Wooof just told me to post up the rest of the goodies from the 1981 Starlog magazine he brought back from Japan – the one with the exceedingly cool free cassette labels that we featured here. So let’s begin with a scan of the front cover followed by some selected pages…
Starlog Japan, January 1981. Also known as Starlog & Future Life. Front cover.
Starlog Japan, January 1981. Contents page.
The theme of this issue was welcoming in the New Year 1981 while saying goodbye to the previous year 1980. This is reflected throughout many of the pages, along with one of Japan’s biggest loves… robots!
Hello Artoo 🙂 Why on the black list? Been upsetting those mean Sith again? Great work droid, keep it up!
It’s the same robot that appears on the contents page. I wonder if this is Starlog Japan’s mascot?
I don’t know who or what this cool-looking robot is. There is a Disney copyright printed at the top of the page, so time to head off to the research room! *** EDIT 12/12/17 *** Big thanks to For Tyeth for identifying the robot as Maximilian from The Black Hole.
Advert for Heavy Metal magazine.
The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu
Flash Gordon.
Michael Sullivan. One Point.
Sci-fi and fantasy Books.
Star Wars. Not sure what this is exactly. Some kind of advert for stickers or transfers? The drawings are similar to some Star Wars bootleg collectables I’ve seen like horse racing games. They may be playing cards as they have the suit symbols on them. Help me Japanese readers… you’re my only hope
Thanks for looking 🙂
The Vintage Toy Advertiser 
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I always thought Maximilian from The Black Hole was the greatest evil robot in film. HAL is great, of course, but Max would go on to rule hell, so it cannot be argued. I entirely disagree with some of the commenters above, though, for the Black Hole, was not great. It was not even very good. Which is too bad, because Ellenshaw’s work was terrific, the casting was good, the music was fine, the intentions were there, but it all means nothing without a good script & director.
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I read that John Barry did the music. Sometimes a film suffers despite its strong elements. I’ll usually give most films a go and look for any positves – especially in old movies from the pov of effects etc. There was this fairly recent sci-fi movie I watched (forget name) which was pretty dire in places but then amazing in others. Overall not a great film but worth my time spent watching it for some of its components.
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Wonderful images in this Starlog magazine, especially the robot from the Black Hole, don’t often see much about that movie.
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Thanks Paul. Must confess it’s a film I’ve never seen. After For Tyeth told me it was the Black Hole I looked at some images and it looks an interesting sci-fi blast. I love the Old BOB robot with his wonky eyes. The Maximilian robot is very cool, almost like something out of 2000 AD.
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Really, I have vague memories of the Black Hole movie, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it on Tv or anything. I remember there was a comic book mini series as well – an adaptation of the film. That old Bob robot was fun, and Vincent was the new version of that robot. Maximilian was a very big robot as I remember, quite imposing. My friend had some of the toys they brought out as well, action figures of the robots, but I preferred Star Wars action figures. We used to have battles between Black Hole and Star Wars action figures! 🙂
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That sounds a lot of fun having battles between the two toy lines 🙂 The reviews for the movie are quite mixed I noticed, but I’d still like to see it sometime.
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Yeah, it was brilliant. Those Black Hole figures were very articulated as well, a bit like the micronaut action figures. The movie is a bit of slow burn, but the effects are very impressive for the time. Well worth seeing 🙂
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Hello TVTA, I think I can Identify the cool looking red robot, it is Maximilian from the great (but nearly forgotten) Disney film The Black Hole. It was the hench-robot of Dr Reinhardt. There were two other robots called “Old” B.O.B. and V.I.N.CENT (which stood for Vital Information Necessary CENTralised!) I loved this film as a kid and if you’d like to know more about Maximilian there is a Wiki page found here:
http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Maximilian
(p.s. I kinda like Flash Gordon too, I’m a fan of the band Queen)
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Hi Tyeth, good work IDing the robot, thanks for the link will check that. Queen rock 🙂
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