Bonus Content! 12 Star Wars Posters You’ve Never Seen Before

When I went out to Barnes & Noble to purchase Predictably Irrational for the Product Manager’s Book Club, I couldn’t help but notice The Star Wars Poster Book–and buy it immediately.

Next Week: We’re going to review Predictably Irrational.

Today: We’re going to look at some rare and AMAZING Star Wars posters, starting with:

Artist: Witold Dybowski (1984) Polish movie poster promoting Return of the Jedi. Useless fact: Because of civil unrest in Poland, Dybowski didn’t get to actually see Return of the Jedi until three years after its release.

Artist: Tsuneo Sanda (1997) Boba Fett poster for the Official Star Wars Fan Club. Larger version on Flickr.

Artist: Bill Selby (1978) Limited-edition retail poster for Factoids Etc.

Artist: Ralph McQuarrie (1978) Charter members of the Official Star Wars Club received this piece, painted by the famed concept artist.

Artist: Noriyoshi Ohrai (1982) Created to promote the dubbed re-release of A New Hope in Japan.

Artist: Boris Vallejo (1980) Part of a series of three posters designed to promote The Empire Strikes Back. Distributed via Burger Chef, among other retailers.

Artist: Howard Chaykin (1976) Created to generate buzz about A New Hope, a year ahead of the film’s release.

Artist: Tom Chantrell (1978) This “Style C” one-sheet was used to promote A New Hope in Hong Kong. Love the composition.

Artist: Tom Jung (1980) This “Style B” one-sheet was used to promote Empire Strikes Back in Hong Kong. Creepy! (You might be expecting to see the Hong Kong version of Return of the Jedi next; I’m skipping it, because it’s pretty pedestrian. But you can see it here.)

Artist: Papuzza (1977) I love these international posters. This one-sheet, from Italy, clearly takes a few liberties with the actors’ likenesses.

Artists: Drew Struzan, Charles White III (1978) Lucasfilm re-released A New Hope in the summer 1978, and sought to capitalize on the swashbuckling appeal of the movie. Thus, this “Circus Theatrical One-Sheet”. Struzan handled the people, White handled Vader and the vehicles.

Australia (1983) The featured ingredient in this frozen confection is “Jedi Jelly”. ‘Nuff said.

17 thoughts on “Bonus Content! 12 Star Wars Posters You’ve Never Seen Before

  1. the design sensibilities are so culturally distinct for each poster. products origins have become masked by a new identity

  2. Actually, Chris, I have seen a few of these before, live & in person. That’s what happens when you’re old. The circus style for the release, I saw in Indiana or someplace, while traveling with my folks across country. We’d stopped for the night and had gone to a local mall to walk around. As soon as I saw the poster, I flipped – so.freakin’.cool. We went to see the movie, too, of course. I think that was viewing 23 or 24 for me. 20 times the first summer, natch’, including the first two showings in Madison, WI opening day. (2nd in line 😉

  3. I have a confession to make. I’m sick of Star Wars.

    Sure, I enjoyed the hell out of it. I was a teen when the first movie premiered. I was even able to look past the annoying Ewoks and see the merits of the third movie. Some of the tie-in material, such as the Dark Horse Star Wars Comics, and the first Knights of the Old Republic game, were great.

    Now, though, the amount of Star Wars crap has vastly exceeded the good Star Wars material. The Star Wars “universe” was substantial enough for a few movies, but now the source material is running a bit thin.

    I was at the video store the other day, where the last few minutes of the last movie was playing on the plasma screen behind the counter. At infamous “Noooooooo!” moment, I just wanted to scream, “Shut that s&*$ off already!

  4. I was actually pretty disillusioned after the three prequel movies, too. And was surprised–really surprised–when I stumbled across the Star Wars Clone Wars cartoon on Cartoon Network, and I liked it!

  5. I just bookmarked this page so I can come back later and steal all those images for my desktop! haha

    Awesome find. Now I have to go find and buy this book.

  6. Your Jedi jelly poster is from New Zealand not Australia, Tip Top is an iconic kiwi brand – I think Peters made the Australian version which would not have been as tasty.

  7. I actually HAVE that Tsuneo Sanda (1997) boba fett poster. It is my favorite thing hanging on my walls!

  8. the jedi jelly poster is one of the holy grail items of New Zealand star wars collectibles . sadly (as usual) we kiwi’s get confused with australia .

  9. These posters are simply awesome! I’ve always liked the retro 70’s posters style too. Any idea if reproductions of these are available? (or perhaps your Flickr photos large enough for 32″x40″ prints???)

  10. All of the posters look like the artists were well acquainted with the films, well maybe not the Italian one. There was a lot of memorabilia that came out around ’78-79 where the artist clearly had never seen the film or even the actors’ images. Of course, most of these were really bad and hardly worth preserving. When I was a child, this would make me very upset. lol

  11. I think it’s pretty cool how the Italian Princess Leia looks a little bit like Natalie Portman. 😀

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