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Drew Struzan? No thanks. — Page 2

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generalfrevious said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

TV's Frink said:

generalfrevious said:

Movie posters are a lost art nowadays (have there been any good official posters in the last 10 years?), and I doubt we can make them great again. Same with trailers as well.

 You think this about everything.

Not true. He thinks pessimism's greater now than ever before.

Stop it. I'm not a punching bag.

Desist with the Chicken Little antics and we'll stop giving you right hooks. How does that sound? 

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DuracellEnergizer said:

generalfrevious said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

TV's Frink said:

generalfrevious said:

Movie posters are a lost art nowadays (have there been any good official posters in the last 10 years?), and I doubt we can make them great again. Same with trailers as well.

 You think this about everything.

Not true. He thinks pessimism's greater now than ever before.

Stop it. I'm not a punching bag.

Desist with the Chicken Little antics and we'll stop giving you right hooks. How does that sound? 

 First, let's stay on topic. I have tried to stay on topic as best I can and I deserve some respect regardless of my antics. I don't think badly on everything in the world.

What I'm saying is that posters nowadays are dominated by corporate art and are lazy most of the time. Struzan is a great poster artist, and I think his work on the SE/PT was a good job, and infinitely better than the DVD artwork that followed years later.

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Voss Caltrez said:

DominicCobb said:

I agree that Struzan's SE posters are pretty dull, but his PT ones a great no matter what people think of the movies themselves. Anyway, it seems strange to complain about Struzan or even Struzan imitators (I quite liked that Super 8 poster) when they're the only ones trying to keep the old fashioned poster style. I'd rather a second-rate Struzan poster for TFA than a photoshop job.

 

Good point. However, if Struzan and his imitators are simply doing photo realistic collages how is that competing with Photoshop-created movie posters that utilize the same style: photos done in collage? It's okay for people like us who are nostalgic but what about the general public?

I'd rather have painted movie posters that were more stylistic and making use of the variety the medium allows then just trying to make something look like a photograph. A style that expresses a certain tone or evokes strong feeling.

 A fair argument. Nostalgia doesn't tint my view of painted posters the way it does others, as I am fairly young. My issue with photo collages is there's always a distinct sense of unreality to them. Painted collages embrace that unreality, obviously, but they come across more fancifully, if that makes any sense, due to the medium. Instead of the uncanny valley there's a colorful whimsy, which suits the Star Wars franchise well. Even if they're in a photorealistic style, they're still clearly paintings (by the way, my favorite SW posters are not Struzan's, to be clear).

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 (Edited)

I'm a big fan of Struzan, but I would like to see tradition hold sway, and have many posters made. Look at how many different posters the original trilogy got. It's hard for me to pick a favorite, because so many were good. I want to see more Struzan Star Wars work, but I don't want it to be our only option.

Hugh Fleming should get some love. He's a great Star Wars artist.

He does an excellent job capturing the look and soul of the characters, but there is still a heroic look to the work.

"The other versions will disappear. Even the 35 million tapes of Star Wars out there won’t last more than 30 or 40 years. A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version [of the Special Edition], and you’ll be able to project it on a 20’ by 40’ screen with perfect quality. I think it’s the director’s prerogative, not the studio’s to go back and reinvent a movie." - George Lucas

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EyeShotFirst said:

I'm a big fan of Struzan, but I would like to see tradition hold sway, and have many posters made. Look at how many different posters the original trilogy got. It's hard for me to pick a favorite, because so many were good. I want to see more Struzan Star Wars work, but I don't want it to be our only option.

Hugh Fleming should get some love. He's a great Star Wars artist.

He does an excellent job capturing the look and soul of the characters, but there is still a heroic look to the work.

 

Some great stuff there, especially Splinter of the Mind's Eye. It genuinely looks like the poster we might have gotten in 1980 had SotME become the low budget "Star Wars II" it was supposed to have been.

"These deadly rays will be your death..."

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Akton said:

To me, Struzan is inexorably linked with the Special Editions and the PT.

 I would take that as a compliment. His posters for the SEs and the PT were quite good, in my opinion.

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Akton said:

EyeShotFirst said:

I'm a big fan of Struzan, but I would like to see tradition hold sway, and have many posters made. Look at how many different posters the original trilogy got. It's hard for me to pick a favorite, because so many were good. I want to see more Struzan Star Wars work, but I don't want it to be our only option.

Hugh Fleming should get some love. He's a great Star Wars artist.

He does an excellent job capturing the look and soul of the characters, but there is still a heroic look to the work.

 

Some great stuff there, especially Splinter of the Mind's Eye. It genuinely looks like the poster we might have gotten in 1980 had SotME become the low budget "Star Wars II" it was supposed to have been.

 Lol Skyscraper Bunny is coming for you.

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I would go very minimalist.

Maybe just the falcon being chased or rushing into battle, then just a small font at the bottom of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Lots of empty space.

Or half of the crumpled up Vader mask on one side that fades into Kylo rens mask on the other. Stick a pair crossed lightsabers at the bottom being held by figures that we can't make out. 

Or steal a bit of iconic imagery and have the new main cast jammed into the cockpit of the falcon with looks of distress.

There's so much hype, I think a very low key poster will get the audience even more frothed up.

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Struzan has certainly created some iconic pieces, a few of which I think are perfect.  No doubt, we could way way worse, but he wouldn't necessarily be my first choice.  His work has become a little busy of late.  Too much going on in some of his one-sheets and they end up with visual tension, for me at least.  Granted, a lot of that may be customer-driven.

That said;  I love his work on the Indiana Jones novel covers.  With such a restricted canvas in which to convey the information, he did some fantastic work.

If he did a minimalist Force Awakens one-sheet, I have no doubt it would instantly pull us back into the galaxy far far away. Rey and Finn with the downed star destroyer in the background would be great.

Two of my favorite Struzan pieces;

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woofermazing said:


I would go very minimalist.


There's so much hype, I think a very low key poster will get the audience even more frothed up.

I agree, but for a different reason.  It's already getting crazy and we're still seven months out.  By the time December arrives, we'll need a moment to catch our breath. A minimalist one-sheet would be great for that.

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 (Edited)

The BTTF trilogy posters made my Struzan, were completely amazing IMO.

“English, motherf***er! Do you speak it!?”

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woofermazing said:

There's so much hype, I think a very low key poster will get the audience even more frothed up.

 There's currently one of those floating around theaters:

And then there's the Celebration exclusive poster I was able to snag while there as well:

Yes, it's literally just the logo squished and stretched to fill the entire poster. =P

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If you look at the concepts of posters he's done, and what the final product ended up being, it shows that directors or studios want the same vanilla Struzan. Everybody wants the same Photorealistic collage. Even the people they hire as his copies go with the same formula.

Nobody's asking for stuff like this anymore. When you see his scraps, he'll try something like that, and it will get turned down in favor of the collage look:

Here's people trying to do Struzan's style:

Struzan has sort of been turned into the AC/DC of the art world. If he tried to do anything different, people wouldn't like it at this point. It's probably the reason he's retired.

"The other versions will disappear. Even the 35 million tapes of Star Wars out there won’t last more than 30 or 40 years. A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version [of the Special Edition], and you’ll be able to project it on a 20’ by 40’ screen with perfect quality. I think it’s the director’s prerogative, not the studio’s to go back and reinvent a movie." - George Lucas

<span> </span>

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Struzan's OT posters aren't my favorites, but all the EU novel covers he did in the 90s hold some serious nostalgia. If he doesn't do the main poster, I'd like to see him do something. Maybe the dust jacket for the novelization. That probably wouldn't be a big enough deal to get him out of retirement, though.

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joefavs said:

Struzan's OT posters aren't my favorites, but all the EU novel covers he did in the 90s hold some serious nostalgia. If he doesn't do the main poster, I'd like to see him do something.

 Fair enough.

Though I'm not a fan, I don't mean to give the impression that I hate Struzan. I don't. I just think this aura that's built up around him as The Star Wars poster guy is utterly undeserved. None of the iconic main release OT posters were done by Struzan. I think those guys (Jung, Kastel, Sano) have gotten the short shrift, as Struzan is (as poster artists go) a household name, while they - for whatever reason - don't get much recognition beyond the walls of Star Wars fandom. 

"These deadly rays will be your death..."

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 (Edited)

I would also vouch for a Alex Ross movie poster for episode 7... Yes Please!!!

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 (Edited)

I'm a Struzan fan. While I don't like the SE's, I do like his artwork, especially for ANH.

My favorite Star Wars poster of all time is the Struzan/White "circus" poster used for the '78 re-release. I never cared much for the designs used in '77. I thought they were hokey and it bothered me that the illustrations didn't resemble the actors very much.





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There are a lot of artists who copy Struzan's style. Dull? I don't think so.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8868/18194497930_755cc2a5e8_b.jpg

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...wait, what movie is that supposed to be? Or is it just a poster?

Nobody sang The Bunny Song in years…

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^ the Iron Sky sequel? I haven't seen it (I'm not even sure it's out yet), but I do know that it features dinosaurs and Nazis (and Sarah Palin, but I don't see her on that poster).

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TK-949 said:

There are a lot of artists who copy Struzan's style. Dull? I don't think so.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8868/18194497930_755cc2a5e8_b.jpg

 Whatever that is, I must pay money for it immediately. 

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fishmanlee said:

Ronster said:

I would also vouch for a Alex Ross movie poster for episode 7... Yes Please!!!

 Isn't that pretty much just one of the old comics covers redrawn?

 Yeah, it was a variant cover for the rebooted Star Wars #1 in January.