Hello to you, reader of The Lodestar newsletter. Before anything else, let me answer a question that has been posed to me via email a few times. Yes, you absolutely can read earlier transmissions of this newsletter if you only recently subscribed.

All previous issues are archived here (and if you don’t want to click that link right now but want to put a URL to memory, it is TheLodestar dot STARLOG dot com slash Archive). I’m flattered by those who reached out, wishing to be completionists.

And that dovetails nicely with what I’d like to touch upon today.

My guest this week on The STARLOG Podcast is the award-winning essayist John DeVore, who was eager to discuss a transformative work of art for him, the 1986 film The Transformers: The Movie. Hopefully you won’t be shocked to learn that, being totally honest, I’d never actually sat down and watched the thing from beginning to end.

I was too young to see it without a parent during its initial release, and while I have fond memories of being with family during other classic sci-fi works of the 1980s (even Krull), there was no way my mother or father was going to sit through something like this.

Decades passed and though I had an awareness of the movie, and had even seen bits of it, only now has my encounter with Unicron become official.

The key thing is that I’d seen “bits” of the movie. Flipping channels on cable television, no doubt. And though I’m far from the first to lament the end of such behavior today — who “flips channels” outside of a hotel room anymore? — it struck me that future generations really won’t know what it’s like to watch a movie they kinda-sorta know from having already caught stray scenes.

Watching “bits” of a movie is different, I feel, from the modern equivalent of seeing clips on YouTube or even social media. Those you either seek out intentionally on your own or someone has curated them for you. Even if that someone is an uncaring algorithm serving you what its calculations say you want to see, there’s still a method to it. It’s not just hurling a fishing line from your remote control into the great television lake at the other end of the room.

The new way, the modern way, is different. Is it worse? Well, I don’t know. You are less likely to encounter something due to pure chance, but let’s face it, with so much material out there, a guide of some sort can be useful. That’s always been STARLOG’s mission, in a way. We know you like X, so there’s a chance you’ll like Y. And here’s a detailed look at how it was made.

But there is an undeniable magic in stumbling across something by following no breadcrumb, and realizing you’ve discovered something that speaks to you. I’d be curious to hear some of your stories on such a path — and if you find these moments are growing fewer.

Jordan Hoffman, Communications Officer

As I discuss with Dave in the most recent episode of The STARLOG Podcast, Gale was the hottest writer in town at this point, though not an unknown. (Prior to BTTF he cowrote, among other titles, Steven Spielberg’s 1941, which is far from a masterpiece, but it has its merits.) The studio was at his and Robert Zemeckis’s heels, prodding for a Marty McFly sequel — which he had every intention of making. But first, some passion projects.

Looking back on this from our vantage point, it’s a little regretful perhaps that neither of the films Gale is excited about actually got made. Well, they both did get made, just not Gale’s versions. One was an adaptation of Marvel’s Doctor Strange. The other? A property even stranger!

Click the “Listen” button below to hear more about the roads not taken for Bob Gale, and subscribe to The STARLOG Podcast on any podcasting platform.

This week The STARLOG Podcast travels to Cybertron and back to examine the puzzling 1986 animated feature, The Transformers: The Movie.

My guest is one of my favorite people: author, critic, former cable news talking head, and two-time winner of the James Beard award, John DeVore.

I knew John was a fan of STARLOG from his younger years, and asked him what he’d like to talk about on the show. He said he could talk for hours about Nelson Shin’s Transformers film, the last thing Orson Welles worked on, as he recognized it to be his launching point into “grown up cartoons.” He added that the shockingly violent The Transformers: The Movie was “The Godfather of toy commercials.”

If that isn’t enough to sell you, know that during the conversation he, Dave, and I discuss our first encounter with real life Transformers toys, as well as John’s eye-opening moment witnessing the death of his automotive hero Optimus Prime. (Hopefully not a spoiler.)

The new episode of The STARLOG Podcast, like the ones before it, is on whatever podcasting platform you prefer. Or you can just click the little “listen” button below.

SCI-FI

Connor Storrie and Lilly Krug star in April X, a new sci-fi film I never heard of until five minutes ago. It is set in the near future and involves drones, weird motorcycles, and sexy wigs. Check out the trailer.

SCIENCE

The new Roman telescope is readying to blow your mind (or at least create new Pearl Jam album covers) any minute now. The WFI (Wide Field Instrument) cameras are now online. Follow every step from wherever you are on Earth via NASA’s regularly updated page.

CULTURE

Jules Verne was a literary prophet, sure, but focusing on his predictions is overlooking his true genius, argues Anastasia Klimchynskaya in this essay at Reactor.

ETHICS

The EPA has been using AI to regulate toxicity levels in chemicals and pesticides in an effort to “speed up the process.” What’s more, they’ve kept this a secret, in direct violation of US law. What could possibly go wrong? The CS Monitor has more details.