What Happened To The Art Of Movie Poster Design: Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker

Welp, this happened today...

Disney just released the poster for their upcoming film The Rise Of Skywalker, the "final" entry in the Star Wars franchise. Everyone who believes this is really the last one, stand on their head...

So... a lot to unpack here. When I first saw the image pop up on Facebook, I honest to god thought it was a fan poster. It's not terrible per se, but it definitely doesn't look like the work of the biggest movie studio in the world. It looks exactly like something a talented but amateur artist would post over on DeviantArt. 

I'm also getting some definite Frozen vibes from it. If they replaced Rey and Kylo with Elsa and The Other One, it would look right at home hanging above the bed of every ten year old girl in the country. In fact if I didn't know better I'd swear this was a poster for an animated feature rather than a live action movie.

In a surprise plot twist, it appears that Rey and Kylo Ren will engage in a lightsaber battle. WOW! Who could have predicted a story arc as fresh and innovative as that?

And look who's overseeing the big lightsaber battle— a cartoon version of our old friend Emperor Palpatine, last seen way back in The Return Of The Jedi. So what the hell's he doing on this poster? Well if you'll recall, The Force Awakens set up the mysterious Supreme Leader Snoke as the Big Bad of this new trilogy.

But then in the execrable The Last Jedi, talented young auteur Rian Johnson, who needs to learn how to spell his name, thought it would be funny to subvert our expectations and kill off Snoke in the middle of the goddamned movie... and not replace him with anyone else.

So short of just pretending The Last Jedi never happened, the filmmakers had little choice but to drag Palpatine out of mothballs and install him as the new villain. Jesus wept.

Lastly, for a movie called The Rise Of Skywalker, there seems to be a definite lack of Luke on the poster. Of course that may have something to do with the fact that he died in the previous film. But hey, if the Emperor can come back, so can he! Could it be a red herring, and Rey will turn out to be the titular Skywalker? Who knows? And at this point, who the hell cares?