Drew Struzan Says THE FORCE AWAKENS is "The Best STAR WARS You’ve Ever Seen"
Drew Struzan is a legendary movie poster artist that has been involved with the Star Wars franchise since it first started. He's created a poster for ever single one of the films in the saga, and this past weekend D23 Expo attendees received a free print of a poster he made for J.J. Abrams' Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Struzan has already seen half of the film and read the whole script, and during a recent interview with Movie Weekly, he said that the film “is far and away probably going to be THE BEST Star Wars you’ve ever seen.”
That's a huge statement coming from someone like Struzan. The fans know that this is a guy who has great taste in movies, and he has such a strong connection to the franchise. For him to say this tells me that there is no way Abrams has failed in bringing this new chapter in the story to life. This movie is going to be as good as we hope it is.
When talking about his process in bringing this poster (above) to life, Struzan says:
"It started about a year ago or more, a year and a half ago. I got a call from J.J. Abrams who I have never met, and he was in England shooting the film and he goes ‘Hi, I’ve always loved the work’ and Blah, Blah, Blah, sounding like you, you know, like a fanboy (laughs) And we were talking along and he just goes ‘…Well, would you?’ and I said ‘…If I was asked. ’ And that was the conversation (laughs). By the end of it, there were no other words. So about a year later, we get together and meet and he says we’re using all the original people – John Williams, Kasdan, Harrison Ford’s in it, everybody’s in it and everybody’s writing and making the music and we have to have your art to make it the real thing. So, of course, I’ve got to do it for George and I’ve got to do it for Star Wars. I’ve never worked with J.J before and so we started working on it and he showed me like half the movie and it was just… a wonderful film and I know it’s going to be grand. I got to read the script and subsequently I’ve seen half of it and I can tell you and the fans this, honest to god, it is far and away probably going to be THE BEST Star Wars you’ve ever seen. … Well it’s beautifully made and it’s a wonderful story."
He continues:
"I worked for seven months on all different kinds of concepts with the studio and J.J and if you really want to know the sacred truth, after I got started and I saw the film and read the script, I was going over it in my mind for weeks – How do I feel about it? How can I represent this film really well? And I did this, like many creatives do, I came up with the concept in my sleep. Just like John Lennon used to write his best music in his sleep, I designed my painting in my sleep. That was the first one I did and I went for seven months doing stuff and in the end, guess which one they picked? The very first thing I did (laughs). So trust your sleep because that’s what I came up with and that’s what they loved from the very beginning. To me it represents the film. The spirit of the film, the new characters, the battle again to find the truth, to grow up, to find the purpose in life. It’s all those things that Star Wars had to be and is still. And I hope to represent that again to a new generation..”
The artist went on to say that he will come back to do any other Star Wars poster they need him to do as long as he is still able and capable. So it seems like this won't be the last Star Wars poster we see from him.
What do you think about Struzan's comments here, and about The Force Awakens being the best Star Wars movie that we will have ever seen?