With yesterday’s release of the brand new Star Trek Into Darkness poster, film fans could have been forgiven for believing they’d seen it all before, and it’s not the first time poster makers have used existing posters for successful films as inspiration for their own poster designs.
It’s hardly a new thing to see old design elements creeping onto new posters – once a winning formula has been found, marketing departments are unlikely to simply give it up, and familiarity tricks audiences into believing the new film will somehow recapture the successes of the inspiration by association. So you can see the value in it.
But some posters are more intelligent in their copy-catting than others…
8. Star Trek Into Darkness
The use of the logo blown out of crumbling architecture, the industrial-like heavy-metal framework, the colour scheme – all features that point towards the Star Trek Into Darkness poster being a rip-off of the Dark Knight Rises poster. But the most condemning evidence is simply placing the two side-by-side…
We are currently seeking Film contributors on WhatCulture. To find out more about the perks of being a Film contributor, click here.
12 Comments
So….Who cares, its not going to stop someone going to see that film because the poster looks like Batman
Congratulations, you missed the point entirely.
Umm… how can a Batman movie rip itself off? Like it or not, Batman and Robin was still a Batman movie. On another note, you are basically saying that any movie poster that has a style similar is a rip off. Really now? The only one I see shamelessly ripping it off would be the Star Trek one. Perhaps the Star Trek poster was designed by the same individual who created the Dark Knight Rises one. I don’t think people honestly care. These days everything is rip off of something. I would say that these posters were inspired by rather than ripped off. Is that such a bad thing?
Well, that was a joke about Batman & Robin.
Just because you love the Dark Knight movies doesn’t mean everything that bears a resemblance is a rip-off. You could easily argue that the Dark Knight posters ripped off other posters (see here: http://twentytwowords.com/2011/11/09/10-movie-poster-cliches-with-plenty-of-examples/). The Dark Knight trilogy is over; you’ll need to find new things to talk about.
Yeah, so I didn’t love the Dark Knight Rises. Read anything I’ve written about it, I’m far from a Nolan fanboy.
People are taking this way too seriously. Great innovated article!
Even moods are rip-offs? “Nolan-esque markers”? “Same sort of clouds”? So any gloomy poster can never be original? Sam, I don’t think anyone is taking this seriously.
Nick just nailed it.
I completely agree about the Inception Battleship thing I saw that the very first time I saw the poster. Spider-man caught my eye as well when it’s poster first came out.
All of your points that you state only makes you the biggest idiot. I am a graphic designer and i laughed at all of the things you said. The only one that makes sense is the star trek 2012 poster but movies have been ripping styles from each other since the beginning of Ben Hur. Problem is star trek did there “ripoff” poster a little too soon for audiences to forget about.
Damn i was expectin the number 1 spot to be Bambi, because that’s a blatent rip off of The Dark Knight lol