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The 1980s was an era of wonderful fantasy films and, as Garrick Webster discovers, the poster art that accompanied them was just as astounding
There's a special kind of nostalgia that surrounds the fantasy and sci-fifilms of the 1980s. Thanks to the impetus that Star Wars gave the film industry in the late-1970s, effects budgets grew and grew, but because CGI was a mere twinkle in John Lasseter's eye, the creatures and magic we witnessed were often handmade. They looked tactile, and films like The Dark Crystal and Time Bandits felt lived in and quirky, more like real life than a cold computer screen.
These were the days before Photoshop too, and the posters that enticed us into the cinemas were largely hand-painted. A whole crop of genius fantasy artists caught our imaginations with pencils, ink and paint, with three-sheet or quad-sized posters going up around town whenever a new fantasy picture was on its way.
More than that, our nostalgia is tweaked on a deeper, more psychological level. Fantasy films back then weren't just a distraction from boredom. Generation Y and hipster haircuts hadn't been invented. Back then kids were worried. Reaganomics and Thatcherism were ravaging economies. People began to die of AIDS. Famines killed millions in Africa. And the Cold War promised mutually assured Armageddon. So we gazed at Brian Bysouth's posters for Willow and Big Trouble in Little China. We were beckoned by the peculiar-looking Falkor, the luckdragon, on Renato Casaro's poster for The NeverEnding Story. Artists like John Alvin, Richard Amsel, Ted C°Conis, Bob Peak and Drew Struzan gave us a gateway into imaginary realms.
John Alvin was brilliant when it came to evoking a sense of mystery. John passed away in 2005, but his daughter Farah not only grew up alongside his work, but also appeared in it. You know the famous poster in which E.T.'s finger reaches out towards a human hand? She was a small child at the time, and that's her hand in the picture.
"Much of E.T. was kept top secret by the studio - not only the film itself, but what the characters and scenic elements looked like," she explains. "John was given a sketch of the alien's hand by a production designer...