Catch a Falling Starlog
/Ah, Starlog magazine. Before the internet, where else could geeks, nerds, and dweebs of every colour and creed get together to share their opinions on whether or not a Federation Starship could take out Darth Vader’s Star Destroyer? By the way, I’m not acting superior here—I usually gave my money to Fangoria, which was even more shunned by polite society. Anyway, some time ago, a collection of SF memorabilia made its way into Strange Adventures, and scattered amongst it were some random issues of 'Log (as I can only imagine its diehard fans call it) from the 1980s. The allure of articles about Buckaroo Banzai and The Last Starfighter was too much for me to pass up, so I rescued them from the Quarter Bin without delay. Happily, the March 1988 issue provided me with one of the funniest letters pages I’ve ever come across. The column, or, Communications, as it was known in its heyday, featured this letter sandwiched in between an angry missive from the then-President of the Friends of Nichelle Nichols and several rave reviews for The Living Daylights:
I think I had the action figure of this guy--Studioplantor, was that his name? This letter is pretty funny, mostly because Masters of the Universe totally tanked at the box office, and was pretty much universally (see what I did there?) derided by the few who did see it. This guy’s opinion was, shall we say, not exactly a common one. However, much funnier is this deadpan response from the editor, which shows that Starlog is not without a sense of humour:
Swish! For my part, I actually like and own MOTU on DVD—sure, it’s goofy as shit, but it’s got some great designs by Jean Giraud, AKA Moebius, and a cool Bill Conti score that does its level best to sound like John Williams, which I’m sure was the idea. There’s also a pretty solid argument to be made that MOTU is the closest thing we’ll ever get to a New Gods film, but that’s a blog entry for another day. Sooner than you think, probably.
Y’know, I could be mistaken here, but last time I checked, Asimov’s Laws of Robotics were FICTIONAL, as opposed to FACTUAL, Laws of Science. Does this mean that if I, say, defy the rules from Gremlins and feed my pet Mogwai after midnight, he’ll actually turn into a scaly, mischievous monster? Or that, if I do as I’ve so often dreamed and push my Flux Capacitor-enhanced Delorean up to 88 MPH, I actually will be able to generate the necessary 1.21 Jigowatts I need to travel to 1955, where I can live out my dual lifelong dream of inventing both rock & roll and the skateboard? At least this guy acknowledges that it’s a great film, despite its flagrant violation of hard science.
