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Babylon 5 Theatrical Movie Falls Through
duck2ducks writes "According to a post from JMS, the Babylon 5 feature film has been cancelled. This is sad news indeed for all fans of one of the best sci-fi stories ever produced." From Straczynski's post: "In the end, however, the deal could be put together, and it did not
look as if that was going to change at any point in the foreseeable
future. So the option has reverted, and to all intents and purposes,
the project has dead ended."
Christopher Franke - Babylon 5 soundtrack - Sleeping in Light - End Titles
The big missed oppurtunity was, when they were granted a 5th season, to do the Psi war on Earth. That would have been a good season.
I'm not a fanboy, but I was sufficiently entertained by the thing. You know what I liked the most about B5? It was so NOT the Trek universe of no money and everyone performing in string quartets in their free time. In B5 there was an economy, and trading, and the conflicts arising from such things. The telepaths were licensed and it was a professional position. One character watched old Daffy Duck cartoons in his spare time, and was building a motorcycle in his quarters. There were prejudices and factions and ill will from bulkhead to bulkhead. Space travel was a large and involved endeavor requiring complicated instrumentality.
And best of all, at least some of the aliens were not bipedal. Hell, I'd take space angels over the bumpy forehead of the week rut that trek got stuck in.
> No wonder WB likes B5 -- they don't have to pay you anything for it.
That's the great irony of the situation. The criteria told to us right up front while we were producing B5 was that each of the series on PTEN had to show a profit *in that year* in order to stay on the air and be renewed. So we'd have these meetings with studio heads who were congratulating us on how much money the show was making for them (again, while we were still making for it), and then look at me, realize what they'd said, and hurriedly add, "Though technically we're still in the red."> Kind of puts a different light on buying the DVDs and stuff, knowing
> we're just supporting some fat-ass studio execs and not the actual
> talent.
The show, all in, cost about $110 million to make. Each year of its original run, we know it showed a profit because they TOLD us so. And in one case, they actually showed us the figures. It's now been on the air worldwide for ten years. There's been merchandise, syndication, cable, books, you name it. The DVDs grossed roughly half a BILLION dollars (and that was just after they put out S5, without all of the S5 sales in).
So what does my last profit statement say? We're $80 million in the red.
Basically, by the terms of my contract, if a set on a WB movie burns down in Botswana, they can charge it against B5's profits.
But then again, I knew that was the situation going in...I saw the writing on the wall (and the contract) from the git-go. I didn't do this to build an empire, I wanted to tell this story...and that's worth more than anything else.
Doesn't mean I can't tweak 'em about it, though.
jms
If you want good acting, and good writing, ignore B5 and go straight to the DS-9 box sets.
I wanted to like B5 and couldn't get into it for the exact same reasons you lay out. The acting and dialogue is absolutely abysmal. The B5 stories are very good, but not good enough to make the show watchable (for me).
-- John.
JMS is great in the sense that he came up with a simply fantastic story. But as a script writer, he leaves a lot to be desired. Too often in B5, characters explain their actions through ackward, un-natural sounding dialogue that really drags the show down at times.
As for the acting, some of the actors have been terrific, and others have just been awful. Most have been decent.
Still, I love the show and I do think it is probably the best Sci-Fi that has come around in many, many years, and to that end I own 3 of the seasons on DVD and eventually plan to pick up the other two.
Understanding is a three edged sword. - Ambassador Kosh Naranek, Babylon 5
Because others feel different about the series, of course.
I remember watching part of the first season and finding it unremarkable. So I stopped watching until I think late in season two -- and then I got completely hooked. I still believe seasons three and four of B5 is some of the best TV I've seen. It certainly beats hyped movies like LoTR and the Star Wars prequels.
Examples: the whole Londo/G'Kar theme; the whole USA-turns-into-a-totalitary-state theme; Garibaldi's and Ivanova's stories ...
I can't believe all of that is crap, when it affected me and others so much.
Watch your DVDs carefully. You might be missing out on something valuable.
I came to Babylon 5 rather late, after it had originally aired. I remember seeing individual episodes from the first season, and thinking that, meh, the effects were pretty spiffy but I really didn't know who anyone was.
I watched the whole thing last year and came to a somewhat different conclusion. jms ruined me for lesser SF. I can no longer stand most TNG or DS9 episodes. (Though I may yet watch DS9 as a whole---maybe it's good that way.)
jms made a five-year novel-for-television. We shall not see one man's vision so clearly transferred to the small screen for a long, long time, if ever again.
This is just a final middle-finger from the industry to jms. Punks.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Remember that time in Star Trek when there were a race of aliens that hid behind an exo suit from human eyes, the episode called "Is There in Truth No Beauty?"?
The ones where the aliens were excellent navigators and/or pilots, but were said to be so ugly that the human mind couldn't cope with seeing their true form?
Remeber how we'd be shown only glipses of the light coming out of their opaque enclosure as it was opened by someone?
I sure did whenever I watched a B5 ep where they discussed the Vorlon's hiding their true self, expecially when we got a glimpse of their true form's light shining out as someone was opening their opaque encounter suit.
I'm also reminded of that anytime someone mentions that B5 "unlike ST" had the occasionnal cameo from a non-humanoid alien. Despite their many, many humanoid alien races.
by myowntrueself (607117) Alter Relationship on Saturday February 26, @04:33PM (#11789285)
Remind me, in which episodes do we get to see tholians?
But I'm guessing from that lil' reply of yours that you meant to imply that B5 is better than ST because they had better looking non-humanoid cameos? When that has nothing to do with being B5 or ST, and everything to do with the current state of SFX technology and the budget of the show.
Then again, I'm sure you can find any number of 15 year olds to get on the board "old shows with bad SFX were bad because they're OLD" boat.
You can't take the sky from me...