The 25 most iconic Star Wars movie posters of all time
By Joel Leonard
16. Revenge of the Jedi poster
The teaser poster for the final chapter of the original Star Wars trilogy has a fascinating backstory. Drawn by Drew Struzan, this poster featured a massive portrait of Darth Vader overshadowing Luke and Vader locked in their final duel. It’s a striking image, and while the coloring of the lightsaber blades of Vader and Luke could have just been reversed for a stylistic choice for the poster, it does hit at the inner conflict both of the characters would be experiencing in the movie.
Yes, this was a good image to announce the coming of the third (and at the time) final chapter in the story of Star Wars. Unfortunately, if you notice towards the bottom of the poster, it displayed a title that might not be familiar to Star Wars fans. For a period of time, the working title for this movie was going to be Revenge of the Jedi (as opposed to Return of the Jedi). Supposedly, George Lucas had always intended to call the final film Return of the Jedi, but changed the title when screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan suggested that “Return” was too weak of a word for the title.
The movie was called Revenge of the Jedi, but was changed back when Lucas decided that Revenge simply wasn’t a Jedi trait, and the title didn’t make sense. Unfortunately, the decision to return to the original title not only came after Struzan had already designed the teaser poster, but in fact, came after the posters had been shipped to theaters. The now incorrectly titled poster was recalled, but several copies of this poster still exist in the wild, and it’s become quite a collector’s item among Star Wars fans.