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JMS update on Lost Tales/Feature

Yes, and one million per episode is clearly a pittance. :rolleyes: It's amazing to me sometimes how B5 fans seem to live in some sort of isolated bubble world where they don't realize that the majority of sci-fi TV is made on that exact type of budget, and they are not the exception.

ROFLMAO!!! You're the one who's living in the bubble. It's isolated you from reality.



It also amazes me how to most B5 fans that isn't a great deal of money, when it is, it's more than enough to tell any story that JMS wanted to tell within his universe, and hey, what do ya know, he did!

....after much of the infrastructure was built for "The Gathering," and more and more of it was built up over the course of the FIVE YEARS of making the show.


And hey, I never held that opinion of JMS until he himself came out and said it. He is the one that came out and said that he couldn't tell a story about B5 unless he was given major money to do it, .

The infrastructure that Warner Brothers let slip through their fingers needs to be REBUILT. It's their fault that the stuff is no longer there. To ignore that, and say that the loss of all that should have no effect on the stories that could be told, is utterly ridiculous.


and it's amazing how this is okay with B5 fans, simply amazing, and very revealing about the fan base.

Oh, yeah, all of the rest of us who have been paying attention for these past 15 years have it all wrong and you have it right. :rolleyes: You write like a studio shill/crony who would never let the actual facts get in the way of a false conclusion.


Please show your figures, Cell. The budget figures I can find show that other SF shows have *far* greater budgets (DS9 had a a budget of 2 million per episode according to IMDb Pro. Voyager had 2.2 million. SG-1 had 1.4 million X Files 1.5 million). All of them had at least half a million more than B5 Not to mention that most shows, SF in particular often go far over budget where B5 didn't.

Exactly, and that flies right in the face of the nonsense that Cell is spewing.


In the case of Lost Tales, though, there's no real comparison with the series. TLT had no head start that the costumes and sets built for a pilot would have. It also was a complete stand-alone so everything spent on it was expensed to it as opposed to sets or costumes being ammortized over a number of episodes as happens on a series.

Exactly. Not to mention the sets, costumes, props that were added or enhanced over the course of the five plus years of making Babylon 5 and Crusade. Without "pilot money" B5-TLT wouldn't have that stuff available.

Want to tell Cell what the Voyager pilot cost? IIRC, it was around $20 million in what, 1995?



I look forward to seeing which shows you were referring to.

I have the feeling you'll be waiting for a long time.
 
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Here's JMS on Voyager expenditures:

# The VOYAGER pilot is *$23 million*?!

The BABYLON 5 pilot was $3.5 million.

With $23 million, we could make 1.3 SEASONS of B5. And have a bit of money left over for a wrap party.

Amazing....

Trek shows (after TOS at least) routinely had a much bigger budget. B5 is famous, among certain circles, for cutting corners and scraping pennies together, and even more justly famous for rarely, if ever, running over the budget -- almost unheard of even in "mainstream" shows!

And with that I take my leave again. Cell and I have already fought each other to a stalemate over other issues, I'm not going back there again.
 
And with that I take my leave again. Cell and I have already fought each other to a stalemate over other issues, I'm not going back there again.

Can't say I blame you, but...It's just irresistable not to correct him when he makes such blatant factual errors and then draws the inevitable erroneous conclusion. Garbage in, garbage out...

Jan
 
Here's JMS on Voyager expenditures:



Trek shows (after TOS at least) routinely had a much bigger budget. B5 is famous, among certain circles, for cutting corners and scraping pennies together, and even more justly famous for rarely, if ever, running over the budget -- almost unheard of even in "mainstream" shows!

And with that I take my leave again. Cell and I have already fought each other to a stalemate over other issues, I'm not going back there again.

The thing is, Trek is not the majority of sci-fi, I even stated that in a post I deleted when I decided this wasn't an issue worth arguing about. But, for the record, Trek is not the majority of sci-fi on TV when it comes to budget, that should be obvious to anyone. That's all I have to say about the issue, because I'm not about to argue with someone I have on ignore, and I already told KoshN that we were simply on opposite sides of the argument, simple as that.
 
The thing is, Trek is not the majority of sci-fi, I even stated that in a post I deleted when I decided this wasn't an issue worth arguing about. But, for the record, Trek is not the majority of sci-fi on TV when it comes to budget, that should be obvious to anyone.
So? I've already listed two others:

SG-1 --- 1.4 million
X Files --- 1.5 million

Then there's:

SeaQuest --- 1.3 million
Buffy ---2.3 million
Angel --- 2.0 million
Space, Above and Beyond --- 5 million

So...where are all of your examples of lower budgets, the shows with budgets just like B5 had?

That's all I have to say about the issue, because I'm not about to argue with someone I have on ignore, and I already told KoshN that we were simply on opposite sides of the argument, simple as that.
Oh, jeez, I'm killfiled again? Guess Cell doesn't like his unsupported claims being challenged. Somebody should re-issue the memo that forums are for discussion, not simply grandstanding. I don't think he got it.

Jan
 
Eh, Jan, I don't think most of the Internet didn't get that memo. We here at b5tv are surprisingly immune to Internet Dickwad Syndrome, so when even fairly well-spoken if argumentative types like Cell show up, we react badly. (Even Dayton3 was fairly civil compared to some of the flamers out there.)
 
Eh, Jan, I don't think most of the Internet didn't get that memo. We here at b5tv are surprisingly immune to Internet Dickwad Syndrome, so when even fairly well-spoken if argumentative types like Cell show up, we react badly. (Even Dayton3 was fairly civil compared to some of the flamers out there.)

Good point, KoshFan.

Jan
 
Eh, Jan, I don't think most of the Internet didn't get that memo. We here at b5tv are surprisingly immune to Internet Dickwad Syndrome, so when even fairly well-spoken if argumentative types like Cell show up, we react badly. (Even Dayton3 was fairly civil compared to some of the flamers out there.)



Yes we are (though I disagree about D3:devil:)

ANYONE who would "ignore" Jan is ...stupid. :rolleyes: Whether you agree or disagree about her opinions, her facts are always spot on.:thumbsup:
 
Trek is not the majority of sci-fi on TV when it comes to budget,

What does that even mean? What did you supposedly do, add up the budgets of all TV sci-fi ever made, and determine that Trek budgets add up to less than hafl of the total? Even if you did that (and I highly doubt it), of what value is that statement? Answer: No value at all. It's a worthless statistic.

Trek is mainstream TV sci-fi, and in recent times cost ~$2 million/ep. B5 & Crusade cost ~$1 million/ep. That's 2:1, and that's a meaningful statistic.
 
The budget for an episode of a running TV show is *not* relevant for comparison, because set-up costs can be spread over the entire series, and only enter the budget figure for one episode by a fraction. Meaning, if there's an item that costs $1 million and the series has 20 episodes, the budet figure for this item is $ 50.000 per episode. Simple commercial reasoning.

In the case of TLT, the figure more relevant for comparison would be budget for the Stargate SG1 D2DVDs "Arc of Truth" and "Continuum", which was $7 millions each. And even that's *without* the entire sets and CGI having been to rebuild.
 
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What does that even mean? What did you supposedly do, add up the budgets of all TV sci-fi ever made, and determine that Trek budgets add up to less than hafl of the total? Even if you did that (and I highly doubt it), of what value is that statement? Answer: No value at all. It's a worthless statistic.

Trek is mainstream TV sci-fi, and in recent times cost ~$2 million/ep. B5 & Crusade cost ~$1 million/ep. That's 2:1, and that's a meaningful statistic.

You can't judge Trek against any other sci-fi that is produced for TV budget wise because it is its own beast, the entertainment industry treats it as such and so do consumers. Trek is viewed as thee franchise so it will always be given oodles more money to work with than any other sci-fi franchise out there, it's as simple and obvious as that. Trek is not the majority of sci-fi TV, because it is Paramounts baby and it will always be given higher and bigger budgets than the majority of sci-fi on TV.
 
So? I've already listed two others:

SG-1 --- 1.4 million
X Files --- 1.5 million

Then there's:

SeaQuest --- 1.3 million
Buffy ---2.3 million
Angel --- 2.0 million
Space, Above and Beyond --- 5 million

5 million/ep.for Space Above and Abysmal ?! :eek: ..... :LOL: Sorry, I was channeling Gharlane of Eddore for a second. Man.I miss that guy. I don't care what anybody says. He was alright.

Didn't Firefly have over $2 million/ep. ? (~2.2 or 2.4 ?)

How about:
Battlestar Galactica ?
Stargate Atlantis?
The 4400 ?
The Sarah Conner Chronicles ?
The Dresden Files ?
 
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Didn't Firefly have over $2 million/ep. ? (~2.2 or 2.4 ?)

Very possibly. I only listed the series I could find budgets for on IMDbPro. I figured once Cell came back with his examples there was time to look for more. ;)

Jan
 

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