Star Wars Posters: Shopping 'Small' Pt. 2

"The Empire Strikes Back"

Welcome!  Let's Continue with Part 2, focusing on "The Empire Strikes Back".  These Guides are set up to outline and help the beginner in finding smaller STAR WARS posters, and the enthusiest to basically 'down-sizing' from the over-sized larger ones, so that you have room on your walls to actually display them.  It will show some of the choices that are out there and available, with a little something said or described with each listing.  These posters are again, to reflect the country of origin - so their all about getting the titling in English.  Let's get started!

1980 Original Release: Style 'A' Insert (14" x 36")

Here, of course, is one of the most looked for and purchased poster on the planet - even for the Non-STAR WARS fans.  This gorgeous artwork entry from Roger Kastrel has been a favourite from the time it first appeared in 1980.  Commonly known as the "Gone With The Wind" Style because of the simular embrace of Han & Leia, with that of Rhett & Scarlett in the ever popular "Gone With The Wind" poster and it's many Re-release's and revisions of poster artworks released to this day.  I like this Insert a little more than the Half Sheet of this same Style because it shows more of the 'ice caps' that descend toward the credits (they should have done that for the entirety of the poster).  The Half Sheet only featured a small 'square' area for the artwork and left a lot of space for the credits and basically 'nothing'.  Plus they cram the titling over top of the Taun Taun & Luke, it really does appear rushed.  Prices and availability of this Insert is still quite good considering the popularity and length of time since it's release.

1980 Original Release: Style 'B' Half Sheet (22" x 28")

This Half Sheet featuring artwork by Tom Jung shows how both of the 'Styles' appeared in this format, only the Style 'B' looks way better.  Again, artist Tom Jung gave us another piece of artwork that fits more horizontal (like the Star Wars: "A New Hope" Half Sheet) than it does vertical.  I feel that the artwork is 'squished' on the Insert of this style, and some things are pushed right off of the page.  If you have ever seen the British Quad featuring this artwork, you'll definitely see that it fits and displays much better horizontally - or in this case, square.

1980 Original Release: Belgian poster (14" x 22")

I love when there's great stuff to be found from other countries other than the United States, and this is one such case.  Here we have the Belgian poster with the Style 'B' art and the titling in English, which gives you yet another 'small' poster choice of Tom Jung's artwork.  The title doesn't cover any part of the imagery, great colour choices for the border and the title as well.  This isn't very expensive to purchase at this time, but not too easy to locate when you want it.  The first STAR WARS Belgian poster isn't as hard, but it's titling is in that of the country the poster derives from.  It's worth the search.

1980 Original Release: 'Advance Style' Australian Daybill (13" x 30")

Couldn't find the Advance for "Empire" in a smaller size?  I couldn't for quite a while myself.  I thought that I was going to have to 'break-down' and buy the One Sheet, just to get that picture of Darth Vader's helmet (beautifully done by renowned artist Bob Peak, my personal favourite movie poster illustrator) - which seemed a bit excessive for me.  Then I found this wonderful Australian Daybill, and it really made my collection 10 times better because of it.  And, as you can see, you even get a shot of Luke talking with Yoda (at bottom).  Not only does that fill up the extra space at the bottom of the poster, but as you may or may have not known - Yoda was to be a secret.  That's why he isn't pictured on both Style's 'A' & 'B' of the U.S. posters or the British posters, etc.  Yet this poster puts him front and center on the 'Advance' poster, that's just absolutely wonderful.  It may of course been that the film didn't show in Australia until a much later date, but I have a feeling this poster was still a little early with the Yoda picture.  This poster is floating around, at least once to twice a year (at this date).  The price solely depends on the dealer and/or the auction, but it's worth it, I've not found another small-sized Advance yet.

1980 Original Release: 'Regular Style' Australian Daybill (13" x 30")

Another must-have, and a very popular choice.  I completely admit that this poster is way more striking in it's full-sized Australian One Sheet (27" x 40"), but were looking for smaller sizes in this Guide.  I cannot believe how articulate this poster design is, it's absolutely beautiful!  I had always thought (through pictures of it) that it was pictures placed together and overlapping each other, but this is all artwork!  You really can't believe it until it's literally up against your face.  I wish that I knew who the artist was of this poster, but I do not.  I've looked all over the art and cannot find it for the life of me (if I do find out, I'll list it in this Guide).  I've only seen this artwork displayed on the Australian, German & Japanese posters.  Obviously the Australian one was the only poster to feature this title in English.  But if you were looking for this art on a poster and language was not a problem or barrier for you, go check them out!  This poster is way more steady in showing up in auctions than the Advance for obvious reasons (they make less Advance posters than the Regular Styles), but not really cheaper.  This is the one people want, far more than the Advance - you can see why.  The only problem I have with this Daybill is that Boba Fett is nearly edged out of the poster completely, in case this would be an issue for you as well.  But on the upside, you can make out a lot of the other Bounty Hunters (which are never featured on other posters) and I think this poster is really the only one to put high emphasis on the Millenium Falcon - arguably the focal point of this design.  Which makes this Daybill a completely unique addition to the STAR WARS 'smaller' poster collection!

Here are some of the Re-release posters to consider adding to your collection:

1981 Re-release: Half Sheet (22" x 28")

This poster is pretty straight forward.  We've got Tom Jung's artwork, slightly altered to include Yoda & Lando, and the main thing is that Vader is no longer showing a "hold-of-power" with a loose grip facing upwards.  Now it features him more extending his hand out, his fingers spread apart, showing a sign of 'neediness' - since a year later from it's 1980 release, most people would have seen the film by then and would be able to relate to the hidden meaning.  This poster is available both as an Insert and Half Sheet.  I think it just depends on your preference of where you want the titling to be, basically.  I liked that the Half Sheet had it on the far right, away from the artwork.  And with the title looking like it's doing the famous 'crawl' that the credits/storyline does at the beginning of each STAR WARS film, it appears to be fading of into space exactly that same way.  The Insert has the titling 'fading' toward the artwork above it.  It just depends on your taste on this one.

1982 Re-release: Half Sheet (22" x 28")

1982 Re-release: Insert (14" x 36")

Tom Jung's art once again, with a much bolder title graphic and more eye-catching colour for the background.  This one almost plays the same way as the 1981 Re-release, only the titling stays at the top in both the Insert and the Half Sheet.  This time it's the credits that get moved around.  I preferred the Insert because the credits are directly below the artwork and stretch to the bottom of the poster, leaving really no blank spaces anywhere.  The Half Sheet has the credits over to the right and 'justified' center, like they were trying to fill up as much space as they could with tiny little white lettering - and ran out of words.  It's not the most attractive of all the "Empire" posters.  The artwork is much larger though, and the overall appearence is the most unique out of all the STAR WARS posters.  Mainly because if they were to make anymore splashy looking posters for this title today, I really don't think that this kind of approach would ever be used again in these modern times.  It's simply out-of-date looking, and that's what really makes it so special!  As for price their both not very costly at all, but not always around or available.

Now onward into the 'Anniversary' realm:

"The Empire Strikes Back: Special Edition" 1997 Re-release: British Mini (12" x 16")

This is pretty much the only 'Anniversary' small-sized poster that I'm familiar with for "Empire".  It's the '2nd part' to a three poster display for the 1997 Special Edition release, also with artwork supplied by Drew Struzen (as like the STAR WARS: "A New Hope" Mini).  This poster was by far the most popular choice of the Special Edition posters, the U.S. One Sheet sold extremely well!  This is the British version of the poster, where the title & credits are placed over to the side.  I felt that this look appealed quite well except for the "Empire" one.  Mainly because of the space where there is nothing under the Tie Fighters and between the Snow-walker & Snow-speeder.  You stare at it knowing that the title was supposed to be there.  The other two STAR WARS titles at least changed some of the positions of the ships, etc. to make those posters look like they were meant to display that way in the first place - quite clever actually.  Even though I still like this poster (and do own it), I just think that the artist could have moved 'something' around so that the space was filled by an object - maybe the 'attack-formation' Tie-fighters could have been lowered down a little bit?  Anyway, the sticker price on this poster is quite cheap (as like most Minis) - check out the stores from the U.K., your sure to run into someone who has them!

This last poster is basically added because - A: It too is a small "Empire" poster and B: It's the rendered version of the 'A' Style poster.

1980 Original Release: Style 'A' French poster (16" x 21")

Even though this poster is not in it's original English titling, it's worth it for the graphics.  This is the smaller size French poster and it displays the incredibly changed artwork of Roger Kastrel's original version.  The Style 'A' from the U.S. was pulled very early on in it's release and this was the version it had changed to, showing up on the British Quad as well.  Still quite striking!  I do remember a rumour about the fact that actor Billy Dee Williams was quite upset that a big star, such as himself, was not pictured on the poster.  Very long story short, the poster was changed to show (a very tiny) shot of Billy Dee in the lower right of the artwork.  Every artist would know that when you change a piece of art, you throw of the balance, the colours and 'flow' of the painting.  So there were other 'objects' added to the image to try and even things out: Boba Fett, Cloud City and a Dish-cannon from the Hoth Battle.  Red replaced the purple and so on.  I'm quite sure that it was another artist that tweeked Kastrel's artwork, I don't believe he had anything to do with it.  Yoda too was added after this version.  It's still absolutely breath-taking and worth looking for.  This one does cost a good little bit of money, if you can find it.

That's Part 2 of my Guides, focused on collecting 'small' STAR WARS posters.  This one dedicated to Episode V's "The Empire Strikes Back" - I hope that you enjoyed it!

Thanks for reading!

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