Star Wars re-release poster What’s interesting about the Hilderbrant Star Wars movie poster is that it wasn’t used as a one-sheet for the initial Star Wars theatrical release in U.S. theaters — yet it is, for many, the first piece of artwork they remember for the film.
According to the Star Wars Poster Book, Lucasfilm felt the Jung artwork was “too dark”, and wanted another version:
They hired twins Tim and Greg Hildebrandt, who were well-known fantasy artists at the time, to paint their own take on the Jung design. “The reason they called us is because Tim and I had just done the Lord of the Rings calendar, and we had a fan following.” says Greg Hildebrandt. “We had come through literally overnight for them on a poster for Young Frankenstein. It wasn’t used, but we did it overnight, so they called us and said we need a poster fast.”
Jung art Given the direction to make the image look “comic bookish”, the Hildebrandt movie poster (completed in just thirty-six hours) featured very stylized illustrations of actors Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher, as the brothers did not have photo reference for the characters of Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia. In the end, 20th Century Fox opted to use the earlier “dark” poster art by Tom Jung instead of the Hildebrandt art for the Star Wars theatrical poster — the Star Wars “Style A” movie poster — which had a more accurate likeness of the two main characters. The Hildebrandt artwork did appear on many early Star Wars promo items, a consumer retail poster, and eventually as a U.S. theatrical poster for the Star Wars 15th Anniversary re-release.
The “dark” poster for “Star Wars” by Jung will always be the only one for me, solely because it was the first poster I ever remember looking at. I never knew there were alternate versions at the time the movie was originally released.
This site is bananas. Not only do you feature a spectrum of great posters from all over, but the commentary is insightful and to-the-point. Keep up the great work!
Thanks so much for this fascinating info. I’m currently selling a 1977 bedroom poster featuring this image. It has been wonderful to be able to reference your authoritative work in my eBay ad. Best regards and thanks again! P. :)
Weird timing for this considering we just posted about the Star Wars DVD art.
The “dark” poster for “Star Wars” by Jung will always be the only one for me, solely because it was the first poster I ever remember looking at. I never knew there were alternate versions at the time the movie was originally released.
This site is bananas. Not only do you feature a spectrum of great posters from all over, but the commentary is insightful and to-the-point. Keep up the great work!
Another awesome Tim Hildebrandt movie poster was for “The Deadly Spawn” which you can see a high-res image of here
Thanks so much for this fascinating info. I’m currently selling a 1977 bedroom poster featuring this image. It has been wonderful to be able to reference your authoritative work in my eBay ad. Best regards and thanks again! P. :)