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Movie posters used to be simple and dignified, until marketing departments realized that the more sensational the poster, the more ticket-buyers. It's like the cover of a comic book: You might see an image of Batman riddled with bullets and dead, but that never takes place in the actual story itself. Star Trek has been one of the guiltiest parties in sensationalizing its posters with odd artwork and strange taglines (perhaps second only to the James Bond movie posters), and we've collected them for you all in one spot in the list below.
- Star Trek: The Motion Picture - Okay, it's not false advertising to call it a motion picture, is it? There were indeed pictures in motion in this movie. But, this was part of the trend of calling things "The Movie" or "The Motion Picture." Did marketing people think they needed a title like this so as not to confuse people? Just ask the folks behind Superman: The Movie.The problem with this poster, other than featuring a triumvirate of Kirk, Spock, and the bald chick from the movie is the tagling "The Human Adventure Is Just Beginning." How is that true? Did we think it had come to an end?
- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan - No problems with the title, Khan did have a lot of wrath. No, our problem is with the whole "At the end of the universe lies the beginning of vengeance" line. How were they at the end of the universe? Plus, the poster shows the Enterprise firing on the Regula I space station, what the hell is up with that? "To hell with science, Spock! Blow that research station to pieces!"
- Star Trek III: The Search For Spock - The tagline for this poster is "Join The Search." Uh, how do we do that? By buying a movie ticket? Actually, our main problem with this movie is the title. When did they go searching for Spock? They put the guy's dead body into a torpedo tube and shot it onto the newly formed Genesis planet, for the love of god. They kind of knew where he was. Granted, they later find the tube empty, but it's not like there was a massive galaxy-wide search for him.
- Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home - Just look at this artwork... is that supposed to be Captain Kirk or Chekov right next to Spock? Plus, did Spock decide to go extra-heavy on the eyeliner that day? Plus, check out the text on the seldom seen Australian version of the poster: "They traveled back where 23rd century man had never gone before, to a more crazy, outrageous time: 1986." Yeah, you know, the Dark Ages had nothing on 1986.
- Star Trek V: The Final Frontier - Check this out "On June 9, Adventure And Imagination Will Meet At The Final Frontier." Really? How did that end up happening? Unless by "imagination" they meant horrible directing, acting, and writing. Ouch. Now, just when you thought things couldn't get worse for this movie... have you seen the teaser poster? It says "Why Are They Putting Seatbelts In Theaters This Summer?" Yes, because of Star Trek V. It's almost been 20 years, but we still want our money back. Maybe even more so, now.
- Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country - "The Battle For Peace Has Begun," was it really a battle for peace? You could probably argue that it was. However, we only remember the Bird of Prey firing shots at the Enterprise, not the Battlecruiser. Maybe they needed something to spice it up a bit. We think General Chang's ominous eyepatch was probably enough. Why overdo it?
- Star Trek Generations - Granted, it's hard to find a problem with this poster. "Boldly Go" ain't a bad tagline, so what are we supposed to say? "Um... the Enterprise never flew through a giant Starfleet symbol!" Although on the alternate poster the "Two Captains. One Destiny" line is a bit odd. What was that shared destiny, exactly?
- Star Trek: First Contact - It's hard to figure out why the artists on these posters always make it seem like the faces are beaming in. Ever since Star Trek: The Motion Picture, it's like they have to be depicted as teleporting onto the poster itself. Bizarre. Anyhow, this poster features the Enterprise racing away from an army of Borg... and into the teleporting faces. Plus, is the Borg Queen winking at us? We're just not sure what's going on here, although resistance was definitely not futile.
- Star Trek: Insurrection - The problem with the tagline on this poster ("The Battle For Paradise Has Begun") is that it's a direct ripoff of the one for The Undiscovered Country ("The Battle For Peace Has Begun"), which was only two movies prior. Did they just phone it in that day? Other than that, we actually kind of like Adhar's craggy face staring down at the Enterprise. It's just too bad the movie was a bit of a letdown.
- Star Trek: Nemesis - Someone please explain to us how "A Generation's Final Journey Begins" works out here. Do they mean the Remans? The crew of the Enterprise who is beginning to go their separate ways? Picard, since he never had a son? Maybe all of the above... or maybe they meant people who would pay to go see more of these, yikes. The marketing people sure loved to have these posters signifying the beginning of something.
- Star Trek - J.J. Abrams' film has had several teaser posters put out so far, with some of them even claiming "Stardate 12.25.08" at the bottom. However, now that it's been bumped to the Summer of 2009, those have all become a paper trail of false advertisements. It's gotten to the point that we've stopped trusting the posters altogether. What's next? Trailers that lie to us as well? Oh... wait.
Comments
God, *everything* about Star Trek V is terrible, even the advertising.
1986 was totally mad, crazy, outrageous.
@Nimravus: Thats why its so awesome!
To be fair.. How often is a tagline ever good?
Trek IV...Rainbow Transport beam... to San Fran in 80's... bad. joke. erupting.
"Bah, looks more like The Voyage Homo to me."
Good night ladies and germs!!!
See, in 1986, that line was funny. Because it's iro-- Never mind.
For basically a Police Academy version of Star Trek, IV was pretty good.
@Nimravus: There's some nice warm, fuzzy stuff about Kirk and Spock and McCoy in there. But otherwise, yeah, it's pretty terrible.
@Garrison Dean: I want to tell you that Andrew Dice Clay would be impressed, but at the same time, I don't want you to think I'm being anything less than complimentary. Awesome.
The enterprise is firing on the Reliant - not the space station.
@moff: OHHHHH!!!! Hickory dickory dock, Uhura was....
gotta go.
It's "STAR TREK"! The poster could say "Pizza by the slice" and you still would know what was coming.
1. The Enterprise is the only starship available/capable/in range to face a looming threat.
2. The Captain and his valiant crew will bolt at warp speed towards it.
3. There is an evil villain with a latex prosthetic stuck to his/her chest/forehead.
4. The heroes will quote classic Earth literature while holding a book/prop.
5. The villain will spout quotes from classic Earth literature while shaking his/her fist.
6. There will be a destructive probe/weapon/ship preparing to destroy our heroes.
7. There will be a countdown/time limit until it devastates and obliterates people/planets/starships.
9. Kirk/Spock/Picard/Data will kill/destroy/transform it with seconds to spare.
10. They will tell us how human we are because we love each other.
That's STAR TREK.
I love it as much as anyone but any film with this brand is not likely to surprise anyone. Spicing-up the posters by taking a little "poetic license" with a teaser is understandable and should be forgiven for the marketing it is. (Except for Star Trek V)
@jcruss69: Where's the Reliant in this image?
[io9.com]
Don't even get me started with the Star Trek IV poster - san Francisco's on the wrong side of the Golden Gate Bridge fer criss sakes.
I understand that in the old days when special effects were done in-camera, there was no such thing as CGI to use in the movie poster, so the studio would hire an artist, give them some stills from the uncompleted movie, and have them design poster artwork. Sometimes they would get it wrong, like the Enterprise firing on Regula 1 instead of Reliant.
But for the artist not to know what side of the Golden Gate Bridge downtown San Francisco is? That's just bad, sloppy artwork.
Star Trek V: Why does God need a Starship?
As much as people like to rag on Trek V, Nemesis was a much, much worse movie. Even more unwatchable than V.
star trek is bad, except of course for DS9. technobabble and terrible acting will always be bad. i dont see the reboot fixing that
Well a lot of those posters were done by Bob Peak and the beaming in rainbow effect is one of his trademarks.
Just look at his "Superman The Movie" poster and his "Apocalypse Now" poster and "Excalibur" poster.
[www.bobpeak.com]
"Wrath of Kahn" and "First Contact" are the only two films I would want to defend in a fight if I had to.
I would have enjoyed this article more if it were "False advertising in Science Fiction Movie Posters." You should expand it. Besides the "we hate Star Trek" thing has kind of been done here before. Once or twice.
@vjmurphy:
Insurrection anchors my worst-trek-list. Final Frontier is at least chessy-cheese-topped-cheese-with a side of Shat.
Oh and I want to forget I ever saw the Australian Trek IV poster. It reminds me of long afternoons picking out movies in the depressing local video store.
*shudder*
Comment on False Advertising In Star Trek Movie Posters: A Complete History The only image of the Enterprise in the Wrath of Khan poster shows the phaser beams striking the arch atop the Reliant. See: http://shipyard.scifi-art.com/reliant.html and compare with the admittedly fuzzy image of the WoK poster. God, this is so embarrassing for me.
"sigh" Sorry - this content obviously took a lot of time to put together - but really, isn't a lot of the "criticism" of Star Trek Movie Posters a bit of a stretch?
Besides you didn't mention anything about the "cosmic orgasm" that save mankind in STTMP. How do you show that in a poster?
ST3 was in a sense a "search for spock"
they didn't know he was alive, let alone actually ON the planet.
they also didn't know Spocks "katra" or whatever was in McCoy, and when they realized it was they had to FIND (or rather "search for") spocks body
STVI was a battle for peace, maybe not a big space fight, but in the courts, in space against the BoP, and even in the big hall at the end fights were fought, and therefore a "battle" was fought, since it was for a single goal all in all.
Generations had a combined destiny of both captains fighting the same bad guy.
whats not to understand there? :p
there i've said my nerdy peace.
everything else is pretty par, but also pretty pointless and bad criticism (no offense, but its just that bad..)
cept maybe the Ent firing on the space station.. that is pretty misleading.
as for the new movie... i don't care to search for the info, so anyone know if theres truth to this hack rumor i hear of them doing it as a "prequel" of some sort to the original series with a "young" crew carrying the same names from the original characters?
if so.. its a bust and outta my list of DVD's already..
@dOk: Some of Peak's "other" poster designs (the ones that didn't make the cut -- for obvious reasons) were pretty trippy. I especially like the Star Trek II poster that has Khan wearing his sand goggles and holding that fork-thing (his eel prod?) like a riding crop. It looks like he's about to throttle Kirk in VR...
[www.bobpeak.com]
@GreyHammer: star trek is bad, except of course for everything except DS9. technobabble and terrible acting will always be bad. i dont see the reboot fixing that
There ya go, fixed that for ya. yayayayayayayayayayayayayayaya (before someone jumps me for it.)
That was fun:) -- but in the Wrath poster, the Enterprise IS firing on the Reliant...NOT the space station ( depending on WHICH Wrath poster youre looking at :) ... the vantage point of the image didnt leave enough room for you to see the whole ship, but that's Clearly the top of the Reliant...you know, that spoiler looking thing that arcs over the tail end of the saucer section of the ship ...
I actually MISSED your headliner image the first time around because I was only checking out the thumbnails for the group of posters you amassed ... yeah, in that one, Regula One is getting it's back end handed to 'em for sure. ( bad scientists! )
Im sure the artist had to do that art based on very little since they usually have to produce that promo material so far in advance... Im sure they didnt even get to see a final cut of the film yet-- pretty typical when farming out.
Its too bad too-- as much as we love Trek, the posters have always been pretty below the mark... my favorite poster treatments have been Drew's take on Indy Jones..Star Wars... he treats it more like ART than like an AD... comes across better that way, at least for me:)
Star Trek V was the first Trek movie experience that I remember going to with my Dad. Over the years, what has struck me the most about that picture is that of all the Original Crew movies, V really shines in the moments when it is Kirk, Spock, & Bones together camping. That throughout all of the interstellar nonsense, it was the three of them that made Trek work.
Starting with V, I've seen every Trek film on opening night and to be honest I feel that Nemesis was perhaps the worst of the bunch. Fucking Data man. Sacrifices himself for the good of the many and he's resurrected as a retarded base version? Seriously? Fuck you Berman.
Trek is teh balls.
@doubledumbassonyou: No, man -- Data sacrificing himself was the only good thing about Nemesis. The perfect culmination of a character arc. I will confess: I went home and cried like a baby over that scene, and I don't think I've cried that hard since. I could probably use a cry that good, actually.
Absolutely agreed on the stuff about V, though.
@bma2192: And did they ever really use that front deflector dish thing like a giant headlight? I mean, I know it could glow blue, but did it really cut through the fog like that?
I have a secret fondness for Star Trek V, if only because both Sulu and Uhura finally get the ass-kicking moments they'd always deserved. And I was also going to say because of Iman, but I just realized that was in VI, which I like anyway, so never mind.
I certainly don't love them all, but I'd say Insurrection's the only unwatchable one. I would gladly defend The Motion Picture to the death.
I dunno, I had high hopes for this article and was disappointed to find it pretty half baked...
i was expecting more of the "why is the enterprise shooting at the research station" type of observation, and not a critique of otherwise vague taglines...
i used to nitpick star wars posters when they depicted scenes that happened in the wrong movie (like struzan's special edition empire strikes back poster that featured vader's tie fighter, as well as the ian mcdiarmid emperor, when neither of them appeared in the movie), and I wish this article was more geeky in that sense.
Granted, these comments are just supposed to be amusing, so I shouldn't get annoyed. Plus they could have been checked for simple grammar. Plus they could have been proofread to see how often the same phrase was used in a single paragraph. Plus the dissection really wasn't that funny...
How about a general "scenes on posters we really wish had been in the movie"? That might be fun, this was just sad.
@greasypigstudios, you expected io9 to be geeky? You must be new here.
No one noticed the phasers blasting Regula One were coming out of Enterprise's bridge? The phasers are UNDER the saucer.
What I wondered was, had no one in '80s San Francisco ever seen Star Trek? A far better movie would have Kirk and Spock been confused for trekkies from a convention.
"A Generation's Final Journey Begins" actually makes perfect sense given that it was the last time we'd be seeing the TNG crew together.
@JohnBizzle:
Actually, they also had phaser banks on the top of the saucer.
How's that for geeky?
Oh Trek, how horrible can your poster art be? Where art thine art? Suckorama.
I stopped reading this io9 CRAP when on the Wrath of Kahn poster they say "the poster shows the Enterprise firing on the Regula I space station, what the hell is up with that?" That is the top of the Nebula Class Starship Kahn took over. Idiots. Sometimes io9 you just spew shit to hear yourself talk.
Benefit of the doubt - The posters had more to do with the movies than most SF book covers hitherto. There's a long tradition in the genre of having a cover that's all, like,'ooh & ahh!', with no bearing on the storyline inside. And face it, if any of these flix were worth the translucent nitrocellulose they were printed on, the Star Fleet swoosh or a child's drawing of the big E would have been enough to draw the masses. Remember ( I do ), it had been so long since TOS had aired, we were ever so jonesing for the big screen treatment, yet leery of sfx vs storyline.
First off, lame post with lame criticisms.
Second off, Insurrection is far worse than Star Trek V. At least in the former, you have 30 years worth of camaraderie up on the screen. With Insurrection, you get a lame movie-length episode featuring evil alien plastic-surgery addicts. Awful, just awful.
Then again, Nemesis just *might* be the worst of them all, as it's a complete rip-off of Star Trek II, down to the Data-as-Spock stuff. I cried over that stuff too-- IN PAIN.
@lazyeight: This topic pops up from time to time. I very much like cover art that has little or nothing to do with the story. In my way of seeing it, a picture is a bonus, a nice hint of the treasure inside. It's like seeing a picture of sea monkies and they discovering you bought brine shrimp (great south park ep.).
Gawd, I wish we could kill our typos. Editor! (dislike)
i created an account just to say this. (yeah im retarded)
@sandmanfvr: take a look at the picture at the very top of the page. right under the massive headline.
@lazyeight:
My nom for worst book covers of all time were the first books of the late David Feintuch's Seafort Saga. A human with a laser pistol facing off against an alien goldfish. I nearly didn't read the book because of the cover. Fortunately, the story was pretty good if painful in the hair shirt wearing.
It's interesting how they put the Praxis Effect shock wave right on the Star Trek VI poster. Particularly since now every big explosion in space must have a Praxis Effect shock wave.
They're laying claim right there, before the movie even premiered.
@sandmanfvr: There are actually TWO studio-released Wrath of Khan posters, one with photos from the movie, and an illustrated one. The illustrated one CLEARLY shows the Enterprise firing on Regula 1:
[io9.com]
Secondly, Khan hijacked a Miranda class starship. Nebula class starships were not introduced until TNG episode "The Wounded." Check you own facts before you call people idiots.
And lighten up, Francis.
Clearly confusion on @sandmanfvr and @jcruss69 's part about which Wrath of Khan poster we're talking about. @ebone cleared it up before I could get to it.
And I remember wondering why the illustrated poster didn't match the movie when it was first released in 1982. I managed to stop wondering for 26 years until this post. Thanks, io9.
@GrimCW: Hey, where you been, buddy? It's not a rumor, it's absolute gospel truth (that has been confirmed for months now).
Welcome to the internets. Have a look around while you're here.
@sandmanfvr: Several other people have said this bu the vitriol you are spewing demands multiple responses...
They are referring to the poster in the article, not the one on the gallery.
And now that I took care of that...
The poster "Why are they putting seatbelts in theaters/" for Star Trek V? That was truth in advertising.. we will be strapping you in to make to watch this...
@sandmanfvr: Try looking at the main header imagine. If you can manage.
@sandmanfvr: Okay, if you're going to be abusive, you're getting banned. We're happy for you to argue with us, but not if you're going to insult us. I have looked at the poster in question several times -- the one at the top of the page, under the headline -- and it definitely shows the Enterprise shooting at the space station. I thought for a second the Reliant was in there, but just really tiny for some reason. But it's just not there.
@KiddChaos:
under a rock.. well.. actually on an aircraft carrier in iraq, but same differants cept its steal.
wish it would've sank like a rock... CV's suck, wish i'd been on a CVN.
ANYWHO.
damn... guess i'll be skipping another movie... I don't think i'd watch it for free at that point.
the last movie i even bothered to go see was the Mr. Bean one, and even before that i can't recall if i even wasted my time. And at least Mr.Bean had the ORIGINAL actor, and not some mockup wannabe that acts worse than the original. (and lets face it, Shatner wasn't a good actor :p let alone anyone else back then... well, Nimoy was damned good really, but most of'em were pretty bad till the later parts )
Remakes are BAD hollywood! especially if your taking an established story and set of characters and trying to make people like new versions of the same thing..
now if they did an "Enterprise" movie or something and used the original cast.. that'd be okay i suppose... but once more pulling a batman and changing the bloody actors out with new ones... PLEASE STOP!