Star Wars Posters: Shopping 'Small' Pt. 4

"Star Wars" Prequel & Trilogy

Welcome to the Final Installment of my Guides for collecting 'small' STAR WARS posters.  Targeting sizes that will fit all your favourite STAR WARS films onto your walls, without desperately looking for more room.  Plus, giving you a real good idea of what's available out there - while still keeping the title of the movie in it's original origin of language, English.  This Guide will deal with both the Prequel posters and the original Trilogy as well.  Let's begin with Episode I: "The Phantom Menace".

"The Phantom Menace" 1999 Original Release: 'Regular Style' One Sheet (27" x 40")

[Pictured for Artwork reference only]

The French Small, German and Italian 'Daybill' are about your best bets - and really your only bets!  Only because these posters are small in size and close to some of the sizes that used to be available (Pre: 1986).  None are in English though.  The French poster is the closest to the original titling (eg. "L'attack des clones").  Remember that this poster will be in folded condition (so would the other two choices as well).  Their all gorgeously produced, so the artwork is great on all three - again using veteran artist Drew Struzen.  The Italian Daybill will have a little extra 'blank' square area at the top, for listings & Showing Times, and there will be a very thin white border surrounding the poster - for displaying purposes.  Every single country that showed the Prequel films had the same artwork, but with the titling in their own language.  So you don't get any wild and interesting alternate versions from other artists around the world, which is quite sad really.  "Return of the Jedi" especially had so many different looking posters out there from so many different countries, it was just unbelievable!  I don't think that I had ever seen a real loser in the bunch, all the artists were so creative and they were given quite a lot more freedom to display what they wanted then they ever did before.  Those were the days, as they say.  So no real great luck with the first episode.  Since they advertised heavily for this film, there are MANY store displays that are quite attractive and small.  Even though their not theatre posters, their sometimes worth grabbing - advertising materials are all worth something sooner or later.

"Attack of the Clones" 2002 Original Release: Belgian poster (14" x 22")

I had much better luck with Episode II.  This beautiful 'Regular Style' was available on the Belgian poster, with ALL of the titling in English, and rolled!  I only found one person even selling it so far.  I asked some of the sellers of Belgian posters about the Prequel posters, and they knew of this one, but said they had never seen any of the other Prequel titles available like this.  Strange.  At least there was this one.  Again featuring art by Drew Struzen.  Drew did ALL of the Prequel posters - Advances and Regular Styles.  It does make all of the posters blend in together perfectly, but it would have been nice to have seen a different artist on each poster title like they did before.  It would have given way more variety, with technical differences and various backgrounds, giving you many shades, colours and individual approach.  Their all different movies, basically, so each of the posters (in my opinion, of course) should have been done by a different artist.  Struzen did a really great job with "The Phantom Menace", his best of the three, and they should have just left it there.  Get another artist for the next one.  This poster, if you can find it, is at a very reasonable price - and it displays wonderfully!

"Attack of the Clones" Original 1st Video Release: British Fly 'Yoda' (24" x 36")

"Attack of the Clones" Original 1st Video Release: British Fly 'Jango' (24" x 36")

These fantastic British Flys (Video Posters) are worth a look around!  I know I'm stepping out of the Theatre Sheets, but these two great posters are also small in size (almost 'medium' size, really) - sizes listed are approximate.  They both feature nicely 'thought through' efforts to make up two well balanced and eye-catching compositions.  Even though they do not feature artwork, they really show some of the best things in the movie in a very artist collage.  The 'Yoda' version shows a defiant Jedi Master standing his ground, a weary Obi-Wan not winning a crucial light-saber battle and Anakin Skywalker in his most desperate and darker hours.  The 'Jango' version reveals the dangerous and sly hired hand Jango Fett, the galactic bounty hunter who plays more of a role with one of his decisions then with his actions.  His partner in crime, Zam Wezall (top left), an assassin paid to be Jango's lackey.  And the ex-Jedi Master turned Sith Lord, Count Dooku.  The latter two not shown on the main theatre poster (a missed opportunity, or bad judgement).  Both versions showing Troopers/Clones to show the conflict and the colour choices to obviously show 'good' and 'bad'.  I've only seen these posters from only one seller so far as well.  If their still available out there, the prices are much greater than the Belgian poster - if that tells you anything.

"Revenge of The Sith" 2005 Original Release: British Mini (12" x 16")

Yes!  Episode III: "Revenge of the Sith" comes through with a 'small' winner!  This British Mini was given out at the theatres in the U.K., for a special 'Father's Day' Release - get it?  Great joke and an absolutely mesmerizing art job.  I'm unsure if Drew Struzen did this one or not.  I've seen this poster (without the gag 'tag line') presented as very large banner-sized displays, but this little Mini is a fantastic find and it fits anywhere.  This should have been the 'Advance' poster's artwork.  The Darth Vader pose has a fantastic resemblance to the 10th Anniversary One Sheet poster for "The Empire Strikes Back", featuring Larry Noble's artwork.  If it was purposely, it was a grand idea!  Since those two movies are the most alike.  Here's the image of the Anniversary poster to give you an idea of what I mean: [For Reference Only}

The Mini was another one of those treasures found at only one dealer, but their out there.  Shouldn't cost too much, but it will be more pricey than any of the other Mini's I've shown and mentioned.  So be willing to open the pocketbook for a few dollars more.  It's worth it though.  There isn't as many of them as there is the One Sheets, and none of the One Sheets has this gorgeous artwork on it.

"Revenge of the Sith" 2005 Original Video Release: U.S. Video poster (24" x 36")

As like above, I don't really like going outside of the theatre posters but the Prequel doesn't give you much of a choice.  This was the only U.S. video poster that I thought was worth looking for.  Even though it's just a simple collage, I think that the addition of Struzen's art of the lightsaber battle is what really adds to it.  And I thought this was nicely balanced and the red lava colours just 'scream' for your attention.  Plus it's a fantastic small to medium sized poster.  Not every dealer is going to bother with the video posters because they are never looked at as having any worth - I however disagree.  I like that it mentions that the "saga is complete", stating how it is the 'final' film.  I wouldn't pay too much for it, but it's worth the look.

For the "Trilogy" posters, there really aren't very many to choose from - but what there is, is well worth looking for!

"Star Wars Trilogy" 1987 Trilogy Re-release: Australian Daybill (13" x 30")

This was the first, and only time, the three original films were released together until it's re-release in 1997 as the "Special Edition".  Usually you can only find the 'unlicensed' British Quad for this special showing, but thanks once again to the Australian Daybill, we have an 'official' and original poster for the special event!  With black & white artwork and grey titling, it's still quite a wonderful show piece.  Mainly featuring the art from both the "Empire Strikes Back" Style 'B' poster by Tom Jung, and the "Star Wars: A New Hope" Style 'D' poster with artwork by Struzen & Clark - the only small poster to really feature ANY of the Style 'D' artwork.  This poster is very elusive, but not impossible.  Check with some of the great Australian & New Zealand Dealers out there, they would be your best help.  As for price, it's not really cheap - which is understandable!  They wouldn't have made up very many at all, and this poster was only for use for basically Australia, New Zealand and the immediate surrounding areas - not worldwide. 

"Star Wars Trilogy: Special Edition" 1997 Trilogy Re-release: Mini (16" x 27" approx)

This small poster features all three Trilogy poster's artwork by artist Drew Struzen, and gives a better perspective of how the artist's choice of balance, direction and colour for each artwork accentuates each other so as to make one grand and complete composition!  Absolutely exquisite!  This poster was once shied away from, with collectors figuring that it was not a 'bona-fide' theatre poster, but just a little made-up thing (due to it's size) to show the three artworks together - as they would call them, a 'pop' poster.  But this poster was the real deal from Lucasfilm and it was in very limited supply.  Even I didn't pick this up when it was first issued, it just completely puzzled me as to what exactly it was and where it came from.  Anyway, this gorgeous poster is out there but extremely hard to find now.  The price tag could be anywhere on this one.  Special note: These two posters were the only small-sized sheets that I've ever found/seen that were used for release showings for the original "Trilogy", the film's were usually released individually.

This was the 4th and last installment for my Guides on collecting 'small' STAR WARS posters, this one dedicated to the Prequel films: Episode I's "The Phantom Menace, Episode II's "Attack of the Clones", Episode III's "Revenge of the Sith" AND the "Original Trilogy" Releases.  I hope that you enjoyed all of them!

Thanks for reading.

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