Kitaro Sasaki here!

[sarah cantrell]

First of all I'd like to say hello to all the fans, and I'd like to thank you all very much for your interest and support. I know it means alot to everyone involved. Filming Legends was an incredible experience for me and I can only hope there will be a series. The experience of working with these cast members was very special indeed. I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to work with such talented people. Thanks again to everyone for your support. Talk to you again soon.
Myriam Sirois


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[David Frazer]

Hello and welcome to Warren and Myriam. It must be strange to come into something which already has such an eager fan community. Had you seen Babylon 5 before, or is everything new to you?

Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing Legend of the Rangers if and when it ever comes to Britain...

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[Dekion]

I go on vacation and look what happens!

Let me say welcome to ALL of the cast posting here, and let me say it is an honor to have you here. I look forward to hearing your no doubt unigue perspective on Rangers and the Babylon 5 phenomenon in general. I also look forward to falling in love with your characters, as I did in B5, such as Londo, G'Kar and Sheridan.

Welcome again, this is going to be a wild ride.


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[Ninja_Squirrel]

Surely, you guys will get Rangers in the UK. I've always gotten the feeling that the British loved B5 even more than Americans. Aren't some of the more major B5 coventions even held in the UK? They'd be stupid not to sell the show to one of your networks. Do you have your own version of the Sci-Fi Channel? Space is the name of Canada's version of SFC, right?

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Not many fishes left in the sea. Not many fishes, just Londo and me.

 

[B5_Obsessed]

Wow!

Is this why it's gotten so dead over at the SciFi.com board? This site gets cooler every day!

As a most humble fan, unlike Joe D. (I see a good running gag here), I'd like to thank the cast and crew members for coming by. I hope your online visits are pleasant and happen often.

I am looking forward to the character of Tirk. He may be around for Zathras-like comic relief, but I'd also like to see a fully fleshed out Drazi character eventually. After all, Vir Cotto started out as comic relief too.

Regarding series commitment, the suspense must be killing you guys much moreso than us, so you have our sympathy.

Good luck and we'll be watching for you!











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"Draal gave Zathras list of things not to say. This was one. No, not good. Not supposed to mention 'one'... or 'THE one'... Mmmm. You never heard that."

 

[hypatia]

Thanks, Chai. I knew about Slade here, but the rest are news to me. (I don't know their names yet, you see!)

B5_Obsessed, I agree completely. If JMS did with Vir what he did, there is no reason to believe he won't do the same with a new character, like Tirk. Assuming a series is made, of course, it gives plenty of time to develop all of the characters. That is the main thing I dislike about the Star Trek movies: no more real character development in the minor roles.

Of course, I am greedy. I want the movie, a series, then some more tv-movies (or even full-scale in the theater movies!)

I saved my letter-writing disk from the "Save Crusade" campaign. Easy enough to convert over to "MORE RANGERS" letter-writing!

Oh, I'll have to update my letter to reflect that Bonnie Hammer is now the President of Sci-Fi!

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"I do not believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense,
reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."-- Galileo

 

[gkarfan]

Welcome to the Legend of the Rangers people! Here's something for you: I met Andreas a couple of years ago, & he was such a nice & humble person! What were your impressions of him, & did he stay in character as G'Kar all day on the set the way he used to do in the B5 days?

Tammy

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[Cleron]

well im lost for words, let me just say

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G'kar " No dictator no invader can hold an imprissioned population by force of arms .forever.. there is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom...against that power goverments and tirants and armies Cannot stand... The centuri learned this lession once ... We will teach it to them again... though it take a thousand years... We will be Free!"

 

[Kitaro Sasaki]

Tammy,

Hey! Well, I met Andreas Katsulas my first day of filming, "To Live and Die in Starlight"...My first scene to be caputered on celluoid was next to "G'Kar"...and I have to say, Andreas Katsulas is definitely G'Kar! His energy is extremely powerful and intriguing! In a very quiet sort of way, if that makes any sense! His presence is felt even when he is not speaking!

So, anyways, I met Andreas and he is a great gentleman! Great actor, and I was honoured to be in the presence of such talent! Kitaro would definitely agree to that! -Warren- "Kit"


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[hypatia]

Warren, do/will the "Rangers" actors have to do a "junkett"? (I think that's what it's called, when you have somewhere between 60 and one-million interviews with individual press people and answer the same questions over and over 60 to one-million times?)

I've heard of those for movies, but I don't know if they do them for television.

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"I do not believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense,
reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."-- Galileo

 

[StarStuff]

What excitement - having Rangers present! Welcome.

We've pinned our hopes for a new series on all of you. No pressure though!!

Have any of you been fans of B5??

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God be between you and harm in all the empty places you must walk.

 

[Zoriah]

I too am awestruck at our luck to have some of the talented people who have worked on the new movie stopping by to say hello.

Well a big welcome from 'down under', you'll find there are quite a few of us aussie and kiwi fans frequenting this board and eagerly awaiting the next installment of the B5 saga.

Although we may be the last to see the pilot, we'll be rooting for you along with our northern maties.

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[Kitaro Sasaki]

Hypatia,

Well, so far, we (cast members) have only done interviews while filming "To Live and Die in Starlight" which will probably start to make appearances in magazines closer to the airing date! The only press conference interview so far was the "Television Critics Association Press Conference" held in Pasedena earlier in the month of July, but the only actors to attend were, Dylan Neal, Myriam Sorois and Andreas Katsulas! They dealt with press questions and the photographers...very hectic day I heard in terms of the amount of attention for the show! -Warren- "Kit"

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[GKarsEye]

Like the cast members, I would also like to share my experiences with Mr. Katsulas.

I once delivered a pizza to his house. He complained it took too long, even though I was well under the 30 minute guarantee. Then he barely tipped me, he just rounded up the bill to the nearest dollar. What a jerk!

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"You do not make history. You can only hope to survive it."

 

[hypatia]

Myriam, please do take what you read here with a grain of salt. Since there is no new news to chatter about, we do tend to speculate and such. (I still don’t get the flarn fight and all of that.)

I would like to venture to say: I doubt it matters if you learn much about B5. I might regret saying this but: not every ranger would have more than passing knowledge of B5 anyway. I’d think that there would be some advantages to coming into the role with a fresh perspective.

Just don’t let us nutty fans scare you off!

And I’m glad to hear everyone liked working with Andreas Katsulas. He really is a “fan favorite”.

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"I do not believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense,
reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."-- Galileo

 

[Kitaro Sasaki]

To answer someone's question on whether I was a Babylon 5 fan...Well, I have to say that I was very intrigued with the show! I found it rather original in all ways. In terms of the Characters, costumes, believable B5 Space Station and concept...Alien life was quite well thought out in general. The Aliens were keep pretty much concervative so to speak. Nothing too outlandish if that makes any sense. And of course, I mean in General. The humanoid concept was kept intact within each alien being. Not to say that there may be tons of extraterrestrial beings that are of no type of humanoid appearance what so ever! They (alien life) could take the shape of just pure energy...but, that would be boring for a show!
I felt that the Minbari's were quite believable. The concept about the outer bone development is really brilliant to me!

The Narns have very interesting facial features that are very intriguing to look at. I love the scupltured eye area. The reptiliant type of look is very cool...and in my mind, very believable! The prothetic masks works well to show the actors facial expressions...The Centauri's have great hair is all I can say about those guys and gals!

The Drazi's are a really neat looking bunch of people! Purple/Green...all the same to me! I haven't quite seen a female Drazi yet!

So anyways, I just think that "Babylon 5" is quite a realistic vision on what might we be living and seeing in the future. I really don't think that it well be like a "Star Trek" sort of feel. Too sleek! Too military...No type of culture feel to "Star Trek" regardless of the wide ethnic cast...same with "Voyager"..."Babylon 5" oozes culture. To me, there is a sense of real people...I am a big fan of "Star Wars"...and this film really captured the essence of living on worlds billion of stars away from earth! Everything seemed believable in general..."Babylon 5" has a similiar/familiar feel to me!

A good example of "real people" on 'Babylon 5:The Legend of the Rangers"...During my audition reading for "Kitaro Sasaki" (Li Chen), the first reading I gave was way to military for "JMS", so, 'JMS' gave me some direction to pull away from the "too military" feel, and move towards being alittle more casual, conversational in the delivery of the dialogue...not so offical sounding like I tend to do...so, I made the adjustment, and I became the "Kitaro" that JMS required to tell his story of "To Live and Die in Starlight". The audition process is very interesting to me!

I sign off now. "We live for the one, we die for the one"...I have to say that the one for me is not "Valen", it is 'J.Michael Straczynski...


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[whitestar90]

I to like to welcome you to the board Kitaro and I think this great that you can spend time amongst your fans as no doubt you will have after Rangers is seen by the public anyway hope you have an enjoyable time with us

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Emporer Turhan-"How will this end"
Kosh-"In fire"

[This message has been edited by whitestar90 (edited August 01, 2001).]

 

[bakana]

Kitaro, the general "humanoid" look to most of the aliens on B5 was mostly a Budget thing. In practical terms, it's much cheaper to use live actors than CGI Aliens or puppets.

They did do a little bit of that. N'Grath during the first season. (the Giant Bug.) It was dropped because it took up too much time and money to do.

There was also a pure energy alien in one episode. It "invaded" Sheridan and persuaded him to take it "home".

The Nakaleen Feeder was also pure CGI. Most expensive episode of the season, I think.

And, of course, the Shadows and their Soldier of Darkness were all CGI.

But, when it comes down to it, even if they got the cost of CGI down to peanuts, no computer will ever be able to replace Talent. For That, you need a real, flesh & blood Actor.

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Yes, I like cats too.
Shall we exchange Recipes?

 

[Kitaro Sasaki]

Bakana,

Those are good points! That is very true about "CGI" being uneconomical for the conservative budgeted "Babylon 5"...And of course, the point you made about having a human actor contributing to the character opposed to a computer version that has no soul...their well definitely be a lack of the human spirit in the "CGI", although, what is scary is the fact that we are moving quite readily towards a computer generated society! Virtual reality will be a common thing in the near future! "Final Fantasy" was a pretty good attempt to show how closely a computer can mimic a human being...still quite abit off, but, things are getting very near to true realism, an artificial representation of life that will fool the average human being, that pretty soon, we definitely won't be able to distinguish the difference! That might be a problem that we have failed to anticipate!

The Japanese might fall prey to their own inventions! To believe, and decieve oneself can be very dangerous if things are not controlled...because then one is living in fantasy...an illusion!

Anyways, good points Bakana! -Warren- "Kit"

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[Sinclair]

Welcome, Kitaro! It's great to have an actual cast member posting here at the board. Perhaps you may be able to convince others to post here as well.

Anyway, thanks visiting the board!

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All my life I've had doubts about who I am, where I belong. Now, I'm like the arrow that springs from the bow. No hesitation, no doubts. The path is clear.
-Ambassador Jeffrey David Sinclair, War Without End