Crusade: A Fiscal Repackaging of B5

[B5JMS Poster]

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From: "Plain and Simple Cronan" <cronan at DeathsDoor.com>
Date: 11 May 1998 20:43:04 -0600
Lines: 45

Anyway...and I know some people are going to yell at me, but this really
is the truth...Crusade is basically a fiscal repackaging of Babylon 5. For
the
following reasons:

     1) JMS, when he made the deals for B5, made them...for five years. He
has built in a bomb that makes the story impossible to continue onward in
its original format.

     2) A series only begins to make money for the studio when it goes into
full-syndication (meaning they stop making new episodes and just rake in the
cash).  This is particularly true when a show has been on the air for a long
time.  See, each year, programmed increases in salaries and other areas go
up
and up and up.  By year five, you're paying a HELL of a lot more than you
paid
for year one.

     So how are they saving money by doing a NEW series?

    3) Pay scales for production staff and cast are always lower for a new
series.  It's sort of the studio Going Rate. Saving money on the annual 10%
bump every year alone ought to make the WB very happy indeed.

     When you take all of that into consideration, and factor in the fact
that
the series takes place in the same universe, with the same basic scenario,
same races, same Alliance, even some of the same characters, what you come
down to is essentially this: that B5 is a repackaging of the same thing,
under a different name, for basically economic reasons. There is no sudden
new vision behind it, it's just a less costly extension of the old show.

     Which is not to say it ain't gonna be a good show.  It might be a very
good show. If it is, that's terrific, the more good SF around, the better.
It's important for anyone reading this to make that distinction: this issue
is
completely apart from quality, it's strictly economics.   This is the reason
there IS a Crusade.  Where they go from that point _good, bad, or
indifferent_
is another discussion entirely.

Anyway...and I know some people are going to yell at me, but this really
is the truth...Crusade is basically a fiscal repackaging of Babylon 5.  For
the
following reasons:

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From: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)
Date: 12 May 1998 09:26:41 -0600
Lines: 44


You are obviously posting this to try and throw back my words at me about DS9,
made several years ago, being without any new vision behind it.  Because that's
all you're really capable of, trying to come up with new cheap shots.

My message at the time dealt specifically with a context which you ignore: TNG
was created by Gene Roddenberry (with some considerable help from David
Gerrold); those who followed then took those elements and repackaged them into
DS9 without actually *inventing* much: it was all made by someone else with a
vision (Roddenberry, who also had the original ST vision).

It was a new show, but not a new vision, because that vision was created before
then, by others.  Hence, my comments at that time.

In this case, the person who created the original vision of the Babylon 5
universe (which would be me) is still alive.

That's why the context in such a discussion is everything; the single message
from me out of the context of the whole discussion results in missing the
entire point: my feeling at that time that those making DS9 didn't bring much
new to that show that was not created by others, who were no longer alive.

And by the way, if you're going to steal my words, and put them in your message
(while twisting the context) and pretend that they're your own, that's called
plagiarism.

Why don't you just give it a rest, Cronan?  And by the way, why don't you post
your real name some time?  You sit there and snipe from the shadows constantly,
attacking me and others in this forum, many of whose names are known...it takes
a certain kind of coward to do this kind of crap from behind the safety of
anonymity.  If you feel so strongly about your opinions, which you shove around
as if they mattered, then you should be prepared to stand behind them.  You
search out my posts by my name and twist them around, why not give us the same
luxury by giving us your real name?

Either you believe in the rightness of your opinions, in which case you should
have no problem standing behind them, or you do not, in which case you are a
coward.  Which is it?

 jms

(jmsatb5 at aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
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