galaxy far, far away. Think of us as your own personal Star Wars Holocron.

EPISODE IX'S MYSTERY TITLE

Star Wars: Episode IX still doesn't have a title, and while the movie doesn't absolutely need a name until Disney starts marketing the film, some fans are working themselves up into a frenzy over it. Mark Hamill even got in on the action, in his own wry way, naturally.

In lieu of an official title reveal, many creative fans started making up their own names for Episode IX, and SYFY WIRE rounded up a whole bunch of them.

When the Super Bowl came and went without a title reveal, some fans started to speculate all sorts of reasons why the name might be being held back, but it's possible there's a more simple explanation at work here: There's probably no title yet.

Back before the announcement of The Force Awakens as the title for the seventh installment of the Skywalker Saga, there had been rumors of many different working titles (including Shadow of the Empire,) but nothing solid that Lucasfilm would be willing to confirm. The name could always change, after all. We know that J.J. Abrams is the sort of filmmaker who will tinker with everything until the last possible second. Why not the title, too?

So that's my guess: there's no title yet. And, we'll get one when they decide on a name for sure. Lucasfilm creative executive Pablo Hidalgo seemed to imply that this is indeed, the case, as he wrote on Twitter that if the film has a title, even he doesn't know it.

BB-8 WRAPS EPISODE IX

Brian Herring, the chief puppeteer who brought BB-8 to life since the droid's first appearance in The Force Awakens, tweeted this week that he has wrapped work on Episode IX.

It's a bittersweet moment, surely, knowing that the two key droids of this trilogy aren't shooting any more principal photography for the Star Wars saga. Anthony Daniels announced that Threepio had finished the week before. There's been no word about whether or not Artoo has wrapped shooting.

TAIKA WAITITI TALKS THE MANDALORIAN

Taika Waititi, director of Thor: Ragnarok, has been tapped to feature in the cast and direct episodes of Jon Favreau's upcoming Star Wars television series, The Mandalorian. At the Television Critics Association, he opened up a bit about how work on Star Wars differs from work on Marvel. "Star Wars is very different from Marvel style," he said. "They know that the tone of the first films really should be kind of adhered to. That's what the fans like and you can't really disrespect it, I guess is a nicer way of saying I can't put too many jokes in. Definitely, my tone is in there, the dialogue and stuff like that."

This bodes well for those of us who really like that tone of the original films, and it makes sense that this series would more pattern itself after the classic trilogy since it's set so much closer to them than the prequel or sequel trilogies.

The Mandalorian hits the Disney+ streaming service sometime in 2019.

REY AND PALS

Writer/illustrator Jeffrey Brown is making another adorable Star Wars book called Rey and Pals, according to an announcement on StarWars.com.

Brown is known for his Vader and Son books and illustrations, and he was able to parlay that into a series of adorable books. Rey and Pals would be the first of his books to center the characters of the sequel trilogy. There's no date yet on when the book is coming out, but if they're teasing it now, it's a safe bet it will be out sometime between now and Episode IX's release.

THE STAR WARS SHOW IS BACK

Last year, The Star Wars Show went on hiatus for the holiday, but it didn't come back in the new year. Host Anthony Carboni sparked a wave of speculation and a minor panic last week when he said the show would be back, but no new episode materialized. That only helped fuel rumors that there might be a trailer or title release for the Super Bowl. (That, obviously, didn't end up being the case).

The show returned this week, though, and it featured a special guest: Elijah Wood. Wood is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings, but he's playing Jace Rucklin in Star Wars Resistance. Watch this new episode of The Star Wars Show to see him nerd out about all of that.

Until next week, May the Force Be With You!