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JMS giving B5:TLT hints?

P

PillowRock

Regular
So last night I was reading the introductory section of script book #9 (which arrived yesterday afternoon :cool:).

One of JMS's parenthetic asides ended with "Maybe one day that script will be written ......" (possibly somewhat paraphrased, since I don't have the text right in front of me).

Now had that shown up back in the first couple volumes, I would have just thought "Eh, JMS has had various ideas in the B5 universe rolling around in his head for as long as there has been a B5 universe."

However, given the timing (the date on the intro section is down as Sept. 24), I have to wonder whether he was talking about something more specific and more near term. It just seems like a JMS sort of thing to do. Or, of course, it may be a complete red herring. Again, the timing would be perfect for it.

So what was he talking about?

W A R N I N G

* P * O * S * S* I * B * L * E * (somewhat speculative)

S P O I L E R

In his intro to Racng Mars JMS had a parenthetic aside commenting on how Boxlietner had always been bugged by the fact that Garibaldi got to deck Sheridan in that episode and get away with it ..... no return punch or anything. JMS claimed that Bruce still figured that he owed Garibaldi one. Then he tacked on that "Maybe that script will be written" bit. So now he has got me speculating that such a scene may very well be planned for The Lost Tales. Of course, there are no hints as to how that would fit into the plot, but there it is.

Any thoughts?
 
I imagine that it was

a) a joke - the scriptbooks are chock full of hilarious parentheticals, footnotes, tangents, gentle ribbing of B5 cast and crew members and general insanity.
b) an oblique reference to the fact that he is writing new B5 scripts again, which I'd feel somewhat smug about if I was JMS, and would drop mentions of it all over the place.

But I don't think you should read too much into it regarding him actually writing a B5 script for Bruce Boxleitner to have a chance to thump Jerry Doyle!

When my copy arrives (damn international shipping) I'll have another look. :)
 
That's interesting, although as bean says, maybe we're reading too much into it. Still, I like to speculate about this type of stuff, so hear goes:

There is the (to me) kinda odd line in Sleeping in Light, where Franklin asks Garibaldi if he wants go see the dying Sheridan (to which he answers that they've had their problems, but are still friends). It was written directly after season 4, and if it was used as the season 4 finale, it would've made perfect sense. But in season 5 they pretty much have made up, and even with his drinking problem, they're good friends at the point of Objects at Rest. Certainly beyond the point that it would be in doubt Garibaldi would want to see Sheridan when he is dying. Which would suggest that something happened that somewhat soured that relation, at least to the point that Franklin wasn't entirely sure if Garibaldi would want to see Sheridan during SiL. Some way these two characters come into conflict again in that time period? My first thought would be some of the stuff he promised to do for Lyta could bring him into conflict with the Alliance if found out, but then I realized we saw him post Teep War in a Call to Arms, being good friends with Sheridan still. Hmm...
 
There is the (to me) kinda odd line in Sleeping in Light, where Franklin asks Garibaldi if he wants go see the dying Sheridan
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Well, there's also the fact that because of where the line falls in the scene it couldn't just be cut out. They would have had to reshoot to eliminate it, and I seem to recall JMS saying somewhere that there either wasn't the time or money (among other things they would have had to rebuild at least part of the Garibaldi house set) or that he didn't think it was that big a deal.

But I think it is also safe to say that in addition to helping to start the Teep War (a mess in which the Alliance utlimiately had to intervene) Garibaldi has probably annoyed Sheridan in other ways over the years (and vice versa) just because he's the head of one of the most powerful corporations on newly independent Mars and the interests of both Edgars-Garibaldi and Mars itself are sometime going to diverge from those of the IA. A little friction is inevitable, especially since Garibaldi has no problem bending or breaking rules in pursuit of what he considers a just end.

Garibaldi is also an incredibly busy man, as many hugely wealthy business owners are, and he's famously cranky. Given all of that it seems plausible to me that Franklin might ask the question because Garibaldi might not be able to go or might not feel like going at that moment - even if he would regret it later. So I can live with it, even though it strikes me as something like a flat note in a symphony. :)

Regards,

Joe
 
I think we're on the same page here Joe. If it would've gone at the end of season 4, it would pretty much have been a connect the dots thing. Garibaldi betrayed Sheridan under Bester's influence, but there could very well have been lingering trust issues, and other things that would've made it difficult to rebuild that relationship.

Now, with season 5, we pretty much see that they do seem to be able to go a good way at rebuilding that relationship, and in Objects at Rest, Garibaldi even says Sheridan and Delenn have become like family. So there are more blanks to be filled in, even if it is not that much of a stretch with their positions and personality types, that things might've gotten rocky at some point. Still, the blanks are a bit less obvious than they would've been at the end of season four, and season 5 SiL seems to hint that something happened between them, beyond all that went down in season 4.

It honestly didn't bother me that much -- it's not that big of a stretch that something would've happened between these two men -- but it seems that indeed something did that we at this moment don't know about. And that JMS could use, if he so wanted, since the way season 5 played out leaves a bigger blank to be filled.
 
I think we're on the same page here Joe.
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In light of what is going on with Congress I'd suggest that the phrase "we're on the same page" be restircted to the NC-17 Forum from now on. :)

Joe
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Heh.

The whole page-gate thing isn't such big news over here (I'm Dutch), but I did see a chatlog linked on one of the forums I frequent, and man, was that ever creepy.
 
I had a fanfiction idea about why Garibaldi and Sheridan were on the outs again. (JMS, if you're reading this, cover your eyes.)

*Minor spoilers for the Centauri trilogy*



I envisioned Garibaldi and Sheridan taking David on a trip through the galaxy to "show him the world" as he'd requested in the Legions of Fire trilogy. I envisioned the trip ending badly when Garibaldi compares Sheridan's method of raising his son to the Vorlons, and his attempts to loosen things up to the Shadows. (I also had a cool idea in which Delenn finds a Ranger with a very checkered past in order to keep tabs on the three, despite their express wishes to be on their own. Of course there would be trouble, and of course the fighting pikes would come out...)

But of course, that's just my idea.
 
There is the (to me) kinda odd line in Sleeping in Light, where Franklin asks Garibaldi if he wants go see the dying Sheridan (to which he answers that they've had their problems, but are still friends).
Click to expand...

I took the line to mean that Garabaldi disagreed with some of the policies put forth by Sheridan's IA administraion in the time between OaR and SiL. Perhaps, even publicly.
 
I always assumed it may have had something to do with the manhunt Garibaldi opened on Bester. With the resources available to Garibaldi, it could have been messy.
 
There is the (to me) kinda odd line in Sleeping in Light, where Franklin asks Garibaldi if he wants go see the dying Sheridan (to which he answers that they've had their problems, but are still friends).
Click to expand...

I took the line to mean that Garabaldi disagreed with some of the policies put forth by Sheridan's IA administraion in the time between OaR and SiL. Perhaps, even publicly.
Click to expand...

Interesting ... I always took it to mean that SiL was filmed at the end of S4 when Sheridan and Garibaldi were not the best of buddies, rather than at the end of S5 when they had put that behind them.
 
I thought that it was largely to do with Garibaldi bankrolling Lyta's faction in the Telepath War... which may have resurrected the tensions that existed between them in late season 4 and the middle to late part of season 5.

Sometimes when we are hurt badly by someone or let down by them, it is easy to polarise them and dig up all the bad stuff there ever was between you.
 
Interesting ... I always took it to mean that SiL was filmed at the end of S4 when Sheridan and Garibaldi were not the best of buddies, rather than at the end of S5 when they had put that behind them.
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Had SiL been at the end of season four when it was filmed, you'd be right, of course. But where it stands now, we get to do some creative speculation as to what it can reference and make sense within the story that includes the bit of reconciliation that we see between the two by "Objects At Rest", which means they can have something come between the two of them that we haven't seen yet.

And I agree that it probably does have something to do with Garibaldi's influence/involvement in the Telepath War, if we revise the statement's meaning to adjust for when it was filmed.
 
But in the Centauri Prime trilogy, they're fine with each other. The only friction between them is over Garibaldi's efforts to corrupt David. And that's well after the telepath war.
 
My point was simply that I don't believe JMS intended any additional significance in that conversation other than the obvious ... that at the point it was written/filmed Sheridan and Garibaldi had not had time to resolve the conflict built up in S4.

As KoshFan says, the Centauri conflict has them on good terms ... and even the friction present in that story wouldn't be sufficient (IMO) to keep Garibaldi away from Sheridan's final meal.

But that is, after all, only my opinion so don't let me stop you "creatively speculating". I just think we (me included) occasionally read too much into things. Sometimes a spade is just a spade ... not a future murder weapon.

editted to add the bolded "don't" that I mistakenly omitted the first time ... since it completely changes the meaning of the sentence ... sorry!
 
And what I'm saying is that despite what the original intent was when SiL was written and filmed, we now have a different framework for the episode. Our having that different framework enables us to find new, unfilmed issues that could easily drive a wedge between Garibaldi and Sheridan, and cause Garibaldi to make that comment from the perspective of the new framework.
 
From the moderated group (I think it answers a few questions people have had):

Well, tomorrow I head back to LA for meetings on other projects for two
days, then it's back to Vancouver again on Sunday to continue prep. So
far everything's laying out very cleanly. We have an EFX house on
board now, which was the last big step to be undertaken. It wasn't
until the last day or so that we could really get into the CGI issues,
which are huge on these stories.

And in regard to that...the initial goal was to try and do three big
stories in one DVD. So I wrote three scripts, featuring Sheridan,
Lochley, Galen and Garibaldi. (I wanted to focus on the human
characters initially so we'd have more time for prosthetics R&D for the
next one.) The stories, as noted previously, were huge...all over the
map, from Minbar, to Earth, Mars, the future, the distant past, as well
as B5 itself obviously. We're also going to be trying some new
production technologies, again trying to stay ahead of the tech curve,
the way B5 has always stayed ahead on these things.


And over the last few days, as we began to bring on crew and lay out
the production, looking at just how complicated these mini-movies were
going to be, the idea of making three of these monsters began to become
a bit much for us to pull off on out first time out the gate,
especially since I'm still kind of new as a director. So we decided to
postpone one of the three to the next DVD, and lengthen the other two
to make up the difference. GIven that the Garibaldi story was the most
complicated visually and technically, also the most difficult from a
CGi perspective, that's the one that got pushed until, potentially,
next time.


And if the sales are anywhere near what WB expects, and I think they
will be, there's no question that there will be more of these down the
road. So we're gong to focus in on those two stories and knock them
out of the park. Same length, same running time, and now even bigger
than at first anticipated since the budget on number three will now be
applied to the other two.


Part of what we're doing is to re-think the look of B5 to some degree.
The show was created using 1993 technology, video toasters and amigas,
and was to some extent limited by the paradigms and production methods
we used in that. But it's now 13 years later, and while I will keep
the feel of the show the same, and the silhouettes and designs, there's
no reason to limit the look of the feel to what we could do six years
ago (from when we stopped). So we're going to invest a lot of time,
effort and money into really re-imagining some of the visuals at the
present level -- looking at shows like Battlestar and the like -- and
bringing those tools into B5 while still maintaining the feel of the
show.


I also managed to work in a nice nod to Andreas and Richard in the two
mini-movies.


So with that...the team is now in place, the last personnel have been
hired, and as soon as I get back to Vancouver, I get to take off the
producer's hat and put on the director's hat.


jms


message content (c) 2006
synthetic worlds, ltd.
permission to reprint
specifically denied to
SFX Magazine
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It is Sheridan and Lochley then; that is fine. Just so we do not get an entire episode of Byron talking about willow trees. *shudders*
 
I wanted a whole episode dedicated to jinx.

Seriously, these sound great! Its a shame the Garibaldi one got pushed, but I hope they make more!!
 
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