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.

What If: A Silent Star Wars (Before the Talkies)

Before the Wookie-Talkies, that is. Here is a farther nifty reimagining of The Empire Strikes Back, done as if it were a silent movie:



And here's another silent Star Wars, though it uses bits from episodes IV, V, and VI, so it's more of a video montage. But still fun:

Get Back to the Point

Note the image above. That's from the homepage of USA Today (at least at mid-day August 25, 2010). The main story is about a film (a bad enough omen, but that's not at issue here), The Social Network. But the story that the newspaper decides to tell (again, as its main story) is about how the company's "brand" might be affected by the film.

First of all, I don't care. Facebook is what it is: a way-overhyped social network that exists to connect people and mine the hell out of their information for commercial gain. It is inevitable that someone would try to make money by trying to make Facebook sound like it has an interesting story. (And I am not sure that it does; the groan-inducing previews are so over-the-top melodramatic that at first I thought I was seeing a parody, then I began to grow a bit horrified as I realized that people really thought a film about spoiled rich boys at Harvard getting richer was a story with which all Americans could identify.)

Whatever. Just become my Facebook friend, okay?

My real complaint is with this type of journalism, represented by USA Today's report. Why are we supposed to care about Facebook's balance sheet? Why is that the most important thing about this silly movie? Good lord, why is it the most important news thing of the day?

It's not just USA Today and Facebook. Sports journalists do it all the time. Athlete So-and-So says something racist/misogynistic/criminal or is filmed doing something racist/misogynistic/criminal, and faster than you can say, Who is this guy and why should I care? we get the news stories about how this will hurt his ability to negotiate a new contract with the sports team that was daft enough to hire him in the first place. Or how it will affect his sponsorship deals, Jesus be praised.

Oh, entertainment journalists do it, as well. Actor So-and-So says something (or screams it on a secretly recorded phone) that is racist/misogynistic/criminal, and we have to endure not intelligent discussions about So-and-So's pathology, but rather easy-to-report "news" about how this could hurt So-and-So's box office or ability to get financing for his next movie.

These journalists who do this are missing the point. I know America is often one big get-rich-quick scheme, and half of the population would sell their spouse into slavery if it increased the odds of their getting a discount on Google stock or whatever. But journalists are supposed to have some news judgment, and they should recognize that, if stories with these angles are valid at all, they should come very late in the news cycle and be given low billing.

Because in the end, it just is not going to affect you or me one bit if Athlete So-and-So makes $14 million rather than $22 million next year. It won't affect us, it shouldn't affect us, and we shouldn't have stories pitched at us as if there is some unspoken agreement among all Americans that we should automatically put the monetary success of famous people ahead of their crimes or even their professional performance.

Family Kidnaps, Beats Gay Brother

This would be a family about which one would want to think twice before letting them know your sexual orientation. The Jerusalem Post reports about a young man who moved from his village to Tel Aviv to escape his family, but the family came after him nonetheless, kidnapping him off the street, taking him out of town, beating him and holding him for 12 hours before the police rescued him and arrested the kidnappers.

The brothers wanted to force him to return to the village and act "normal." If they were acting normal, then the world's better off that the one brother remains gay.

I just hope he doesn't invite them to his wedding.

Terror of the Undead: My Filmography

Terror of the Undead. The mere title of this 30-year-old independent American horror film is enough to make older genre fans' eyes mist over with fond memories. Where were they in the summer of 1980 (or somewhere around then) when this film was crafted by a bunch of young teenagers in Manitowoc, Wisconsin?

Just like the hundreds of film vets who got their starts working for B-movie king Roger Corman, Terror of the Undead provided the training ground and launchpad for such modern film legends as mmmmbbllee mummble mummblle and mummble mmrrmerr mummble. This movie is a great example of what art can be created if enough talent is deployed, along with blood, sweat, tears, and about 15 minutes of pre-production planning. Just like you witnessed with the guerilla filmmaking techniques used by The Blair Witch Project, you'll be amazed at the shaky camera work (accomplished using the pre-digital effects technique known as we didn't know how to hold the camera steady).

The acting is, if I may say so myself, sublime. I was honored at this point in my junior high school career to be offered the lead role of "the reporter" in Terror of the Undead. I had been dissatisfied with the scripts being sent to me, and I was on the verge of seeking new representation when the Terror opportunity presented itself, and I recognized it immediately as the career-changing role it was. (Seriously, career-changing. I'm now a magazine editor.)

As I told the Actors Studio's James Lipton, I've never gone in for that old-fashioned method acting stuff. For me, it's enough to know the camera is on and that I remember I'm supposed to look (a) pensive, (b) unemotional, or (c) expressionless. Though I was beaten out at the Oscars that year (damn you, Dustin Hoffman!), I think the industry appreciated my "new-wave" approach to fleshing out and humanizing "the reporter."

Go ahead, watch the film. When you see me, I'm sure you'll immediately say, "Oh, wow, you had a full head of hair back then." No, no. I was a bald 12-year-old, too, but I made you believe that I had a full head of hair. That's called acting.

Watch the entire film – free of commercials or film industry censorship!!! – here.

The Starlog Project: Starlog #163, February 1991: Harry & the Hendersons

Does anyone remember the short-lived TV series Harry & the Hendersons? Did you know that Scott Baio was one of the directors of this show’s episodes? Yes? No?

Doesn’t matter. The syndicated series, which was based on a 1987 movie of the same name starring John Lithgow, lasted 72 episodes before being shown the door. Whether you liked or disliked this show, it must still cause you alarm that ALF lasted a entire season longer than Harry & the Hendersons. Just pointing that out.

This issue Starlog publishes 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 171,137 (up from the previous year's 160,739, continuing a slow multi-year increase), including the number of paid subscriptions of 9,567 (also up, from 8,978 last year).

Starlog #163
76 pages (including covers)
Cover price: $4.50

Correct me if I'm wrong: Technically, Kevin Peter Hall has a first-and-only record-setting achievement this month. As the actor-in-the-monster-suit for both Harry & the Hendersons and the Predator movie, he appears twice on this cover, as different characters. (Note the Predator's pretty face in the upper right-hand corner of the cover. No, not the left; Gates McFadden was in fact played by Gates McFadden.)

The rundown: Kevin Peter Hall, who for a while was the go-to guy for tall-creature acting, is featured on the cover in his harry Harry (sans Hendersons) guise; and a blast from the past – E.T. – is on the contents page; the Communications section is kicked off with a long letter urging science-fiction fans to take environmentalism seriously, while other readers show how seriously they take Star Trek: The Next Generation, Lost in Space, and even android definitions, while Mike Fisher’s Creature Profile features King Kong; and David McDonnell’s Medialog column recounts the many failed efforts to resurrect Alien Nation.

Kyle Counts interviews Lost in Space star Bill Mumy, who discusses that series as well as his efforts to create a reunion show; David Hutchison’s Videolog column notes the releases of Total Recall, Back to the Future Part III, and other genre titles; Duane S. Arnott contributes his first article to Starlog, an interview with actor Robert Brown, who portrayed Lazarus in the original Star Trek episode “The Alternative Factor”; Desire Gonzales talks with actor Ritch Brinkley, whose role as Beauty & the Beast’s William the Cook was a bit of a misnomer, because “you never saw me cook so much as a piece of bread” (he also discusses his role as Carl the cameraman on Murphy Brown); T.W. Knowles II contributes a Q&A with novelist Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, who uses themes in her books from her time as a nurse in the Vietnam War; and Ian Spelling checks in with actress Gates McFadden, who discusses returning to Star Trek: The Next Generation (and who appears to be as clueless to her exit-and-return as is the audience).

The Fan Network pages include Patrick Daniel O’Neill’s report on the BBC’s attempt to recover lost video of Doctor Who episodes, plus Lia Pelosi’s directory of Doctor Who fan clubs; Marc Shapiro interviews “The Man in the Monster Suits,” Kevin Peter Hall, who talks about Harry & the Hendersons and Predator 2; Jean Airey talks with director and producer Vere Lorrimer about his efforts to continue and then kill Blake’s 7; Industrial Light & Magic effects supervisor Dennis Muren talks to John Stanley about creating special effects for Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, The Abyss, and others; in part two of Steve Swires’ interview with director Val Guest, the 79-year-old Guest talks about working with Woody Allen, among others; Dan Yakir speaks with director Adrian Lyne about Jacob’s Ladder; Kerry O’Quinn’s From the Bridge column sort-of reviews Michael Crichton’s book Travels; and in his Liner Notes column, editor David McDonnell lists the winners of a number of recent give-away contests.

“William Shatner is a sweetheart. He loves to laugh. Not the stiff, forced Nimoy guffaw, but a man who sees the odd part of life. Humor is his friend. He seems to be poking fun at himself more than others. A very likable fellow. As the intellectual type, Leonard Nimoy was somewhat removed, much like his acting, although a decent man of conscience.”

–Robert Brown, actor, interviewed by Duane S. Arnott: “Lazarus Rises Again”

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

Shooting Ourselves in the Foot with "Ground Zero Mosque" Hysteria

The Los Angeles Times reports on the worldwide surprise and disappointment regarding the United States, as people around the planet watch the bigoted demonstrations and the inflammatory rhetoric over the attempts to build an Islamic community center and mosque within a few blocks of the World Trade Center. The Jerusalem Post reports on the fundamentalist passion being aroused by the opponents of the center, mixed with (and sometimes led by) the families of the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

There are a lot of things on which I'm more than happy to give my political opponents the benefit of the doubt, to at least assume they mean something other than what they are saying, to recognize that – when you take away the cameras and just talk to someone with an opposing view– I sometimes come away respecting them even if I still strongly disagree with them.

Not on this topic, though. Anyone with even a fourth-grade understanding of freedom of religion, of freedom of conscience, of a Sunday-school understanding of fair play and love of your fellow man – anyone with those basics of social rules can easily think themselves out of the box in which the Fox political agitators have put this country.

This is all sound and fury, anyway. The Islamic community center & mosque project is slated to cost $100 million, and backers of it have raised – get your pitchforks and poorly spelled protest signs ready – a whopping ... well, pretty much nothing. Notes an AOL News report, the developers still have to raise about $100 million for the $100 million project. Bake sale, anyone?

Verbal bomb-throwers like Sarah Palin have been making badly spelled demands that Muslims repudiate (I assume that's what she meant with refudiate, but one can never be sure with Palin) extremist versions of their religion.

Well, then, she and her ilk should welcome this Islamic center, because it is being planned by people who want to do exactly that. They should also examine the good work countries like Jordan are doing in re-educating militants and promoting a more peaceful Islam. But even knowing about such things apparently takes the effort of reading newspapers or even Googling, so why do it? If it conflicts with your personal beliefs, then it's not worth reading, for these folks.

And that's why I don't respect the views of the people making anti-Islam and anti-Muslim (and anti-religious freedom and thereby anti-American) statements. They haven't done the slightest bit of work to educate themselves, and therefore they don't deserve to take up national air time.

The Starlog Project: Starlog #162, January 1991: LeVar Burton in the Spotlight

Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Geordi La Forge is one of the characters that started out on that show in a relatively ignored status, but who grew and grew as the show went on, the cast evolved, and as actor LeVar Burton proved he had the acting chops to be more than a navigator saying, “Yes, Captain!” when told to “Engage!”

Worf’s role also grew dramatically throughout ST:TNG (and Deep Space Nine). It makes you figure that Denise Crosby was way too impatient to be complaining about a lack of opportunity with her Tasha Yar character in the middle of the first year. Clearly, her character would have expanded and matured and gotten her day in the sun.

A little magazine business talk: This is the second issue Starlog has published since increasing its cover price (from $3.95 to $4.50). It doesn’t add pages (yet; that’s coming), but it does add one color to its black-and-white pages (the non-glossy paper pages). So these pages are (in publishing lingo) B&W +1. It’s a nice addition, though Starlog – as Starlog is wont to do – overdoes it, larding many of these pages with the extra color (which changes each issue, sometimes a light green, sometimes a blue, sometimes – eek – a yellow).

It’s kind of interesting that the magazine added this on the second issue with the higher price. Usually, you add it on the first issue (or sometimes the last issue of the lower price), so the reader isn’t ever left with that feeling of shelling out more money and getting nothing for it. Who knows; maybe there was a mixup in the executive suite of Starlog and they raised the cover price before they had all their ducks in a row. But even if the addition of color is a delayed improvement, it’s still an improvement. And in a few issues, they’ll even throw in four more pages, so get out your party dress!

Starlog #162
76 pages (including covers)
Cover price: $4.50

Some classified ads are just more interesting than others. Case in point: “AT LAST, A guide you can buy about a gravity driven mother ship. Write for free information ...”

The rundown: LeVar Burton as Geordi La Forge is the cover man; meanwhile, a somewhat meaner character, the Predator, is featured on the contents page. Communications letters rip apart RoboCop 2, genre journalist Paul Mandell gives an extended expert response to Steve Swires’ interview with Ray Harryhausen’s producing partner Charles Schneer (in Starlogs #150-152), plus Mike Fisher’s Creature Profile comic features The Ymir; and David McDonnell’s Medialog column informs us of planned sequels to Moontrap, Tales from the Darkside: The Movie, Beastmaster, and The Terror Within.

Marc Shapiro interviews LeVar Burton about his role as the chief engineer on Star Trek: The Next Generation (Burton notes, “Making Georgie Chief Engineer and moving him to another part of the ship was great because it gave him a responsibility that’s integral to each and every story”); David Hutchison’s Videolog column notes the latest genre video releases, including the apparently much-hated Robocop 2; William B. Thompson profiles writer Robert Jordan (The Great Hunt, The Eye of the World, and others); Steve Swires talks with 79-year-old director Val Guest about the Quatermass films and other productions in his career; Marc Shapiro interviews actor Kent McCord, who discusses Predator 2, Adam 12, and Galactica 1980 (including how the show morphed from a planned riff on The Day the Earth Stood Still to a show in which alien kids played baseball); Robert Pegg talks to screenwriter Caroline Thompson about Edward Scissorhands; and the Fan Network pages include Lia Pelosi’s directory of fan publications and clubs (this is your chance to get in touch with West Germany’s Knight Rider fan club).

Marc Shapiro profiles Quantum Leap star Dean Stockwell (“I always liked the idea that Al was the equivalent of a desk sergeant who sends the other cops out to arrest the bad guys”); Bill Warren previews She-Wolf, a TV series from former Starlog correspondents Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin (with a sidebar in which the two discuss writing for Beauty & the Beast); Dan Yakir gets Patrick Swayze to discuss his role as Ghost’s ghost; Mark Phillips interviews actor Liam Sullivan, who guest starred in the original Star Trek episode “Plato’s Stepchildren” (which featured the first interracial kiss on slow-to-the-gate American television); continuing the magazine’s coverage of the 1960’s TV series Land of the Giants, Mark Phllips profiles actor Don Matheson (with a sidebar chat with Giants writer Esther Mitchell); After he made his mark as Benny in L.A. Law, Larry Drake starred as the villain in Darkman, which he discusses with Kyle Counts; in his From the Bridge column, Kerry O’Quinn goes back home for a Texas-sized Star Trek convention, including taking George Takei out for bar-b-que; and David McDonnell’s Liner Notes column tells us about the revived Starlog Festivals.

“The last sequence of the film was the confrontation with the creature in Westminster Abbey. It was imperative that Jack [Warner] – who had been right through the picture as Inspector Lomax – was in that final scene. Yet, the night before we shot it, the assistant director told me, ‘You can’t have Jack Warner tomorrow. [Producer] Tony Hinds won’t pay his salary for the day.’ I said, ‘You must be joking. It’s the last scene in the film. This man has tracked down the creature through the whole movie. He is the one person who must be there.’ ‘Tony isn’t going to pay for him,’ the assistant director said. ‘He’s off the pay list.’ I told him, ‘You go to Tony, and tell him I will personally pay Jack’s salary for the day. He has to be on set tomorrow.’”
–Val Guest, director, interviewed by Steve Swires: “The Quatermass Conductor”

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

Fun with Blagojevich

When former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was charged with a zillion corruption charges, I told some colleagues that I wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't convicted. The reason was that, in the absence of a powerful new political force in Illinois, there would be few people willing to testify or convict a governor for shaking down the state's businesses and citizens. Those shake-downs have been occurring for too long, and they simply are seen as the way business is done in that state.

I don't like corrupt politicians – in fact, it annoys me deeply in my Wisconsin-bred heart and soul – but I simply don't think Illinois is going to go through a great awakening of political and social reform that will make the state government operate in a transparent and clean manner. (BTW, if you want a fascinating and at times jaw-dropping story of Chicago corruption and amusing reform movements, check out the book Sin  in the Second City.) Don't forget that Blago himself got into the governor's chair by campaigning as an anti-corruption reformer.

It's how Illinois operates. It's how Chicago operates. And the fact is that I think most Chicagoans and most Illinoisans figure the system runs pretty well. You know, you never want to see legislation or sausage being made. Chicago's got its problems (crime is stubbornly bad, for example), but it's a great city with so much going for it. Take away the current Great Recession-related financial problems, and Illinois doesn't have too much to complain about.

So for all of us good-government types, this should be horribly depressing. And yet, I'm not depressed.

I can't quite explain why. Perhaps living in Chicago in the 1990s corrupted my reformist's heart. But whatever's the case, I make this prediction: Little will change in Chicago locally or Illinois statewide in terms of how business is done with the government. Some new rules and laws will be put into place. They'll be adhered to in word if not in deed. And the state will continue sending a high percentage of governors to jail.

Fun fact: The lawyer for a 1920s Illinois governor charged with corruption – who was himself a former governor – argued that Illinois governors enjoyed the divine right of kings. Laughable as that is, was Blagojevich's in-your-face legal counter-offensive any less brash?

Can Cheese Shrink? Well, the Moon Can

No doubt, your kids woke you up this morning when they ran into your room shrieking, "The moon is shrinking, Daddy/Mommy/court-appointed-guardian!" And you, as always, reached over to grab the alarm clock to see what friggin' time it is, accidentally knocking the empty bottle of vodka off the night table.

Frankly, you're an unfit parent. But that's not what's important here. The fact is, your kids are correct. They're not the crazy little sugar-powered liars you've always taken them to be. (Seriously, you need parenting counseling.)

The news today is that our planet's one and only moon is shrinking. The Bad Astronomy blog at Discovery explains why and how. But here's what you need to know (consider this the executive summary, you lazy parents): It's not going to change your view of the moon, should you ever look up into the sky anyway; also, the moon isn't going to completely disappear, the Associated Press helpfully informs us.

If you don't trust those liberal media to tell you what's really going on with our only natural satellite, then you might want to go right to the source of Big Space, NASA itself. The space agency tells us: "Newly discovered cliffs in the lunar crust indicate the moon shrank globally in the geologically recent past and might still be shrinking today, according to a team analyzing new images from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft. ... The moon cooled off as it aged, and scientists have long thought the moon shrank over time as it cooled, especially in its early history. The new research reveals relatively recent tectonic activity connected to the long-lived cooling and associated contraction of the lunar interior." Translation: The moon is shrinking.

So read the complete articles if you want the details, or if you want to be able to hold an informed conversation with your children, for once.


Photo detail credit: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University/Smithsonian