Chinese "UFO" Videos

So either China has been recognized even by aliens as the new alpha nation worth visiting, or digital videography has achieved widespread popularity in Guangzhou



We'll probably learn soon enough that this was all just a publicity stunt for an upcoming Chinese science fiction movie.

So, You're a Ferengi, eh? The Starlog Project, Starlog #190, May 1993

It’s Star Trek on the cover of Starlog for the second issue in a row, and the fourth time in the last five issues. If I were a better, more faithful chronicler of these Starlog issues, I would spend the time to look over all 374 issues that the magazine published in its 33-year life and report back to you on how many of those covers featured Star Trek of any sort. Then we could throw in the foreign editions of Starlog, the special one-shots featuring Trek, the licensed TV series magazines, the licensed movie magazines, the assorted Yearbooks and Spectaculars and Scrapbooks and Best of issues of Starlog, and even the paperback books. (Let us not forget the forehead-slapping-loopy cover of the fourth issue of sister magazine Fangoria, which featured Spock from Star Trek: The Motion Picture.)

Add up all of them, whateverthehell the final tally is, and I think it would be a safe bet that Starlog’s publishers produced more publications with Star Trek on the covers than anyone else in the universe.

Starlog #190
84 pages (including covers)
Cover price: $4.95

Would you date a fellow science-fiction geek? In the Miscellaneous section of this issue's classified advertising is an ad for "SCIENCE FICTION CONNECTION. Nationwide network for unattached SF fans forming. ..." Wonder how that worked out for them.

The rundown: The cover, in case you weren't paying attention, features Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s Armin Shimerman, who plays Quark in that show; the contents page is given up to an illustration for a story by Anne McCaffrey, who is interviewed in this issue. In his Medialog column, David McDonnell reports that ideas are brewing to do some new things with William Shatner’s TekWar stories, which have already appeared as novels and comics. One idea: A series of TV movies. Could it happen? Wait and see. Michael McAvennie’s Gamelog column reviews T2: The Arcade Game, Dragon’s Lair, Dark Force Rising, and other games. And the Communications section includes Mike Fisher’s Creature Profile of The Phantom of the Opera, plus letters on Trek, Red Dwarf, Star Wars, and more.

Booklog’s reviews this month include The Door into Sunset, Arthur C. Clarke: The Authorized Biography, Maze of Moonlight, Stainless Steel Visions, The Architecture of Desire, Purgatory: A Chronicle of a Distant World, Skybowl, The Singularity Project, and Red Orc’s Rage, which might not be a bad name for a band. David Hutchison notes releases of new Dr. Who programs in his Videolog column. The Fan Network is comprised of the convention calendar and Maureen McTigue’s directory of fan clubs and publications. Kerry O’Quinn tells us how his friend Arthur C. Clarke “lives the large life.” And Lynne Stevens previews Raver, the new comic from actor and writer Walter Koenig.

Stephens also talks with actor Daniel Davis, who discusses his guest-starring role as Professor Moriarty in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Tom Weaver interviews Mark Goddard, the former star of Lost in Space who at the time of Weaver’s article was back in school earning his Masters degree in special education, which he would go on to teach for years. Sharon Snyder and Marc Shapiro separately interviewed actor Armin Shimerman, and Starlog knits together their interviews into one article, in which Shimerman talks about playing Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s Ferengi bartender, Quark (and which includes this quote: “This is not the kinky Star Trek, but there are darker, more multi-faceted sides than on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Geen Roddenberry’s vision is still here, but it’s being shifted around and re-examined through other people’s eyes.”).

Award-winning fantasy novelist Anne McCaffrey (The Ship Who Sang, the Pern series, etc.) is interviewed by Drew Bittner. Bill Warren checks in with actor Peter Donat to talk about his role as the villainous Mordicai Sahmbi in Time Trax. Marc Shapiro profiles actor Jeff Kaake, one of the stars of the ill-fated TV series Space Rangers. When the original Star Trek was being put together, actor Malachi Throne was offered and rejected the role of the Enterprise’s doctor, though he later went on to make guest appearances on the series. He discusses those roles in an interview by Joel Eisner.

Michael Wolff and illustrator George Kochell examine the history of body-snatcher pod-people movies. Speaking of which, Kim Howard Johnson interviews Abel Ferrara, director of the latest Body Snatchers film, starring Billy Wirth. Jean Airey talks with actor Deborah Watling, former companion of Dr. Who. Joe Nazzaro continues his look at the British science-fiction comedy series Red Dwarf with a profile of actor Danny John-Jules, who plays Cat on that show. And editor David McDonnell urges people to keep reading in his Liner Notes column, which is interrupted by a Kevin Brockschmidt “Terminator Bunny” cartoon. You kind of have to see it.

“That was the three years on Lost in Space for me: ‘Is the show good enough?’ ‘Is it getting the ratings?’ And the cast was worried: ‘Is this laughable?’ Especially after Star Trek came on – ‘Can we compete with this kind of a show?’ Then, we went up against Batman and that hit us – they got good ratings and we didn’t, although we did come back later. ‘Batman’s a real camp show, we're not a camp show. Are we a real show? We’re not a real show like Star Trek and we’re not a camp show like Batman.’ Tension! We didn’t know where we fit, we hadn’t found an identity. An identity came near the end, when finally it was Smith and the Robot doing silly things, and that’s what the show became. But that’s not what it set out to be. I always wanted to do a comedy, but I never knew [while on Lost in Space] that I was in a comedy. One day I said, ‘Hey, I’ve been doin’ all this Method stuff – I didn’t know we were doin’ a comedy here!’”
–Mark Goddard, actor, interviewed by Tom Weaver: “Space Duty”

For more, click on Starlog Internet Archive Project below or visit the Starlog Project's permanent site.

The Starlog Project: Starlog #164, March 1991: Dan Aykroyd's Nothing But Trouble

Valkenvania, the Dan Aykroyd/Demi Moore/Chevy Chase fantasy comedy, has been renamed Nothing But Trouble and relaunched on the cover of this issue of Starlog. It’s not exactly the most pleasant cast of characters on the cover; you know it’s an odd collection when Edward Scissorhands (upper left corner) is the most normal “person” on your cover. But that’s genre publishing!

BTW, in an interview with the movie’s director, Aykroyd, inside this issue, the Saturday Night Live alum recalls giving the script to Warner Brothers. “They said, ‘Fine, we want to make this movie with you and John Candy.’ I said, ‘Fine. I want to play the judge and the banker.’ They said, ‘How about Chevy Chase as the banker?’ I said, ‘Great!’ He said ‘Great!' Everybody said, ‘Great!’ Then, we kind of looked at each other and said, ‘OK, who’s going to direct?’ And I thought to myself, ‘If I say I don't have a director at this point, it’s going to take months to find somebody,’ so I just blurted out, ‘I’ll do it.’”

Starlog #164
76 pages (including covers)
Cover price: $4.50

Reading through this issue, one notes that a number of Starlog family publications are chugging along. The licensed magazine Star Trek: The Next Generation is working on its fourth season, All-Star Action Heroes has its third edition, as does Comics Scene Spectacular (there would soon be a Starlog Spectacular and a Fangoria Horror Spectacular), etc. Of note (and editor David McDonnell does note it in his editorial) is the release of the 100th issue of Fangoria, the sister magazine that almost didn’t survive. It had a rough time (legally and in terms of sales) getting out of the gates in 1979, until the editors went with their guts and made it a full-fledged horror magazine and not a fantasy-horror-science-fiction hybrid. It was reportedly struggling again around issue #50, after both editors (“Uncle Bob” Martin and David Everitt) left and sales were soft, so Starlog editor David McDonnell took over editing chores (while he edited Starlog and numerous other titles; I really don’t know how he did it) for a little more than a year while he groomed future Fango editor Tony Timpone, who would go on to helm Fangoria for a quarter century – until early 2010, in fact.

All of that’s a long-winded way of saying that Fangoria reaching its 100th issue is a big deal. And it celebrates with a very good, special 100-page issue. As I write this (in 2010), Fangoria is nearing its 300th issue. It never would have gotten there if Starlog’s editor hadn’t stepped in and supported it when it was in danger of dying.

The rundown: Dan Aykroyd and John Daveikis are in fat-baby suits on the cover, while Jack Rickard’s illustration of the Creature from the Black Lagoon is on the contents page. In the Communications section, readers write about Beauty & the Beast, Land of the Giants, and Star Trek, plus Mike Fisher’s Creature Profile features the Creature from the Black Lagoon; and David McDonnell’s Medialog reports on a whole slew of sequels, including a planned sequel to The Punisher before the first movie has even been released.

Interplanetary correspondent Michael Wolff is back with another exploration of a popular genre concept, this time looking at Frankenstein throughout the years (as illustrated by George Kochell); Edward Gross hears Kenneth Johnson’s unrealized plans for the continuing adventures of Alien Nation; the Fan Network pages feature Lia Pelosi’s fan club directory and a convention calendar; David Hutchison reports the release of 42 episodes of Space: 1999, in his Videolog column; Tom Weaver interviews director Robert Day about his Tarzan films (in an article that is sadly undercut by a green patterned background on the pages that is printed too dark, making the article nearly unreadable); Dan Yakir talks with director Tim Burton about Edward Scissorhands; and Marc Shapiro interviews actor/director Dan Aykroyd about his new film Nothing But Trouble.

Pat Janiewicz talks with writer Jerome Bixby about Fantastic Voyage, Twilight Zone: The Movie, Star Trek’s “Mirror, Mirror” episode, and more; Tom Weaver and Michael Brunas interview actor Richard Denning (Unknown Island, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Day the World Ended, and more); Weaver solos with an interview of 1950s star John Agar, who talks about Tarantula!, Revenge of the Creature, and other films (with a sidebar on The Creature Walks Among Us); Kyle Counts checks in with director W.D. Richter, who wowed Starlog’s editors with The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai and is back with Late for Dinner, a far less bizarre affair; in his From the Bridge column, Kerry O’Quinn discusses Aggiecon; and David McDonnell’s Liner Notes column notes Fangoria’s 100th issue and lists some more contest winners.

“[When I was a kid] there was this kid next door who we convinced that an alien spaceship had crashed in the park. We had set up a bunch of ruins of a ship and told him it was inhabited by these invisible aliens, so we put footprints – it was very elaborate. I think we also used the same poor kid when we staged a fake fight out in the front lawn. I was playing a masked killer or something, and I beat up my brother and stabbed him in front of this kid, and he screamed and his mother came out and started screaming and called the police. The kid also bought it when I took my clothes off and threw them into the pool and we said that they had acid in the pool to clean it and someone fell in and disintegrated. Oh God! We would go to any length to make this work.”

–Tim Burton, filmmaker, interviewed by Dan Yakir, “Director’s Cut”

To see more issues, click on Starlog Internet Archive Project below or visit The Starlog Project’s permanent home.

The Starlog Project: Starlog #138, January 1989: Klingonapalooza!

This issue is pretty much a Klingons-run-amok issue, with everything from interviews with Klingon actors to Klingon trivia, comics, and more.

This month also sees Starlog publish its annual postal statement of ownership and circulation. The total paid circulation for the issue closest to the statement's filing deadline is listed as 156,109 (up a bit from last year's 141,616), including the number of paid subscriptions of 8,993 (down a surprising amount from 18,000 last time).

And since we’re getting into publishing minutiae here, we should note that for some reason, eight of the magazine’s black-and-white pages are printed on heavy coated (i.e., glossy) paper stock, which is generally reserved here for color pages. Printer error? Who knows?

Starlog #138
76 pages (including covers)
Cover price: $3.50

Classified ad of the month: “SHATNER COLLECTION FOR SALE: ‘TRANS MAN’ album, autobio, more! Trek too! Legal SASE for list to ...”

And in an issue filled with melodramatic aliens, you just knew the photo captions would be fun, such as this one in an interview with actor John Larroquette, under a photo showing his Klingon character Maltz on the Bird of Prey set from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock: “‘I wanted Chrstopher Lloyd [far left] to turn to me and say, “Bring me some chocolate, Maltz,”’ deadpans Larroquette [far right].”

The rundown: In an issue chock-fulla spiney-headed aliens, the most famous of them, Michael Dorn’s Worf, takes the prime cover spot. In his From the Bridge column, Kerry O’Quinn continues his “Digging for Gold” chasing-your-dream series; the Communications section kicks off with veteran TV writer D.C. Fontana responding to the interview in #136 with writer Jerry Sohl, who spoke about working on Trek, and other readers write in to comment on recent Lost in Space coverage, lots of comments on Beauty and the Beast (including pleas for the elusive Linda Hamilton interview), and more; in Medialog, Lee Goldberg continues something I’ve always enjoyed reading, which is reporting on the science-fiction TV pilots that failed to get picked up as a series, plus David McDonnell rounds up all the genre news that’s fit to print, such as the third – or is it fourth? – title change for Alien Nation (previously AlienNation, Outer Heat, and even Future Tense).

Marc Shapiro gets in a little non-Klingon action with a report on the status of the syndicated program Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future (including a sidebar on a possible second season); then the Klingon parade kicks off with Peter Bloch-Hansen’s interview of actor John Colicos, who portrayed Commander Kor on Trek (and the decidedly non-Klingon Baltar on the original Battlestar Galactica); Will Murray interviews John Larroquette, an actor best known at the time for his work as the DA on Night Court, about his work as Maltz in Star Trek III (“The possibility of being part of the Star Trek legend in any way – I would have done a bit role if they had wanted me”); meanwhile, Bill Warren interviews actor John Schuck, who portrayed the Klingon ambassador in Star Trek IV; Mark Phillips profiles Michael Ansara, a Klingon from the original Trek series (and the only married Klingon at that point); in a three-page “The Guests of Trek” section, Steve H. Wilson profiles William Campbell (Koloth in “The Trouble with Tribbles”), David McDonnell profiles Mark Lenard (a number of aliens in Trek, including the ill-fated Klingon commander in Star Trek: The Motion Picture), and Mark Phillips profiles Tige Andrews (Kras from “Friday’s Child”).

Kathryn Drennan interviews Next Generation’s Worf, Michael Dorn; David McDonnell profiles comedian Charles Fleischer about his work in (and as) Roger Rabbit; David Hutchison announces Willow and other new genre releases in his Videolog column; in the first of a multi-part article, Tom Weaver interviews Phyllis Coates, who portrayed Lois Lane to George Reeves’ Superman; Kris Gilpin talks with Jean-Claude Van Damme about his new film, Cyborg; Jean Airey and Laurie Haldeman profile Blake’s 7 actor Brian Croucher; Marc Shapiro interviews Splash and Cocoon special effects man Robert Short; the Fan Network pages include Eddie Berganza's Klingon trivia, reader questions are answered (such as, “Whatever happened to David Gerrold’s planned five-volume book series, The War Against the Chtorr? Also, isn’t it true that, at one time, a film was in the works based on Michael Moorcock’s Elric series, ostensibly with a soundtrack by Blue Oyster Cult? If so, what happened to that?”), there are short items on RoboCop’s awards wins at the Saturn ceremonies, and more; and editor David McDonnell’s Liner Notes column talks about two-part articles, among other things.

“Half the time when I was playing Baltar, the scene started when I would whirl around in the chair, and there I would be, the regal lord, sitting up on top of this pedestal. But, I thought, ‘I’m going crazy here. I’m climbing this Leaning Tower of Pisa, on this rickety ladder.’ The most dangerous part of the whole performance was getting up 30 feet on that ladder, with four stagehands hanging on. It was way the hell up in the top of the ceiling. They shot all my stuff on a crane. What with ‘By your command,’ and all this, I finally got to the point where I thought if I talked to any more bloody robots, I would go out of my mind.”

–John Colicos, actor, interviewed by Peter Bloch-Hansen: “John Colicos: The Quintessential Klingon”

To read previous Starlog issue descriptions, click on "Starlog Internet Archive Project" in the keywords below or visit the Starlog Project's permanent home.

The Starlog Project: Starlog #109, August 1986: Sigourney Weaver Battles Aliens Again

Sigourney Weaver's Ripley returns to center stage this issue with James Cameron's Alien sequel, Aliens. This was arguably the biggest movie of this time period, and it would feature heavily in Starlog's coverage for quite a few issues. (That was helped, possibly, by the magazine publishing two official Aliens magazines. They certainly had the access and the materials.)

There's also a movie advertisement on the inside front cover for Solarbabies, which was not going to be the biggest movie of this time period. The most significant thing about it is that the ad lists its executive producer as being none other than Mel Brooks.

Starlog #109
76 pages (including covers)
Cover price: $2.95

On page 51 of this issue is one of those things that makes editors and publishers grind their teeth and pull out their hair. No, it's not the picture of Michael Jackson saluting; that's another matter. It's the half-page of blank space below it. Complete white. One can only assume that an advertisement or a half-page article dropped off the page somewhere along in production. In the editing process? Art directing? Production? Proofing? Processing and printing?

The rundown: In his From the Bridge column, Kerry O'Quinn gets political again by ruminating on political liberty and the Statue of Liberty; Communications letters include more on the controversy surrounding Gene Roddenberry's interview in issue #100 (in which he went off on religion), favorable reaction to the Roddy McDowell interview in #101, and more; and Medialog includes David McDonnell's roundup of genre news (such as John Malkovich being cast to play an android in Making Mr. Right), an unbylined item on a possible Greatest American Hero revival, and Lee Goldberg on a Mission: Impossible movie.

Steve Swires quizzes John Carpenter about his latest movie, Big Trouble in Little China; Ian Spelling (already becoming something of the Star Trek specialist he would one day be) interviews actor George Takei; Fan Network includes Daniel Dickholtz on the question of whether Star Wars fandom is dead, queries from readers (such as, "Who played the succession of younger Spocks in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock?"), and more; Kim Howard Johnson profiles Melanie Griffith about her role in Cherry 2000; the legendary writer L. Sprague de Camp writes about "Silent Specters, Spiders & Sauropods" in the Other Voices guest column; William Rabkin profiles actress Ally Sheedy about Short Circuit (plus a sidebar in which she talks about her role in WarGames); Lee Goldberg interviews actor Tom Skerritt, who talks The Dead Zone, SpaceCamp, and Alien; Adam Pirani interviews Skerritt's former co-star, Sigourney Weaver, who is reviving her Ripley character in Aliens; David Hutchison's Videolog chronicles anime videos plus other new releases; Edward Gross talks with Superman IV writers Larry Konner and Mark Rosenthal; Adam Pirani completes his two-part talk with Labyrinth creator Jim Henson (this is your chance to see David Bowie in a fright wig); the Future Life pages include Scott Zachek with more space camp details, Rich Kolker on a computerized look at the Statue of Liberty, and a completely blank half-page of nothingness (maybe a statement on the meaninglessness of life, or – more in keeping with Starlog's be-creative outlook on life – perhaps an invitation to readers to create their own article?); Lee Goldberg goes behind the scenes of Wes Craven's Deadly Friend; William Rabkin explores The Flight of the Navigator; Brian Lowry talks to the people behind Solarbabies; Lee Goldberg goes on location with the film Hyper Sapien; Chris Henderson rounds up the new print releases in Booklog; and David McDonnell gives some behind-the-scenes magazine news in his LIner Notes column.

"[Robert E.] Howard got his ideas of Roman orgies, oriental palaces, and medieval castles from the lavish sets that enhanced the movies of the '20s. He particularly admired The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923, Universal), which he says he saw several times. it featured Lon Chaney, Sr., in fearsome makeup as Quasimodo, and a great battle with Parisian proletarians whacking armored knights with sledge hammers."

–L. Sprague de Camp, writer, Other Voices: "Silent Specters, Spiders & Sauropods"

To view previous Starlog issue descriptions, click on "Starlog Internet Archive Project" in the keywords below or visit the Starlog Project's permanent home.

More Ridley, More Alien

Starlog.com passes along word that Ridley Scott, the director of the staggeringly good science fiction/horror movie Alien, is going to direct a prequel to that movie.

With all due respect to James Cameron, who really established the series' popularity with his Aliens sequel, the Scott original remains one of the few movies to successfully get across real alien-ness. So I've got high expectations for his prequel.