(*) These characters were originally planned as recurring characters
throughout the series, but were replaced for various reasons.
- Actually, at one point or another, just about *everyone* lied
in the course of the pilot...including Sinclair, who lied to G'Kar, and
of course Delenn lying to Sinclair in the Garden...and so on.
- The one thing that I dropped fairly completely due to the
delay in getting the series going was the Laurel thread, which has now
mutated and become something even more interesting, actually. It's
something that's enabled me to now build in a trap door that you won't
see for a long time, even though it's sitting there in plain sight.
- What happened to the old characters on the pilot, not working
on the series? jms: On a classified mission (which I hope we
will be able to get into at some point), Laurel has been reassigned out
on the Rim, and Dr. Kyle is now working with the EA President on the
issue of alien migration to Earth, a growing problem to some, a benefit
to others.
- Pat Tallman passed on returning to the B5 project. Our new
telepath will be played by Andrea Thompson, with the character name
Talia Winters. Much of the Lyta arc will now go to Talia, but there's
now a different way of getting her into that arc.
- How much of the basic "saga" is in the pilot? Some...bits and pieces. The
problem, always, is that we have a whole new universe to establish, with all
the backstory that goes with that. As it is, it's fairly "information
intensive," as one person put it. We find out about the Earth/Minbari War,
the curious surrender, Sinclair's past, the missing 24 hours, the relations
between the various governments and their own personal agendas, and a hint of
what's to come. This while establishing the backstory of all our characters,
and telling a story in present time (for them)...
- I think you will find indications of what we've talked about for the series
present in the pilot. Which is why it bears watching more than once; you'll
pick up more information and more of a sense of the world the more closely
you inspect it. (We tried to come up with a pilot that actually BENEFITS from
close inspection, rather than falling apart if you look at it too closely.)
- What it *does* give me, which is kinda nice, is that the only two people to
have ANY direct contact with a Vorlon have been transferred back to Earth.
Which plays wonderfully into something sinister I'd kinda like to develop
that the Earth Alliance is working on behind the scenes...
- Actually, I think we broke [the "Return of the Jedi"] record for ships
on-screen in the pilot; Ron was rather pleased about it at the time.
- Will there be a director's cut?
The odds are zero, since the first version of the B5 pilot existed
only as a computer-graphic file edited movie. It wasn't edited on
film, for real, until we'd pared it down. We'd have to go in and
totally re-edit and re-score, and I doubt that's going to happen.
-
Beats me, but if you find an uncut version of B5, lemme know, because
I'D like one.
The problem is that, unlike a motion picture, where you produce a
cut on film, which you then trim down, we're editing on computerized
image files. We don't get around to finally cutting the film until
we've made our final edits. So no complete version ever existed on
film. The most that could be done is get those 25 minutes and *build*
a new version with that footage...which would require additional
scoring, editing, and other stuff.
- The computerized cut of the pilot is now dumped out of memory, and
those portions only exist on a few VHS tapes of marginal quality.
Also, the footage in computer file form is *very* low grade, like a
poorly scanned gif file, very low resolution. It would be useless on
a laser disk.
- I'm certainly not showing disdain for the missing material; I'm just
saying it ain't *there*. Now, if B5 turns out to be a megahit, there
may be money set aside to re-edit the pilot some years down the road,
but I'm not currently counting on it. My chief concern now has to be
the series.
- There was a reason we gave Londo the pilot opening monologue, yes.
And another reason why we're giving Sinclair the opening monologue
over credits of the first season, though with some differences.
We're also considering rotating any such opening between other cast
members as well, but *always* in the past-tense, "Babylon 5 *was*...."
We're dealing in future history here, and we plan to do some
interesting things with that aspect.
- Yeah, Londo seems like the *least* likely person to do the opening
narration for a show like this; you don't even see him for nearly two
full acts, and it's the kind of thing you'd expect the Commander to do.
But there are reasons for everything....
- Oh, yeah, the "mission of destruction" thing ONLY relates to this
particular episode, the pilot. It'll be gone from regular episodes.
- "Mankind" was being used by Londo specifically in relation to humans,
not sentient aliens including his own race. Earthers. Which was one
reason (of many) I wanted his character to be the narrator, someone
looking in from the outside.
As for the Third Age, it's -- oh, darn, look at the time, have to go....
- The alien section looked like a zoo!
First, we decided that wasn't a right look for the alien sector, and
that's the corridor we blew up at the end. But the reason it was
designed that way is important. Your reaction -- don't the aliens
have any privacy? -- is a very human, and specifically a very
*western* point of view. Our feeling at the time was, why should
alien quarters look at all like human quarters? Shouldn't they have
a different perspective than typical Western-style hotels? (In some
degree, the quaters were patterned after Japanese mini-hotels, where
you get basically a slightly larger coffin-like setup, which you crawl
into like a torpedo tube, with a window at one end, which has a
curtain, a TV over your head, and so on. What we discovered is that
many people ask for more alien aliens, but when we delivered on that,
were asked why these things weren't more like what we expect, why
aren't they like human quarters? It's really a losing battle.)
The other point on this is that if you look closely, there are back
areas accessible to residents, which can in particular be seen in the
insectoid/antennae'd character's quarters. The idea was that it would
be sort of a front porch, where for lack of much else to do, you'd sit
out on the porch, watching the passing parade.
But the reaction was less than favorable, we had to keep explaining
that this proceeds from an alien POV, and so our alien quarters are
more like human quarters now, minus the alternate atmosphere stuff.
I'm still not quite sure what to think of this.
- Actually, it's Kosh's ship that comes out of the jump gate backward,
engines forward to assist with deceleration. The fighters don't want
to be slow-moving targets, so it stands to reason they wouldn't be
configured for rapid deceleration. They want to get into position as
fast as possible.
- Kosh's ship had to decelerate in order to dock inside the station.
This is a reality of spaceflight...you must both accelerate and
decelerate. Both take time. Especially if you're going to dock.
Plus there was time involved in setting up the docking procedure,
turning over control to Babylon Control, lining up vectors and so on.
The fighters didn't have to worry about any of this. They came
shooting through the gate and barely slowed at all, speeding over to
B5 and taking up position.
There have now been several situations in which we've been accused
of "mistakes" that have, instead, simply been things done
scientifically accurately. I have to say (and this isn't directed at
you, just more of a general statement), we're not going to hand
everyone everything on a silver platter, serving up pablum...the nature
of a *science fiction* series is that you should THINK about things.
The acceleration/deceleration thing is one example; some thought about
why this would be would have led to the answer.
And, as evidenced by other messages here, others have taken the time
to look at it from that perspective. Which I think is great.
- Re: the skin tab/Kosh's hand/encounter suit question...one of the
reasons I can't wait for the series to get on the air is so that we
can make one thing clear, once and for all: it is NOT an error, not a
plot hole, it is a plot POINT. It is a question that our *characters*
will be asking each other. How can this be? This will come up more
than once, starting with "The Parliament of Dreams" episode.
- As for the Vorlon handshake (so to speak)...this will be dealt with
in the series. You have to remember that the original plan was to air
the pilot and go *immediately* into series, where we'd bring up some
of these questions. There simply wasn't room to deal with EVERYTHING
in that short pilot...and where we DID try and cover everything, we
got gigged for being expositional.
Now we have to re-establish a few things since there's been a gap in
time...but the poison incident will be raised in "The Parliament of
Dreams" script to start with, and move on from there.
- The Senator of the pilot, who was back on Earth, is someone who has
in past been someone that Sinclair has come to for backing on things;
he's the equivilent of someone on the Armed Services Committee, here
as one of those civilian Senators overseeing Earthforce. He would not
be in any position to just come in and take over, any more than a
Senator visiting a U.S. army base would be in a position to take over
the base if there were a problem with the ranking officer. But he
might be able to bring some force to bear back in Washington, which
might double-back to be of some use.
There are civilian branches and military branches, as with today, in
which the civilian branch oversees the military, but in very
formalized ways.
- In the script, the privacy mode involved going from a standard
looking open booth to what suddenly looked like a flat black cube,
which you could neither hear nor see through. The director decided
to try the lights. It didn't work. We're dropping it.
- You're right; the events of the Line are something that Sinclair
doesn't much like talking about, and has been advised *against*
talking about. When the Minbari surrendered, Earth put the best
possible spin on it, tried to make the survivors of the Line look
like heroes, but there's a general sense of what happened. And a
great deal of dismay over it.
- Your assumption is correct; the assassin's weapon was a very small
one...limited power, and a charge-up sequence that becomes longer the
more it's used. If the Minbari had shot Lyta, it would've taken too
long for the gun to power-up again for him to shoot Sinclair...and he
would've been captured. We slightly expanded the power-up whine for
each shot after the first one. You'll note that the first shot, the
one that takes out Varner, is almost immediate. Points and fires.
Gradually it takes longer, and finally the gun runs out altogether
(which is why, though we probably should've been clearer in showing
this, the assassin finally went hand-to-hand with Sinclair...the gun
was never meant as an assault weapon, more as a derringer, with a few
shots in case he got into trouble).
- As for Sinclair going after the Minbari assassin...there were several
reasons for this. First, this was personal for him; if the guy
*wasn't* caught, he would be blamed for the death and sent to the
Vorlon homeworld. He had something very much at stake. Second, if
you have somebody with shapeshifting technology on board, the LAST
thing you want is to send in a large group. The tracking of the
energy web used for the holographic effect was good, but only to a
certain point. It could say "He's ten feet away," but if there's 5
guys within that range, it'll take you just long enough to react for
the assassin to wipe out the bunch of you before you figure out which
one he is. But if there's only *two* of you, and you hear the shifter
is within 10 feet, you know *exactly* who it is and can react
accordingly. It seemed logical. Also, you'd want someone there who
you knew VERY well, in case there were a replacement...because while
someone could emulate a face, they can't replicate memories, and
Sinclair or Garibaldi could quickly figure out if the other was an
imposter.
Yes, I probably could've stopped to explain this...but I figured it
was readily apparent, and there was already enough exposition in the
pilot to stun a horse.
- "If JMS had not mentioned the hole in Sinclair's mind, what would
have been the reason for the assassin to try and kill Sinclair?"
Hello...did you see the same movie that I wrote? The assassin was
not there to kill Sinclair. He was there to kill Kosh. He tried to
kill Kosh. He tried to stay AWAY from Sinclair, did everything in his
power to avoid Sinclair, ran from Sinclair, and only finally
encountered Sinclair when Sinclair came after HIM. Then it was
nominal self-defense.
Had the "hole in the mind" reference never been made, it would have
been clear -- at least clear to every other carbon-based lifeform who
saw the movie -- that the assassin 1) came to try and kill Kosh, 2) in
the hope of disrupting the purpose of Babylon 5, with the added
benefit of 3) if he failed in his mission, setting up Sinclair to take
the rap for his actions. At the very end, rather than be captured and
interrogated, the Minbari assassin killed himself with an implanted
bomb. His comment to Sinclair at that moment was more of an "Up yours"
comment, designed to shatter Sinclair with the knowledge that he knew
something Sinclair didn't.
You keep saying he was there to kill Sinclair. He wasn't. He didn't.
He didn't try. It makes it hard to have this conversation with you if
your comments don't touch reality at any two contiguous points.
- I never said that the [assassin's] intent wasn't to set up Sinclair;
I only said that he wasn't there to *kill* Sinclair. That aspect of
making Sinclair the patsy was very much part of the thing.
- What Kyle suggests...is closer to the truth than might otherwise be
suspected. We had filmed a scene -- which never made it into the
finished pilot -- where Garibaldi, growing suspicious of his boss --
confronts Sinclair in the core shuttle. One of the alibis he checked
out doesn't hold up: Sinclair's. The transport tube computer records
don't indicate any delay. Sinclair suggests that there's either a
problem with the system, or it's been deliberately altered to remove
that information.
It was, of course, the latter.
Now...stop and think about this for a moment.
The Observation Dome has equipment to detect approaching ships. The
spider transport approaches without being noticed. The surface of the
station would likely have sensors to detect something attaching itself
to the hull. Somehow these were over-ridden. The only time that
anyone notices, up in the Dome, is later, when Laurel isn't there,
interestingly enough. Someone deliberately programmed the transport
tube to delay Sinclair. The assassin would have to know this in
advance.
We saw Londo with the assassin. We also saw Garibaldi, Lyta, Dr. Kyle
and -- later -- Sinclair with the assassin, each relating to him in
different ways. Who was the one person we never saw with the assassin,
whose reactions might have told us something? Who was the one put in
charge of the station when Sinclair was pulled out of circulation?
Laurel.
We had some...interesting things in mind for this character. Now that
another character has come in, some things will be modified, but other
elements will come in to replace them.
- I kept Tamlyn in the dark about a lot of this. She even mentioned
this in an interview she gave somewhere. I didn't want that knowledge
to make her play the role anything other than it should have been
played: as if absolutely innocent and sincere. Sometimes you just
gotta be sneaky....
- There was an element of saving her own life...and another aspect of
all this is that she may not have been acting entirely of her own
free will during the first half. There may be some influences that
will emerge later.
- Laurel was not being altogether honest, and was helping to cover the
activities of the person who was doing the assassination attempt.
(This, again, is a thread that would've come clear had we kept that
character; nobody was supposed to figure it out going in, but rather
put it together over time.)
- This has already been answered; had the character stayed with the
show, gradually it would have emerged that the assassin had access to
Laurel's codes because she provided them to him.
-
This isn't so much a spoiler, since it concerns an abandoned story
like (or, let me rephrase that...a modified story line). I mention
this here since I just mentioned it elsewhere, and might as well do
so here.
Think hard about the pilot for a moment. Whose job is it in the
observation dome to monitor incoming ships...but apparently let the
spider transport slip through unnoticed? The station's skin should
have (and likely did) detect something clamping onto it...but
apparently someone over-rode that for the spider transport. Someone
had to PRE-arrange access via the computer for the assassin, since it
easily palms its way into Varner's quarters. (And what is the name of
the person the access computer recognizes?) Someone had to arrange
for the transport tube to be delayed, and then *erase* that
information from the computer system. Someone who knew *exactly* when
the Vorlon ship would be docking. We see, at various times, the
following people interacting with the assassin, in different
capacities: Garibaldi, Lyta, G'Kar, Londo, Dr. Kyle, and of course,
much later, Sinclair. Who did we never see in direct contact with the
assassin? Who was put in charge of the station after Sinclair was
removed?
Do you notice a pattern developing? Do certain things here point to a
certain individual...who may, or may not, have been acting on her own
volition?
And yes, this is something we planned to explore, though it wasn't on
a *direct* line to the arc of our story. It definitely impinged upon
it, of course. This has been modified due to the change in the
character of the Lieutenant Commander, and this now won't go where it
was going to go...but we still have some very interesting plans for
our secondary character, not at all along the Takashima lines (which
is why this isn't a spoiler), but certainly intriguing on their own
terms.
-
Now, I didn't say she was a villain. I said that certain things may
or may not have been done of her own free will, her own volition.
What this means...we'll see.
- The scruffy person in the Varner files was the same homeless person
who we just happen to see sitting right outside Varner's quarters,
watching as he moves along. This was played by Ron Thornton, because
we wouldn't be seeing him in a major role, we'd just have to know
someone was there.
Again, this ties into a specific story line that has been modified
with a) the departure of Laurel, and b) the length of time since the
pilot aired. Who was the homeless man really? It's no longer an
issue, but it was related, yes.
But only in a very small way.
- "Would it be fair to compare the original ST pilot to B5's pilot?"
No, it would not. Because there is nothing in common with them other
than that they are both SF. You can compare TNG to DS9 to TOS,
because they're in the same universe.
Would it be fair to compare Cagney and Lacey with NYPD Blue? After
all, they're both cop shows. But in fact, they're not the same kind
of cop show; they share the same genre, but there ends the overlap.
The two shows are distinct, separate entities, just as Harlan Ellison's
work is distinct from Bill Gibson's work, even though both incorporate
elements of SF.
The ST pilot existed in its own universe, and was primarily an action
show. The B5 pilot exists in its own universe, and primarily sets the
stage for a political mystery/intrigue series. It wasn't meant to
serve the same functions as the ST pilot.
It seems to me that many SF fans continue to compare everything to
ST because that's their primary frame of reference, and they continue
to apply it whether it's relevant or not. My suggestion...get another
frame of reference.
- Once again, there's a lot of false analogies here in any attempt to
compare pilots, as in this TOS and B5 thread. You're talking about
transporters and other *technological* items. And you're right, they
didn't explain their tech. Neither did we, with the exception of the
changling net in the pilot, and only because it was a plot point. We
didn't explain how the jump gates worked, how centrifugal force kept
the gravity in place, or any of that.
The difference isn't *technology*, it's *context*. Once again, B5 is
in many ways a *political* story. Consequently it's necessary to
explain who the players are in some detail, something that ST didn't
have to worry about. If you're reading a political thriller about the
U.S. and the (now defunct) USSR, it helps a lot to know who's who.
Also, when ST started, there wasn't really a clear agenda, a place
that they were going, story-wise. B5 is a novel for TV. And that
puts on some pressures and problems other shows don't have. Others
may not see it that way, but it isn't their call. It's my call, and
I stand behind it, even while seeing some of the flaws in the pilot.
All of which again points up the...well, *pointlessness* of trying
to compare the two shows. Compare MASH to ALL IN THE FAMILY. They're
both comedies. The similarity ends there. Everything doesn't have to
be comparable or dissectable (to coin a term) in reference to ST.
- Let me just, against my better wishes, dive in here for just a moment
moment on this discussion. Especially as it relates to your slam
against the characters and characterizations on B5.
People keep comparing the B5 pilot to either the DS9 pilot or the TNG
pilot, often favorably, sometimes less so, but the reality is that the
B5 pilot had to suffer under a burden shared by neither of those two
other shows: establishing a whole new universe, especially given that
the B5 story is more of a political/action piece in which you really
have to understand where everyone's coming from. By the time they got
around to making the TNG pilot, just about everyone knew what a
Klingon was, what the Federation was, what phasers and teleporters
were...this was all established cultural coin. When Jay Leno would
make jokes about Klingons on the Carson show (which it still was back
then), he didn't have to explain it to anyone. There's 25 years of
shared history informing the story. Same in DS9. Thus in neither
pilot was that much really or substantially *new* introduced, they
didn't have to create the universe from scratch.
But that was exactly what was necessary for B5; the relationship
between the five various governments is important to understanding the
characters, and the show...as is the recent Earth/Minbari war, which
isn't just backstory, it's something that will grow to play an
increasingly important role in the series as time passes. So there
had to be time spent establishing each of those relationships, the
political backstory, the minor players. AND we had to tell a fairly
complex story within that framework.
After you allocate the history of the B5 universe, for the
establishment of the plot, for the establishment of who our various
players are in relation to one another, you've got -- at MOST -- 3
minutes left per character out of a 92 minute movie. You can't
establish a lot of character in 3 minutes.
Which is what strikes me as unfair in this conversation. You're
trying to compare 25-30 years of ST in its various incarnations, with
its delivery of characterization over A WEEKLY SERIES to a single
introductory TV movie of 92 minutes.
Plus, the pilot was never meant to be a stand-alone; it was meant to
get all the pieces moving, introduce us, and follow up the very next
week with *character-oriented stories*. That was always the plan.
Had I known that it would be aired by itself, with a long delay until
the series, I would have totally restructured it to make it more of a
character story, and held off on the heavy background stuff until
later. And in addition to THAT, I again point to the 25 minutes of
good character stuff that ended up on the cutting room floor because
we were over, some of which has been shown to people at conventions.
Some of them also felt as you do. They saw the extra footage. And
their reaction: "Oh, so THAT'S who that is!" And their opinions of the
characters did a fast turnaround.
So what I'm saying here, fundamentally, is this: let's compare apples
to apples and not apples to oranges. You can't compare B5 to either
TNG's or DS9's pilots, because they operated in pre-existing universes.
You can't compare the level of character you get in a series to a TV
movie, because one is 92 minutes long, the other is 22 hours long
times the number of seasons run.
If you want to compare things, and that's certainly your right, may I
suggest a moratorium on this entire discussion until the series comes
on the air? That will allow you to compare series to series, which
seems just a tad fairer to me. Any seconds?
- Re: the pilot...I've hashed and rehashed this, and the bottom line is to
see what we do in the series and judge the series by the series. The DS9
pilot had to explain very little that wasn't specific to the plotline: you
already knew what a Bajorran was, what a wormhole was, what the Federation
was, what the Cardassians were, on and on and on. Because they didn't have to
introduce any of that, they could spend time on other character moments. We
didn't have that luxury in the pilot. We had to do what, in essence, ST has
done over 25 years: establish our universe, painting it in broad strokes, as
broad're done with that aspect. And now we can do our character-based
stories. Which is exactly what we're doing. Each of the characters is being
solidly rounded out in the series, showing multiple sides to each character.
All I can say is that I think you'll like what we're doing.
-
I wasn't gonna jump in here, but I have to at least answer your
question: "Where's the rest?" The rest is in the series. You haven't
seen the series yet. You're comparing it against 7 years of TNG;
rather consider if the ONLY thing you had EVER seen was "Farpoint."
We had a massive burden: to build an entire universe, based around a
political drama, in basically 90+ minutes not counting commercials.
That meant that more time went into exposition and backstory than I'd
like.
In my view, we've now done that, we've laid the foundation, and now
we can sit back and tell stories...*character* based stories. That's
what I'm best at, and that's what the writers I've chosen to use on
the series are best at.
The "rest" you ask for is there..in the series. But I'm not asking
you to take my word for it. Check out the show. Maybe you'll like
it. And maybe you won't. That's showbiz. You don' like it, you
don' gotta watch. But I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
The miracle of the B5 pilot is that it got done at *all*, given the
odds against us, given a team working together for the first time,
without the benefit of an established universe, and actors who had
never worked together before who had zero chance for rehearsal. I'm
not apologizing for the pilot; it had flaws, but I'm very proud of a
lot that's in there.
Do the math. You have a little over 90 minutes. You have to
introduce 9 major characters in the course of that story. That gives
you ten minutes of attention for any one character. Now you've also
got to tell the backstory. You've got to establish who the various
players are. You've got to put the present-tense story into motion,
with beginning, middle and end. And now you're left with maybe 3-4
minutes of "quality time" with any one character. If we only had 2 or
3 characters, then it's a very different story...but that isn't the
universe we have to work in.
Now that the series is going ahead, we can spend an entire *episode*
dealing primarily with one character. And do the same for others. We
have the time. And that's what's important.
One last observation: you repeat the notion that it's all a "reaction"
to TNG. The treatment and screenply were complete and making the
rounds in Hollywood in Spring 1987. The basic material was written in
1986, at a point in some cases when TNG hadn't even *aired* yet. So
it could hardly have been written as a reaction to something that
hadn't been seen yet, could it?
-
You repeat several times your insistence that I study TNG to see
what they did right, use them as a roadmap.
Sorry. I have no desire to study TNG. I'm telling a different sort
of story, in a different universe. What TNG does right or wrong is
more or less irrelevant to that universe. That's like saying that
(just to pick two names at random) Orson Scott Card should study Poul
Anderson as a roadmap in his own novels. This is utter nonsense.
A while ago, I got an email from someone who didn't like the pilot
(and it may have been on internet, btw) mainly because of the
communication devices. He said, and I'm paraphrasing from memory,
that every time someone used the wrist-links, it broke the illusion
for him, since we all KNOW that by then the REALITY is that we'll be
using the chest communicators that TNG uses, and I should be sure to
include that in future episodes as a capitulation to that reality.
Sorry...TNG is a roadmap for TNG. Not B5.
- 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....
-
My feeling here is, don't worry about the show, regarding your
overcoming on the pilot. Pilots are good, bad or uneven. What matters
in the analysis is the series. You can have a great pilot and a
disappointing series. And vice-versa. The series will air. If it's
good, people will watch, whatever they may have thought about the
pilot. If it ain't good, people won't watch, and deservedly so. In
other words, the ball's in our court now.
-
"The pilot wasn't good. Face it!"
I'm at the head of the line to point out flaws in the pilot. Flaws
that we've dealt with. But a) it still holds up, and b) you are
trying to make your opinion into *fact*. It ain't. An awful lot of
people liked the pilot a lot. To them, it was good. Maybe to you,
it wasn't, but that's only true for you. That you may think persimmon
yoghurt is the best flavor ever created doesn't make it true for
everybody else. Just a moment for perspective here....
- I was at the Emmys tonight for the presentation of the B5 Emmy, and
in the visual efx area, more than one shoe can get an Emmy. So we got
one, DS9's pilot got one, and Lucas' Young Indy show got one. (We sat
at the next table to Lucas and his bunch, in fact, and noted that he
watched the B5 footage with considerable interest.) So when you come
right down to it, here we were, our first shot out of the box, and we
ended up on the same level of appreciation as Trek and Lucas. Not too
dusty....
- And y'know...it's absolutely in keeping with the Straczynski luck,
and the history of this show, that the year B5 wins an Emmy is the
first year that they DON'T do the recap of last night's technical
awards. Ah, well....
- I was asked to keep quite about this until April 23rd, which is when
the announcement is to be made at the Nebulas, but now that it's
indeed the 23rd, and that announcement either has been made or is
being made now, I'm pleased to report that the Babylon 5 pilot movie,
"The Gathering," has been nominated for a Hugo.
Since we're up against Jurassic Park, I think I pretty much know where
THAT award is going...but it is a tremendous honor and everyone
involved with the show is very pleased by it.
- Thanks. As it turns out -- I today saw the list of nominees -- B5 is
the ONLY TV-SF nominated for the Hugo. The rest are all feature films
(JP, Addams Family, Nightmare Before Christmas, Groundhog Day).
-
Eric...nothing would gladden my heart more than if the B5 pilot won
a Hugo (except the series winning a Hugo, which I think is a bit
likelier, maybe). It is the highest compliment that can be paid by
the SF community of readers and viewers. But one must be realistic,
and I just don't see it outpulling Jurassic Park in the ballotting.
JP is the proverbial 500 pound gorilla. Or the 50,000 pound T-Rex.
While we are only small mammals....granted we're mammals with guns
and an attitude, of course....
-
JP won the Hugo
Yep, that's pretty much what I said would happen. And in my view,
JP probably deserves the Hugo more than "The Gathering." Next year,
now, THAT is an open question....
- Nope, I was nowhere in the pilot, not under makeup, not nohow, not
no-way. Nor will I do so in the series. That just ain't my thing.
- Side-note...Londo baring his teeth had nothing to do with Delenn's
vote in "The Gathering." That was gas.
- Both Christy Marx and Kathryn [Drennan, JMS's wife]
can both be *briefly* seen in the pilot
movie as BG in the casino...and in the main titles, Kathryn's back is
to the camera in the wide downshot, though you really can't make it
out well in that one. Also in the montage in the pilot movie, seated
at the bar under narration, the fellow with the beard, is art director
John Iacovelli.
- The most entertaining thing for a writer is creating a character; the
second most entertaining thing is killing off a character. Believe
me, as you'll see in the Fight To The Death in the pilot, I have no
problem dropping a body. And as far as I'm concerned, only 2 or 3
characters in this series are indispensible...the rest are open to all
kinds of interesting fates.
- The amount of contact required varies according to the telepath's
strength. Lyta at P5 needs a little help. A P10 could nail you from
across the room.
- The background on that business meeting is similar to all such uses of
telepaths: both sides agree to the presence of a telepath to monitor
the negotiations. If one were to demur, the deal would be off because
the person clearly has something to hide. Which is why there is a
good market for various kinds of shields that don't LOOK like or feel
like shields unless the telepath knows what to look for. You can also
just try and hide it and hope that the telepath isn't looking too deep
or isn't really paying attention, which is what that guy was doing.
(May have been reciting the "tensor" rhyme trying to keep his brain
occupied.)
- The encounter suit opened at the touch of a button (you can hear him
press the button with a *click*). Only for Lyta did it open on its
own.
- Here's the one thing that amazes me, speaking of seeing the pilot for
the gadzillionth time...there is one great big huge gaping visual
anomaly/inconsistency in the pilot that so far no one has noticed.
It's so massive that when I first saw it, I just about fell out of my
chair. But the director said "No one's ever gonna see it, no one's
ever gonna notice it, *trust* me on this." I was absolutely convinced
that he was wrong. Apparently he was right. At some point in the
future I'll tell you what it is...and when you see it, you're going to
wonder how the hell you avoided seeing it before, it's *that* big.
But not for a while yet. (And the few smaller things mentioned here
...ain't it.)
- For the record...thtch has something to do with the second trial
scene.
-
It's the overhead shot of the courtroom; we didn't have a second
establisher, so we used the one of Kyle even though Sinclair was on
the stand.
- Actually, "beep-beep" was always there in the script; it was the part
where we learn AFTER that that Sinclair only told G'Kar about the
homing beacon, didn't really plant it, that came up during filming.
- Here's one little extra for you: only one person aboard Babylon 5 has
any idea of what a Vorlon is, inside that suit, and only one race has
had dealings with the Vorlons before. Watch the reception at the end,
and see if you notice anything unusual in the way the various people
respond to Kosh.
- How much of the basic "saga" is in the pilot? Some...bits and pieces.
The problem, always, is that we have a whole new universe to
establish, with all the backstory that goes with that. As it is,
it's fairly "information intensive," as one person put it. We find
out about the Earth/Minbari war, the curious surrender, Sinclair's
past, the missing 24 hours, the relations between the various
governments and their own personal agendas, and a hint of what's to
come. This while establishing the backstory of all our characters,
and telling a story in present time (for them).
I think you will find indications of what we've talked about for the
series present in the pilot. Which is why it bears watching more
than once; you'll pick up more information and more of a sense of
the world the more closely you inspect it. (We tried to come up
with a pilot that actually BENEFITS from close inspection, rather
than falling apart if you look at it too closely.)
- Actually, the funny thing is, I don't much mind if people who hadn't
seen the pilot don't catch the rebroadcast. What we're doing now is
SO radically better than the pilot that I almost can't watch it now.
- Agreed, the pilot movie was much darker...unfortunately, it was SO
dark that we actually veered into what're called "illegal blacks,"
that is, the picture is too dark, and this causes problems with
foreign distributers. (This is what they tell me, and through an act
of faith I have come to believe them.) We're still about a half-stop
or full stop below what's typical. Be advised that many stations,
when they broadcast the show, pump up the brightness a *lot*. They
just dial it up.
-
Laurel was not standing upside down in relation to the station's
rotation. The docking bay, at the center of the station, for zero-g,
was above her head, her feet pointed down, toward the rim of the
station, in correct orientation. Just FYI.
-
We'd originally planned to go for a more vague sexuality for Delenn;
a male physically and primarily in the voice, on top of the natural
female movements one gets from an actress. In post-production,
however, we couldn't get the voice to sound as good and male as we'd
wanted. In addition, a couple of convention showing of a rough cut
saw people responding VERY strongly to her voice as it was, so we
finally decided to let it stand and change the one reference to "he"
to "she," and that was the end of it.
-
Delenn was originally going to be a fairly sexually-ambiguous
character...a male character, played by a female, with a computer
altered voice...but we couldn't make the alteration sound good enough
to satisfy us, so we left her a her.
-
Kosh will "speak" in the series. After a fashion. But not as you
might expect. Suffice to say we've seen the final effect now in the
mix of finished episodes, and it's *real* creepy.
-
Your memory is faulty. It was stated in the pilot that Kosh's ship
took roughly 4 days to travel via hyperspace to B5. That's from
Vorlon space; we don't know where the fleet was when it entered jump.
Because such ships can make their own jump points, it could've been a
lot closer to B5 space when it went in. (And was.)
-
Okay, okay, 8 days not four...I knew it weren't no 3 weeks, though.
The one thing to remember is that travel in hyperspace isn't the main
problem; the real problem, time-wise, is the period required to get
from a world to its nearest jump gate. It might take 4 days to travel
from World X to the gate, and 1 day to B5 in hyperspace...while
another race, 1 day from the gate, and 1 day to B5 in hyperspace, only
has 2 travel days.
-
As I've noted elsewhere, G'Kar made mention of the need for genetic
alteration/modification during the scene with Lyta. Beyond that,
though, G'Kar's personal perversion is sex with humans, which no one
else seems quite able to understand....
-
Garibaldi was named after the famous Italian war hero of the same
name.
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