Olly Moss has created some truly amazing bits of pop culture art over the years, but not every idea makes it to a final product. Seeing those ideas never make it, from a creative standpoint, is always a little melancholy, but when you see something that’s truly gorgeous that never came to be, it’s heartbreaking.
Moss revealed this look at a planned Force Awakens poster for Mondo on Twitter yesterday, after it was discussed at last weekend’s MondoCon on a panel about projects that never quite made it. Moss’ poster isn’t just astonishing to look at; even in the early draft stage, it’s wonderfully clever — I can’t stop being amazed every time I realise Kylo Ren’s mask visor is actually the bridge of the crashed Star Destroyer on the sunny surface of Jakku.
However, the reason such a great idea got abandoned is just tragic. According to Moss, it’s because Mondo’s licence for the Star Wars franchise meant it wasn’t allowed to make the posters with a traditional billing block — the list of primary cast and crew underneath the film’s title.
Mondo talked about this yesterday, so I guess I can share. Early TFA sketch. I killed it because we weren’t allowed to use a billing block. pic.twitter.com/PoZKdXvbWn
— Olly Moss (@ollymoss) October 24, 2016
Such a beautiful idea, laid low by a simple restriction. If you want to see more poster ideas that never made it — including a stunning set of scrapped posters intended as covers for Game of Thrones Blu-ray steel books — /Film has a rundown of MondoCon 2016’s posters-that-never-were panel that will make you sad for what might have been (but will probably make your wallet forever grateful).