The 25 most iconic Star Wars movie posters of all time
By Joel Leonard
17. Return of the Jedi official poster
Like the movie it advertised for, this poster promises fans the greatest hits of what they already love about Star Wars, combined with brand new adventures. The center of the poster is dedicated to the four biggest characters from the franchise, from Darth Vader, to Luke, to Han Solo, to Leia.
This setup is basically a promise this movie is going to have everything you want to see in a Star Wars movie. Yet, as you take in more of the poster, there’s a lot of new or unexpected elements as well. To the left, we have a set of aliens that we’ve never seen before. Plus there’s a creature that looks similar to Chewbacca but is unmistakably different in the spot of the poster where you would think Chewbacca should be. Plus, as you start to take in more of the image, there are notable changes to the main characters, particularly to the costumes of Luke and Leia.
It’s easy to see that even though the characters might be familiar, the movie is poised to be an all-new adventure. This poster is able to use its limited space to build an amazing amount of anticipation for the final chapter in this trilogy.
Contrary to popular belief, Luke’s lightsaber blade as seen on this poster was not colored blue to hide the reveal of his new green blade. In fact, for most of the production of the movie, Luke’s newly constructed lightsaber was expected to be just as blue as his original one. However, it was decided very late into production that the blade should be green to better stand out against the blue sky of Tatooine during the fight on Jabba’s Sail Barge. Though, by the time the decision to change the lightsaber color had been made, most of the promotional materials, including this poster (and at least one teaser trailer), had already been released.