The first of Timothy Dalton’s two outings as James Bond,
The Living Daylights, takes center stage. I rather liked Dalton’s Bond; it was more serious and realistic than the Roger Moore era’s Bond, and he’s a good actor. But the producers were obviously waiting to get Pierce Brosnan, so Dalton was soon shown the door. Oh, well, at least he lasted longer than George Lazenby.
Some details on this issue: I might be incorrect, but I think this might be the only issue of
Starlog ever published that doesn’t have any roof text – the blurbs that appear above the magazine’s logo on the cover. Also, for the first time,
Fangoria is listed in the subscription ad as being published 10 times a year, instead of the previous nine.
Starlog #122
76 pages (including covers)
Cover price: $2.95
My favorite classified ad of the month: “COLLECT YOUR BACHELOR’S DEGREE from STAR FLEET ACADEMY! Laser printed with your name and choice of degree printed on Circa 1987 parchment. Embossed. Choose from: Interstellar History, Military Science, Business Administration, Command Disciplines, Computer Sciences, Parapsychology, Star Navigation, Humanoid Medicine, Propulsion Engineering, or Communications ...”
The rundown: In his From the Bridge column, Kerry O’Quinn shares some personal recent pain and urges readers not to waste their time when they could be living life; Communications letters include lots of reader feedback on
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, praise for the most recent
Starlog Scrapbook, and comments on two television programs, the cancelled
Twilight Zone and the new
Starman; Medialog includes David Hutchison on The Film Forum Summer Festival of Fantasy and Science Fiction, plus David McDonnell’s newswire of genre media news, such as noting the new CBS television series
Beauty and the Best, starring Linda Hamilton.
Jessie Horsting and Carr D’Angelo interview actor/comedian Martin Short about
Innerspace (this is actually representative of many
Starlog articles with multiple authors; they are based on the writers’ separate interviews with somebody, and are put together either by the writers or by the editors; David Gerrold’s Generations column goes behind the scenes of the making of
Star Trek: The Next Generation, here featuring photos and bios of the actors (including “Cheryl” McFadden, who portrays Dr. Beverly Crusher); Kim Howard Johnson interviews actress Mariel Hemingway about her role in
Superman IV; David Hutchison’s Videolog reports on
Fahrenheit 451 and other genre video and laserdisc releases; like the magazine’s overview of
Star Wars coverage in
#120,
Starlog presents a six-page compilation of mini-excerpts of past
Starlog articles on James Bond, in celebration of the super-spy’s 25th anniversary. It makes me certain that if
Starlog had been published in the 1960s, it would probably have had an interview or three with the late Ian Fleming (whose final interview was published instead by
Playboy).
Speaking of Bond, Lee Goldberg previews
The Living Daylights; the Fan Network pages include Mike Glyer’s compilation of science-fiction and fantasy clubs, Jim McLernon’s report on
Spider-Man’s wedding (is the the same Jim McLernon who's a future art director of the magazine?), and more; Eric Niderost talks to director Paul Verhoeven about his new film,
Robocop; William Rabkin interviews actor Barnard Hughes (
Tron, The Lost Boys); Patrick Daniel O’Neill pens the Comics Scene column, in which he examines
The Incredible Hulk; Marc Shapiro looks at
Masters of the Universe; William Rabkin profiles actor Duncan Regehr (
V, The Monster Squad, Earth*Star Voyager); Brian Lowry interviews actress Daphne Zuniga about portraying the spoiled princess in
Spaceballs;
Cinefantastique’s Dan Scapperotti presents part one of this multi-part look at Disney’s
Snow White; Lee Goldberg previews the John Updike adaptation
The Witches of Eastwick; and editor David McDonnell’s Liner Notes column relates the sad but heroic tale of the lost-and-found issue of
Starlog, #121.
“I really suffered on Robocop, but it was OK because I was doing something I had never done before. It was part of the challenge, part of the learning process. I like to explore different facets of the human condition. When I did Spetters, for example, I was saying something about Holland and teen sexuality there. But I’ve made my statement; I wouldn’t like to continue to do only sexually themed films.”
–Paul Verhoeven: director, interviewed by Eric Niderost: “Paul Verhoeven: War, Rememberance & Robocop”
To view previous
Starlog issue descriptions, click on "Starlog Internet Archive Project" in the keywords below or visit the
Starlog Project's permanent home.
1 comment:
As a participant in the magazine, I am fascinated by this project and the great commentary.
The Starlog Process often involved assigning a writer to cover a whole movie, spending several days on the set gathering a variety of interviews with the stars, the director and other notaries, and then over the course of several issues there would be a set visit and individual interview articles.
But sometimes, the on-set reporter was not able to get as much time with a cast member as needed for a full interview. Such was the case with Martin Short whose filming involved a lot of special effects shots which didn't leave a lot of time for chatting.
So after filming, a phone interview was set up and I spoke with Short from my office and was able to ask specific questions to fill out the article and follow up on some of the material from Jessie's piece.
In this case, I re-edited the article with my quotes in it. I did a similar thing with a Christopher Reeve interview in Comics Scene #1.
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