<font size="+1">A Slow News Week: </font>
<font size="3">TV Critics Tour, Sci-Fi Promo, Final Cut, DVD hint</font>
Not a great deal of actual information to report, and most of it has been covered in the forum. But for those who only check the news pages, here goes:
Last week the TV Critic’s Association had their press tour in Los Angeles. The Sci-Fi Channel held brief panels on three upcoming projects: The Steven Speilberg alien abduction epic, Taken, the Stephen King sequel mini-series, Firestarter: Rekindled and Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers. Apart from a couple of brief mentions in the trades and the mainstream press, few details about the event are available.
When asked about Rangers series prospects, Sci-Fi Channel Bonnie Hammer said, “We want to see how the movie does first.” She presumably means, “How it does in the ratings” which is a little disappointing. In theory she could have meant “How it does with test audiences” or “focus groups” but I suspect if she had she would have spelled it out.
“How it does” is going to mean “ratings” to most people. The only other news to come out of the event is that the movie will premiere in January, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter and Daily Variety. One newspaper report specified January 2nd as the date, but The Sci-Fi Channel hasn’t issued an official press release confirming any of this yet.
A lot of people were confused by what looked like shots of a Victory-class destroyer included in the Sci-Fi promo for upcoming events that debuted during Sunday night’s premiere of The Chronicle. Since the Victory and Excalibur won’t be launched until two years after the events in the Rangers pilot, folks were wondering how they could be featured in the movie. The short answer is, “They couldn’t.” JMS has let it be known that the final CGI for Rangers is just coming in, so the Sci-Fi Channel just used whatever footage they had available to round out the promo.
In this case they took the space shots from A Call to Arms, presumably because they would look “different” than standard B5 shots (and therefore say “new series” to all but hard-core B5 fans who weren’t the target for this part of the promo anyway, since presumably they’ll all be watching regardless.) Also the ActA clips use the “new” jumpgate effect, which also distinguishes the footage from B5 material.
The fact that the final CGI means that post-production is moving ahead and that Sci-Fi shouldn’t have to wait too long for the final cut of the movie.
Finally, JMS resurfaced on the Compuserve SF Media “Straczynski’s Works” section, after an absence of several months. In answer to a fan question he mentioned that the latest word from he’s had from Warner Home Video is that the DVDs will be released “this fall.” Not terribly surprising since WHV would almost certainly have released the disc specs if they were going to meet the original August street date for In the Beginning and The Gathering. But since “this fall” could mean anywhere from September to November, we’re no closer to knowing when we’ll see the discs than we were when JMS first announced that they were in production back in January or February.
And that’s all the news that is genuinely new. Updates when more surfaces.
Joe
[This message has been edited by B5LR (edited July 20, 2001).]
<font size="3">TV Critics Tour, Sci-Fi Promo, Final Cut, DVD hint</font>
Not a great deal of actual information to report, and most of it has been covered in the forum. But for those who only check the news pages, here goes:
Last week the TV Critic’s Association had their press tour in Los Angeles. The Sci-Fi Channel held brief panels on three upcoming projects: The Steven Speilberg alien abduction epic, Taken, the Stephen King sequel mini-series, Firestarter: Rekindled and Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers. Apart from a couple of brief mentions in the trades and the mainstream press, few details about the event are available.
When asked about Rangers series prospects, Sci-Fi Channel Bonnie Hammer said, “We want to see how the movie does first.” She presumably means, “How it does in the ratings” which is a little disappointing. In theory she could have meant “How it does with test audiences” or “focus groups” but I suspect if she had she would have spelled it out.
“How it does” is going to mean “ratings” to most people. The only other news to come out of the event is that the movie will premiere in January, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter and Daily Variety. One newspaper report specified January 2nd as the date, but The Sci-Fi Channel hasn’t issued an official press release confirming any of this yet.
A lot of people were confused by what looked like shots of a Victory-class destroyer included in the Sci-Fi promo for upcoming events that debuted during Sunday night’s premiere of The Chronicle. Since the Victory and Excalibur won’t be launched until two years after the events in the Rangers pilot, folks were wondering how they could be featured in the movie. The short answer is, “They couldn’t.” JMS has let it be known that the final CGI for Rangers is just coming in, so the Sci-Fi Channel just used whatever footage they had available to round out the promo.
In this case they took the space shots from A Call to Arms, presumably because they would look “different” than standard B5 shots (and therefore say “new series” to all but hard-core B5 fans who weren’t the target for this part of the promo anyway, since presumably they’ll all be watching regardless.) Also the ActA clips use the “new” jumpgate effect, which also distinguishes the footage from B5 material.
The fact that the final CGI means that post-production is moving ahead and that Sci-Fi shouldn’t have to wait too long for the final cut of the movie.
Finally, JMS resurfaced on the Compuserve SF Media “Straczynski’s Works” section, after an absence of several months. In answer to a fan question he mentioned that the latest word from he’s had from Warner Home Video is that the DVDs will be released “this fall.” Not terribly surprising since WHV would almost certainly have released the disc specs if they were going to meet the original August street date for In the Beginning and The Gathering. But since “this fall” could mean anywhere from September to November, we’re no closer to knowing when we’ll see the discs than we were when JMS first announced that they were in production back in January or February.
And that’s all the news that is genuinely new. Updates when more surfaces.
Joe
[This message has been edited by B5LR (edited July 20, 2001).]
