Why Don't Film Posters Look This Cool Any More?

Seriously, why don't film posters look this brilliant any more? While the days of painted artwork for most forms of popular media is seen as seriously old-hat now (or worse still, 'retro'), we do seem to be stuck in a rut of being offered nothing but Photoshop rush-jobs. Even on great posters from recent times there doesn't seem to have been much of an effort to come up with something iconic.

The closest I can remember in the past decade have been the Star Wars prequel posters, which were beautifully painted montages, but still done in such a manner to evoke the past. There is beauty in painted artwork that photos and flashy effects cannot reproduce.

having said that, maybe it's only genre cinema where painted artwork still works well. There just seems to be something much more epic and imposing to this style that still wins out over digital hack jobs. The film poster should be the main piece of advertising for any film. It needs to be iconic, instantly recognisable, and desirable in its own right.

Am I trying to hold onto the past? Am I stuck in a world of dead formats and hackneyed methods of advertising? No. I just wish film posters still looked this cool.