The Starlog Project: Starlog #154, May 1990: The Gremlins Are Back

Anyone remember the Rave Ups song “In My Gremlin”? “Oooweeeeeyoooo-ooo.” Okay, I can’t carry a tune, but you can listen to it on this site, which I found through the difficult task of searching for “in my gremlin” and “song” on Google.

What brings that up? Because Joe Dante’s nasty little gremlins are back in Gremlins 2: The New Batch. I was never a huge fan of either film in this short-lived series, but there was an energy to them that I had to appreciate, and throwing in Christopher Lee for the sequel ups the interest level right there.

Still don't know why they were named after a car, though. I guess Pacers wouldn't have made a good movie title.

Starlog #154
76 pages (including covers)
Cover price: $3.95

Also of note this issue is the first ad for William Shatner’s book Tekwar, the first of what would become a series of novels and eventually a short-lived television series of its own. It’ll even get its own Starlog cover story, but you’ll have to wait a few years for that. Right now, we’re still in 1990, and those pesky gremlins are messin’ things up something awful.

The rundown: Joey the Gremlin is on the cover – okay, I don’t know if he’s really named Joey, but they’ve gotta have names, and Joey’s as good as any other; meanwhile, another vile creature – a teenage mutant ninja turtle – is featured on the contents page. Letters in the Communications section include lots of weepy reaction to Beauty and the Beast’s cancellation, plus some Back to the Future thoughts; and in David McDonnell’s Medialog, we get the latest speculation on the next chapters in the Star Wars saga.

Ian Spelling talks with Beauty and the Beast creator Ron Koslow about the death of his two-year-old series; Bruce Gordon follows up his article in #108, “The Other Marty McFly,” with “The Return of the Other Marty McFly; Daniel Dickholtz previews the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie with an interview with co-star Judith Hoag; novelist Lois McMaster Bujold is interviewed by Bob D. Gibson; Kyle Counts talks with actress Sally Kellerman, who talks about acting in Boris & Natasha, the live-action film adaption of the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons; in the Fan Network pages, Drew Bittner reports on GURPS games; and Will Murray previews Total Recall, the Arnold Schwarzenegger-Paul Verhoeven film based on Philip K. Dick’s short story, “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale.”

David Hutchison’s Videolog column reports on Millennium, Hansel and Gretel, and other new genre releases; Bill Warren checks in with an article on the sequel Gremlins 2: The New Batch; Kim Howard Johnson goes behind the scenes of RoboCop 2 and talks with producer Jon Davison, who says, ‘I swore I would not do another RoboCop picture! It’s the last thing I ever wanted to do! And, here I am!”; Peter Bloch-Hansen talks with War of the Worlds' young actress Rachel Blanchard; in one of the stranger-looking articles, Kyle Counts exposes Space Case, complete with lots of photos of giant rabbits in space suits, plus a sidebar on the film’s makeup artist, Rob Burman; and the magazine takes a biiiiig stretch with an article on The Hunt for Red October, John McTiernan’s adaptation of a Tom Clancy techno-thriller, which isn't exactly science fiction, but who's taking notes, right?; in his Bridge column, Kerry O’Quinn shares some lessons from his father’s death; and editor David McDonnell’s Liner Notes column talks about Bruce Gordon’s Mary McFly speculative article.

“When will George Lucas make the next Star Wars film? ... Until now, the ‘official’ answer was the one given by Lucas at the Starlog Salutes Star Wars convention held in May 1987. There, Lucas said that he planned to begin production on the next Star Wars film (Chapter I of the nine-part saga) by the end of the decade. He didn’t, however, specify which decade. ... Now, there’s a new ‘official’ answer. ... Lucas was again asked the inevitable question. And his reply: ‘I haven’t started thinking about the next Star Wars film. ... I probably will in the next five or six years.’”

–David McDonnell, editor, Medialog

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