I realize how much little girls seem to love this film, and even some older girls as well, but to deny the fact that The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is an awful title demands a smidge of insanity. I am sure defenders of the title will say that it is, in fact, about traveling pants, but that just means it hits on the same stupidity level as Snakes on a Plane, a film that realized its absurdity while The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants does not and proves it with its upcoming sequel aptly titled The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2.
Many a Star Wars fan will point to how Darth Sidious is the Phantom Menace referred to in the title of the first Star Wars prequel and as that certainly seems to be the case it doesn’t change the fact that Phantom Menace was the first of three terrible titles for two terrible movies and one moderately decent one. George Lucas went for the cool effect with his titles rather than the appropriate one. For example, wouldn’t have Attack of the Clones been more appropriate for the third installment considering that is when the clones actually attack? To argue the logic of it all is silly, as the real “Phantom Menace” in the Star Wars prequels was a qualified screenwriter and director.
Die Hard 2: Die Harder was a bad title. Die Hard with a Vengeance was bad but I give it a pass just because I thought the movie itself was so good. However, Live Free or Die Hard is not only bad it is also cliché and hardly emotes the actual intensity of the franchise. It is strange to believe that a franchise filled with four films that are all watchable could pull off such a feat with such terrible titles, but I would much rather have terrible titles than terrible films.
Substituting numbers for letters in a title is not cute, cool or scary. As a matter of fact one of my favorite films of all time is Seven and it bothers me to no end to see it spelled Se7en. My biggest beef with both Thir13en Ghosts (and even Se7en) is that the numbers actually aren’t like the letters they are meant to represent. How does a “1” look like a “t”? How does a “7” look like a “v”? Why isn’t it 1hir133n Ghos1s? Is it because that looks stupid? Ahhhh… now you catch on.
Good God, Lucky Number Slevin? Really? This is another case of “chicken or the egg”. What came first, a character named Slevin or a title called Lucky Number Slevin? It doesn’t really matter either way as the title has nothing to do with a number and the fact that you are naming your characters in an attempt for a clever title is the worst case of marketing dominating. The title turns this film into a larger gimmick than Cloverfield… and don’t even get me started on the lame use of the number 7 as the “L” in the picture above.
