Analysis of Guardians of the Galaxy Poster

1. poster Analysis
Guardians
of
Galaxythe
Callum Jones

2. The Poster
The poster that I have chosen to analyse is one
of the many posters that were released to
advertise Guardians of the Galaxy, the third
highest grossing film of 2014, after
Transformers: Age of Extinction and The
Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies.
Guardians of the Galaxy is a Sci-fi Action
Comedy that was released in the summer of
2014. The film was directed by James Gunn
and was produced/distributed by Marvel,
making it the 10th film in their expanding
cinematic universe. The film follows the story
of Peter Quill, a human kidnapped from earth
in the 1980’s, who is raised as a thief by a
group of mercenaries. As the story unfolds
Quill teams up with four alien criminals in
order to stop a ‘ferocious genocidal militarist’
from destroying the planet Xandar. The film
stars Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista,
Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel.

3. The Title
The title is one of the most noticeable
features on the poster, as it is written in
the large futuristic gold font that has
become recognisable to the franchise. I
feel that the use of the metallic and 3
dimensional effects that have been added
make the title a more prominent feature
on the poster.
The font used in this poster is relatively
consistent with the other fonts used in
the various promotional material for the
film, the images on the right are examples
of how the title font varies. The top image
is the title used in the poster I’m
analysing. The silver variation was used
for the DVD release and the film’s release
in foreign territories. The third image is
from the title sequence in the film and
the fourth image is the font from the
original trailer. It is clear that the
filmmakers had been constantly
improving the signature font of the film
and I feel that the font used in the poster
is better suited to the background image .

4. Main image Foreground
The image used in the poster is extremely
detailed and for that reason I am going to
analyse the foreground and the background
of the image separately.
The foreground of the image shows all five
lead characters standing inside the Milano,
Quill’s spaceship, they are all standing in
action poses holding various forms of
weaponry. The detail is incredible when you
look closely at each characters costume and
weapons.
This detail can allow the viewer to guess the
genre of the film , as the weapons suggest
that this is an action film, but the designs of
the weapons and costumes also suggest sci-
fi, however this poster does not show any
links to the comedy part of this film. This
level of detail is something that I want to
include in the posters that we create for our
film trailer.

5. Main image Background
The foreground of this poster is extremely
detailed, but there is also a great amount of
detail and action in the background as well .
The image used in the poster depicts the
penultimate action sequence of the film
where Ronan, the ‘ferocious genocidal
militarist’ uses his mothership and fleet of
battleships to attack Xandar. The ravagers, the
group of mercenaries that raised Quill, and
the Nova Corps, Xandar’s police force send
ships up to stop the attack resulting in a
exciting aerial dogfight.
This action sequence makes the perfect
backdrop for this poster as it gives the film a
sense of genre, with the use of spaceships
suggesting sci-fi and the various explosions
suggesting action.
Again the detail is excruciatingly clear as the viewer can clearly see the dogfight taking place, but
there is also so much detail in the clouds as well as in the city below. The detail of this poster is
ultimately astounding and I will work extremely hard to give our posters this much detail.

6. TAGLINE
The tagline is essentially another way to
promote the film as the tagline reads
‘From the studio that brought you ‘The
Avengers’, as The Avengers was Marvel’s
highest grossing film, making over 1
Billion Dollars.
This tagline is an excellent idea for this
film as The Avengers starred well known
characters like Iron Man, Captain
America, Thor and Hulk.
However, the Guardians of the Galaxy
are fairly unknown characters so a link
like this could help to develop interest in
the film.
A tagline like this is a good idea for a
brand new franchise like Guardians of
the Galaxy, however in our poster we are
going to use a tagline related to the films
story.

7. Credits Copyrightand
Near the bottom of the poster is the billing block, which essentially explains which
company is producing the film (Marvel Studios). It also gives the names of the
director and producers of the film, as well as the stars and other key staff. It is
written in a small thin grey font that makes it difficult to read. The reason for the
size is because there is a large amount of text to put on the poster and it wouldn’t
fit if it was to big and the colour of the text makes it less visible meaning that the
text will not draw any attention away from the main image.
Below the billing block is the release date which will generate more interest and
excitement for the film and I like the way that it is written in the film’s signature
font, which again gives the text a futuristic, three dimensional feel .

8. Layout
The layout of the poster is fairly generic,
but that is not necessarily a bad feature
as this layout really helps to amplify the
main image, giving the poster dimension
and depth.
With the text at the bottom of this
poster it follows most conventions, whilst
the bold and individual font stands out
here , it doesn’t draw any attention away
from the main image. The main image is
obviously in the centre of the poster as
this is where it will get the most
attention.
At the top of the poster there are the
credits to the stars of the film. The layout
of this poster is fairly simplistic, but it
helps to amplify the main image and
show of its detail.

9. Colour
This poster has a wide ranging colour
palette in terms of variety. Most of the
colours aren’t extremely bright or neon
which stops this poster from looking
tawdry.
The varying colours stand out on the
page, but they don’t clash they blend
together well, as the colours used are
quite dark and subtle.
I want to use a dark colour palette for
our film posters as we have made a sci-fi
thriller film trailer and I feel that the use
of darker colours gives this poster a
much more serious tone.

10. Conclusion
Overall, this poster is an excellent example of
how to advertise a film. It helps to specify
the genre and promotes the characters
costumes and weapons. It also has a huge
amount of detail in the foreground image of
the characters as well as in the background
in the dog fight and in the city below. There
are lot of brilliant features within this poster
that I hope to replicate when I create the
posters for our film trailer.