JMS on GEnie / February 7, 1996 Compilation [spoilers]
b5jms-owner at cs.columbia.edu
b5jms-owner at cs.columbia.edu
Wed Feb 7 14:44:37 EST 1996
Forwarded message to B5JMS list.
Originally From: dstrauss at netcom.com (David Strauss)
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Many spoilers for upcoming episodes included below...
SFRT II RoundTable
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Message 416 Wed Jan 17, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 03:51 EST
RE: B5 costs...generally, under $900,000 per episode.
jms
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Message 336 Wed Jan 17, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 03:57 EST
At this point, I think I'd opt not to get into discussing ways to get the
film/TV companies involved more in SF fandom and the like, because sooner or
later that'd lead me back to the Dramatic Nebula discussion, and if we even
get *near* that one you would see a flamefest that would make the firebombing
of Dresden look like a tea party by comparison.
jms
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Message 443 Thu Jan 18, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 03:29 EST
Actually, as I recall, it's "Even a man who is pure at heart, and says
his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms, and the
moon is full and bright." Maria Ospenskaya.
Part of the problem with American culture is that we're a throwaway
culture...yesterday's fashions get tossed out instantly. To say that TNG or
DS9 are *better* shows than TOS because TOS was "of its time," or "good for
its time" is at heart a foolish statement. Something is good, or it is not
good. Nobody writes like Shakespeare anymore; was Shakespeare good "for its
time?" Is it not good today because it is too much "of its time?" Chaucer?
Marlowe? Hemingway? Dickens? Serling?
We denigrate our past to falsely ennoble our present. "Well, that was
okay for *then*, but it's not very good *now*." We all labor under the rules
and predelications of the moment. Yes, TOS operated under rules of that time,
just as TNG operates under the rules of syndication, and the secondary and
tertiary rules that come along with the fear of not botching the franchise by
doing anything too controversial. One could make a good argument that, by
calcification and commercialization, there are MORE creative strictures on
the ST "form" than there were in the days of TOS; certainly most of the
writers who've worked on the contemporary versions will tell you this.
Nonetheless, we should recognize that people aren't just stupid en masse
one year, then suddenly smarter today. If TOS was good, then it was good;
*we* may have changed, but the quality of the show as perceived then, is still
there.
End of sermon.
Tentative title for #319: "Grey 17 Is Missing."
jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
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Message 481 Fri Jan 19, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 04:06 EST
Yeah, I know Alan. We're more casual acquaintances than friends.
"All television has improved...." I'm sorry, I can't believe anyone
actually wrote that sentence with a straight face. Overall, like the rest of
society, television has become *less* literate, *less* sophisticated than it
was in the early years. Sure, we can now make genitalia jokes on Married With
Children...but it that more sophisticated? Where I come from, sophistication
means smart, witty, urbane, worldly. That doesn't describe the majority of
contemporary TV.
The majority of current television programs produced currently are
sitcoms, the majority of which are, to me, unwatchable...I see very little of
the genuine humor of, say, the Dick Van Dyke show, or the sophistication of
MASH. A few -- Cybil, the Simpsons, a handful of others (and AbFab if you get
cable) -- are quite funny, but frankly, were it not for laugh tracks, I think
about 70% of sitcom writers would be out of business.
When it comes to drama...point out to me who out there is doing work on a
par with Reginald Rose or Rod Serling or Paddy Chayefsky...where on TV can you
find hour or 90 minute plays like "Requiem For a Heavyweight" or "Marnie" or
"Patterns?" Is there good stuff being done today? Yes, of course there
is...there's just *less* of it around in drama mainly because the networks do
all they can do dumb down a show to make it more accessible.
(A network suit actually *said* thsi to me: "Our operating philosophy
these days is that the people with upper or middle-class incomes, and an
education, are watching cable, or laser disks, or videotapes. So what we have
to do is to program for the rest of the audience, who may be under educated,
but don't have any other options." Scared the hell outta me.)
When I was working on JAKE AND THE FATMAN (no defense offered), I had a
script I'd written about a cop who's been trying to nail a certain bad guy for
the last 10 years. I had a line in that when they meet: the bad guy says, "I
suppose I should be flattered. Not every man has his own, personal Ahab." A
pretty spiffy line.
The network calls. "We think there's a typo; there's a character
referenced named Ahab, but we don't see him anywhere else in the script." My
exec tries to explain to the network suit...see, it's Ahab...Captain
Ahab...you know, MOBY DICK...a nut chasing a big fish...?" The network guy
says, "Look, I have an MBA [I think we already see part of the problem here -
jms] and if I don't know who Ahab is, nobody else is going to, so cut it out
of the script." And so it went, over my strongly stated objections.
Has some TV gotten better? Yes. Has some TV gotten worse? Most
definitely. But to say that "ALL television has improved" is, frankly, one of
the most astonishingly inaccurate statements I've seen in years. That means
there are no gaggles of talk shows parading our eccentricities in phosphor-dot
parades day and night; no infomercials; no "America's Goofiest Videos"....
There's more material out there, but as is the rule with just about
everything, 90% of everything is crap, to quote Sturgeon. If you have a pile
of 100 things, then 10 of them are great; if you have a pile of 1,000 things,
you can say there are now 100 great things where there were once only 10...but
one can also turn around and say that there are now 900 crappy things were
there were once only 90.
To the question uptopic about golden-age SF...I would be lying through my
teeth if I said I wasn't strongly influenced by the look and feel of golden
age SF, and that this has filtered into the show to one extent or another.
jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
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Message 534 Sat Jan 20, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 20:33 EST
Re: the notion that there are 7 basic stories...this isthe sort of
thing academics come up with because they feel this compulsive need to
categorize creativity and break it down into digestible pieces. It is, of
course, sheerest nonsense, and the usual descriptions they try to apply (man
vs. man, man vs. environment, man vs. god, man vs. self) are so broad as to be
essentially meaningless. There ARE no set numbers of stories or story types.
Stories, at their best, are based around characters, and what that specific
character wants, how far he is prepared to go to get it, and how far someone
else will go to stop him. Thus, there as many types of stories as there are
types of people...endless and varied.
There's a post-script to the Moby Dick story...subsequent to the events
described, I send the suit in question a copy of Moby Dick...in comic book
form (Classics Illustrated). Something he could handle.
To those who inquired, other TZ episodes I wrote: THE WALL, DREAM ME A
LIFE, ACTS OF TERROR, THE MIND OF SIMON FOSTER, THE CALL, SPECIAL SERVICE,
RENDEZVOUS IN A DARK PLACE, and co-written...THE CURIOUS CASE OF EDGAR
WITHERSPOON (w/Barkin), THE TRANCE (w/Stuart) and OUR SELENA IS DYING, story
by Serling, script by jms.
jms
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Message 546 Sun Jan 21, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 07:03 EST
I know Mark Halperin's work, though I haven't read that much of it. I
enjoy reading fiction, but due to the nature of the job, I don't have much
time for it just now. (Simply producing the show would be an 18 hour a day
job; just writing all the eps so far would be a 16 hour a day job...somewhere
in here I have a serious math problem.) These days, I find myself more
reading nonfiction...biographices, collections of essays, historical works,
(that should read biographies above), that sort of thing, when I have time,
which is rarely. Tried, with minor success, to plow through Hunter Thompson's
latest...I've got Vach's Batman novel on my pile to read, some other
stuff...but there just isn't time for most of it.
jms
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Message 601 Mon Jan 22, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 18:43 EST
Everyone knows the *proper* way to ascii a raspberry is pfthpft....
jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
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Message 606 Mon Jan 22, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 21:23 EST
Today was a very interesting day; today Michael O'Hare returned to the
Babylon 5 stages in preparation for shooting the two-parter, which begins
tomorrow. Today he came by for his wardrobe fitting and to get his hair
trimmed, say hi to folks, and hang out...lunch was me, John Copeland, Michael
and Bruce Boxleitner eating together at one of the tables in the lunch area
behind the stage, lots of laughing and kidding, and the two get on great.
(Turns out they'd worked on other projects before, including the short-lived A
Rumor of War series by Sterling Siliphant.)
Anyway, it's a great atmosphere, and everybody's psyched for the two-
parter. It's like he never went away.
jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
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Message 359 Sat Jan 20, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 20:36 EST
Of course, it ain't just the media and comic cons that comp pros who
participate on panels...EVERY fan-run convention in the country that I know of
comps participating pros...Westercon, Loscon, Icon, Baycon, you name it.
Some of them are big cons, some of them are small or medium cons; they all do
the same. It's only WorldCon that breaks the pattern, thus one must ask for
justification.
jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
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Message 362 Sun Jan 21, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 07:14 EST
I'd also point out that Westercon is also a convention held in different
places each year, sometimes in Seattle, or Portland, or Los Angeles, or
Anaheim, or elsewhere.
Had an interesting phone call from a *very* highly regarded SF pro this
evening, prompted by this discussion. I pass along one of the statements the
pro made without comment, because I don't know the area this far behind the
scenes well enough *to* comment...it's this person's experience with decades
in fandom and working as a pro.
What the pro said was basically this: "What they *don't* want anybody to
know is that the WorldCons bring in huge amounts of money...which the con
wastes on mismanagement, poor planning, and endless beer parties for staffers,
buddies, and others. They run it like amateurs and fans, who are so lost in
their politics and insular worldview that they don't run it like the big event
it really is, a *business*...with the result that it's the fan and pro
communities that end up picking up the tab. The SMOFs who run these things
get so bogged down in their politics that they'd rather do things the dumb,
expensive way than the smart way because somebody else wants to do it that
way." (I'm assuming SMOFs means Secret Masters of Fandom, but didn't ask for
clarification.) "A number of us in and out of SFFWA have been fighting this
for over 25 years. But when you say this to them, when you say that the
problem is mismanagement at the top, they *crucify* you. So nothing gets
done."
Once again, I have no way of knowing how valid this opinion might be; so
don't kill the messenger. I pass it on for discussion and reaction.
jms
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Message 376 Sun Jan 21, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 19:04 EST
Sharon, don't you see what it is you're saying? If one brings up
ComicCon, you say, "Well, they're bigger than we are, we can't do things the
same way they do;" if one brings up Westercon, you say, "Well, they're smaller
than we are, we can't do things the same way they do." I know this isn't your
intent, but it comes off as backing and filling, that nothing can ever be
done, no criticism can be made validly. And the discussion keeps being pushed
to extremes to bolster a failing point; if one says, they should be better
organized, you come back with the notion that they can't and shouldn't be run
like Creation Cons. Nowhere was that said. Must a con be run as a CC to be
run well? Of course not. So that makes the response seem very transparent,
as others have noted. There IS a middle ground. I just keep sensing a real
lack of interest in many (but not all) associated with WorldCons to *find*
that middle ground.
jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
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Message 384 Mon Jan 22, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 01:23 EST
If I'm running a business, and it goes belly-up, or fails to show a
profit, if I then turn to the people who put up the money for it and said,
"Well, sorry, but after all, we're just amateurs," they'd nail my feet to the
floor and beat the crap outta me. And they'd be right in doing so.
So far a number of people have come forth to say, frankly, that the
WorldCons *do* suffer from frequent mismanagement, waste, the lack of
continuity, and the fact that as "amateurs" they can't be expected to run
things well.
This is a defense...? In what alternate universe?
Wouldn't it be smart, for instance, if the WorldCon committee hired an
outside business consultant, someone who *wasn't* an amateur, who could work
with each individual committee to provide continuity between cons, advise on
areas where mistakes had been made before, and suggest ways in which the cons
might be made to run more efficiently, and profitably, and sensibly? The cost
of such an advisor would be *minimal* compared to the funds recouped by a
leaner, more efficient, and more profitable operation. You'd make back that
fee a hundred fold. If there's general agreement that there *are* problems,
why not address them and fix them, instead of making the fan and pro
communities pay for the continuance of the problem?
(And yes, I have heard that LACon *will* be comping memberships for
participating pros, which by itself takes care of the assertion that it cannot
be done. Obviously it *can* be done. I know that some involved have gotten a
lot of email because of the discussion here, echoed on other nets, and I don't
know if it's had an impact, but either way, it's a Good Thing.)
Fans of the SF genre tend to describe those outside the genre as
"mundanes," and pride themselves on being smarter than the general population
(which is, to varying extents, probably true)...doesn't it seem strange that a
fan community which prides itself on being technologically and scientifically
smarter, on being on the leading edge of computer tech and genetics and other
areas, would choose to remain uninformed or less than capable about financial
areas? If the same attention were put on this area, as is on the others, all
parties concerned would be better served.
jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
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Message 395 Sat Jan 27, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 01:33 EST
I'd also point out that the film as it shows up on the stations is quite
a bit different from what I get in my master SVHS copies, and off the D1
masters. Once we deliver the episode, it goes through several dubbing
processes by WB, one to insert commercials (where sometimes we get clipped,
and we sometimes get weird audio and video burbles, we get crunched, sometimes
there's analog/digital conversion going on), and then AGAIN when the episode
is copied again for closed-captioning purposes. Then a new "master" is
struck for uplink. During this process, I've seen a distinct increase in
graininess, it's a bit less sharp, and you get some odd stuff with audio being
out of phase.
It's nothing we can control, it's the facilities used by PTEN for
translation of the episode for broadcast.
jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
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Message 409 Sat Jan 27, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 18:54 EST
Yes, I also like the more shadowy shots, which add a great deal of
texture to the show.
When we go to do the videotapes for the fan club, we're tentatively
planning to go to the same company that did the dupes from masters for the
tape we did for the Television Academy, back when nominating time came around.
They were very good quality, on a par with the standard VHS copies I get
personally. (I certainly couldn't tell any difference.)
jms
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Message 418 Sun Jan 28, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 04:43 EST
Right now, the plan, tentatively, is this: we would announce that say,
the first 8 episodes will be made available in a limited edition. We would
take orders for that first batch for a specific period, say 30 days. We would
then produce the tapes in the number ordered, and that would be it for a
while, while we moved onto the next series of episodes (9 through whatever).
After working our way through the total available number of episodes, we'd
eventually work our way back to #1 again, though it might take as much as a
year, and subsequent editions would be noted as such.
This is still open to change, but that's what we're considering.
jms
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Message 427 Sun Jan 28, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 18:03 EST
We hope to have a web site set up for the fan club soon, so that will be
a point of registration.
Re: widescreen...I've noted this before...we would have to go back and re-
telecine the film stock back to its original format for every frame of film,
which would cost upwards of $250,000 up-front, and we don't have that
capacity. That could only be done when a major player comes in to distribute
disks.
jms
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Message 455 Tue Jan 30, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 02:53 EST
We do not expose incorrectly, or inadequately. If anything the show is
lighter than it was in the first season. The element you point to, the slow-
motion drop of the detonator, took on a grainy look because it was slowed down
artificially, it wasn't shot at that speed, it was done in post. (Most of our
slow-mo is done in-camera; some isn't.)
CGI, direct to video or D1, is always going to look "cleaner" than film.
(Initially, on Space, they output their CG to film rather than
video...eventually they changed this because of the costs involved, which are
considerable) It's not that the film is grainier than it would be under other
circumstances; it's that the CG is cleaner than the norm.
jms
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Message 479 Thu Feb 01, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 00:50 EST
Don't forget he also had the inherent momentum he carried with him from
the fast-moving shuttle.
BTW, though I announced this elsewhere, I've finally finished the
revisions to my writing book, The Complete Book of Scriptwriting, which was
initially published in 1981, revised a bit, and has now been TOTALLY
rewritten, stem to stern, is almost double the original length, and has many
new chapters on technology and writing, the WGA, animation, traps, and other
areas, in addition to the chapters on film, TV, stage, radio and the like.
It's absolutely current now, and contains samples of various script forms,
agent forms, contracts, lists of all sorts, and tentatively I'm planning to
include a B5 script in the book, probably "The Coming of Shadows." It'll be
published with much ballyhoo in the Fall as THE (EVEN MORE!) COMPLETE BOOK OF
SCRIPTWRITING.
BTW, tentative title for episode #20, "And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding
Place."
jms
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Message 482 Thu Feb 01, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 05:08 EST
I'm mentioning it here because it hasn't been mentioned elsewhere here
that I've seen, and because it's something pivotal to me, and my upbringing,
and the formation of my personality. And because you ought to know about it
if you don't already.
The other day, Jerry Siegel -- half of the team of Siegel and Shuster,
creators of the most widely known character ever to come out of comics, one of
the five most recognizeable characters on the planet (this by a survey not
long ago) -- passed away, following his partner Joe a few years earlier.
Jerry and Joe created Superman. I didn't have the honor or pleasure of
ever getting to meet them, but everything I have ever heard has shown them to
be decent, kind, generous people who got screwed out of their fair share in
the character who became a billion dollar industry. Bill Mumy, who is as much
a comics fan as I am, maybe moreso, had Jerry over to dinner once, with Bob
Kane and Jack Kirby; it was the night of his life. Jack is also gone, but
this is about Jerry. And it's about Superman.
I collect only a few things. Watches. I like watches. I don't have a
lot, but more than 3 is a collection, I'm told. Comics, sure, I got about
10,000 comics, most in storage, a lot in my office at home. But I've always
considered myself a comics reader, not a comics collector.
I *collected* Superman stuff. And I have one of the best collections on
the Western Seaboard: bronze rings from the 1940s, pinbacks, patches, mugs,
pins, figurines, Supermen of America membership badges, a cape made from the
original bolt, to the original patterns, as that made for George Reeves...you
name it, I got it.
Because when I was a kid, Superman was It. Because of that singular
character -- invulnerable, unstoppable, whose single goal was to find the
right thing and do it -- I decided that I could do anything I set my mind to
doing. Truth, justice, and the American way. Yeah, it's corny as hell, and
maybe it doesn't parse too well in a "stick it to 'em" society, but as a kid,
it *meant* something to me. Okay, I grudgingly accepted that I couldn't
fly...but otherwise, if I decided I wanted to do it, then by god I *could* do
it. If that meant teaching myself to read at an early age, or dealing with
the great personal angst of a family life that was dysfunctional on the best
of days, for which invulnerability was a quality much to be desired...or
deciding that someday I was gonna be a Writer, then that was what was going to
happen.
And to this day, my only agenda is to try and find the right thing, as
best as I am able to perceive the right, and do it. Because when you're a kid
you're young and foolish enough to believe there IS a Right Thing; you just
have to dig long enough and think hard enough and survive the kryptonite long
enough to figure it out. And you don't lie, you don't sell out your friends,
you put yourself on the line, and anybody who wants to hurt your friends has
to go through you first.
These are the lessons learned by a kid; they are tempered with time, but
they still shape the adult.
When you start as a nearsighted kid, who doesn't fit in with the new
school (and there was always a new school every 6-12 months), who believes he
just might have a little nascent talent waiting to come out, tall and gawky,
with stars in your eyes and a home life that would make the Borgias seem like
a tea party...how much of a leap is it really to see Clark Kent in the mirror,
and anticipate Superman...?
Maybe it's maudlin, maybe it's indulgent. Maybe it's over-wrought, and
maybe it's silly. But the concept and the character of Superman meant
something to me as a kid. Still does. And now the man who created Superman
is gone, and somebody ought to say something, however silly or indulgent or
maudlin it might be seen by others.
Because it's the right thing to do.
Thanks, Jerry.
Bye. Give my regards to Joe. And Kandor. And Krypton. And Jor-El.
And Lara. What you created, endures. Rest easy.
jms
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Message 452 Wed Jan 31, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 19:32 EST
No, that's not the intent; but this is the time when stations make their
decisions about what shows they're going to pick up, and each year you get a
LOT of new shows out with a lot of hype and heat, and it's possible for a show
that's been around for a bit, middle of the road, to just sorta get forgotten
about in the crush. So it never hurts for fans to remind the station owners
what they want.
jms
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Message 465 Thu Feb 01, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 00:51 EST
Richard Biggs is pictorialized in the new issue of Playgirl hitting the
stands now.
jms
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Message 32 Fri Feb 02, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 05:56 EST
Brett: it's nothing to do with the editor. We deliver nice, clean fades
to black. When the show is delivered, we often get clipped by the local
stations (sometimes, we suspect, when the national spots are slugged in),
because if you clip a couple seconds here and there, you get enough time to
slip in another blipvert/promo.
jms
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Message 557 Sun Feb 04, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 03:13 EST
Other than GEnie...hrmmm...probably Compuserve. As of this time, it's
the one area I tend to post about equal to GEnie; it has a decent offline
reader (Tapcis) that'll help save you lotsa dough...the science fiction media
area (sfmedtwo) has 2 areas set aside for B5 in messages and library...it's a
friendly place, absent the occasional troll, which is generally dealt with
fairly well. Once the moderated rec arts b5 area is created, I'll be there as
well quite a bit. In the interim, with GEnie long the unofficial home of B5
online fans, the first place that "noticed" us...I'll be here until they turn
off the lights.
jms
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Message 73 Mon Feb 05, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 02:35 EST
My sense was that basically Ivanova jumped onto the wrong path as she
fled...the shadows were in proximity, and she ended up briefly on their path,
which took her to the interception of the transmission.
The one comment that I find most interesting, repeated here a few times,
is that they didn't buy the Nightwitch (as some have dubbed her) because in
her address to the Nightwatch, she was not exactly what you might call subtle,
and thus nobody'd believe her, and see her for what she was.
I find it interesting because we always think we're smarter than that,
when history proves *exactly* the opposite. The Big Lie, spoken not just
openly, but loudly, firmly and with conviction, has been one of the most
successful tactics in history. When Hitler and Goebbels stood before a crowd
and blamed jews for destroying society, circulated pamphlets with ugly
cariacatures, indicated that they weren't *really* human (this in actual
newsreels provided to the medical profession members charged with eliminating
"mental defectives and jews")...when Joseph McCarthy stood up in front of the
nation waving a list of names of commies in the state department, the
military, congress, showbiz, and the sciences...the public didn't suddenly
wake up, hear the voice of the fanatic, and say, "Hey, this guy's nuts!"
They bought it. Because they were primed to believe it. Because they
wanted to believe it. Because they were afraid *not* to believe it. No, she
wasn't subtle. Because there's a time for subtlety, and there's a time to
perform grandly for your hand-picked audience and go for the Big Lie. If she
were addressing a larger audience, she might softpedal her message. To the
Nightwatch, she's got to hammer them, just as the Hitler Youth were hammered,
as the Anti-Communist Youth meetings were hammered about the Red Peril, as
Croatian or Serbian soldiers were hammered about the need to rape women of the
other "race" to make the resultant babies more ethnically pure...which
happened.
Most of her dialogue was paraphrased from actual speeches given over the
decades, or longer, by fanatical leaders to their followers. There's bits of
Hitler, of Goerring, of Goebbels...bits of McCarthy, bits of Stalin, bits of
Pat Buchanan and Rep. Dornan.
Because people fell for it. It did work
It does work.
And it will *continue* to work...for as long as people think that THEY
would NEVER fall for such a thing....
jms
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Message 601 Tue Feb 06, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 20:03 EST
We're negotiating to try and maybe get some episodes on in March or early
April.
jms
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Message 468 Tue Feb 06, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 03:19 EST
We like to vary the music on the bumper. Just for the hell of it. And
sometimes (often, actually) to match the music in the bumper to the tone of
the episode. We have, I think 4 or 5 variations. Congrats, you're the first
to notice this.
You'll see Walter again this season after "Dust," and I'm trying to work
in one more before the end of the season, but it's tough, given what's been
going on in the latter half of 2260.
jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
Category 18, Topic 2
Message 474 Tue Feb 06, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 21:49 EST
Why didn't we do the music change in the end credits at the very start
of the season, you ask? Why, what a silly question, it was all planned, all
intentional, it means...er...it means....
It means we *forgot*. More correctly, *I* forgot. We were all so busy
getting the new main titles done, we just kinda forgot about it until the
first mix...and then we sorta looked around and said, "....oops."
jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
Category 19, Topic 30
Message 91 Tue Feb 06, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 00:43 EST
Well, Mike, then you're bound to be disppointed because one of those
things is going to be dealt with for sure. Some things can get by without
resolution; some things can't. Otherwise people get frustrated because
nothing means anything, it's just random threads, and you get Twin Peaks.
(And then they turn around and, because you didn't resolve something, say it's
a "plot hole" and gig you for bad writing).
jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
Category 19, Topic 30
Message 93 Tue Feb 06, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 03:16 EST
Where was it said Sheridan didn't recognize the voice...?
jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
Category 19, Topic 30
Message 95 Tue Feb 06, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 04:40 EST
Never said they're all convinced of it. Just as all Germans weren't
convined of the views advanced by Hitler.
You don't need all of them. You just need *enough* of them.
Preferably, enough of them with guns.
Remember, too, that we just came out of the Earth/Minbari War about ten
years ago, when we stood at the edge of extinction. The threat of a new alien
race makes a good device.
jms
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--
David Strauss <*> Administrator, N.Y. Islanders Mailing List
"When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is not
far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel
is that it made it possible to go elsewhere." -- Robert Heinlein
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