Movie Mania: Space 1979 ebook announcement and movie poster artwork!

 

I'm due for a third post of an off week, and I decided to use the lead time for something I have planned for a ridiculous amount of time: I published an ebook compiling the first 50 reviews I posted for Space 1979. Here's the link for the ebook.

As a bonus, I decided to cover some movie poster artwork I used for the covers and interior art. My first idea was to use VHS art from The Falling, That led to the image featured above. To get to that quality, however, I had to find a download a new version of the same art, probably the source used by the site that I first got the image from. By then, I was already going in other directions, so I used it for an interior "gag" art.

Something I reviewed in the process was the legal ins and outs of movie poster art. On that front, the pervasive perception is that such things are "public domain", which is absolutely a myth. When it comes to the internet, however, it's pressy much a distinction without a difference. Inevitably, images get scanned, pasted, copied and reposted indefinitely, far too widely to run down all arguable violations. In further practice, a movie poster that continues to circulate online is fulfilling its intended purpose, and copyright holders don't normally object to literal free advertising. For my own part, I have tried to provide a confirmed link for the sources of the images I have used, unless it's from one of the massive sites anybody can find. That served me well enough until I started looking at using images for monetized content. I quickly decided that any "major" movies would be off-limits, both because they would be the ones connected to deep pockets and because they were very much the exception to the rule. I further decided that I would have a better defense using already wonky images from semi-obscure movies that didn't get good reviews, to emphasize the humorous intent. The contender that quickly emerged was the following poster, originally used for my Planet Of Dinosaurs review.

As I proceeded with setting up a cover to use this image, I did look into it further, and wasn't surprised to find plenty of further material (see here). Per the lore, the poster was created by an artist named Tino All, possibly for a distributor in Lebanon. It's noteworthy that this was clearly intended for theatrical showings, which for this particular film are so sketchily documented I had to address claims that it never had a theatrical release in the first place. What was clearly doubtful was whether the poster was in any way approved by the people who made the movie. Of course, this was just as well, since the poster offered ample grounds for a lawsuit by George Lucas et al. I considered trying to mitigate the issues somewhat by cutting out the gratuitous bottom half, which led to the following image.

Even with only the top part, this is baffling. Of course, it would be par for the course if the artist had no opportunity to see the movie before throwing the poster together. What throws it off is the image of the Millennium Falcon apparently in the water (and wildly out of scale), which actually corresponds pretty well to the crash in the movie (covered in a lot of detail in the review). By further comparison, the element of the muscled hero defending the damsel from the T. rex at least approximates the film, apart from making the characters look a lot more attractive than anyone in the cast. (There's a third figure in there, a kind of generic guy behind the other two; also, the lady is showing even more skin than you might notice.) But what are we to make of the foreground figure? He's certainly not eye candy, and he's portrayed in a lot more detail than needed. If anything, it looks like he's supposed to be a villain, in itself something the film doesn't have apart from the jerk boss. But then, why is he the one who looks either terrified or in absolute agony? As usual, this is clearly far more analysis than the artist ever bothered with.

Then there's this little exhibit, a late effort that didn't really fit in. I wouldn't have worried about referencing the movie, but using the Atari furniture was definitely pushing the limits. Plus, I didn't have a good match on the colors or the font size and format.

Finally, here's the centerpiece, my very first try, from a foreign poster for Dark Star. It came out absolutely beautifully, but alas, it was everything that I couldn't use. On top of the obvious problems of using material from an influential film, I was never satisfied with the provenance on the original image, which seemed to be associated with a re-release I couldn't conclusively date. Here it is in full glory.

And here's one more. It's pure gag, but the film absolutely deserved it.

With that, I'm calling it a night. That's all for now, more to come!