Movie Posters
 

Get ready for a weeeeeeird rant.
This has been bothering me for a while now, and I know we have a few pretty hardcore movie fans on the board, so I'm just wondering what opinions are on this subject.

Has photoshop ruined the art of movie posters?

I think yes. It's not something one really thinks about until you start seeing older movie posters.
But walking down the halls of the local megaplex, and looking at all the posters... they just don't excite. They don't build anticipation. And they certainly don't feel like pieces of art.
There are certainly exceptions, but those are few and rare.
Don't get me wrong, most posters do exactly what they're intended to. Advertize the name of the movie, who's in it, and when it's coming out. But beyond that, they really don't do squat.

Looking back at posters of the eighties, the seventies, sixties, and even fifties, tons of powers were amazing works of art. The Indianna Jones movies, Back to the Future, Star Wars 4-6... these were absolutely beautiful, that make you *want* to have them on your wall. And going back to even the uber cheesie, and downright bad B-level Scifi from the 50s and 60s, even they often had amazing artistic posters that made you want to see those movies.

But to me, it feels like from the ninties onward movie posters have become downright bland. Basically since the introduction of photoshop meaning people no longer had to put any real effort into them.
Like I said, there are certainly exceptions... the Spiderman posters were pretty good, Batman Begins, Dark Knight, and Dark Knight Rising are pretty good. But the last truely memorable poster that has stuck with me all this time was Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. (The little boy walking away from us, with the long Vader shadow, and the text caption: "Don't look back.")

The more I look at some of the more epic movies of today, I can't help but feel how let down their posters are... imagine if Harry Potter's posters were done by the artist behind the Indianna Jones, or BttF posters.

So, that's my opinion. What's yours?

Has photoshop ruined the art of movie posters?

I agree with you, if you look back at the old posters you see tons of shading, hand painted details, more attention to detail was given and it shows, today it's photo shopped and placed, cgi this and that, and it really takes away from the nestalgia feel.

Movie posters are almost as bad as the movies they're designed for these days. I bet the Green Lantern poster was terrible (I'm just kidding, the Green Lantern poster was awesome. too bad the movie was garbage).

Actually, the first two Harry Potter movie posters were done by that very same artist, Drew Struzan. lol He's got to be THE BEST movie poster artist ever. IMO.

But I hear you. Movie posters just lack vision now. It's too easy for people to take a couple pictures and then just photoshop the hell out of them. No good. And as you mentioned, definitely nothing you'd ever want hanging on your walls.

There is a really cool website, Mondo, that sells limited edition screen printed movie posters. Usually they are commissioned in conjunction with the film being shown at the Alamo Drafthouse theatre in Texas. Usually older, classic movies. But their style is incredibly cool. I'd love to see some of these posters on display at my local theatre.