by Nicoletta Pacini

Science Fiction most likely owes its charm to the fact that this genre, more than others, unleashes man’s imagination so that his innate dreams and nightmares can come to life. Nightmares take their form in human kind’s fear of the different, aliens, monsters, the atomic bomb, errors of science, the formation of future authoritarian societies and the end of the world. Dreams are expressed as fascination with scientific progress, the exploration of the cosmos, encounters with other civilizations, knowledge of distant and unfamiliar worlds and journeys through time. It is a genre which delves deep into the conscience and, that above all, allows for the greatest freedom of imagination. This freedom is also fed by the extraordinary variety of themes typical of science fiction and its close ties to fantasy and horror. In keeping with this peculiarity which characterizes this film genre, science fiction posters bring these dreams and nightmares, desires and fears to life on paper, shaping them, interpreting them and then re-presenting them again. At times they remain true to the film, at others they are quite different from it, but the close tie with the genre it belongs to is always conserved, as it is a fundamental point in the language of poster art. If the poster is supposed to arouse the audience’s curiosity and convince them to go see the film, it is, in fact, necessary for the image portrayed to represent the type of film genre it is promoting and to know how to communicate those strong emotions that the future movie-goer expects to experience on the big screen. Thus the artist uses distinguishing and highly connotative elements in the illustration, that for the subject under discussion might be robots, monsters, spaceships – just to cite the most important. They are immediately recognized by the potential movie-goers as science fictional, and consequently trigger their memory of a well-known world they can enter with specific visual and emotional expectations.
In addition to the use of these distinguishing figures, which we will examine in greater detail further on, is another typical subject for poster design, sure to reflect the genre: the illustration of particularly important scenes in the film.
The main source of inspiration for the artist becomes, in this case, the topic moment of the film, the turning point and the moment of highest emotional impact. The posters of King Kong, Tarantola, La mantide omicida (The Deadly Mantis), just to give a few examples, draw on the crucial scenes of the destructive assault on the city by abnormal animals; Uomini sulla luna (Destination Moon) shows the decisive moment when the astronauts land on the moon; Ultimatum alla Terra (The Day the Earth Stood Still) illustrates the dramatic sequence in which the automaton Gort picks up the terrorized woman that has managed to escape the destruction of the world by the robot, thanks to the very famous and mysterious phrase “Klaatu barada nikto”. These are scenes that the public, although they have not yet seen the film, recognise as harbingers of intense emotions.
Rather than select one single key scene with which to identify the whole film, the artist might prefer to concentrate in one sole illustration situations from the film story which are temporally and spatially distant. L’astronave atomica del dottor Quatermass (The Quatermass Xperiment) or Il pianeta delle scimmie (Planet of the Apes) offer collages of diverse sequences in a sort of illustrated montage, a virtual trailer of still images; and the artist’s ability lies in knowing how to arrange the sequences in a harmonious, well-balanced picture, as parts of one sole creation whose meaning is found in its entirety.
In other cases, the graphic composition is pure invention: in La cosa da un altro mondo (The Thing from Another World) the Thing’s threatening shadow seem to swoop down upon the poor terror-struck woman … but only on paper, because in the film there is no trace of the scene depicted in the poster. Another example is the poster from I 7 navigatori dello spazio (Planet Burg) which shows a three-being encounter among the major characters recruited by the genre, monster-woman-robot, in a scene of great visual intensity, but completely missing in the film, and is, in truth, completely out of the narrative context. These are the graphic “lies” that can be explained by the posters’ primary intent; namely, to bring the greatest number of people to the cinema, even using non existent but captivating narrative inventions and special effects.
Indeed, many of the illustrations from the Fifties and Sixties, which are more spectacular than the films themselves, clearly communicate ideas that do not always tally with what is in the film. An intimidating monster, a flying saucer from outer space or the setting of an unknown planet painted by an artist’s able hand very often are better than the 35mm showing of models and low cost special effects, similar to the ones in period genre films. A cult movie poster like Tarantola (Tarantula) promises a catastrophic attack by a gigantic spider on an alleged metropolis, with the thundering sound of buildings collapsing under their killer legs, when in the film the enormous insect only reaches a few houses on the outskirts of a small town lost in the American desert, Desert Rock, and is burnt before it manages to make the slightest move. Other examples to this point are Marte distruggerà la terra (The Angry Red Planet) , Il Fango verde (The Green Slime) or Terrore nello spazio: if the films reveal a lack of funds with painted backdrops and models of monsters which are not particularly refined (if not ridiculous), poster artists recreate highly spectacular setting of much higher quality than those on film. The graphic work, thus becomes the idealization of what the film should have been and it can be maintained in this regard, that poster art is a very democratic form of art since major titles and unfamiliar titles are considered equally as valuable. It may take a different direction than the film: if the objective is to bring people to the cinema, the posters of small films paradoxically might have advertising support which is just as effective, and even compensate for the film’s limitations, upgrading it. From a graphic point of view, there is no difference between the poster of an art film like Agente Lemmy Caution: Missione Alphaville (Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution) by Godard and Il fango verde (The Green Slime), a b-movie that most certainly has not left a mark in the history of cinema…. but who could forget the bizarre one-eyed octopus that boldly roams about the poster?

The essentially narrative graphic approach inspired by scenes from the film, even considering what has been mentioned previously, is not, however, the only style used. In other cases the artist tests out more metaphoric solutions. A case in point is Arancia meccanica (A Clockwork Orange). The deformed image of Alex stepping out portentously from a black triangle, pointy like the sharp blade of exaggerated dimensions held by the young man, represents a world famous example of the symbolic abstraction of hyper-violence produced by Stanley Kubrick. Just as the portrayal of a gigantic television placed among the skyscrapers in an American metropolis in The Truman Show becomes a metaphor of Peter Weir’s ironic reflection on the risks of being completely caught in the unreality of the television universe. The use of colour is also important: Truman who is sleeping peacefully in pyjamas is illuminated by a warm light which reproduces an atmosphere of protection and happiness. To the contrary, cold grey hues connote the urban context, symbolizing the danger and anonymity of the outside world. The appropriate use of lights and colours, in fact, is fundamental in the creation of the figurative context. Chromatic contrasts contribute to bringing various undertones to life, enriching the picture because every colour expresses a frame of mind, an atmosphere as well as narrative tensions. Gloomy shades, for example, indicate dramatic settings like the ones in Blade Runner or in 1997: fuga da New York (Escape from New York); whereas bright and contrasting colours are suitable for adventures (most importantly, Guerre stellari/Star Wars and Star Trek) or catastrophes (2002: I sopravvissuti/Soylent Green). Pastels best connote the more delicate comic science fiction. If fear and anxiety are incarnated by green and yellow (L’invasione degli ultracorpi/Invasion of the Body Snatchers, A trenta milioni di chilometri dalla Terra/Twenty Million Miles to Earth, Alien), blue is the ideal background to create anticipation, an encounter with the unexpected (The Abyss, Incontri ravvicinati del terzo tipo/Close Encounters of the Third Kind and all those posters which illustrate the wonders of space); just as white is the colour of purity and light, while black represents their opposites. Finally, red in addition to colouring the background for almost all settings for Mars (the “red” planet “ by tradition), is violence, blood and wickedness (La cosa/The Thing). It is also necessary to consider that many of the extremely animated posters created for film debuts in the Fifties promoted black and white films: all the more reason then, for colour to be the primary tool for crafting evocative atmospheres and producing great visual power, which in this case is even more tantalizing than what the films themselves present.

Thus, we have seen how some of the linguistic elements in poster art are used in science fiction: close connections to the genre, key scenes, “inventions” or at least graphic hyperboles, symbolic solutions and the use of colour. We can add the element of surprise as an essential tool to arouse the movie-goer’s curiosity. It is interesting to notice how science fiction, a genre tied to the unexpected and surprising, chooses to rely on the advertising campaign to decide whether or not the extraordinary elements in the film will be unveiled. The extremely popular theme of the alien, for example, is at times immediately revealed in the posters, at others it remains hidden or is alluded to with a small detail which feeds the audience’s imagination without, however, uncovering the mystery. Just a few examples. The two posters from L’invasione degli ultracorpi (Invasion of the Body Snatchers), a cult movie by Don Siegel, dwells on the scene of panic, symptomatic of a great danger, but it does not reveal the surprise of the alien pods that reproduce human bodies. The only allusion to the drama comes from the symbolic portrayal in the poster of no more than little greenish feet, which suggest the plant world, chasing frightened earthlings. In the two remakes of the film (by Philip Kaufman and Abel Ferrara), on the other hand, it is interesting to observe that the poster emphasized the very metamorphosis, pod/human look-alike alien. Siegel’s classic has becomes such a part of popular culture that people go to see the remakes already knowing what the story is, and therefore it is advantageous for the advertising campaign to use the visualization of the most perturbing moment of the story. The same thing happens with La cosa da un altro mondo (The Thing from another World) and with Carpenter’s remake, La cosa (The Thing): if in the cult movie from the Fifties the only allusion to the presence of creatures from outer space is an enormous black shadow that looms over a terrorized earth, in Carpenter’s film the horrific mutating Thing has been placed in the foreground.
Let’s move on to two icons from horror-science fiction there is no drawing of the monstrous being present in Predator, which instead concentrates on the star, Schwarzenegger; nor is there one in Alien whose famous portrayal of the egg joined to the words “Nello spazio nessuno può sentirti urlare" (in the original poster "In space no one can hear you scream") foretells the birth of something which is certainly evil. Both monsters, however, are protagonists in the poster Alien VS Predator (AVP: Alien vs. Predator. In this case, what has been said about remakes can be considered true: the seasoned celebrity already attained by the two alien beings acts as a driving force in advertising and their features represent a guaranteed box office attraction.
Clearly more comforting images are found in the posters from E.T. and Gremlins. The latter leaves the perception of the little monsters solely to their small eyes and hairy paws which appear from a half-opened box. E.T., on the other hand, is only revealed by his long flaccid greyish hand whose finger is about to touch the child’s. Nothing else is inferred from the poster. Everything else… in the theatre. And to conclude this journey among extraterrestrial beings it is necessary to mention Incontri ravvicinati del terzo tipo (Close Encounters of the Third Kind): at the end of the road that disappears into the darkness of the night, there is a bright light which foretells the successful encounter between human beings and aliens under the starry sky. The written commentaries on the events strengthen the trepidation and hope placed in this truly special appointment. Further to this point The Abyss and Mission to Mars can also find their place. Not the smallest detail is disclosed about the first contact made with alien races, leaving the magical sense of mystery intact.

While the element of surprise works for aliens and the advertising dilemma is “do we tell or not?”, the other major figures in the world of science fiction are dealt with in a very different manner. We shall start with the earliest. If film graphics typically tend to place movie stars at the centre of their compositions, in monster films the real stars are the monsters themselves: prehistoric animals re-awakened by a cataclysm from a century-long sleep, beings, victims of radioactive contamination or unsuccessful experiments which have grown into giants, or even huge beasts that have never died and were discovered by chance during an expedition. More than ever for this film genre the primary source of inspiration for poster art is the key scene. Thus we find images that are entertaining and exaggerated compared to what is shown on film. They show horrifying big lizards, huge apes and gigantic insects spreading panic and destruction in metropolis all over the world, from New York to Tokyo, from Rome to London. Indeed, the effect is even stronger when the cities, trampled on by their enormous feet or destroyed by the power of the burning flame released from their jaws, can be recognised by the drawing of some architectural symbol such as the Empire State Building or the Coliseum. The representation of a real place, especially if it holds highly symbolic value, heightens the fear that what is shown could truly occur.
Furthermore, these posters offer us the opportunity to reflect on another important linguistic aspect: the association image/word. The written part and the drawn/photographed part must form, in fact, an effectively balanced unique work. The picture, in these posters, is perfectly wed to the written words. In Godzilla the title is “put into motion” by the destruction that follows every move the monster makes; in La mantide omicida (The Deadly Mantis) the illustrator has made a letter M that looks like animal paws, just as the title of La vendetta di Gwangi (The Valley of Gwangi) seems to be written with yellowish scales from dinosaur skin: these are all examples of the successful weaving of images and words into high-impact linguistic and visual allusions.

Other regular visitors in this genre are robots and artificial forms of life. They too were immediately recognised as the first ideal actors for the film launch; it did not matter whether they had a central role in the story or whether they were secondary characters. Thus, from the Twenties on, with Metropolis, considered the first film in which a robot appears (in that case female), the advertising strategy centred on showing the artificial woman, making her the leading testimonial. The Fifties see, then, the entrance of the “tin knights”, whose strong arms are always ready to rescue an earthly lady unconscious or frightened to death.: Gort in Ultimatum alla Terra (The Day the Earth Stood Still) acts as a trailblazer and becomes the model for Tobor il Grande (Tobor the Great), Il colosso di New York (The Colossus of New York), the robot in I 7 navigatori dello spazio (Planet Burg) and naturally Robby in Il pianeta proibito (Forbidden Planet), the other great mechanical star in the history of cinema who immediately became the emblem of metallic creatures. Robby’s popularity is also evident from the high number of lobby cards among the advertising materials which carry his figure, and which even today, are amongst the highest in demand on the collector’s market, not to mention the gadgets and toys he has inspired, making him one of the first stars in early merchandising.
It is when the classic metal robot is replaced by its more perfect and obscure variation, the machine “dressed up” as a human being, that posters focus their attention on showing the mechanical man’s true nature: Yul Brinner, in Il mondo dei robot (Westworld) and Schwarzenegger in Terminator, are both drawn as humans with a part of their body lacerated, revealing the artificial mechanisms inside. These are disconcerting images which highlight their non human nature and the potential for danger intrinsic to their characters. To the contrary, the poster of Robocop promises security and legality: the advertising tagline for the robot with a human brain who serves the law reads “parte uomo, parte macchina, tutto poliziotto" (in the american poster "Part man. Part machine. All cop. The future of law enforcement.") and a photograph immortalizes him, exalting the idea of power and invincibility according to the iconography of action-movie heroes. A place of honour on the poster, next to their hunter, is reserved for the androids in Blade Runner, non metallic beings, but artificially constructed, perfect copies of man in a desperate search to prolong their programmed life, at first indistinguishable from the human Harrison Ford. Finally 2001 is the year when Kubrick and Spielberg’s heartbreaking robot enters the scene. The child automaton in A.I. Intelligenza Artificiale (A.I. – Artificial Intelligence) , whose poster deserves attention for the symbolism implicit in the words in the title: inside the letter A the empty silhouette of the child/robot is reproduced like a small mould; the letter I, is formed by the silhouette extracted from the A. It is a game of cutting and fitting the pieces back together which symbolizes the identity of the protagonist, a duplicable creature in that he is a robot, and his need to “fit” into the role of a true child, loved by the woman he recognises as his mother. The final note necessarily goes to the robots in Guerre Stellari (Star Wars), naturally present in many of the posters which immortalize the characters from the complete saga, according to the iconography which recalls the world of fairy-tales and comic-strips.

Other leading figures in films on space exploration or extraterrestrial attacks are the space machines: small spacecrafts, spaceships, rockets, space stations, all symbols of technological perfection and scientific progress, even when their forms are quite naïve. At times they are purely decorative, at others they are the poster’s true protagonists. We can mention the flying inventions in Nel 2000 guerra o pace? (Things to Come), the famous rocket in Uomini sulla luna (Destination Moon), the spectacular spaceship that falls into the sea in A trenta milioni di chilometri dalla Terra (Twenty Million Miles to Earth), the manta-shape flying saucers in La Guerra dei mondi (The War of the Worlds), the toy spacecraft in Base luna chiama Terra (First Men in the Moon), up to the latest highly technological space machine, the gem of astronautics truly projected into the future: the wheel-shaped way station in 2001: Odissea nello spazio (2001: a Space Odyssey), a film by Robert McCall, the very famous American space artist, who has worked with NASA, able to bring together fantasy and realistic detail. Similarly, the captivating machines which pay homage to Mos in Doppia immagine nello spazio (Doppelganger) are also of highly perfected technology, as is the view inside the space base produced by Renato Casaro for Solaris (Soljaris), which in this case too shows greatly refined design and skill in recreating a wide-ranging perspective. And to complete the list we cannot forget the giant-size spaceship in Independence Day which hovers over New York, and is so immense that it seems to “comes out” of the poster. It is a true visual triumph and point of arrival for one of the most-loved topos in science fiction.

We have made this brief journey through the most classic figures of the genre to contemplate some of the more interesting aspects in the world of posters, its language, its rules, its codes of expression and the expectations which it must encourage and represent. This is one journey possible. There are so many themes in science fiction that this is only one of the routes which could be taken. Flipping through the pages that follow, many others will be translated onto paper, spanning journeys through time and space to those to the centre of the earth, from surviving civilizations of the past to future societies, from nuclear catastrophes to genetic mutations, from galactic adventures to the virtual world… Fascinating visual itineraries, placed within this glittering world of images that makes up film poster art, a form of art which continues to arouse our enthusiasm, frighten us, entertain, and perhaps even make us reflect. And if going through these colourful pages you feel the pressing urge to (re)see a film or two, it means that posters, more than ever, continue to do what they were originally made for: to give us a taste of an infinite number of imaginary journeys and tempt us to shut off the lights in the theatre… Well, enjoy the show.