Plus it gave us a vengeful Linda Hamilton and little Edward Furlong, so it’s an all-around success.
Starlog #168
88 pages (including covers)
Cover price: $4.95
The cover price is jacked up to $4.95 from the usual $4.50 for this issue, but we don’t get the 100-page anniversary issues we got for the past decade. Instead, it’s only 88 pages. However, it does actually celebrate its anniversary, unlike most of the recent anniversary issues, which featured really just a larger issue (good issues, they were, just not chock full o’ anniversary goodness). This time, there’s a 10-page feature of photos and select quotes from the magazine’s history, plus a four-page gatefold poster of all of the previous covers of the magazine.
The rundown: Arnold’s Terminator is on the cover; as noted above, there’s the eight-page fold-out poster of all previous covers, and there’s a two-page fold-out poster of Kevin Costner in Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves garb; comic-book versions of the Lost in Space folks are on the contents page; and in his Medialog column, David McDonnell alerts us that there will be an animated TV series spinoff of the Back to the Future films.
Interplanetary correspondent Michael Wolff, with illustrator George Kochell, looks at the depictions of Death (personified death, that is); Communications letters include Philip José Farmer commenting on William Wilson Goodson’s Robin Hood historical article from issue #166, readers complaining about the ugly creatures featured on the cover of issue #164, others exploring ideas raised in the recent Philip K. Dick interview or picking over the carcass of Beauty & the Beast, and more; Fan Network includes Lia Pelosi’s science-fiction fan club directory and the convention calendar; David McDonnell’s Videolog departs from his usual practice of listing newly released genre videos and instead explores the advent of 3-D home video; and Kerry O’Quinn’s From the Bridge column includes his experience in a college class that explores Star Trek episodes.
In “Voices of Starlog Past,” photos and quotes are reprinted from past issues of the magazine; Marc Shapiro visits the set of Terminator 2: Judgment Day; Edward Gross interviews Pen Densham, co-scriptor of Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, which he admits was spawned by his idea of a “Robin Hood a la Raiders of the Lost Ark“; Kim Howard Johnson looks at the comics form of Lost in Space; and Edward Gross talks with writer Steven Carabatsos, who scripted original Star Trek episodes such as “Court Martial” and “Operation Annihilate.”
“[For the film Dragon Seed,] I had these Chinese eyepieces; mine always came loose just before each shot. On location, in the San Fernando Valley, the loudspeaker would order, ‘Hatfield to the cameras!’ The first day, [costar Katharine] Hepburn – who terrified me – came out to watch this new young actor. I got on my Chinese water buffalo, and the buffalo, quite logically, went straight into the water, soaking my costume! I hit him with my antique Chinese flute – and broke it! And, of course, I knew nothing about continuity. In the scene on the old Chinese farm, I was to play my flute. In the master shot, I played the flute one way; in the medium shot, to be creative, I played it another way; in the close-up, a new way! Suddenly, there was this terrible pause. The director came up to me and said, ‘Have you been playing that flute the same way all morning?’ ‘Oh, no!’ I said very proudly. ‘I played it here, and this way, and this way ...’ Well, he threw his hat down, stamped on it, shouted implications and oaths... I had ruined most of the morning’s shooting! I thought, ‘Why’d I ever leave the theater?’”
–Hurd Hatfield, actor, interviewed by Gregory Mank: “Portrait in Gray”To see more, click on Starlog Internet Archive Project below or visit The Starlog Project’s permanent home.
