Star Wars Blu-ray Key Art (continued) The Prequel Trilogy

   

This, I think, will be the last of my commentary on the Star Wars BD artwork for a while; there are plenty of other 'musings' to be done and after 3 fairly lengthy posts about essentially the same topic, I'm getting awfully close to 'beating the dead horse' territory. Naturally, this third post will be the shortest, mainly for the reason that a lot of what I have to say can be gleaned from the previous posts.

Like with the Original Trilogy artwork, I think the artistic style hits the right notes in paying homage to the now-classic hand-painted posters of Star Wars. The style and composition of the artwork follows that of the Original Trilogy, visually pairing the 2 trilogies as an intricate and artistically dynamic collection. The composition is quite literally a reflection of the Original Trilogy artwork, availing one of the few conceptual links with the Saga boxset; the congruence of the two Star Wars storylines.


I mentioned in my comments on the Original Trilogy, that either Vader or Luke were the appropriate options for the featured character in the artwork, well for the Prequel Trilogy Anakin was really the only sensible choice, but instead we have Yoda. As recognisable as Yoda is, his position as the dominating figure for any Star Wars film, let alone a trilogy of them, is an incorrect choice. Yoda is and always has been a supporting character, a means to express the deeper philosophies of the story (at least in "Empire"). To have him as the dominant character in favour of Anakin, conceptually undermines what the rest of the BD artwork has been telling us about the Star Wars saga. Furthermore as a consequence of having Yoda feature on the artwork, the key art has an obligatory tone of green; frankly, red would have been a better choice. Given the near-mythic relationship between red and blue in the Star Wars saga, it was really a missed opportunity to permeate this with the 2 trilogies.


As much the Original Trilogy's composition was its weakest point, the Prequel artwork is much stronger in this regard. The collage of supporting characters (and Anakin) occupy a more structured space; rather than filling in space on Yoda's face the collage quite gracefully frames it, giving the key art a greater sense of coalescence and making it overall the stronger artwork of the 2 trilogies.

Star Wars Blu-ray Key Art (continued) The Original Trilogy

The first thing that can be said for the key arts for the separate trilogies is that they are certainly more dynamic then the artwork for the Saga collection, which I've already talked about in my previous post. Overall, I quite like the art that has been created although it's not without its problems, both separately and as a whole. I am again glad that some level of artistry was implemented over the style (or lack thereof) of the DVD key arts.

I'm going to begin with the Original Trilogy, mostly because I am strongly of the opinion that this is where the experience of Star Wars MUST begin. Without the original films, the Prequels would have even less resonance. The Star Wars Prequels were written, designed, filmed and marketed with the original films very much in front of mind; the full intended effect of those films is inextricable from the iconography of the Original Trilogy. After all, the main hook of a prequel story is that each progression in the story foreshadows what we already know is to come. But back to the artwork...


Like with the Saga boxset, this artwork utilises a style that pays homage to the 1977 posters for Star Wars, but unlike the Saga box the artwork is dynamic, detailed and employs a colour pallet that identifies Star Wars more successfully. In fact, the dynamism of this artwork is so far removed from the Saga box that the 2 seem visually divorced from one another, I count this as a mark against the Saga Collection key art. What I like most about this style of artwork is that it embraces it's hand-painted artistry, it doesn't try to disguise the painting but instead uses bold strokes and spatters, although I think it does over-do this effect to a degree.


Featuring Vader in this artwork is almost an inevitability, and it's actually surprising that an image like this wasn't used for the Saga Collection artwork; Vader is after all the most recognisable and iconic character from the films. The only problem with this choice I find is that the concept introduced by the Saga box is at odds with what the separate trilogies are telling us about the films. The Box key art tells us that the Star Wars films are about the mirrored journeys of Anakin and Luke. It would then seem to make more conceptual sense that the Original Trilogy featured Luke as its focal character, in fact Luke is given hardly any prominence in the collage of characters and I think that is a big misstep.


While I'm on the topic of the missteps of this artwork, the biggest problem with this key art - the one that stops me from finding it as a poster and framing it on my wall - is the artwork's general lack of structure. I like the concept of 'hiding' characters within the image of Vader as it were, but it has been done without a real sense of layout and we really just have various key characters filling in the empty spaces that happen to occur in the Vader image. If the collage of characters had a layout that better fit the available space, then this artwork would be almost faultless.


Before I move on, I'm going to make a prediction (see below) that if this artwork sees the light of day here in Australia, Lando, Leia, Han, Chewy and a third of C3PO will be skillfully and with the greatest of finesse omitted from the front in favour the crucial consumer rating that defines the superior packaging design available to Australian Consumers.*
(*please read sarcasm)