JMS on CompuServe (Jun 23, 1997) *POSSIBLE SPOILERS* (1/2)
bbarrett at speedlink.com
bbarrett at speedlink.com
Mon Jun 23 20:10:11 EDT 1997
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[ Summary of subjects in this section: ]
Sb: #679343-UK Videos - S3
Sb: #679318-Babylon 5
Sb: #679267-<Intersections>
Sb: #679347-#<Intersections>
Sb: #679130-#<<Intersections Kudos>>
Sb: #679173-#<City of Sorrows>
Sb: #679547-#Questions
Sb: #679447-<<Intersections Kudos>>
Sb: #679369-<<Intersections Kudos>>
Sb: #679514-<IiRT> K-Martyr
Sb: #679548-Truth
Sb: #679598-<City of Sorrows>
[ Summary: With respect to the missing CGI from the U.K. tape version of
"Convictions," this poster asks, "Was that episode re-edited after the
original broadcast?" He goes on to point out that it was messed up
in Australia too. ]
#: 679353 S5/Babylon 5: General
21-Jun-97 23:03:41
Sb: #679343-UK Videos - S3
Fm: J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI
No, it was never re-edited later...it's a screwup on WB's part in getting
the wrong version out there.
jms
#: 679318 S5/Babylon 5: General
21-Jun-97 19:15:33
Sb: #Babylon 5
Fm: SHAWN D. RATNER
Dear Straczynski,
Babylon 5 is a great series! I hope there is a 5th season! Thanks for putting
out a great series!
I have some questions regarding Babylon 5. When TNT reruns the Babylon 5 series
will there be the PTEN logo when the episode starts, since PTEN does not
actually exist any longer.
Also, at the end of the episodes will we see a preview of the next episode like
we do now?
After TNT runs Bablon 5, would you ever consider doing a Babylon 5 motion
picture?
Thank you,
Shawn Ratner
#: 679354 S5/Babylon 5: General
21-Jun-97 23:03:43
Sb: #679318-Babylon 5
Fm: J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI
Of all the questions, the only one I know offhand is the last one, and
yeah, I'd love to do a B5 feature, and have discussed this with WB for down the
road a piece.
jms
#: 679267 S6/Babylon 5: Spoilers
21-Jun-97 15:32:07
Sb: #678832-#<Intersections>
Fm: BILL HIRST
>> The actors would come
>> in in the morning, rehearse it as they would a play, then we'd shoot it
>> the way we'd shoot a play, straight through.
I am constantly amazed at the performances you get from the actors. A lot of
shows film an entrance, break to move the cameras and lights, and then film
them sitting down to eat. Your people often do entire scenes without a pause.
It does give the show more of a stage feel than a typical TV show. It's very
unusual, and quite nice to see.
-Bill
#: 679355 S6/Babylon 5: Spoilers
21-Jun-97 23:03:45
Sb: #679267-<Intersections>
Fm: J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI
Thanks...our cast invariably comes in knowing full scenes, and can hit
them without breaking or blowing a line. So we have a tendency at times to
just let the master play out, keeping the intensity, which can sometimes be
broken by too much cross-editing. (Note that the Zathras/Ivanova scene a few
episodes back is *entirely* one shot, four minutes.)
jms
[ Summary: "Why was this episode titled 'Intersections in Real Time'?
I must be missing the reference." ]
#: 679356 S6/Babylon 5: Spoilers
21-Jun-97 23:03:48
Sb: #679347-#<Intersections>
Fm: J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI
Each act took place in real time, no time jumps...the conversation
happened as it happened. Since you had act breaks in between them, those
became intersections...in real time.
jms
[ Summary: Loved "Intersections in Real Time." ]
#: 679357 S6/Babylon 5: Spoilers
21-Jun-97 23:03:50
Sb: #679130-#<<Intersections Kudos>>
Fm: J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI
Thanks...the message is just that, that we *all* have to choose to resist
from time to time, and that one individual can fight the system. And we are
all that individual at one time or another.
jms
[ Summary: Asks how the new B5 novel was written. ]
#: 679358 S6/Babylon 5: Spoilers
21-Jun-97 23:03:52
Sb: #679173-#<City of Sorrows>
Fm: J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI
I gave Kathryn a bare-bones stucture on the Marcus thing -- the death of
his brother, his trip first to B5 and then to Minbar -- but she took on the
rest on her own. The process was pretty much as I describe it in the intro,
asking what X meant, how A related to B, and then her pulling all the threads
together in a story that filled in all the blanks. The credit is entirely hers
on this. I consulted and read, but she did all the creative work on this.
jms
#: 679547 S5/Babylon 5: General
22-Jun-97 15:30:07
Sb: #Questions
Fm: EDWIN CHAN
Greetings JMS,
I have several questions for you. Has B5 been renewed for a fifth season? I
believe Claudia said it has (been renewed) at yesterday's Trek/B5/X-Files
convention here in the NYC area. And why do I see people on B5 wearing glasses
and using paper and pen? What ever happen to corrective (lens) surgery and a
paperless society? :)
thanks in advance and take care,
ec in nyc
#: 679636 S5/Babylon 5: General
22-Jun-97 22:01:08
Sb: #679547-#Questions
Fm: J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI
Nothing has been decided yet, formally, on season 5. As for wearing
glasses in the future...not everybody's going to want to get corrective eye
surgery. I could get it right now...but I don't let *anybody* touch my eyes
for any reason, it's probably the one phobia I have. (Every year when my
optometrist has to do the standard glaucoma test, requiring touching my eye
with a blue dot thingie, he dreads it, because he knows one of us is going to
go through the wall...probably him.) As for a paperless society...every time
somebody says we're coming into a paperless society, as Ivanova once said, I
get 10 more forms to fill out.
jms
[ Summary: Also loved "Intersections in Real Time." "Sheridan's death would
be the ultimate NO, he would truly win, and the message there is that he
hasn't won. Even when he thought he was winning earlier, he wasn't
then." ]
#: 679637 S6/Babylon 5: Spoilers
22-Jun-97 22:01:10
Sb: #679447-<<Intersections Kudos>>
Fm: J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI
You got every single one of the points of that one.
And that's one reason (among many) that I kept Sheridan silent for the
most part; a) because the less he says the better overall from his position,
and b) the audience would want to respond for him.
jms
#: 679369 S6/Babylon 5: Spoilers
21-Jun-97 23:35:44
Sb: #679037-#<<Intersections Kudos>>
Fm: JON A. BELL
Joe,
To me, the most powerful part of this episode was how deliberately, incredibly
*mundane* the interrogator was--not a slithery, hideously evil villain, but
someone who struck me as being the ultimate civil servant. As a matter of fact,
he reminded me very much of my accountant!
*Great* actor, too, by the way; his casting was superb.
The fact that he was so totally *ordinary* made the episode that much more
disturbing.
-- Jon
#: 679638 S6/Babylon 5: Spoilers
22-Jun-97 22:01:13
Sb: #679369-<<Intersections Kudos>>
Fm: J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI
Exactly. The banal face of evil. You look at most of the guys who ran
Treblinka, or Bergen-Belsen, and they're largely ordinary looking guys, who
could be accountants or repair men or car salesmen. They're *us*...and this
was designed to remind us of that. The evil, mustache-twirling villain is too
easy, and too far from the truth of it.
jms
#: 679514 S6/Babylon 5: Spoilers
22-Jun-97 12:01:37
Sb: #<IiRT> K-Martyr
Fm: REBECCA ESCHLIMAN
jms -
Even though I initially dreaded "Intersections...," I found it to be
riveting (and it's taking a long time to pry the rivets loose again).
The initial shot was like a flyover of an ice-planet or a barren moon
which nicely set up scenery and action like "Waiting for Godot" -- out
of time, sparsely furnished and driven by circularity.
The inquisitor, for me, was eerily reminiscent, physically, of Adolf
Eichmann and the whole horror of the grey bureaucracy supporting overt
horror that Eichmann's trial brought to light. He was so genial,
spreading out his papers like a high-school guidance counsellor. The
whole psychological atmosphere of "Intersections..." was, for me, like
being on a fault line between two massive and incompatible forces:
banality (the medical questions, the corned beef sandwich, the
inquisitor's quotidian good manners and cliches, the "Attention K-Mart
Shoppers" delivery of the recorded propaganda) vs. extremity (either
horror or heroism).
The "morning-night-lunch-dinner" segment shed a light on the underlying
perversity of Petruchio's treatment of Katharina -- "But sun it is not,
when you say it is not; and the moon changes even as your mind. What
you will have it named, even that it is; and so it shall be so for
Katharine." But I did like Sheridan's "must be lunch somewhere"
response.
The sheer efficiency of the whole procedure implies lots of previous
practice (and even earlier experimentation) which was foreshadowed by
the ISN report on the film-makers in "The Illusion of Truth."
The fluidity/subjectivity of the truth speech seemed to contain truth
that it was trying to deny. Deciding what truth is to be is taking
individual responsibility. Just believing what others tell you is more
likely to lead to an unstable, "fluid" truth. And yet, the whole point
of loyalty for a soldier is adopting an unalterable truth from higher
up the chain of command, rather than accepting the day-to-day
subjective truth of circumstances. Slippery slopes galore in this
speech.
The business about Sheridan's being influenced by others had a morbidly
funny side (No, I haven't been influenced by others, unless count that
piece of Kosh...).
One thing that really jumped out at me, even on first viewing: there
was a cascade of "No's" and other allied words (don't, won't, never,
nothing, not) all through the episode which acted almost like a
breaking wave to the conclusion of Sheridan's final "No!" -- when
denial ultimately acted as affirmation.
Sheridan's vision of Delenn was a shocking introduction of color into
the monochrome of the episode, which visually emphasized her importance
for him.
I had a different impression of the final Drazi appearance than most
seem to have. The only indication we have that the Drazi was not an
hallucination (the other characters seemed utterly unaware of his
presence) was the slamming of the door, which could itself have been an
hallucination. To me, it felt like the Drazi appearance was a
follow-on to the Delenn appearance -- Sheridan's mind has latched on to
internal focus-points to sustain him. The Drazi seemed to nod in
approval, and Sheridan seemed to have a momentary reaction of joy.
It's quite possible that I'm wildly misinterpreting, but
Drazi-as-hallucination is certainly an easier thing to live with for
the next four months or so!
-rje-
#: 679639 S6/Babylon 5: Spoilers
22-Jun-97 22:01:15
Sb: #679514-<IiRT> K-Martyr
Fm: J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI
Thanks...there was a lot of give-and-take in that episode, and at times
maybe the interrogator was near the truth, or a form of it...but always
distorting it, using it for his benefit. Slippery slopes indeed....
jms
#: 679548 S6/Babylon 5: Spoilers
22-Jun-97 15:41:04
Sb: #Truth
Fm: MICHAEL ZITAGLIO
Hi,
Saw Intersections. You gave me a lot to think about with that ep. Your notions
and explanations of the "TRUTH" were interesting, realistic.....and very
disturbing. Theres alot of truth to your notion of the TRUTH. It raises
points I'd rather not think about. Where do these notions of yours originate?
Mike
#: 679640 S6/Babylon 5: Spoilers
22-Jun-97 22:01:18
Sb: #679548-Truth
Fm: J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI
"Theres alot of truth to your notion of the TRUTH. It raises points I'd rather
not think about. Where do these notions of yours originate?"
Usually at 3 in the morning when I can't sleep....
jms
#: 679598 S6/Babylon 5: Spoilers
22-Jun-97 20:07:18
Sb: #679358-#<City of Sorrows>
Fm: TOM KNUDSEN
Joe,
<The credit is entirely hers on this.>
And she deserves it. Please convey my compliments to Kathryn on her
book. I was the person who introduced himself to her at I-Con as "one of Joe's
lunatics online" just before your talk on Sunday, as Harlan and his wife were
leaving. I wasn't sure she'd remember my name from her days on Genie. I told
her that I was looking forward to reading her book and asked when it would be
out.
I have to say, it was worth the wait. I believe To Dream in the City
of Sorrows is the best of the novels by far. It was the first one where ALL of
the characters rang 100% true at all times. It was great to see how all the
little plot threads with Sinclair, Catherine, and Marcus twined together. The
insight into Minbari culture was also extremely interesting and well written.
This book also worked on an emotional level that most of the others didn't
IMHO. Even though I knew Catherine had to die or disappear, it still hit me
when it happened. I felt Sinclairs loss and his twinge of hope when Kosh said
"Perhaps".
I only have one small technical nit to pick. It's stated that Arisia 3
is twice the size of Earth (in other words twice the radius) and 3 times the
density. Later, it's stated that Arisia 3 has 2-G gravity. This just isn't
possible.
From the above, the mass of Arisia 3 would be it's density times it's
volume. Volume changes with the cube of the radius. The cube of 2 is 8. So
Arisia is 8 times more voluminous than Earth. Multiply that by it's triple
density and you see that Arisia 3 is 24 times more massive than Earth.
Why is this important? Well, gravity follows the Universal Gravity law
which states that the force of gravity is equal to a gravitational constant
times the product of both masses involved (the planet and the object in
question) divided by the square of the radius. This looks like
F=(G x m1 x m2)/r^2. OK, since the G and the m1 (the mass of the person on the
planet, btw the mass of the planet is m2) are the same for both Earth and
Arisia 3, they can be dropped. That leaves us with m2/r^2. Which since Arisia
is 24 times more massive than Earth and has twice the radius, works out to
24/(2^2) or 24/4, which is equal to 6. That means that Arisia should have a
gravity of 6-G's.
However, as I said, it's a very small nit, which admittedly, is not
reflected by my overlong explanation. It would probably only be noticed by an
engineer, cosmologist or astronomer.
I recommend this book to any fan of B5. As Joe says in the intro, it's
to be considered as another episode of the show. I hope that Kathryn writes
more B5 novels in the future. She has a touch with the characters that no one
else who's written one of the novels can match. I don't know if thats from
writing for the series, or from being so close to the overall story or both,
but I'm glad for it. Please thank her for her effort.
Tom Knudsen
#: 679641 S6/Babylon 5: Spoilers
22-Jun-97 22:13:16
Sb: #679598-<City of Sorrows>
Fm: J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI
I'll pass that along.
On the technical nit...you're right. Another fan brought this up, and
she couldn't believe she screwed it up, because she'd *done* the research on
this. So she went back and checked her research, and she'd basically
transposed the two, being tired and on deadline. She plans to correct it in
the next edition.
jms
[ Continued in next section -- BB ]
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