When one generation thinks of Star Wars, they think of the original films. Another generation grew up with The Phantom Menace. But sandwiched in between, there are people who learned about Star Wars because of Mel Brooks’ 1987 comedy Spaceballs.
The Star Wars spoof was released four years after Return of the Jedi, and not only hit fans of the original films, but fans who were a bit too young to see those in theaters. Those kids saw the Brooks film, were curious where all the references came from, and back-tracked to the source. Now, we’re about to do that again.
Here, we’re excited to officially debut a beautiful new set of Spaceballs posters by artist Joshua Budich. These 18 x 24 inch screenprints in an edition of 250 will go on sale Wednesday, December 9th, at 2pm Central time at Nakatomi Inc.
But if these posters look familiar, that’s exactly the point.
Budich specifically designed these Star Wars spoof posters based on a very popular and iconic set of Star Wars posters made by artist Olly Moss for Mondo back in 2010.
Those posters, long sold out and incredibly valuable, have found their way onto official Star Wars merchandise and all over bootleg convention sales. Budich said he wanted to “pay homage to a great film and a set of prints that’s become so iconic to [the art] community, as well as making the posters stand on their own apart from all that.”
Moss said he was flattered by the parody.
“As an artist, you make your work and you push it out into the ether. People are free to react to it however they want. Whether that means they buy a print from you, or print it out themselves, or even adapt it into their own work,” he said. “[Parody] is not a price you pay. It’s a reward you’ve earned. You were lucky enough to make something with which people connected, and it got a reaction. You can’t police what that reaction is.”
“When I was asked to make those posters five years ago, my goal was to create something that felt entirely like Star Wars, but didn’t look like it. Something that fell a little outside of the incredibly rich history of Star Wars art,” Moss continues. “But are they unique pieces of art? Are they genius flashes of inspiration, pulled from nowhere? No. Of course not. I can still point to every stylistic and conceptual reference I used to inform those pieces. The impressive optical illusions of Jason Munn and Noma Bar. The bold compositions of Saul Bass and Paul Rand. The evocative landscapes of Dan Danger and Dan McCarthy. I tried to capture something of all of those great examples to make work that felt new and surprising. The fact that it proved popular enough to spawn parodies only proves that it must have worked. And I couldn’t have done it without stealing a bunch of other people’s shit.”
“But do I like these Budich posters? No, not particularly. When I look at them, I only see all the things I dislike about my originals. The things that I would go back and do differently (my sympathies for Mr. Lucas, here). But they’re parody posters for a parody movie. It’s a strong concept.”
If you’d like to snag the Budich posters, visit this link starting December 9. If you’d like to snag the Moss versions, take out a mortgage.
Contact the author at germain@io9.com.