Interestingly, these comics were screwed from the get-go. In a 1998 interview, Jim Shooter talked about how Valiant Comics was supposed to receive a great deal of support from Nintendo - essentially benefiting the products of both Nintendo & Valiant - but instead, Nintendo never delivered.
This then was a huge stumbling block early on in Valiant's history, nearly crippling them before they had even begun.
(Of course, it's worth noting - as the main article does - that the actual Nintendo comics weren't all that great. Interestingly, this is entirely at odds with the early period of Valiant's subsequent superhero work, often regarded as unusually well-done - especially for the time. Considering Nintendo's infamous game standards, one has to wonder if the disparity in quality was due to the created comics going through a number of N-overseen committees and censors before pen was ever put to paper.)
Hearing all that, it sounds like the mini or shuffle have any appeal to me personally... but that's a pretty in-depth review, so I think I can see how those things would appeal to others.
That's why the makeup was different in "The Gathering", in fact: they were specifically trying to give Mira Furlan an androgynous look since even then they were still trying to make Delenn male. In the end, however, it was scrapped because the idea was more ambitious than the technology they had on hand. (Specifically, they couldn't tweak the voice to a more male timber without it sounding unbearably "off".)
Erm, hoping for an eventual Sam & Max 2 and playing a different, (hopefully) well-made graphic adventure aren't exactly mutually exclusive, y'know?
BONE is a critically-acclaimed property in its own right, but you can never tell how well a licensed property is going to translate. Hearing that this is from former LucasArts employees, however, boosts my interest and confidence in the project immensely.
Michael O'Hare's departure wasn't really planned from the beginning, but was a naturally organic development of Sinclair's story. Joe talked in detail about this, both specifically and more generally: how creating a show over five years (when an actor could unexpectedly leave or, say, drop dead) necessitated a story that, while relying on tight plotting and a coherent vision, could nevertheless be dynamic enough to adjust for any unexpected occurrences.
And while the character Delenn was originally supposed to be a man, this would not have lasted. [SPOILER WARNING] When Delenn undergoes her transformation at the end of season one, the process was originally supposed to be not just from Minbari to a Minbari/human hybrid... but also from male to female. JMS's detailed comments on such can be found here.
Personally, I'm still having trouble figuring out the appeal of the iPod mini and iPod shuffle. Having just purchased a regular iPod a month ago, the mini & shuffle honestly just seem like *crippled* versions of an iPod, to me.
iPod mini: Pay almost as much for 1/10 of the space!
iPod shuffle: Y'know the shuffle feature that comes with the iPod? Get only that and nothing else!
The new iPod photo I can understand. These, tho, I just don't get.
While I haven't yet watched the 2nd half of season two, so far I've found the second season to be head and shoulders above the first, which had great ideas but varied wildly in quality from episode to episode.
More importantly, JMS himself maintains that the second season was vastly superior to the first - and more to the point, because of how hard he had to fight, against MGM itself, for the quality of the show.
Not to mention that him making a bad show just to show the execs that their notes were off the base seems incredibly dumb and, honestly, not something he would do (especially given what he went through with Crusade).
Suppose it depends on what your expectations are from a TV show.
Execs certainly prefer more of an episodic format to their shows, since it does mean that viewership can easily grow throughout a show's lifespan; additionally, if someone misses a few episodes here and there, it doesn't really matter.
On the other hand, I always lean towards shows that have an arc to them - whether ongoing storylines, or simply sustained character growth - because that's the kind of thing I'm interested in. I stopped watching Enterprise in the middle of season one because I realized I didn't have an overwhelming desire to watch the already-taped new episode - and it wouldn't matter if I didn't watch it. Or, for that matter, the next. Or the next. And that being the case, why am I watching it in the first place?
B5, on the other hand, was always meant to be one long-sustained, 5-year storyline. JMS has mentioned numerous times that his ambitious goal was to take the structure of a novel and apply it to a television show. And while he would always try to make allowances for the nature of a serialized product (by trying to make the first several shows of each season more accessible to new viewers, etc), the fact remains that being a show you can just watch occasionally, off and on, was never the point. No knock against shows which are, of course; it's just comparing apples and oranges.
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This then was a huge stumbling block early on in Valiant's history, nearly crippling them before they had even begun.
(Of course, it's worth noting - as the main article does - that the actual Nintendo comics weren't all that great. Interestingly, this is entirely at odds with the early period of Valiant's subsequent superhero work, often regarded as unusually well-done - especially for the time. Considering Nintendo's infamous game standards, one has to wonder if the disparity in quality was due to the created comics going through a number of N-overseen committees and censors before pen was ever put to paper.)
Thanks much!
Any source you can cite for this? 'Cause without one, I'm more apt to take JMS' word over what seems to be random hearsay or conjecture.
That's why the makeup was different in "The Gathering", in fact: they were specifically trying to give Mira Furlan an androgynous look since even then they were still trying to make Delenn male. In the end, however, it was scrapped because the idea was more ambitious than the technology they had on hand. (Specifically, they couldn't tweak the voice to a more male timber without it sounding unbearably "off".)
BONE is a critically-acclaimed property in its own right, but you can never tell how well a licensed property is going to translate. Hearing that this is from former LucasArts employees, however, boosts my interest and confidence in the project immensely.
And while the character Delenn was originally supposed to be a man, this would not have lasted. [SPOILER WARNING] When Delenn undergoes her transformation at the end of season one, the process was originally supposed to be not just from Minbari to a Minbari/human hybrid ... but also from male to female. JMS's detailed comments on such can be found here.
Unlikely, for a couple of reasons.
It's not just you, but it is inadequate reading: I made sure to say "one of" because I didn't want to start some dumb flamewar.
Granted, that doesn't ensure everyone will read it just as carefully...
iPod mini: Pay almost as much for 1/10 of the space!
iPod shuffle: Y'know the shuffle feature that comes with the iPod? Get only that and nothing else!
The new iPod photo I can understand. These, tho, I just don't get.
More importantly, JMS himself maintains that the second season was vastly superior to the first - and more to the point, because of how hard he had to fight, against MGM itself, for the quality of the show.
Not to mention that him making a bad show just to show the execs that their notes were off the base seems incredibly dumb and, honestly, not something he would do (especially given what he went through with Crusade ).
Execs certainly prefer more of an episodic format to their shows, since it does mean that viewership can easily grow throughout a show's lifespan; additionally, if someone misses a few episodes here and there, it doesn't really matter.
On the other hand, I always lean towards shows that have an arc to them - whether ongoing storylines, or simply sustained character growth - because that's the kind of thing I'm interested in. I stopped watching Enterprise in the middle of season one because I realized I didn't have an overwhelming desire to watch the already-taped new episode - and it wouldn't matter if I didn't watch it. Or, for that matter, the next. Or the next. And that being the case, why am I watching it in the first place?
B5, on the other hand, was always meant to be one long-sustained, 5-year storyline. JMS has mentioned numerous times that his ambitious goal was to take the structure of a novel and apply it to a television show. And while he would always try to make allowances for the nature of a serialized product (by trying to make the first several shows of each season more accessible to new viewers, etc), the fact remains that being a show you can just watch occasionally, off and on, was never the point. No knock against shows which are, of course; it's just comparing apples and oranges.