A Tron 1982 Flashback -- in Japanese

As we prepare for the arrival of the sequel to Disney's 1982 Tron film, here's a blast from the past.

For more Tron magazine covers (including the original and the sequel movie), see newer blog post.

Michael Specter on Deniers of Science

Here's a note from DoorQ about TED Conference speaker Michael Specter, who has important stuff to say about the people who deny reality.

This is important stuff. So here's a link to audio from a speech he made on the same theme to The Commonwealth Club in November 2009.

John Cleese on the Joys of Extremism

This might be more than 20 years old, but it sure is relevant today.

The Starlog Project: Starlog #69, April 1983: Multiple Jedis

A few magazine insider notes on this issue: Starlog either switched printers or at least changed the paper stock it uses. Either way, the issue plumps up a bit more (that might sound strange; I mean it looks a bit less skinny, though the page count is the same as the previous month) and the uncoated (non-glossy) paper used for the black-and-white pages seems ... silkier. A bit smoother. Unfortunately, some of the black-and-white photos print very dark on this new paper.

Okay, so that doesn't interest you. How about this: The Return of the Jedi cover photo once again is not sufficiently tall to fill the entire cover, so black bands are added at the top of the image and at the very bottom of the image, as the magazine has done a few times in the past.

Still not interested? Okay, then there's this: This issue, Starlog announces the release of the first edition of the Starlog Poster Magazine. "10 GIANT POSTERS" shouts the ad on page 25. There are many exclamation points in the ad, too. But it was a science-fiction geek-out moment for many of us back then, because it did deliver a ton of cool posters in one package. Starlog would go on to publish quite a few editions of the poster magazines, including a series of poster magazines for its horror movie sister mag, Fangoria. This month Starlog also releases the second volume of its Starlog Scrapbook photo magazine, featuring E.T. on the cover.

Starlog #69
68 pages (including covers)
Cover price: $2.50

Now that the Star Wars sequel has finally been definitely named Return -- not Revenge -- of the Jedi, the fun can begin, as can Starlog's coverage of the movie, in earnest.

The rundown: Kerry O'Quinn probably was very pleased with the title for his From the Bridge column this month: "Out of My Drawers ...". But it's not what it sounds like; he instead is reaching into his drawers -- stop that line of thought right now! -- and sharing some of the newspaper clippings he's had stored in his desk drawers. Communications letters include Tron director Steven Lisberger, who takes the time to respond to reader reaction to his film, and other letters include support for a teacher facing censorship, thoughts on The Dark Crystal, and more; short news items in Log Entries include news of upcoming 3-D movies (Jaws 3-D, Space Hunter, and more), a peek at Blue Thunder, a profile of Matthew DeMeritt (who helped perform inside the E.T. suit for some later-discarded footage), Ralph Bakshi and Frank Frazetta are teaming up to make the fantasy film Fire and Ice, Famous Monsters of Filmland (and Creepy, Eerie, Vampiralla, and 1994) have ceased publication, and more.

Jill Bauman provides a photo display from the Eighth Annual World Fantasy Convention; Ed Naha interviews Anthony Daniels about Return of the Jedi; Lee Goldberg interviews Tom Mankiewicz, about scripting Bond films, working on Superman, and involvement in an upcoming Batman movie; Ed Naha explores the controversy over the nuclear holocaust telefilm The Day After; Susan Adamo returns to the pages of Starlog to visit the studio where The Empire Strikes Back is being recorded for public radio; James Van Hise interviews James Kahn about his work in E.T. and on Poltergeist; Robert Greenberger interviews Jedi producer Howard Kazanjian; David Houston contributes "A Walking Tour: Part Two -- Welcome to EPCOT Center"; in her final Fan Scene column, Bjo Trimble says good-bye, her column a victim of her burgeoning interests elsewhere and O'Quinn's concern that the magazine had too many columnists; a three-page photo spread (in black-and-white) goes behind the scenes of the making of The Dark Crystal; David Gerrold announces an essay contest for Starlog readers to write his column; John Dods follows up his interview with Tim Hildebrandt by profiling estranged brother Greg Hildebrandt this issue; Bob Martin's Space Age Games throws some red meat to the SF crowd, looking at space war games; and editor Howard Zimmerman wraps it all up in his Lastword column with a farewell to Bjo Trimble.

"Nobody gets an easy ride in this picture. 3PO has moments of almost psychological tension in this film, moments where he's not sure what's happening or why. He also gets to be something that he always wanted to be. You know the way some people dream of becoming movie stars? Well, 3PO has a goal like that as well. In this movie, he finally achieves it."

--Anthony Daniels, interviewed by Ed Naha: "Anthony Daniels: The Man in the Golden Mask"

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 #68, March 1983: Double 007

Starlog bounces back pretty handily after last month's embarrassment of a blurry cover photo. This month, not only is the photo crisp and clear, but they've cheekily merged two Bond images -- in the days before Photoshop -- into one, thus making it look as if Roger Moore and Sean Connery are standing together (with Moore pointing his gun at his predecessor). Nice job.

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

Bob Martin ("Uncle Bob" to his readers and fans), the editor of sister magazine Fangoria, becomes a regular contributor to Starlog this month with his Space Age Games column, wherein we find out that the horror movie mag editor is a video game addict.

The rundown: Kerry O'Quinn recounts some of his "Tribbleations" with longtime columnist David Gerrold, who called him following O'Quinn's Spielberg and Ultimate Fantasy editorials to remind him that readers look to this publisher for positive, not negative, ideas; Communications letters include responses to David Gerrold's column about fan criticisms of Star Trek (with a further response from the author), some final (?) thoughts on the E.T. controversy, Norman Spinrad's reaction to reader criticisms of his Blade Runner review, and more; Log Entries short items include first news of David Cronenberg's Videodrome, a look at the life of Robert E. Howard, Revenge of the Jedi is officially changed to Return of the Jedi, filmmaker Verna Fields passes away, and more.

Don McGregor interviews Octopussy director John Glen; Ed Naha's L.A. Offbeat column chats with director L.Q. Jones about A Boy and His Dog, his famed film adaptation of Harlan Ellison's novella; Quest remembers the late Starfleet officer Spock with a collection of poetry and short fiction from Donna R. Bryant, Patricia Keen, Cathy Palmer, and Donna L. Harvey; Lee Goldberg interviews Richard Maibaum ("007's Puppetmaster") about Octupussy and various Bonds (and Robert Greenberger contributes a sidebar looking at the original Bond novels by Ian Fleming); David Gerrold gives his action plan for answering letters, including his use of canned paragraphs (a sidenote: I once wrote to Gerrold, and he was nice enough to reply; I'm sure the letter contained all or mostly canned text, but it was still nice that he responded; I'm sure he had plenty of work to occupy his time); Bob Martin's Space Age Games column debuts, and he pits E.T. against the Smurfs -- what more could you want? Well, probably Predator vs. the Smurfs; Bill Cotter examines the TV series Wizards and Warriors; Howard Schenkman visits the set of Sean Connery's Bond flick, Never Say Never Again; Bjo Trimble talks about her SF-notable-filled birthday party; Martha J. Bonds interviews Star Trek producer Harve Bennett; David Hutchison contributes the first of a multi-part report on his visit to Disney's new EPCOT Center in Walt Disney World; and Howard Zimmerman explains how James Bond fits into a science-fiction magazine.

"Though all of the pavillions are designed to appeal to the 'imagination,' they direct the imagination along specific themes -- land, energy, motion and so on. Imagination [pavillion] explores what might be called the 'tools' of the imagination -- color, sight, sound, shape ... an appeal to the senses, and how imagination harnesses these tools into its purest expression -- art."

--David Hutchson, science & SFX editor, "A Walking Tour: Part One -- Welcome to EPCOT Center"

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

The Starlog Project: Starlog #67, February 1983: Not-So-Superman

Superman returns to the cover of Starlog with this issue.

Unfortunately, it looks like Bob Guccione filmed Supes through a heavily vaselined lens. Or someone took the photo during an earthquake. Or the photographer snapped the shot right after a nuclear weapon exploded, with the radiation and heat waves making clear sight impossible. In other words, the cover photo is awful. Blurry. Unclear. Maybe they had a nice Ansel Adams picture all set to go, and at the last minute, Annie Leibovitz calls and a bidding war ensues for some high-quality photos of a science-fiction celebrity. Millions of dollars are bandied back and forth between the publishers and the representatives for Leibovitz and Adams. A huge brouhaha follows; the three parties begin fighting -- first arguing, then physically assaulting each other, finally resorting to explosives. Things blow up. Smoke and grit waft over the scene.

THAT's when they took the cover photo.

Starlog #67
68 pages (including covers)
Cover price: $2.50

This issue is also notable for a good first: the first contribution by Lee Goldberg, a writer who would go on to a notable career in Hollywood himself. Here we get his first article, an interview with "The Man Who Killed Spock!" (that's Jack Sowards, for you non-Trekkies).

The rundown: In his From the Bridge column, Kerry O'Quinn reviews the past year (1982) at Starlog (including his sort-of meeting Paul McCartney when the singer was brought around by the editor of Country Rhythms); Communications letters include reader reviews of the reviewers (from the special movie-reviews issue, #64), a note that the magazine is changing the name of Ed Naha's column from Hollywood Babylon to L.A. Offbeat because it sounds like a legal trigger-happy author -- the appropriately named Kenneth Anger -- wrote a book by the name Hollywood Babylon (and for heavens sake, Mr. Anger was apparently not bright enough to understand that the use of the title in a different medium would actually only help him, but what the heck), a smattering of further reader comments on the Spielberg-Starlog-E.T. imbroglio, and more; and Log Entries short news items include a report on the CBS sword-and-sorcery show Wizards and Warriors, Leonard Nimoy's Lights! Camera! Action!, a plan to film the second trilogy (the first trilogy?) of the nine-(yes, nine) film Star Wars series in reverse order, Forrest J. Ackerman resigns from Famous Monsters of Filmland, and more.

Andrew Mayfair sorta spoofs the spoof Airplane II: The Sequel, with a fake interview with Steve McCrosky; in Space Age Games, Bob Martin surveys the computers that support video gaming (we're talking Mattel Intellivision, Atari VCS 2600, and that sort); Lee Goldberg interviews Star Trek II screenwriter Jack Sowards; Ed Naha's L.A. Offbeat column looks at the Hollywood writing sausage machine; Don McGregor talks with Steven Lisberger, the director of Disney's Tron; the two-page poster in the centerfold is E.T -- The Extraterrestrial; Robert Greenberger talks with Superman III executive producer Ilya Salkind and producer Pierre Spengler about why the heck they put Richard Pryor in the film (plus a sidebar that looks at the "facelift" for the Superman comic books); Bjo Trimble's Fan Scene explores the Fandom Directory; Steve Swires visits the set of Strange Invaders; Jeff Szalay and E.P. Dowd look at Warlords of the 21st Century (a.k.a. Battletruck); David Hutchison looks at how the Genesis Cave (a.k.a. the Eden Cave) was created in Star Trek II -- The Wrath of Khan; David Gerrold's Soaring looks at violence and games in Star Trek ("The Fan Who Molded Himself" -- give yourself credit if you get the pun); and editor Howard Zimmerman wraps it all up in his Lastword column with a look at some SF books news, and he welcomes aboard new managing editor David McDonnell.

"The changes that do bother Sowards were those made before the film began shooting. In Sowards' final draft, turned in to Harve Bennett on April 9, 1981 (two days before the writers' strike), Khan was depicted as a 'mystic' rather than, as Sowards puts it, 'Attila the Hun.' 'One of the things I had with the mystic approach -- which I liked better than the way it was done in the film -- was that Khan actually met Kirk face-to-face in the Genesis Cave,' Sowards says. 'I like that better than the two always being off in space together making phone calls.'"

--Lee Goldberg, writer, "Jack Sowards: The Man Who Killed Mr. Spock"

To view previous Starlog issue descriptions, click on "Starlog Internet Archive Project" in the keywords below.

The Story Behind the Hitler Downfall Video Meme

Those amateur re-workings of the great Constantin Film WWII drama The Downfall (Der Untergang) have become wildly popular, according to an interesting exploration on BBC News. The Beeb notes that a Constantin Film exec says the company is somewhat ambivalent toward the parodies:

"We as a corporation have a bit of an ambivalent view of it. On the one hand we are proud the picture has such a huge fanbase and that people are using it for parody. On the other hand we are trying to protect the artists." As such Constantin Film has caused many of the parodies to be removed from YouTube and elsewhere.

Magazine Campaign Hits the Streets

I was nudged over the weekend to take a look at the ad in the issue of Entertainment Weekly I recently plugged. The ad is from a group of large magazine publishers, and it is part of a campaign to combat the knee-jerk assumptions -- very wrong assumptions, as it turns out -- that the rise of social media and the maturing of the internet means the death of print periodicals.

It's got all the great info that's been missing from so many of the online comments who keep posting remarks about why-don't-they-just-shut-up-and-die on various magazine sites. Magazine readership isn't dropping; in fact, it's increased in past decade. Best of all, the internet and print are not locked in a zero-sum game, in which one side's gain is the other side's loss. Both types of media are growing.

Gotta help get that word out.

Zonker's Heavy Metal Online Compendium

I heard from Zonker recently about my ongoing Starlog Project, which is compiling a list of images, articles, and commentary on all of the issues of Starlog. He mentioned that he is doing something similar for Heavy Metal, one of the great magazines of the past three decades.

Check out his Heavy Metal online compendium. (And see the current Heavy Metal happenings here.) As much as I enjoyed the science-fiction and fantasy stories of those early issues, I think I have always appreciated the incredibly creative covers.

The Starlog Project: Starlog #66, January 1983: The Dark Crystal Arrives

A new face shows up in the Starlog offices and assumes the title of managing editor with this issue: David McDonnell, a contributor to Comics Scene who would now stick with Starlog until the bitter end in 2009, the vast majority of that time as the title's editor. Oh, one other thing: They've finally made Starlog a registered trademark.

Starlog #66
68 pages (including covers)
Cover price: $2.50

The E.T. controversy continues this issue, with readers responding en masse to the magazine's complaints about how it was treated by Steven Spielberg's office and denied materials to cover the movie.

The rundown: Kerry O'Quinn uses the example of SF fans behind the Iron Curtain to rally science-fiction fans to a commitment to freedom of thought and action; Communications letters include a slew of readers criticizing or praising Kerry O'Quinn's issue #63 editorial about Spielberg's treatment of the magazine and its readers, responses to recent reviews in the magazine of Poltergeist and Blade Runner, and a letter from Leonard Nimoy about the Ultimate Fantasy debacle; Log Entries short news items include a preview of genre films expected in 1983, a one-act play starring Mark Lenard and Walter Koenig, a possible Lost in Space movie, merchandising The Dark Crystal, a new Gerry Anderson television series (Terrahawks), and more.

David Hutchison talks with producer Gary Kurtz about The Dark Crystal, the Jim Henson fantasy; Ed Naha's Hollywood Babylon column looks at -- and gets beyond -- the B.S. flung around the science-fiction film promotional world; Chris Henderson interviews the great Frank Herbert about his work and Hollywood adaptations of SF; Robert Greenberger interviews producer Frank Marshall about the Indiana Jones movies, The Last Picture Show, E.T., and more; Howard Zimmerman interviews Brian Froud, the fantasy artist whose designs helped create The Dark Crystal; Bill Cotter looks at The Time Tunnel telefilms; so Ed Naha wasn't the only one looking at B.S. this issue, David Gerrold also examines "The B.S. Filter" in his Soaring column; Susan Adamo recounts her trip to Chicago to cover Chicon IV and how she ended up with Kerry O'Quinn's suitcase; Ed Naha looks at Twice Upon a Time, an animated film from George Lucas and Alan Ladd Jr.; Bjo Trimble recounts the experience of Omacon-2; Robert Greenberger reviews the box office performance of genre films in the previous summer; and in his Lastword column, editor Howard Zimmerman presents his fourth annual Zimmerman Awards (including Most Unintentional Laughs: Conan).

"And so, time after time, you see quotes like: 'Well, we like to think that, despite the fact that we spent $40 million on effects, Planet of the Runaway Rocketships is a movie about people.' (Translation: 104 minutes of exhaust effects, 12 minutes of dialogue -- consisting largely of the phrase 'Look out!')"

--Ed Naha, columnist, Hollywood Babylon: "Beauty & the Business"

To view previous Starlog issue descriptions, click on "Starlog Internet Archive Project" in the keywords below.