Star Wars: The Last Jedi Theatrical Poster Concept Descriptions

I’ve been running around San Diego Comic-Con this weekend and as luck would have it I’ve seen a few of the poster concepts from Star Wars: The Last Jedi. I’m told one of these is likely to be the theatrical poster that will hit with the final trailer around Monday Night Football here in the United States. The posters might not see the light of the day. However, I’m told they’re strong contenders and anything can happen. The designs on the posters are all the same for the most part and they’re Photoshop-based posters. I was able to place several of the designs on the posters to real photos I’ve seen since production ramped up last year.

Overall the posters are pretty cool. I’m still a fan of the teaser poster featuring Rey, Luke, and Kylo Ren from Star Wars Celebration. These posters are closer to the Star Wars: The Force Awakens theatrical poster. The posters all feature a lot of “red” Crait explosions around stacked actors like you would expect on a Star Wars poster. The red of Crait and the clashing against the white on the planet seems to inform the look and feel of these posters which are usually divided by the clashing of lightsabers.

To be clear, I’m not promising or saying any of these will be THE POSTER. I think something really similar to one of these will be it, though. Each of the posters features similar things and most likely the final poster, if it’s not one of these, will be an amalgamation of these motifs.

The Last Jedi Poster Concept 1: Black Background

The first poster design I saw has a black background and is the most different of the batch. There’s a red explosion bursting around the stacked actors on the face of the page. The red burst appears to be the lava-looking red stuff around the new planet Crait. At the very top is Luke Skywalker holding his “zapper” rod in his right hand with his left shoulder turned towards the camera. Rey is in the middle of the poster taking up the most space looking determined in her end of Star Wars: The Force Awakens costume. The right side of the poster has Kylo Ren with his back to us, cape draped over his shoulder, clutching his helmet in his right hand. Kylo’s helmet is turned towards him. The back of his helmet is in his palm and we see the helmet from the side. Under the helmet, touching it in fact, is the Falcon flying sideways. Above the Falcon and to the left of the helmet is a tiny General Hux. Centered under Rey is Finn in his resistance jacket facing towards the left of the frame with a tiny Poe (Resistance jacket) and an even smaller BB-8 underneath him. Then you have five Elite Praetorian Guards from the waist up. You can’t see their legs because STAR WARS is stacked beneath them with “The Last Jedi” written in between Star and Wars. Moving up above BB-8 on the left of the frame is Chewbacca with General Leia Organa above him in her black dress. Leia looks to the left of the frame with her hand on her chest looking worried. Rey’s staff is in her hand and goes in front of Chewbacca’s legs so you can’t see them.

The poster is black at the bottom where the credits are with the red bursts around the heroes. The top of the poster is white and gritty.

The Last Jedi Poster Concept 2: Skimmers on White with a side of Snoke

This poster is primarily white and gritty grey like the top of the black background poster in concept 1. In the center is Rey in her Jedi costume, lightsaber ignited and held to the side horizontally. The saber clashes with a red light that separates the design into quadrants. The clashing of the saber forms an “L” and that divides the poster. The blue saber is striking against the red glow around the cast in the stacked actors style. Kylo is dead center on this poster. Kylo is centered above Rey.

The left quadrant is mostly the big bearded face of Luke Skywalker looking concerned. Kylo’s shoulder is above Luke’s head. Kylo is centered but on his back in the left quadrant is the face of Snoke, four Praetorian guards, three Star Destroyers and five TIE fighters. Snoke’s face looks really red as per the design motif not because it is in the film that way. Under Luke’s beard is the Falcon, Chewbacca, Artoo, and a mountain. Underneath the mountain are three or four porgs. One of the porgs has his wings out and he’s adorable.

The bottom right quadrant has a sad General Leia in her black clothes, eyes darting towards the ground. Behind her is Poe Dameron in his X-wing outfit running and looking determined. Below Poe we have BB-8 tilting his head to the side. Above him is See-Threepio. The top of this quadrant has Poe’s black X-wing flying with six other X-wings towards the right of the frame.

The top right quadrant has Kylo’s face with the red blade in front of it. Kylo looks sad and worried. Flying next to his face at the top is his TIE Silencer with two regular TIE Fighters. The bottom has Finn from the waist up in his Resistance jacket with Rose Tico. The bottom of this quadrant to the right of Finn and Rose we have three Fathiers running. On the back of the center Fathier is Rose riding “shotgun” with Finn riding “bitch.”

Underneath the Star Wars logo we see TIE fighters flying above ten First Order Heavy Assault Walkers. Then we have the credits under them. Below the credits we we have of the Crait B-wing styled skimmers flying to attack the walkers.

The Last Jedi Poster Concept 3: Skimmers on White but Good Guy Centric

This poster is almost the same as poster two, however, the bad guys are removed. Luke’s head is bigger and takes up all the space Snoke had and the Praetorians and First Order ships are also removed. The left quadrant is entirely Luke Skywalker’s head with a small Falcon and two X-wings.

The top right quadrant is entirely Finn and Rose albeit bigger than on the concept above with small Fathiers racing beside them. There’s a lot of open space on the right top quad here that is just white, dirty, and grey. The bottom right is just X-wing Poe, Threepio, BB-8, and the Black X-wing leading the other X-wings in the same formation as concept 2.

The logo with the walkers and skimmers is exactly the same as concept 2.

The Last Jedi Poster Concept 4: The Dark Side

This poster is white at the bottom but becomes number two pencil grey the higher you look up. It is also basically cut into quadrants. While poster concept numbers two and three had Rey with her saber horizontally to the right, this one features Kylo with his horizontal saber to the left above his shoulder. The tiny cross bars of Kylo Ren’s saber has one extending up to the top of the poster making a backwards L that divides the poster. Kylo is centered all the way down to the bottom logo.

The top left quadrant of this poster has Captain Phasma in a profile shot looking towards the left with her silver staff in her hand. The background is very dark grey here. Above her we see a First Order Star Destroyer with the TIE fighters around it. Under her weapon we see two First Order Heavy Assault Walkers.

The majority of the top of the poster and right quadrant is a cloaked Luke Skywalker head. You can’t see his eyes because its shadowed. He looks angry like a dark wizard. Under his beard we see the TIE Silencer flying with three TIEs.

The bottom right quadrant is Snoke’s brow line, his eyes, nose and mouth. Two Praetorian Guards are in front of his face, smaller in the frame. One has a bladed staff and the other has two blades in his hands.

The bottom left quadrant has Kylo’s cape draped down over some of it and behind the cape we see three more Elite Praetorian Guards. One has a staff, one a sword, and one a a double bladed weapon. Flying above them are the TIE fighters from the other posters. To the left of the logo are even more TIE fighters.

The logo with the walkers and skimmers are exactly the same as concept two and three.

Are you confused?

I hope this wasn’t too confusing. It isn’t easy describing posters, let alone four I saw and took copious notes from. Hopefully this helps with what to expect. I have to admit, after the teaser poster, I was thinking the theatrical poster release might be something far out. But the posters are effective and they’re cool for Photoshop-based work. I like it less than the The Last Jedi teaser poster from Celebration but I prefer all of these to Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ theatrical poster. Rian Johnson’s effective use of color has afforded these the leisure of being striking yet modern.