Movie posters: to draw or not to draw?

[YCougar]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, circa 2007:

http://www.themovieinsider.com/ps2505-u ... oster.html

To be fair, that's an early version - the newer ones look way better.

EXACTLY. That image wasn't supposed to be leaked, because it's terrible quality and not the final version of the Turtle model anyway. Especially with that horrid lens flare.

These are the 2007 TMNT posters.

Leonardo
Raphael
Donatello
Michelangelo
Group (as a side-by-side-comparison with the cover of the first 1984 comic book)

I don't really see much of a quality difference between old and new movie posters - some are good, some are icky. Now old movie trailers... those throw me off a bit.

[YCougar]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, circa 2007:

http://www.themovieinsider.com/ps2505-u ... oster.html

To be fair, that's an early version - the newer ones look way better.

EXACTLY. That image wasn't supposed to be leaked, because it's terrible quality and not the final version of the Turtle model anyway. Especially with that horrid lens flare.

These are the 2007 TMNT posters.

Leonardo
Raphael
Donatello
Michelangelo
Group (as a side-by-side-comparison with the cover of the first 1984 comic book)

I don't really see much of a quality difference between old and new movie posters - some are good, some are icky. Now old movie trailers... those throw me off a bit.

[ShyViolet]

It's not really about the quality of that pic (which I agree was horrible) but even those nicer looking ones have no real context or meaning to them other than "Oh, here's a character!" They've been doing that EXACT SAME THING for every movie now--X-Men, Harry Potter, Sinbad, Over the Hedge, Pirates--soooooo sick of it! Yes, it's a Turtles movie. We get that part. But what kind of movie is it? What does it deal with? Yes, I realize these are "teasers", but the final poster won't have much more.

Hey, wasn't the first Harry Potter poster drawn?

That's true. It was an exception and had that Spielberg/John Williams/Star Wars vibe in how they marketed it. Really nice work.
But most of the HP posters, especially for Chamber and Azkaban, same exact thing as Turtles: "Harry", "Ron", "Hermoine", upgraded photos--nothing else. Real creative.

Not sure I follow your TMNT examples Vi... the new one is a CGI image and the 1990 version is a photo montage...??

Actually, I just meant that the old TMNT poster (IMHO, even being a photo montage, had a cool, imaginative, interesting drawn quality to it--a big city, a sewer, part of these characters you know revealed. Even with the tagline: "Hey man, this is NO cartoon" it had a neat, cartoonish quality about it. (my local theater has a lot of these old posters like Roger Rabbit, Batman Returns and '90 Turtles as well in the lobby. ) Maybe it's just nostalgia, , but just showing a single character and there name is STALE, STALE, STALE!

EDIT: I saw the new group TMNT posters, and I like them a whole lot better. But in general I prefer the old one.


WJ, the Pirates poster with the group shot isn't that bad, (although none too original) but all in all, they bascially looked like this:

http://www.impawards.com/2006/pirates_o ... _ver3.html

Just Johnny. Or Kiera. Or Bloom. The truth is we do live in a very celebrity-obsessed culture.

Little Mermaid...nope, I'm right! Original release: 17 November 1989 (after a premiere on the 15th).

Re-issue: 14 November 1997. The poster you linked to promotes this 14 November release.

Sorry!!

No biggie. Anyway, as we've been saying....you know everything. We're all pretty used to it by now.

[Ben]

Remember when I said this:

I think the most major recent movie to use a poster like that was the first Harry Potter...

I actually meant it!



On Little Mermaid...wasn't having a dig. Just "clarification"!

[Dacey]

WJ, the Pirates poster with the group shot isn't that bad, (although none too original) but all in all, they bascially looked like this:

http://www.impawards.com/2006/pirates_o ... _ver3.html

Just Johnny. Or Kiera. Or Bloom. The truth is we do live in a very celebrity-obsessed culture.

But those are CHARACTER banners!

The actual poster had all three of them.

[Ben]

Yep, plus the ship, plus Davy Jones and the Krakken...

[Dacey]

Aye. It be loaded.

[Macaluso]

To me, the old posters look ugly.

Just wondering, and no offense meant, what exactly is it about them that you find "ugly"?

Simple reason: They look old.

Don't argue with me on this. I don't care if you like the old posters, and that's cool if you do. I just don't like how the old posters look when they're drawn, if they're live action movies. I just hate the way the art style looks, and have never bee a fan of it.

Like for instance, I think this looks ugly.



compared to say, this which looks awesome.



(although from what I hear, the above movie sucked).

Now, I DO like the Star Wars posters, but they're actually drawn good and damn near photorealisticly. I'm also not counting the movie posters like Jurassic Park or something which have none of the actors in the picture.

I guess, if it's drawn, I prefer drawin posters that are out now because they look pretty realistic and look more like a really good photoshop then something someone slapped together on a canvas.

[ShyViolet]

Don't argue with me on this. I don't care if you like the old posters, and that's cool if you do. I just don't like how the old posters look when they're drawn, if they're live action movies. I just hate the way the art style looks, and have never bee a fan of it.

It's O.K., I respect your opinion. Actually I used to feel the way you do for a long time; I also didn't like older posters much because they looked so....old. Of course I feel VERY differently now, but I can understand someone who feels the way you do too.

[Ben]

I thought we were talking about the newer kind of poster montages anyway?

And, yeah, I'd probably take Milla over Bogey any day!

[ShyViolet]

Here's some Batman '89 movie posters that were originally drawn up but never used, chucked out in favor of the "Batsymbol" icon that proved to be so successful.

Still, I like them! (my fave is the third one down.)


http://www.superherohype.com/forums/sho ... hp?t=80648

VERY 80's. But really, if you think about it, the "Batsymbol" marketing ploy, the strategy of the iconic, was never really used before--this was a first. Because it was so astoundingly successful, it got used MANY times in the future--over and over. (like the "X" symbol in X-Men 1 and 2, "ID4" Independence Day, the Jurassic Park logo.)

In a way, it was the begining of the end of traditional drawn/looks as though they were drawn movie posters.

[Ben]

I actually thought those were pretty lame!

"Only one will claim the night"? And what's with Bats looking all James Bond-ish? Some of those bring in a lot of homoerotic imagery WAY before Robin showed up on the scene.

I do agree that the logo brought and and to the Drew-type of poster and became all the vogue for a good few summers. As I say though, that's just a general thing where plot and a reason to see a movie has fallen way to simply getting the title/logo/stars faces out there to make sure the audience a) knows it's out there, b) sees the "right" movie.

[ShyViolet]

Have you seen those before Ben?

I agree that they're not that great.. I just liked the old-fashioned quality they have. Especially their taglines, for some reason, although "only one will claim the night" isn't all that good.

In my opinion they should have used Bruce's line to Vicky (with maybe a picture of Bruce in a tux with a bat-shadow behind him, or something like that....just off the top of my head here! )

"It's just something I have to do."
"Why?"
"Because nobody else can."

[Ben]

I'd seen those before, yeah. I think there are some better ones on the Bats DVD too.

Bruce in a tux...even more James Bond!

[ShyViolet]

You could also just have him in a regular business suit, with a dark bat-shadow or bat-signal behind him indicating his identity...


Kind of like this shot (one of my fave scenes! )