system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why are foreign movie posters often depicted with art that has nothing to do with the movie?

I just saw the Soviet Union posters for Star Wars, but I've also seen other foreign posters for movies that have characters or art that has nothing to do with the movie. Why is that?
gpt
I can tell you about why Eastern European countries did this with a degree of certainty — because under communist governments/for a while after them, censoring imported cinema was the norm. When foreign movies were played in these countries, they were often modified to the point where the end product was significantly different from the original film, and this drove foreign cinema into becoming a niche unto itself.

Promoters don't want to waste too much money advertising a movie they don't expect theatre-goers to care about. Either because of the stigma attached to foreign imports, or because the quality of films was reduced by cuts to their contents, the quality of *promotion* also fell along the way. Artists hired to design these posters weren't so much seizing the opportunity to illustrate the film (it was quite common for artists to have only had the plot *described* to them, or in some cases only have the name of it to go by when designing its poster). They were seizing the opportunity to make art that would be widely seen by the public, in a time where art was heavily monitored too.

Of course, the sheer absurdity of the end result without that context can be hysterical.