According to Collider, a trailer AND a poster for The Force Awakens will be debuting at Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim next weekend.
This doesn’t come as much of a surprise, but it’s nice that sites’ sources are starting to confirm it. It’s no more than I expected, honestly. That doesn’t dampen my excitement, though! Official movie art, like posters, can be ripe ground for speculation and getting a peek at the tone of the film in question. My only question is: will this be a teaser poster or a Drew Struzan masterpiece? Of course, we don’t even know if acclaimed Star Wars poster artist Struzan is even working on the sequel trilogy promotional artwork. But he has done some beautiful work in the past on Star Wars and many other films, so here’s hoping!
With that in mind, what can we expect from a new poster? Past Star Wars films may or may not serve as a good guide for speculation on this subject, as they were each quite different from each other. In addition, initial promotional artwork for the more recent prequel trilogy was kind of hit and miss, at least in my opinion.
As an example, the teaser poster for The Phantom Menace was FANTASTIC, whereas Revenge of the Sith‘s was a little…farfetched? Take a look.
Nevertheless, both posters used interesting techniques to convey a powerful message. I think we can at least expect just as much from JJ Abrams’ first dip in the Star Wars saga.
The original trilogy’s teaser posters were more basic, almost one-dimensional, like this one from Return of the Jedi.
But honestly, a teaser poster is just that: a teaser. It’s not meant to be very elaborate. It conveys a message, and that’s what each Star Wars teaser poster has done.
Collider uploaded all six (plus one more!) teaser posters for the past films, so be sure and go over to their site and check that out. Thanks to them and Lucasfilm for the images in this article.
Also, be sure and be online or in Anaheim on April 16th for the JJ Abrams and Kathleen Kennedy kickoff panel at Star Wars Celebration! The fun is truly about to begin!