 Hi, I'm Adam, and I like movies and movie posters. And since I have a background in web design and development, one of those was relevant for this conversation, I thought today I would reflect back on some of the Star Wars posters over the years, see if they're good or maybe not so much. There's a lot of Star Wars posters, and I'm probably gonna have a good amount to say on them, so for this episode, I'm just gonna focus on the OG trilogy. Next time I'll do the prequels, then we'll do the sequel trilogy. Well, we'll do it that way. I think that's more manageable. Hey, if you like movie posters and movies in general, why don't you do me a favor and force push that subscribe button. It'll only take you a second, unless you've already done so. If you are subscribed, don't do it, because then you will unsubscribe, and that would just be- that would just be the opposite of what I'm trying to accomplish here. Let's begin. 1977. Why don't you go ahead and mark that as the date that posters hit their peak. Don't think anything's come since then that's really rivaled it in any sort of real way. It's entirely possible that nostalgia's playing a major factor in this, but still, there's no denying how iconic this poster was and still is today. Even though illustrator and painter Tom Young did an amazing job on this poster, I still prefer the original interpretation of it, the original design with the stand-in characters. The final version of the poster has a better representation of Luke and Leia. The color though is a lot drabber, really pushing the focus to the front of our heroes. They're glowing, they're almost mythic. This is the 70s, so it's hard for me to look at the poster and not see that Death Star as a giant disco ball in the sky. The Thai fighters flying up to it ready to attack, or in this instance, maybe dance the night away. I knew the beat, I didn't know the words, but I was already committed to the bit, so I went all in. Here's the final and probably most recognizable poster done by British artist Tom Shintrell. It's a beauty. It's really hard to argue or point out flaws when these are illustrated. They look so good. There's style to them. There's some substance there. Sure, it looks like Princess Leia and Han Solo are blasting lightsabers out of their guns, but it's interpretation. You're taking some liberties with it. Creative liberties is what it's called. Everything's nicely contained. There's attacks coming from all angles. They're in space. I mean, nothing says Star Wars quite like this poster, right? The only thing I would maybe criticize is that little Mos Eisley tucked off into the corner or whatever planet that's supposed to be. I'd maybe get rid of that. That seems unnecessary. There's enough going on where you don't need to put a blob of shit on the side. Just keep the focus in the center frame. I really dig this poster for the Empire Strikes Back. It's the teaser, came out in 1979. It almost reminds me of the Jaws poster where you have this looming threat, this larger-than-life presence rising up. The Darth Vader mask is just so timeless. Plus, even the reflections and how they use the lighting here, they could even be mistaken for Imperial ships. I don't know if this decision was made with that in mind, but we are in space, we have stars. There should be some ships, right? I tend to like the simpler stuff better, so for me, this is an A+. Let's get gone with the wind. The 1980 poster for Empire is straight up gone with the wind. I'll put them back to back so you can see. Look at this. Look what's happening here. Roger Castel did this one. He was very inspired by Tom Young's painting from Gone with the Wind, so it makes sense that this is how it came out. This poster didn't last long. I read online it was pulled by Lucas because Billy D. Williams was actually a little perturbed that there was no black representation on the poster since he's the only black dude in Star Wars at the time. Yeah, you might want to throw him on there. You might want to give him his due. This might be my favorite Star Wars poster. I think this is great. I love Darth Vader here. He's so menacing. His cape's opening up to reveal the darkness of space. We have the Hoth-like surroundings everywhere else. We got Billy D on here now. We have Lando himself in the corner. Everyone is just though so tiny, so dwarfed compared to the magnificence of Darth Vader. And it goes with the story so well. We know in Empire, things are very dire. Things are grim. It's not a good time for our heroes and optimism is an all-time low. Luke has things revealed that aren't very savory. You know, that his dad's a dick. The Empire is taking over. The resistance is faltering. So the people are looking up at this menacing figure thinking, we're screwed. We're in trouble. But then there's also light off to the side in the distance. Far. Maybe it's hope. Maybe it's a new hope out there. For our heroes, only time will tell. For me, this poster is everything. I don't think I can talk about Star Wars posters without mentioning Revenge of the Jedi. The poster that was quickly pulled when Lucas changed the title and said, you know what, Jedi's aren't all about revenge. That's not in their nature. This was illustrated by Drew Struzan. I don't know how many of these posters exist. How many are out there in the world. It's probably worth a decent amount of money. Maybe, I would think. As far as the look of the poster, I really don't like this at all. There's a lot of colors clashing here, along with people clashing. The font treatment with the ugly gradient doesn't work. It doesn't really go with the other posters so far in this trilogy. This just seems a little tame in comparison. Especially worth for a final. Now, that's not saying the poster we do get is much better because I think it is definitely the worst of the trilogy. Done by Kazosano. I apologize if I mispronounced. I do that a lot. This one is just not doing it for me. It almost comes off like a bad photo collage. Especially on that left side with Jabba the Hutt who doesn't have any headspace. Looks like he was cropped in. Luke is very glowy with the lightsaber and the aura above him. Very Jesus-like. There's just so much busyness down below. You got the Ewoks. You got Harrison Ford again. You got Leia front and center in the Bikini. Obviously, we have to speak to the dude bros who didn't see the original two and thought, whoa, Bikinis, I'm in. I like to live in the top part of this poster with Vader, the Death Star, the TIE Fighters, the X-Wings. If I was to give my two cents, obviously we'll do now, I'd remove everything under Luke Skywalker, move him down a little bit, bring everything down a little bit, actually. So we still have Luke on there. He's still very much the force to be reckoned with, pun intended. And then we have this just much more open space shot where we can really breathe it all in. We don't have to have all this nonsense down below. That's just cluttering things up. It's not really adding anything to the story, which I guess is a good representation for Return of the Jedi as a whole. There is a lot of noise. There's a lot of spectacle that need to be there, because when all is said and done, it's about father versus son, good versus evil, and hopefully good reign supreme, and the heroes win out. That's the journey. Let's focus on it. Let's make it more intimate in that respect. The noise that can be in the film, let's keep it off the poster. Now, since these movies are pretty old now, they've been released time and time again over the years, special editions, re-releases, remasters, Blu-rays, yada, yada, yada. Different cover art, different posters have come out. None of them are even close to matching the spectacle of those original posters. We can take a look at some of them now. I'm not going to dive into them deeply. There's just not a lot to say. They all look like a collection of different scenes taken from films, plopped onto the posters willy-nilly, and then maybe there was some illustration effects applied to the top of the photos. At best, they're passable. At worst, they're downright ugly. Those are my thoughts on the original Star Wars posters. There were a few that I didn't talk about. Some were re-released, some were just not that impressive for me, so I just avoided them all together. Now I want to hear from you. Leave a comment below. Tell me if you have any of these posters. You might. You might just have an original signed by Lucas himself. How amazing would that be? And probably very expensive. Alright, like the video if you had a good time. Subscribe if you want to hear more movie content, and I'm going to talk about those other Star Wars posters, so you might as well stick around for that, right? I'll look for you in the comments in the next video. You know what they say in Star Wars? Live long and prosper. That's not right. Keep it going, man. Keep it going. And I'll say thanks, Jesse. I probably shouldn't have said a name there.