The Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer wasn’t just a gift to the semi-dormant legion of Star Wars fans forced into hiding since The Phantom Menace came along. It’s also been tremendous boon to practitioners of internet fan-art, arriving just as they began to tire of pictures where Harry Styles and Benedict Cumberbatch and Loki kiss each other on a cloud.
The Star Wars trailer has inspired creativity like little else before it. We’ve had analysis and liveblogs – and even a spoof trailer of George Lucas’ Episode VII, rendered unwatchable by millions of clunky CGI inserts.
But mainly we’ve just had fan-art. This is why I’ve scoured Tumblr, Twitter and DeviantArt to bring you a definitive ranking of the key pieces, from best to worst:
1) This, of course, is just about the only sensible way to produce a poster based on a short and deliberately obtuse teaser trailer – just take the most iconic moment (in the case the ridiculously impractical-looking new crucifix lightsaber), view it from a different angle and make it look really cool. Job done.
2) This would have been my top choice – because I’m a sucker for clean lines – except for one thing. Why on Earth is lightsaber guy posing like He-Man? Is he summoning the powers of Grayskull? Is he calling Battle Cat? Is Battle Cat going to be in Episode VII? Because, actually, I’d probably watch that.
3) Can you see a theme emerging here? Yes, OK, we get it, there’s a new type of lightsaber. Yes, it’d probably lop your sodding hand off the second you switched it on, but that doesn’t mean it has to be in every sing drawing. Hey, fan-art people, the lightsaber wasn’t the entire trailer. What about the new characters, or the stormtroopers? What about that new Jar Jar Binks ball-droid thing, huh? Why don’t you draw that?
4) Oh, well done. The Episode VII trailer was celebrated for its female and non-white characters, proving that Star Wars is capable of moving on from the bad old days of gold bikinis and breathtakingly offensive Asian aliens, and what do you do? You find the one split-second of the trailer that had a white guy in it, and you make an entire poster of that. Great job, you idiot. Your mother must be so proud.
Fan art de Star Wars: The Force Awakens. pic.twitter.com/h0pcbm4LVD
— Nowseed (@nowseed) November 29, 2014
5) In some ways, I think this might be my favourite of the bunch. The trailer completely ignored Luke Skywalker and, if this image is any indication, he’s spent the last 30 years enduring the hardest life imaginable. Homelessness, crack addiction, reduced access to male grooming products, those regrettable lines that appear to have been arbitrarily tattooed all over his face as some sort of horrible bet. Luke Skywalker has seen things. The poor man deserves our pity.
6) Guys, not every piece of fan-art has to have Benedict Cumberbatch in it. It’s not the law or anything.
7) You know what? If you want something done properly, do it yourself. Here’s my own piece of Episode VII fan-art. I think you’ll find that it’s perfect. You’re welcome, JJ Abrams.
