JMS update on Lost Tales/Feature

[Jan]

If the data used to form a conclusion is incorrect, the conclusion will of necessity also be flawed.

Jan

 

[Cell]

If the data used to form a conclusion is incorrect, the conclusion will of necessity also be flawed.

Jan

If someone bases all their views on what a creator says in an out of universe interview then they lack the basic ability to think critically. If someone watches a movie and interprets what they see on the screen then they will never be false because interpretation is all in the eye of the viewer.

 

[Jade Jaguar]

All interpretive art is opinion, that is an obvious fact,

Well, yes, all interpretive art expresses the opinions of the artist, who is acting as "interpreter."

But, I think what you really mean is that the interpretation/appreciation of all interpretive art is opinion. Yes, that is an obvious fact. But, what is also an obvious fact, is that neither your opinion, nor my opinion, of a work of art makes it good, or bad. It is a consensus of opinion, of the audience the art was produced for, that determines if a work of art is good, or bad. It is that consensus, over a period of time, that determines if the art has lasting value.

 

[vacantlook]

Just because something isn't to your taste doesn't make it bad.

Jan

Yes, it does actually....

Watch out ladies and gentlemen, that ego is so large that gravitational tides are shifting, and we may end up in a collision with another planet.

 

[Recoil]

Wow. This thread went from informative to a two on two cage match.

 

[Jade Jaguar]

Happy Birthday, Recoil! :beer:
You've past that very dangerous age of 33, safely...

 

[KoshFan]

Unlike you I present plenty of informed opinions and don't just rattle off facts from interviews and other useless drivel.

Jan is almost universally respected in B5 circles, and has been essentially from the beginning. You... aren't. That doesn't happen by chance. Look in the mirror someday.

If they wanted to get a message across then they should have included it in the actual product for everyone to see.

They always do; the question is whether or not the audience has the wit to see it.

Now let's all stop being douches. Believe it or not, we're all people here.

 

[Recoil]

Happy Birthday, Recoil! :beer:
You've past that very dangerous age of 33, safely...

Haha, Thanks JJ!

 

[Jan]

Thanks, KoshFan. I appreciate it.

Jan

 

[Bester]

The difference is that outside of Jeremiah none of those are JMS' own works. They are properties he is working on yes, but they are not his own work.

Jeremiah cost a lot of money to make and Showtime gave him the financial backing, but the show was subpar and they thankfully pulled the plug on it.

...I present plenty of informed opinions...

If your "informed" opinions are based on inaccuracies, then they are quite worthless.

 

[darth_librarian]

Cell, it may be worth just dropping this one. You did get a lot of shit wrong back there and are blurring your opinions as fact. Other may have different opinions, but that does not make them wrong.

I do agree that some early episodes of his stuff and a lot of his comics work is subpar, for him and for the medium. But he also does so great work. There is much more hit than miss, and given his volume of output, that's a lot of hit...

My personal take on this (my own opinion, that's all) based upon Jan's reporting (she is a massive fountain of news and facts on B5, a mod at JMS news and a lot more besides, so she is a source I trust) is that Joe frankly has other bigger fish to fry now. Doing low budget stuff is not worth his fairly precious time (and it is precious when you get paid millions to write scripts).

And yes, low budgets do hurt story telling. How can you tell an epic sci-fi story (or even a convincing dialogue between two characters on a busy intergalactic space station) with two dark corridors and some non-speaking extras?

$5 million is nothing when sets and CGI have to be done from scratch. Its also not fair on the actors, who get paid pittance for their work. TLT had such good CGI mainly because the animators were fans and did a lot of stuff in their spare time. So I believe that JMS did this out of his own interests, the actors interests and ours.

Anyway, who knows, the WB may say yes ....

 

[KoshN]

Well most of us seem to agree that this is both bad news and good news

I agree.

Bad in that there will probably

almost certainly

be no more B5,

in any form.

but good in that if there is, it will be a full featured movie.

I have no faith in Warner Brothers doing this. If they do, they'll probably try to go for a budget of $1.98.

If the story of B5 taught us anything then we should not abandon all hope of this happening.

I have. Warner Brothers is utterly HOPELESS. As long as they have control over B5, anything B5 (including Crusade) is doomed. They'll never happen.

 

[KoshN]

I got somewhat mixed feelings. I was looking forward for next Lost Tales instalment with Garibaldi story and possible story about Londo. I know the first one was made with shoestring budget and that really shows in The Lost tales. I got my hopes up about continution of TLT when JMS announced sales were much bigger tha WB had expected. And later was heard WB had intrests for more B5 DVD's.

I tought as JMS tought too that WB gave shoestring budget for TLT to test if there were market for more B5. And there indeed were much bigger market than WB had anticipated.
Can't understand their decision to give future instalments same kind shoestring budget that was given to first one, as they now know B5 sells good. Is WB really that greed that it gives JMS ridicilious low budgets for new B5 instalments hoping to get big profits with very low investments?

When it comes to B5, they're cheap, tight,skinflints, people who would make Jack Benny look like a big tipping philanthropist.

 

[KoshN]

The biggest problem is that the clock is running out when it comes to telling the telepath story with the original cast. If he wanted to do some B5 movie in the future at some unknown point, that would allow for more flexibility, but the timeline is a problem now. It's known when those events occured, and the cast was meant to film them many, many years ago I think.

That and Warner Brothers tightness.

 

[KoshN]

Count me in on those with mixed feelings. I hope he gets the funding some day to tell the one last really big missing part of the B5 universe: the telepath war.

The last TWO really big missing parts of the B5 universe: Crusade and the telepath war.

 

[KoshN]

That's the subject of part of the story of the Centauri novel trilogy. Though, it would be fun to actually see it on the screen.

We'll never see that filmed because G'Kar/Andreas was a key figure in it.

 

[KoshN]

Hopefully he had more in mind than a lot of impressive visual effects.

Is no one speaking up, saying they'd love to see what was intended for "Crusade"?

Where and to whom? Here and to ourselves? Well, that is a way of venting, I guess, but it's not going to do any good in causing the rest of Crusade to be told.

To Warner Brothers? No, I've given up on them completely. They're hopeless, utterly hopeless. Might as well talk to a wall.

I'll forever wonder how season 2 of that show would have worked out. Not to mention just what the heck the Apocolypse Box really was.

Right there with you on this.

Oh yea, and then there's this whole plague thing, too, that seems will be more complicated than just "we found the cure in the second-to-the-last episode".

We know that the plague was cured. We saw Dr. Stephen Franklin in Sleeping in Light on Mars and Minbar in 2281. Also, we hear that he's off exploring with G'Kar in 2271, in Voices in the Dark (Yes, I know the double entente.). The plague was going to be cured in mid-Season 2 of Crusade.

 

[KoshN]

Perhaps, but let's remember that it's been 10 years since Sleeping In Light. All of these abortive projects feel like when some band breaks up, then re-unites, only to release some mediocre album with two decent songs but no one cares and how can you blame them. Sure, the Lost Tales and Crusade has as many pleasant moments as Steel Wheels and Voodoo Lounge, but I could live without any of that stuff.

Looking back on everything done since Sleeping in Light, the one piece I really want finished is Crusade. As a series of novels, it could work, but that will never happen.

Even a Hollywood movie would look silly now. Everybody's old or dead and there just isn't the audience for that.

When it comes to Crusade, TNT-Atlanta's strategy won. They managed to kill it forever.

 

[KoshN]

Same here, and I am also one of the people that doesn't really see where JMS is coming from on this issue. It's good to go into a project hoping that it will succeed and you will be given a bigger budget. However the WB flat out stated that they were only interested in making inexpensive direct-to-DVD releases and that is still their intention.

JMS wanted to prove to WB that a B5-TLT Direct-to-DVD could be done on a small budget, BUT since WB lost all of the CGI from B5 and Crusade, destroyed all the sets, and sold off most of the props and wardrobe, some money has to be earmarked for startup costs that's NOT in the per episode budget. WB wanted to make more B5-TLT DVDs for the same miniscule budget as B5-TLT DVD#1. With everybody griping about how threadbare that production looked, a second DVD would have needed a much higher budget (for more extras, more sets, more props, more wardrobe, more B5 and Crusade stars, etc., if it was going to go over big with the fans. Look at Netflix reviews. Most fans were severely disappointed because it didn't look and feel anywhere near as good as a regular B5 or Crusade episode. The main reason is that most of the stuff that supported those episodes, the long time B5 production crew, and stuff that was created over the course of five+ years, was GONE. POOF! The sets, the CGI, the wardrobe, the props.....GONE. It takes money to rebuild all that infrastructure. Warner Brothers doesn't want to pony up the cash. They're tight and have no real faith in B5.

For some reason JMS has decided that despite knowing this was the case from the beginning that he is going to pull the plug because they refuse to pony up more money. It all strikes me as a bit odd, and somewhat idiotic on his part. (Not the actual pulling of the plug, but his reasoning behind it)

It's not odd. JMS was hoping that Warner Brothers would see the light, and realize that you have to spend money to make money, and that there is a fanbase out here that would support such a move on their part. Yes, it was naive, but JMS knows better now. B5 and Crusade are over, done, history. You couldn't pry open Warner Brothers wallet for B5 or Crusade with the jaws of life. You couldn't pull a teflon coated dollar bill out of their hands with 1000 locomotives.

 

[KoshFan]

Eight consecutive posts? That's gotta be a record for a non-spambot.