Modern movie marketing is often criticized for being all the same, too revealing, and spoon-feeding audiences with elaborate posters and trailers. In a recent Heritage Auctions sale, a vintage Star Wars poster reminded everyone of a time when dramatic and dynamic movie hype did not always come with a Marvel style poster featuring every character from the movie. During the auction featuring classic posters from the 1940s through to the 1980s and 1990s, there were several stand-out pieces that ruled the auction. Following on from another big hitter, a 1975 Jaws one-sheet netted a strong result, while the overall highest sale of the auction came from a regular 1977 Star Wars poster adorned with the faces of Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker and several iconic images from the movie. In the middle of these two lots, selling for $2,875, was a Star Wars poster unlike anything that you would see for a summer blockbuster today – a simple text poster that features no preview of the movie at all.
Although there are plenty of examples of Star Wars posters that complied with what would become a classic look for movie teasers across the next five decades, the stripped back piece that proved popular with bidders delivered nothing more than a look at the Star Wars logo and a bold statement that something big was heading to theaters. As it turned out, the statement was certainly not an exaggeration but the idea of leaning into the mystery of what it all meant is something that has been lost over the years as studios believe audiences need to be shown everything in order for them to invest in the price of a theater ticket. This is obviously not true – can you imagine Spider-Man: Brand New Day being a flop without trailers and posters that show all the main characters and events of the movie? Until the 1990s, filmmakers and studios seemed to understand that a mystery was just as enticing as an all-out assault on the senses.
While Star Wars is now an iconic brand that everyone has heard of, back in 1977 the whole thing was just another movie. Moreover, no one had any idea of who Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader were, they had never seen the Death Star, and Chewbacca just sounded like a tobacco product. When the minimalist poster was released, the tease was real because no one knew what any of it looked like. If you want to build anticipation for a movie that no one has any investment in, there is little point in throwing a whole array of faces at an audience. Instead, the idea of giving audiences just a logo and a promise created the idea that whatever this thing was, it was going to be worth it. By the time Star Wars was released, sci-fi fans were already excited about what this new movie could bring to the genre, and that was the last time the franchise needed to be so withholding when it came to marketing, with images of the soon-to-be-legendary characters appearing on everything from that point onwards.
For that reason, this particular poster has plenty of appeal to collectors. Not only does it have its vintage status in its favor, but the scarcity of such poster styles in the Star Wars franchise makes this one pretty unique for those looking to chart the history of the franchise through props, posters and other memorabilia. Nothing can quite beat the classic posters that have become inspirational to many other movies over the last 50 years, but for new generations who have become accustomed to seeing stacked faces on posters when they are heading into movie theaters, this simple black and white poster bringing the galaxy far, far away to cinemas near you stands as an example of what good movie marketing was during some of the most creative decades in the history of moving pictures.
