The Starlog Project: Starlog #74, September 1983: Jedi Creatures See, You Will

Eight and a half pages are filled with a look at the making of the many creatures in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. There are lots of color photos -- including three full-pagers -- from the movie, as well as the cover pix, of course.

On an unrelated note, a full-page color ad has been running in the magazine for a Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Video Game Watch, a $19.95 digital wristwatch that includes a teeny little space attack game on it. No, I never owned one (I'd have rather had the Starlog watch advertised a couple years earlier), but I found it amusing. It's so very 1983.

Starlog #74
74 pages (including covers)
Cover price: $2.95

The magazine's tenth "Starlog Science Fiction Classic" lives up to its name by actually being a classic film, and a rare one at that. It's Barbarella.

The rundown: In his From the Bridge column, Kerry O'Quinn relates how he befriended David Packer, who became one of the stars of the original V miniseries (and I don't know if he's the same David S. Packer who interviewed Mark Hamill in issue #40 -- my quick internet search didn't provide any clues); Don Glut is among the letter writers in Communications, where the esteemed writer chimes in with praise for his pal Dan O'Bannon, and other letters remember the late Buster Crabbe, discuss Videodrome, riff on Luke and Leah being brother and sister, praise O'Quinn's "I Feel Young" editorial from Starlog #71 from Harve Bennett, Leonard Nimoy, and others, and more; Log Entries is filled with short news items such as a report on the spoof SF matinee Loose Joints, a video game (Dragon's Lair) that was co-created by Don Bluth, a photographic report on a visit to the Starlog offices (well, the Park Avenue South streetside outside the skyscraper in which Starlog has its offices) by some vehicles and costumed creatures from Spacehunter (if you ever wanted to see publisher Norman Jacobs riding on a tank, this is it), separate short profiles/interviews of writers C.J. Cherryh and Samuel R. Delany, and more.

Don McGregor interviews Maurice Binder, the man who designed the iconic title sequences for James Bond films, including the latest, Octopussy; Steve Swires interviews Lorenzo Semple, Jr, who scripted the alternate Bond film Never Say Never Again; Ed Naha's L.A. Offbeat column features actress Molly Ringwald, the star of Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone; the third of David Gerrold's four-part excerpt from his new novel, A Matter for Men, includes another introduction by the author and illustrations by Alex Nino; Mike Clark and David Hutchison discover "The Men Who Made the Monsters" for Return of the Jedi; Randy and Jean-Marc Lofficier preview the Matthew Broderick "Do you want to play a game?" film WarGames; Lenny Kaye's Space Age Games column looks at arcade games; Mike Clark and Bill Cotter cover Jaws 3-D director Joe Alves and producers Alan Landsburg and Rupert Hitzig; Randy and Jean-Marc Lofficier interview Malcolm McDowell about his role in Blue Thunder (with a sidebar on Daniel Stern); Patrick Daniel O'Neill interviews Spacehunter actor Michael Ironside; and Howard Zimmerman wraps it all up in his Lastword column, where he explores the serious side of the WarGames film.

"Kersh [director Irvin Kershner] is the most notorious destroyer of scripts in Hollywood, ... Some people say he's the only person who can turn a 'go project' into a development deal when he starts working on the script -- which he has done a number of times. Quite a few people in Hollywood turn white at the very thought of Kersh becoming involved with a project. His habit is to immediately say the script is terrible and start rewriting it himself."

--Lorenzo Semple, Jr., interviewed by Steve Swires, "Lorenzo Semple, Jr.: Having Fun with James Bond in Never Say Never Again"

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

Damn Cool Video of Sun Storms, from NASA

I might be easy to satisfy, but -- President Obama, listen up -- this video is reason enough for me to support strong funding for NASA.

Stick with me; this makes sense: I have a photo on my work computer showing a mountain lion in a tree. It is from a Milwaukee-area news web site report on a mountain lion that was discovered wandering in some Milwaukee suburb a year or two ago. As a Wisconsin-born Californian, I was surprised; I didn't know the Badger state even had mountain lions. And just looking at the incredible large cat makes me happy; I don't want to pet it, I don't want to own it; I'm just thrilled that nature creates such incredible animals. (And I'm glad my own cat isn't that big. He'd kill me when I am late feeding him.)

Same thing with the sun. I think there's a very important feeling(and important thoughts) that one gets when one really sees the universe in its incredible power and beauty. Just enjoy it. There's so much in life that's ugly and hurtful. But there are giant cats on this planet of ours, and there are exciting space storms on the surface of our sun.

Full story here. Click on the link, scroll down the new page, to watch the video.

image: NAZA/Goddard

SFX Reviews Gay Superheroes

There are entire web sites devoted to the topic of gay (or gayish) superheroes. But if you want a good overview, check out this online article from UK science-fiction magazine SFX.

Gotta Side with Apple vs. Gawker

Once again, Jeff Bercovici at Daily Finance has it right: Apple could sue the pants off Gawker for what looks like obfuscation over the company's use of the "lost" prototype iPhone. I know the world is full of people whose morality goes no deeper than "finders keepers," but Bercovici's analysis and investigation of what really happened are pretty convincing.

Worth a read.

The Starlog Project: Starlog #73, August 1983: Superman Returns Again

It might just be my imagination, but the magazine feels as if it's printed on a slightly heavier stock of paper. This issue carries over the extra four color pages and the extra two inside-front cover foldout pages that we saw in #71. As I said in the issue #71 writeup: Things are looking up.

Starlog #73
74 pages (including covers and unnumbered inside front-cover foldout)
Cover price: $2.95

Did anyone take a good cover photo of Superman from Superman III? We remember the blurry nightmare that was the Supe III cover of Starlog #67, don't we? And here again, with #73, we have ol' red-and-blue in a blurry, grainy cover photo. Granted, he apparently is being affected by some Kryptonite rays that are making him blurrier than normal, but, well, it's not a good photo. But at least it's a colorful cover.

The rundown: Once again the "Starlog Science Fiction Classic" poster is a just-released film -- you guessed it: Superman III. With a photo of the super-dude that's not blurry. Would have been a shame to put that one on the cover, huh? In his From the Bridge column, publisher Kerry O'Quinn makes a point I've remembered ever since: It's the tale of two different artists who visited the Starlog offices and viewed all of the original space art paintings lining the walls (I've been there; they had a lot); one of the artists was so impressed with the great paintings, he was saddened because he felt he'd never be that good; the other was so impressed, he was inspired to push himself even further. Shouldn't be hard to guess what Kerry "Reach for the Stars" O'Quinn was saying there, right? In the Communications pages, producer Richard Gordon praises Ed Naha's L.A. Offbeat column, actor/author Walter Koenig praises Starlog for bringing attention to his special project with Mark Lenard, some SF celebrities (Robert Foxworth, Howard Kazanjian, William F. Nolan, Don Bluth, etc.) belatedly praise Starlog on the occasion of its seventh anniversary, and more; short news items in Log Entries include a peek at The Twilight Zone movie, the merchandising of Krull, an obituary for Buster Crabbe, and more.

Da Marie Boyer and Patrick Daniel O'Neill interview David and Leslie Newman, screenwriters of the new Superman III film (which features an opening color photo of Superman that is also distinctly not blurry); Chris Henderson profiles the late fantasy illustrator Roy Krenkel; Lenny Kaye's Space Age Games column reviews Donkey Kong Junior, Donky Kong, Phoenix, and Be an Interplanetary Spy; Randy and Jean-Marc Lofficier interview Roy Scheider about his work in Blue Thunder; Don McGregor interviews actor Robert Vaughn about The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Superman III; Richard Holliss and David McDonnell interview Octopussy's Maud Adams; Steve Swires completes his two-part interview with Mark Hamill, "Life After Star Wars"; part two of a three-part excerpt from David Gerrold's groundbreaking new novel, A Matter for Men, also features an introduction by the author and illustrations by Alex Nino; Ed Naha interviews Lysette Anthony about her acting role in Krull; there's a special Jaws 3-D contest; Randy and Jean-Marc Lofficier interview Something Wicked This Way Comes' star Jason Robards; Steve Swires interviews Cliff Robertson about Charly and Brainstorm; Ed Naha's L.A. Offbeat looks at "Anthony Zerbe: Has Eyebrows, Will Menace"; and Howard Zimmerman's Lastword is on V, the NBC mini-series.

"You could call it a coincidence, but from virtually the instant I exposed the 'Hollywoodgate' scandal, I didn't work out there. ... Now, happily, I'm working again. It all began with Doug Trumbull. He got me started with Brainstorm, and now my telephone is ringing regularly."

--Cliff Robertson, actor, interviewed by Steve Swires: "Cliff Robertson: From Blacklist to Brainstorm -- Sometimes Nice Guys Do Finish First"

To view 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 #72, July 1983: Seventh Anniversary Party

A rather unlikely ad appears near the end of this science-fiction magazine: the movie Porky's II: The Next Day, which is only science-fiction in the sense that it was considered a real motion picture. Starlog also announces two licensed movie magazines it's publishing this summer: the James Bond thriller Octopussy and the Superman III flick.

Starlog #72
100 pages (including covers)
Cover price: $3.95

This extra-page issue features some neat extras, such as the first installment of a three-part excerpt from David Gerrold's A Matter for Men novel, which itself was the first in a series of landmark novels chronicling the invasion of earth by the Chtorr. As always with Gerrold, it's all to give him a platform for discussing his philosophy of life (and one does occasionally get the sense that he spent a little too much time in 1970s-era pop psychology seminars, but what the heck? The Chtorr books are great, and Gerrold has interesting things to say about life). Oh, and because I know you really care: on page 96 of this issue is my second letter ever published in Starlog, in which I say good-bye to recently departed staffer David Hirsch. It just seemed like the thing to do.

The rundown: I guess we've seen the last of the contents-page anniversary collages; at least, there's not one in this issue. Instead, it's a big picture of E.T. In his From the Bridge column, publisher Kerry O'Quinn discusses reaching for the stars; Communications letters include birthday greetings from readers, response to the television debut of Star Trek – The Motion Picture, a brilliant letter praising David Hirsch, and more; Log Entries short news items include Steve Martin's The Man with Two Brains, the fifth annual SF Short Film Search, Norman Jacobs goes to the UK to acquire magazine licensing rights to the Octopussy film, the winners of the Starlog Treasure Hunt Contest, the Disney Channel debuts, and more.

Steve Swires interviews Mark Hamill; Ed Naha's L.A. Offbeat column looks at the making of the special effects for The Right Stuff; Charles Bogle interviews Roger Moore; David Gerrold's A Matter for Men is excerpted, with introductory notes by the author and illustrations by Alex Nino.

In the special full-color anniversary section, there's a photo review of the top SF films of the past year (E.T., Blade Runner, Star Trek II – The Wrath of Khan, Tron, The Dark Crystal, The Thing, The Road Warrior, Airplane II, Conan the Barbarian, and Poltergeist); Robert Greenberger pens a review of science-fiction television of the past year; Greenberger also highlights the top toys of 1983; an unbylined short article begins a three-page look at fantasy art; actress June Lockhart is interviewed by Steve Swires; Ed Naha interviews William Shatner; Charles Bogle interviews Desmond Llewelyn, the actor who plays Q in James Bond films; Robert Greenberger interviews Annette O'Toole about her work in Superman III; Ed Naha profiles Sam Nicholson's Zenon Company, one of the special effects contributors to Star Trek -- The Motion Picture; and Randy and Jean-Marc Lofficier interview the great Ray Bradbury about Something Wicked This Way Comes, which people born after 1990 only know about as a song in one of the Harry Potter movies.

Lenny Kay's Space Age Games column reviews Gorf, Wizard of Wor, Dragonfire, and Countermeasure; James Van Hise interviews Peter Srauss about his work in Spacehunter; four pages of anniversary greetings include everyone from George Takei ("Congratulations on your seven year trek. We're up to Warp Seven and holding steady. All the best wishes") to Alan Dean Foster to Howard Cruse and onward; and Howard Zimerman uses his Lastword column to share a few words about E.T. and the Oscars.

"As I leave the Right Stuff complex and head toward the airport and out of San Francisco for superslick L.A., I chuckle one last time at the vision of the spinning plane and the sterno cans. Madness. Insanity. Wizardry."

--Ed Naha, columnist, L.A. Offbeat: "The Right FX for The Right Stuff"

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

Get Your Star Wars Weather

Just click on it.

The Starlog Project: Starlog #71, June 1983: The Year of the Jedi Continues

The cover date of this issue is June, but because magazines traditionally use a cover date one month ahead of the actual date the issue is on sale (the magazine seems fresher, see), this June issue of Starlog was actually on sale in May, when Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi debuted. Ewoks and all, the movie would be another smash hit for George Lucas and his team. It would also help Starlog feed its audience and circulation.

A number of changes this issue, each of which would have big effects on the magazine's future. First, the cover price is hiked 45 cents. That no doubt helped deal with rising costs, but it also helped the magazine get some fuel as the economy pulled out of the deep early 1980s recession. Second, W.R. Mohalley takes over as the new art director. Mohalley joins Starlog from the now-defunct Warren magazine house (Famous Monsters of Filmland, Creepy, et.al.), and he remains, well, forever -- he's still at Fangoria., the only surviving Starlog publication. Third (though less momentous), Lenny Kaye takes over Bob Martin's duties writing the Space Age Games column.

Starlog #71
74 pages (including covers and unnumbered inside front cover fold-out)
Cover price: $2.95

While describing an issue published two years before #71, I noted in this compendium that we had seen the last 74-page issue for a while, and soon after that, the publishers drastically reduced the amount of color in the magazine. Well, aided by an improving economy and a sharp increase in the cover price, Starlog #71 begins a slow but steady rise; in this year and for a number of years following, we'll see the magazine add pages, color, and features. It's an almost unmitigated rise from here on in, until the magazine hits major turbulence in 2001. But we've got a while before we get there. For now, enjoy this issue, with four extra pages of color, and another two added color pages in the fold-out inside front cover (which is where the two-page posters now go).

The rundown: The editors are probably annoyed at themselves for calling their poster series "Starlog Science Fiction Classics," because it looks weird when they feature the brand-new film Return of the Jedi, as they do this issue. Can't really be a classic if it hasn't even been delivered to most theaters yet. Nonetheless, it's a cool poster (and arguably would have made a better cover photo than the one they used). In his From the Bridge column, publisher Kerry O'Quinn shares a letter from a fan who gets inspiration from science fiction; Communications letters include a correction from William F. Nolan, reader reaction to the double-Bond coverage, an angry letter writer goes after L.Q. Jones and Harlan Ellison, and more; short news items in Log Entries include an update on the third Star Trek movie (to be directed by Leonard Nimoy), three Scandinavian countries bar children from seeing E.T., Strange Invaders producer Walter Coblenz continues his chat from issue #67, and more; and Martha Bonds profiles actor Judson Scott in a two-page Spotlight column.

Steve Swires interviews Jack Schwartzman, producer of the Bond remake Never Say Never Again; Lee Goldberg interviews actor Michael Billington (UFO); James Duward profiles the busy movie prop makers at Modern Props, Inc.; Lenny Kaye kicks off his Space Age Games era with a defense of video game players; Lee Goldberg interviews Dan O'Bannon, who discusses his displeasure with Hollywood's treatment of his work (and, proving that the Starlog editors can identify a great pullquote when they see one, this O'Bannon morsel is highlighted in the article: "It was a perversion to my mother that someone should make money off science fiction and movies. I think she sees me as the equivalent of a successful hitman."); Randy and Jean-Marc Lofficier preview NBC's V; Robert Greenberger interviews Carrie Fisher about the latest -- and her final -- Star Wars film, Return of the Jedi; Lee Goldberg interviews Jedi producer Richard Marquand; in his Soaring column, David Gerrold discusses the choices that make people heroes;  Chris Henderson previews Ray Bradbury's Dinosaur Tales, published by Byron Preiss Visual Publications (the company to which Starlog editor Howard Zimmerman would move in a couple years); Randy and Jean-Marc Lofficier talk with director Jack Clayton about his film adaptation of Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes; Richard Holliss visits the set of the James Bond film Octopussy; Ed Naha's L.A. Offbeat column recounts his talk with Roger Corman; and Howard Zimmerman's Lastword column reviews Isaac Asimov's Foundation's Edge and Arthur C. Clarke's 2010: Odyssey Two (he liked them both, though Asimov's moreso).

"I'm so excited about all the aspects of production and I feel so good about the help and input I'm getting from the people surrounding me. ... We have a very general image of this motion picture -- just a general curve on the canvas on which we're going to paint. ... And I feel totally creative, excited and alive."

--Leonard Nimoy, director, Log Entries: "Leonard Nimoy Takes Command of Star Trek III"

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

Creepy #3 Finally About to Debut

Fangoria has a preview of some of the pages from the next (third) edition of Dark Horse's wonderful Creepy revival.

I still wish Dark Horse would increase the frequency of this title.

The Starlog Project: Starlog #70, May 1983: Can't Make up Our Minds

The cover of Starlog #70 features three different movies, even though I'm sure that what the editors and publishers would have liked to do is feature Return of the Jedi on the cover again. But, as noted in a previous post, the magazine rarely featured the same production on two consecutive covers (E.T.'s belated appearance on #63 and #64 being the sole exception so far, I think). So, if I am making the correct assumption, they had to give themselves a break from Jedi on the cover of #69. But don't worry; Jedi's back on the cover of #71. And #74, 76, and 80. So this really is the Year of the Jedi.

Starlog #70
68 pages (including covers)
Cover price: $2.50

What's a magazine to do when it has three small movies to hawk on the cover of an issue that you still need newsstand buyers to pick up? Split the cover between Space Hunter, Blue Thunder, and Something Wicked This Way Comes. That's one idea. And announce a new contest. That'll do it. And bring back Harlan Ellison!

In his From the Bridge column, Kerry O'Quinn answers a reader's letter critiquing the popularity of mindless SF films in the fan community (O'Quinn prescribes patience and a more tolerant attitude toward other fans); Communications letters include a lengthy response from Harlan Ellison to the recent interview with L.Q. Jones (who adapted Ellison's story into the film A Boy and His Dog), reader reactions to the two Bonds in Starlog #68, a pro-Nimoy letter from Japan, and more; Log Entries includes short items such as a calendar of 1983 genre movies, news of a delay in Star Trek III (which concludes with the line: "At present, the film's only official working title is Star Trek III, not In Search of Spock"), Harlan Ellison reports that he's handed in his draft of the script for Bug Jack Barron, Brainstorm resumes production more than a year after Natalie Wood's death, and more; a reader contest asks readers to predict who "the other" is in Return of the Jedi.

James Van Hise previews Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone, a 3-D movie starring Molly Ringwald; Ed Naha interviews the immortal Christopher Lee, who's starring in the bizarre Return of Captain Invincible; Lee Goldberg interviews Michael Sloan, the writer and producer of The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E.; Ed Naha looks at the special effects of the spoof Airplane II; Jeff Szalay previews Something Wicked This Way Comes, adapted by Ray Bradbury from his own story; Randy and Jean-Marc Lofficier make their first of many appearances in the pages of Starlog with their report on Blue Thunder, speaking with director John Badham; Bob Martin's Space Age Games column presents "The Great Galactic Shoot-Out, Part Two"; Ed Naha's L.A. Offbeat column explains the business and hype of selling paperback books, such as his own The Suicide Plague); rock journalist Lisa Robinson (who would be a major contributor to future Starlog sister magazine Rock Video) interviews Blondie's Deborah Harry about her starring role in David Cronenberg's Videodrome; it's part three of David Hutchison's tour of EPCOT Center, in which he drinks a lot of beer and sings Bavarian song in the German portion of the park; David Gerrold serves up "GLOP," some leftover ideas of his (hey, that's by his admission); and Howard Zimmerman's Lastword column says good-bye to staffer David Hirsch.

"Having affection for L.Q. Jones is a lot like getting fond of a stammer you can't correct. No one stands in more delight at the film he made of my story 'A Boy and His Dog' than I (well, delight at about 97% of what he did). ...[T]he one aspect of the film version of 'A Boy and His Dog' that I have despised since I saw the rough cut long before the film was released is the last line. It is not the last line of the story, and corrupts the entire film, to my way of thinking. It is this last line, of L.Q. invention, that causes the justified backlash by women." 

--Harlan Ellison, writer, Communications

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