Back in 1977, when Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope hit the theaters, the United States and Russia weren’t exactly on the best of terms. In fact, you might say they were kind of on terrible terms. And when it came to movie releases, that was something of an issue. Namely, U.S. movies wouldnt’ see the light of day in the USSR. The real U.S. and Russian Star Wars fights were going on.

For many years, Star Wars was nothing more than a black market venture in Russia with bootleg copies floating around and that’s about it. But things started changing in Russia in the late 1980s and by 1990 the West was making inroads. Most importantly for cultural relations, Star Wars was finally able to be seen by citizens there. The Soviet bloc was crumbling, “democracy” was starting, and nerd-dom was flowing in through the border crossings.

Star Wars Hits Russia

So Star Wars hit Russia, and with it some promotional material as well. Except the Star Wars posters dreamed up by Russian artists were unlike anything you would expect from the George Lucas classics. In fact, they bore almost no resemblance to the films at all.

It was like the Russian artists heard space, maybe cowboy, and just went to work with whatever their minds could cook up. Check out some of these Russian Star Wars posters.

Star Wars Space Cowboy

I guarantee if you didn’t speak Russian (and maybe even if you did) you’d be hard-pressed to make Star Wars your first hundred guesses on which movie these were meant to promote.

The first Russian Star Wars poster goes full space Western.

New Star Wars Characters?

After that, there’s a Russian Star Wars poster that has alien heads that look like a mix of Stonehenge and the Muppets. Are they friends? Enemies? Who the hell knows.

A Very Weird Star Wars Theme

Then we go light bright trippy with another Russian Star Wars poster that looks like the movie was about the Illuminati chasing down a techno-jungle cat robot. If this one doesn’t scream George Lucas’s vision, I don’t know what even does.

Death Star And Stonehenge?

And finally, we get maybe the closest Russian Star Wars poster to the real thing. That’s because there’s a space disco ball which might actually be a rendering of the Death Star?

But that’s where the similarities stop because underneath it is Marvel’s The Thing-ish space rock dude. I suppose the lines resemble a ship hitting hyperspace. But we’re really pulling at this point.

The Russian Star Wars Vision

In all, you have to respect the Russian Star Wars vision mostly because of the sheer insanity of the offerings. Did anyone watch the movies at all before making these? No chance.

That’s the kind of devil-may-care Russian attitude we all know. At least it’s on brand.