STAR WARS INSIDER 101-U.S. EDITION (WE’RE STILL WAITING FOR IT (ISSUE 77) IN THE U.K.!!)
THIS BABY HAS VERY FEW SURPRISES STILL LEFT IN HER, SWEETHEART!!
Reviewed by Scott Weller
Sorry we’ve had to mis-represent Han Solo’s classic line to Leia from EMPIRE, but the much touted, and very long time in coming (we were promised this magazine in April, by the way!!) new look of STAR WARS INSIDER is not the treasure chest of exciting originality and bold design that we are led to think that it is, as proclaimed by its proud Editor- in- Chief, Brian J. Robb in his opening introduction to the magazine. Though the layout of the magazine is marginally, and we do only mean marginally, improved with its new look, with more pictures and copy used on the page, it seems that the magazine is entering the UK woman’s tabloid/young children’s magazine hybrid style of reading, with everything designed and used small and scrunched up, with information presented in bits rather than things you can dwell on and enjoy!! (we imagine that TITAN PUBLISHING (or would that be LUCASFILM, via TITAN), probably wasted numerous amounts of money on focus groups and testing layouts with selected groups of casual STAR WARS fans, probably between the ages of 8-14 years old, to see what they’d like in the re-vamp) If this is the result, then this is the start of a future nightmare for me as a reader of the magazine since it first started in the early nineties.
As well as the layouts, text wise the magazine’s core readership has now changed and it seems to me that LUCASFILM /TITAN are really now only interested in capturing that aforementioned younger end of the market, the readership age between 8 and 14, in the run up to the release of the animated series and film. We can accept that fact, that the kids are the future for STAR WARS existence, but surely the old guard could be looked after a little bit more, rather than being as seen as the crazy old uncle sitting in the corner ignored by everybody at a family party!! We STAR WARS fans from thirty years ago, well….we might as well effectively be pronounced as dead as dinosaurs!!
Of the main features within the “new-look”, the Robert Watts interview is the best thing about the magazine-there may not be much new to report but Watts as ever, is highly knowledgeable and enthusiastic about his work on both the STAR WARS and INDY films. There are no challenging questions ever asked by the writers of the magazine since TITAN has taken over the reins, though there were a couple of snippets of new info from the Producer that I wasn’t previously aware of. The pictures on the main two spreads, from Watt’s personal collection, were good but the whole layout of the interview itself was ghastly and didn’t actually fit in with the rest of the magazine re-vamped pages at all. The design of the main spread image was particularly notable for being terrible. I have a signed photo of the picture used for the spread-how could they have left the image of the Wampa hand next to Watts in the image out of the design-that shot was specifically composed on location by a skilled cameraman to show the Wampa hand next to Watts and it was deliberately cut off by TITAN so that a garish pattern collage, that would give even small children an attack of visual over-exposure!!, could be used around Watts. The rest of the feature was in black and white but it didn’t need to be, as there are pictures on the later pages that actually exist in colour and could have been reproduced in such a way.
The TOP TEN LIGHTSABER FIGHTS adds yet another we’ve seen it all before familiarity to the magazine. And, forgive me if I’m wrong, but there were only ever ten lightsaber duel in the entire saga anyway, weren’t there? So I feel the features titling is a wee bit redundant!! Apart from one rare photo of Luke and Vader fighting with blades not yet effects rotoscoped, nothing great to report here, really, either...
If you’re into the Expanded Universe, then you’ll probably find that to be the best feature of the magazine. Additionally, there is an effects interview/profile with ILM veteran Richard Edlund which is adequate, joins the dots, and littered with some okay photos including a nice shot of the original Lucas full title crawl, before the director and Brian De Palma changed it before release so as to make it more accessible for audiences.
Of the new bits and pieces features/articles it really is a continued mixed bag. The opening inside cover for BLASTER reveals its kid-friendly new style (almost the same in some ways, but more cluttered, as that STAR WARS US kids supplement from the nineties-even down to the same old picture of Luke in his flight suit from EMPIRE!!). The what happened in 1980 spread is a nice idea but nothing new, and neither is the back page classic moment. How original?? Not really... EMPIRE and TOTAL FILM magazines have been doing it for years. And what’s happened to Chris Trevas’s set piece- that was one of my only highlights in the magazine (at CELEBRATION EUROPE I jokingly asked Chris how his making of books over the years, for article research, haven’t deteriorated yet-this must have finally happened and he’s having to get replacements!!). And what about the fan fiction? People loved that, and I really enjoyed some of those stories, especially the Timothy Zahn ones with Obi-Wan and Anakin.
And I miss the days of the old comic strips in the UK edition. Granted, they were reprints from STAR WARS GALAXY, but would there really be any harm in having a regular comic strip adventure series, alternating between Classic and Prequel characters, in there, or perhaps even a monthly reprinting, in colour, of a Russ Manning/Al Williamson LA TIMES Syndicate strip. Or how about a new strip-there is plenty of UK artists that TITAN could hire to do the strip in association with DARK HORSE. The same old pictures are being used and re-used in the magazine-I read that 22,000 colour shots were taken alone just for THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK in 1979/80-what happened to them all??
The BANTHA TRACKS pages for the fans are marginally better, as is the news section, though it continues hopelessly to try and bring fresh gloss to news that already exists all over the place and on STARWARS.COM months before (and with INDY and THE CLONE WARS only a few months away, the info is surprisingly still scant on these huge LUCASFILM projects-there should be more by now, surely, especially on the latter-even the Prequels, when they didn’t reveal much, still had more shown than these films-by the time INSIDER get round to their CLONE WARS issue, if it becomes bi-monthly (read on for this..), then it will be too late-the film will have come and gone from cinemas and the exposure wasted until the DVD release or when the series hopefully comes on UK television!!). For LUCASFILM, though, they must be continually happy with the toy promotions-the marketing end of the magazine has always been fine for them since the magazine first started, but how about re-dressing the editorial balance a bit better!!
I’m very annoyed to find that the American paper for the printing of the magazine is better than the UK counterpart (and so is the German edition!!). We may not have the fan base of America but we in the UK are second on the list and we deserve better than having our edition of the magazine printed on cheap toilet paper. And wouldn’t it be nice to know when it was actually coming out-if the magazine was delayed due to its new look, it would be nice if its members were actually informed of this fact somehow and not left to linger waiting for any news (and when news did arrive on STARWARS.COM there was no mention of the delay in publishing from April to May). The STAR WARS TITAN team rarely responds to e-mails/suggestions/complaints from the readers/fans unless it really is in their best interests, and getting more info on the magazine and your subscription is like getting blood out of a stone. And the people that sell the magazine, TITAN’s very own toy/magazine retail shop chain, FORBIDDEN PLANET in the UK, don’t even know when the magazine is coming out themselves-and they are owned by TITAN!! This lack of communication would make Sir Alan Sugar on THE APPRENTICE furious-there would be mass firings!! And is the magazine monthly or bi-monthly? I’m in the dark- I was told that this new issue won’t be in the UK until June by the UK subscription department contracted by TITAN, now being bi-monthly (which no one told its UK readers about as far as I'm aware!!), so how come it’s already in US shops!!
I’ve also been reading the STAR WARS .COM notice boards/blogs of people all over the world who are extremely un-happy with the quality of the magazine, seeing how it is has deteriorated even more with every publishing company that has taken it over, and the way it is being dispatched and handled by TITAN and their Subscriptions Company doing work for them. A lot of people, especially in the all-important American territories, have not received copies of the magazine, have not received their subscription goods (two years on, Brian, I’m still waiting for my two sets of art cards!!), or the correct editions they’ve wanted that have never been never received, or they received unwanted doubles. I can accept teething troubles for the first few months or so when a new company takes over from another, but this is coming up to slightly over a year on which TITAN have taken the reins of this important publishing franchise. The whole enterprise smacks of being cheaply produced. I have heard from people within the magazine industry itself that TITAN’s Publisher, Nick Landau, likes to do things on the cheap wherever possible-to treat STAR WARS and its fans in this manner, with such an average magazine and such poor customer service, is an absolute disgrace.
I'm very sorry to say this, as I'm sure the Editorial UK team of TITAN, having to accept their publishers and other outside factor's demands, are doing the best job that they can, but I think its time they passed over the banner to a publishing company more suited to handle the ever-evolving juggernaut that is STAR WARS. Why can’t LUCASFILM actually do this magazine themselves and reap the critical, populist and financial rewards, the latter of which can then be re-used to fund future LUCASFILM projects, including more STAR WARS??
REVIEW RATING: An un-enthused, hopeless, and highly depressing 6 out of 10.
