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JMS posted:B5 CW News
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Feb 4, 2022 00:20
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RIP
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Feb 4, 2022 00:24
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Faith manages?
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Feb 4, 2022 00:34
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I've got faith, of the heart.
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Feb 4, 2022 00:39
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The truth points to itself.
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Feb 4, 2022 00:40
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Hope is a mistake.
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Feb 4, 2022 01:16
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Sucks. But it took him like ten years to get the original made so not going to dismiss it as dead.
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Feb 4, 2022 01:24
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Grand Fromage posted:Sucks. But it took him like ten years to get the original made so not going to dismiss it as dead. Having someone in charge who you used to give advance copies of the original to before they aired is a good sign. Just have to hope that person isn't a sex pest or gets booted during the merger.
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Feb 4, 2022 01:26
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There's a good chance B5 would be the most expensive of all the shows to produce so I can kinda see why they'd be wary of doing it during a sale.
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Feb 4, 2022 01:29
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Ugh, now we have to wait a whole year to hear it's being rejected? I had a feeling this might happen, every post-Babylon 5 project has been stiffed in some way. Well, like he said, it's not over yet, but I'm not exactly hopeful.
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Feb 4, 2022 02:10
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Feb 4, 2022 03:33
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Much like when Sheridan went to Z'ha'dum and returned, so too will the Babylon 5 reboot return.
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Feb 4, 2022 03:57
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The, uh, CW isn't going to exist in Fall 2023...
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Feb 4, 2022 08:16
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Luigi Thirty posted:The, uh, CW isn't going to exist in Fall 2023... The channel is being sold, that doesn't mean it's being asset stripped. Also content doesn't come out of nowhere when the new owners take over the channel, you know. B5 isn't being passed on as a rejected script that the new owners can use if they want; it is instead being passed on as a tentative pickup for the 2023 slate. That's what's unusual about this, not the idea that a new owner would continue to develop a show from the old slate. Now, if you were to ask me if I think B5 will go to production next year, I have to say that I don't think it will. It's very much in the hands of whoever buys the CW, and they will be asking questions like "If it's so good, why didn't you have confidence to make a pilot to use as an asset in the sale?" Against that, though, you have the man who gave the CW its current value fighting in B5's corner and the chance to reboot the original SF narrative drama TV show in its 30th anniversary under its original creator. The message being sent here is definitely "This can be your Star Trek TNG, if you want it". At the moment I'd put the odds at 10:1 against it happening. But not zero.
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Feb 4, 2022 09:27
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Jedit posted:Now, if you were to ask me if I think B5 will go to production next year, I have to say that I don't think it will. It's very much in the hands of whoever buys the CW, and they will be asking questions like "If it's so good, why didn't you have confidence to make a pilot to use as an asset in the sale?" Against that, though, you have the man who gave the CW its current value fighting in B5's corner and the chance to reboot the original SF narrative drama TV show in its 30th anniversary under its original creator. The message being sent here is definitely "This can be your Star Trek TNG, if you want it". At the moment I'd put the odds at 10:1 against it happening. But not zero. This. Will different people be making the decision next year? Was there just a lot of good potential shows this year? I don't really know, but none of the possibilities give me a lot of hope. It wasn't picked up for a reason, and "the channel is being sold" isn't a reason - other shows did get picked up. Then channel still needs content after all, and it apparently didn't think Babylon 5 should be among that content. I'm not saying this is a done deal, and JMS' summary is technically true: everything is now just a year later. I have a feeling that what will really happen is that we'll get some variant of the B5 spin-off playbook where the channel requests some changes to greenlight it, JMS grudgingly acceeds to some of them because he thinks he can make them work, then we get an episode order, then more change requests, then either JMS refuses and the channel pulls the plug, or JMS pulls the plug himself. Or everything goes fine and we get a jaw-dropping new version of B5. I'm still hopeful! Just not optimistic.
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Feb 4, 2022 13:12
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No boom today. Boom tomorrow.
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Feb 4, 2022 16:48
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I just finished (re)watching B5; including all the movies. I haven't watched it since it originally aired. While watching it I realized I don't think I ever saw season 5. I think with the change from PTEN to TNT, that year being my freshman year at university, and none of my friends watching it (they all watched Star Trek) meant that I missed out on it. I think it still holds up but it's definitely a product of the 90s. The CGI didn't bother me as I realize it's 25 years old. I think it won some awards at the time. I wish the Shadow War and Earth Civil War stories were longer. I remember at the time being annoyed at everyone who criticized Sheridan for "not following procedure" for trying to get rid of Clark and being all  even after Clark ordered the deaths of so many civilians. Twenty-five years later, it's even more annoying given the world today.Season 5 started out pretty slow but it picked up about 1/2 way through. I missed Ivanova and ironically it seems like her character would have gotten a lot more to do in that season. I know not everyone was a fan but I also really liked Sinclair and it's a shame about what happened and he wasn't able to continue. It would have been interesting to see how his complete story would have played out. Was there ever a plan to make a Telepath War movie? I know there is a book series on it. The first half of Season 5 has everyone constantly brining up the inevitability of a Mundane/Telepath conflict. Where things brought up in the series (like Emperor Londo's gift to Sheridan and Delenn for their unborn child, the Drakh plotline, etc.) as a way to get people to buy the books or was there hope of making more TV movies? That was one hell of a finale. I can't believe I've never seen it before. Lots of finales have so many stories going on trying to wrap everything up. This was a very nice, simple, and clean finale but it also gave each character a nice send off. Now that I'm thinking about it, I would have liked to have seen more about The Great Machine and a bit about the extreme future where humans are balls of energy (?) and wear encounter suits. I assume that last bit ties into the Ironheart story where he said "I'll see you in 1 million years" and that bit in Season 5 where Lyta said that humans will be ready to visit the Vorlon homeworld in 1 million years. Is the New Earth the guy in the extreme future mentions actually the Vorlon homeworld? All in all it was really enjoyable and it also brought back of ton of memories for myself. Mr. Apollo fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Feb 4, 2022 |
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Feb 4, 2022 21:47
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Honestly, y'all, if this is any kind of thing, it is probably a good thing. The likelihood that they would have been able to produce a passably quality show in the span of, lol,.what, 8 months, with COVID still very much a disruptive and unpredictable element is, IMO, extremely low. Probably lower than the odds of it being picked up for production by new management. While its future may be uncertain, this at least gives the people involved in the project a year and a half to get their poo poo together. Personally, I'd rather no B5 remake than one made in a rush, during the aftermath of a network sale, and while a pandemic raged. It would make Legend of the Rangers look good.
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Feb 4, 2022 22:22
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Let me quote a poster of a man pointing a gun a a flying white dove they had just released that was somehow allowed to stay up in my 6th or 7th grade classroom: “Hope? Nope.”
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Feb 5, 2022 07:16
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You know, considering it was the demise of PTEN...caused in part by ChrisCraft choosing to go all in on UPN instead....caused the clusterfuck of cancellation and pickup by TNT that messed up season 4 and 5 of B5's original run, it's more than a little ironic that the collapse of UPN's descendant network the CW is doing the same thing to B5's reboot. History doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme. 
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Feb 5, 2022 09:55
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Here's what the CW picked up instead of B5: A Supernatural prequel involving Sam and Dean’s parents A Walker Texas Ranger prequel set in the 19th Century Gotham Knights set after the death of Batman B5 is never getting rebooted.
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Feb 5, 2022 10:43
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Habibi posted:Honestly, y'all, if this is any kind of thing, it is probably a good thing. The likelihood that they would have been able to produce a passably quality show in the span of, lol,.what, 8 months, with COVID still very much a disruptive and unpredictable element is, IMO, extremely low. Probably lower than the odds of it being picked up for production by new management. jng2058 posted:You know, considering it was the demise of PTEN...caused in part by ChrisCraft choosing to go all in on UPN instead....caused the clusterfuck of cancellation and pickup by TNT that messed up season 4 and 5 of B5's original run, it's more than a little ironic that the collapse of UPN's descendant network the CW is doing the same thing to B5's reboot. History doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme. At least B5 gets another shot next year.
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Feb 5, 2022 16:19
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Dirty posted:I don't know what the usual lead time for a show is, but I would be surprised if more time made much difference here - people would still need to be paid to work on it, and I don't think they're going to do that unless it's greenlit, and it seems like that would happen around this time next year. So other than tweaking the script, I don't know if there's any real gain here. JMS posted about this when someone else said it seemed way too short, he said approval in Jan/Feb with a premiere in the fall is a normal network production schedule and not short at all. Prestige TV may have longer production cycles but network does not, when B5 was made all shows were like that. I would expect no work at all to be done on the reboot over the next year because why? It's not in production. I imagine there will be meetings about it, JMS probably is going to be working on an outline and maybe even some scripts if he has free time, but beyond that somebody would need to get paid for work that might not mean anything.
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Feb 5, 2022 19:26
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Someone in the newbie thread finally finished the show! 
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Feb 13, 2022 19:59
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Polaron posted:Someone in the newbie thread finally finished the show! I have transcended to the spoiler thread 
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Feb 14, 2022 16:38
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Are the books worth checking out, and if so, where should I start? I'd really like some resolution for Lyta & Garibaldi vs. Psi Corps, David's Keeper, and the events that lead up to (what I'm assuming is) the second destruction of Centauri Prime.
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Feb 14, 2022 16:51
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discoukulele posted:Are the books worth checking out, and if so, where should I start? I'd really like some resolution for Lyta & Garibaldi vs. Psi Corps, David's Keeper, and the events that lead up to (what I'm assuming is) the second destruction of Centauri Prime. The Legions of Fire trilogy answers the stuff about David's Keeper I think it also provided a resolution for Crusade. The Psi Corps trilogy will answer the questions about Lyta and Garabaldi. I think Legions of Fire was outlined by JMS.
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Feb 14, 2022 17:32
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The Psi Corps trilogy very vaguely touches on the events of the Telepath War and what that meant for Lyta and Garibaldi, but there's no real detail anywhere.
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Feb 14, 2022 17:35
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ultrafilter posted:The Psi Corps trilogy very vaguely touches on the events of the Telepath War and what that meant for Lyta and Garibaldi, but there's no real detail anywhere.
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Feb 14, 2022 17:47
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Mr. Apollo posted:I think Legions of Fire was outlined by JMS. It's also written by someone who wrote for the show: Peter David did it. The Psi Corps trilogy is good and provides resolution to Bester's story. There's also two numbered novels that are worth reading: The Shadow Within, which is Anna Sheridan's side of "What happened at Z'Ha'Dum?", and To Dream In The City of Sorrows, which follows Sinclair to Minbar after he leaves B5. The latter was written by JMS's ex-wife Kathryn Drennan, who also wrote for the show.
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Feb 14, 2022 18:58
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There are exactly two numbered novels worth reading. Sinclair's story also shows up in the comics (#1-4 and #12-14) but those are  for sure.
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Feb 14, 2022 19:13
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discoukulele posted:Are the books worth checking out, and if so, where should I start? I'd really like some resolution for Lyta & Garibaldi vs. Psi Corps, David's Keeper, and the events that lead up to (what I'm assuming is) the second destruction of Centauri Prime. My impressions of the three trilogies: Peter David's Legions of Fire provides more info on the Centauri Prime arc and especially covers the pieces between Londo's end and Vir becoming emperor, as well as what happens to David Sheridan. Wraps the Drahk arc. Also the closest in feel to the show, especially in terms of the humor and the main characters who appear. Vir-centric. Be aware that you're going to like Vir less after reading this story; there's some bits that seemed both unnecessary and even somewhat misogynistic, which certainly fits into "Soul Mates," but also tarnishes Vir as a character somewhat, so know that going in. J.Gregory Keyes' Psi Corps trilogy covers the origins of the corp, Bester during its high-water mark, and then Bester in hiding after the Telepath War ends. Skips the Telepath War itself. It's basically a mix of "the story of Bester" and the Corps, a lot more contemplative in social terms than the show, and feels very tonally different: "set in the world of Babylon 5" might be a better way to think of it. But he's nailed Bester's character and you get a lot of background, some of which Koenig developed as part of his performance. Jeanne Cavelos' Techno-Mage trilogy covers a big subset of who the Techno-Mages are, including material that JMS likely intended to get out as part of Crusade. It's set parallel to the show, and the focus character is from Crusade, so I would watch that first. This one focuses some on the Vorlons and Shadows, and my main impression was that the PoV made everything a bit odd and even trippy. Cavelos also has a prior connection to B5, so things don't feel alien in the sense of being completely unlike the show, but they are alien because there's fewer regular human characters. I'm considerably more likely to rewatch the show again before I reread any of the three, but I'm not sorry I read them (which I can't say for the majority of the numbered novels).
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Feb 14, 2022 20:56
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I feel like the only stories worth reading are the ones written by JMS himself. Especially "Space, Time and the Incurable Romantic"
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Feb 14, 2022 21:38
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I got the second Bester novel and thought it was good enough to read twice. Unfortunately I gave it away when I moved abroad. With the reboot coming, I wonder if they'll reprint any of them.
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Feb 14, 2022 21:39
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Vitruvian Manic posted:I feel like the only stories worth reading are the ones written by JMS himself. Especially "Space, Time and the Incurable Romantic" NO
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Feb 14, 2022 21:51
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Vitruvian Manic posted:I feel like the only stories worth reading are the ones written by JMS himself. Especially "Space, Time and the Incurable Romantic" Get the hell out of our galaxy!
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Feb 14, 2022 22:15
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Vitruvian Manic posted:I feel like the only stories worth reading are the ones written by JMS himself. Especially "Space, Time and the Incurable Romantic" It's a trap!
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Feb 14, 2022 22:29
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My goodness, has it been a month already?
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Feb 15, 2022 04:32
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discoukulele posted:Are the books worth checking out, and if so, where should I start? I'd really like some resolution for Lyta & Garibaldi vs. Psi Corps, David's Keeper, and the events that lead up to (what I'm assuming is) the second destruction of Centauri Prime. Some of them. I imagine you'll like the Psi Corps trilogy but, as others have said, it develops the telepaths (and the Psi Corps in general) in a way that feels somewhat... different to the show. Frankly, I really like what Keyes did with JMS' outline, the Corps, and the character of Bester, and think it adds a lot of depth to the world. The third book provides information on what happened to Lyta and Garibaldi and Bester during the Telepath War even if it's somewhat light on exact details. I don't really rate many of the other novels. The Technomage trilogy is kind of the stuff that I don't think Babylon 5 was ever really fantastic about, and the Technomages themselves just aren't interesting beyond that initial episode. The Legions of Fire books -- people tell me they're good but I never found the Drakh particularly interesting. Of the numbered novels, The Shadow Within is a fun little tale about the lead up to Anna visiting Za'ha'dum but John Sheridan's B-story with the Agamemnon feels like the author didn't really 'get' the worldbuilding as precise as she could've. To Dream In The City of Sorrows is the other one that's worth reading but I personally don't rate it very highly and have never had much urge to revisit it (compared to the Psi Corps novels and Shadow Within.) All the other numbered novels are extraordinarily bad, even for tie-in fiction. Some of them have the feel of being written in a week by an author who was provided a paragraph or two on Babylon 5's characters and world or were other sci-fi books that got find/replaced into being a Babylon 5 work. The novelizations of the movies In The Beginning and Thirdspace are fun, too, expanding on some of the ideas, scenes and concepts (such as the fact that Londo is telling the story in ITB.) Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 05:20 on Feb 15, 2022 |
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Feb 15, 2022 05:18
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Milkfred E. Moore posted:
The turnaround on the first six Boxtree novels was eight weeks, but for the first one John Vornholt only had three weeks because negotiations with Kevin J Anderson had fallen through. He only managed to produce anything coherent because he was a big fan of the show. I will go to bat for Clark's Law, though. It has no place in the arc, but as a bottle story it's the kind of story that B5 liked to tell.
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Feb 15, 2022 10:33
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