Charity Star Wars Poster Spotlights Heroes of the Empire

The Ottoman Empire lasted about 600 years, the Roman Empire went for close to 500. Next to those numbers, the 30-or-so years that the Galactic Empire stood for may seem unimpressive. But for the few decades that the Empire flourished, it gave us all several centuries worth of charismatic British villains who will forever live in infamy. I love them all.

Entertainment illustrator Matt Busch (the man behind the instructional You Can Draw 'Star Wars' video) has produced the last in his series of official, limited-edition posters that commemorate various Star Wars anniversaries by honoring the excellent cast of villians. The posters for Hope and Empire are long gone, but you can snag the new Jedi poster for $50; the money goes to the National Lymphoma Society. That's not very villainous, guys. Although I guess Imperial dogma isn't necessarily in opposition to charity. Money doesn't seem to factor into their goals one way or the other; they're a dictatorship ruled by an insane wizard man who just wants...what does the Emperor want? People to join him? To break spirits? You probably need to read Expanded Universe books to get a bigger picture than that.

Close up detail on the ROTJ poster and some serious geeking out, after the jump...

I don't know if the rancor should be on there. He's as much a prisoner as anyone in Jabba's palace. In fact I'd rather not have any of the Tatooine crowd on here; I'm really all about the brit accented officers.

I should admit that what really makes this poster for me is the inclusion of Admiral Piett in the right hand corner. When I was fourteen, I was obsessed for about a week with that character. And Lord knows, there was plenty of craziness on the internet to encourage me. I think the inherent cloud of dread and stress his character exists in appealed to me. You may remember him on the Imperial command ship during the battle of Hoth, during which he inherited his Admiralship by default after Darth Vader killed his superior officer via teleconference. By the end of Empire, Piett had also failed to live up to Vader's standards, but surprisingly not in the literal sense; he showed up to everyone's surprise in Jedi, trachea intact. Hooray! He gets killed in the end by a kamikaze A-Wing, but at least it was quick.

And speaking of Imperial Officers who I'm way too interested in, where exactly is General Veers is all this? Hmm? I guess one of the corner portraits on the Empire poster could be him, but surely he should be dressed in his iconic AT-AT gear. You know what I'm talking about.

My actual livejournal icon, back when I had one. I'm not even embarrassed, really.

Link via Newsarama