JMS CIS Digest: 20-Oct-99 20:01 through 20-Oct-99 20:12 (4 msgs)

[John D. Hardin]

RFC 1153 Digest of messages from
J. Michael Straczynski <71016.1644 at compuserve.com>
20-Oct-99 20:01 through 20-Oct-99 20:12 (4 messages)

WARNING: This digest may contain information about shows
         you haven't seen yet ("spoilers"). Proceed with caution.

Subjects in digest:
        Is there a Best Episode?
        Final Reckoning

Administrivia:
  South Park fans may wish to visit:
    http://www.infinicorp.com/babylonpark/

  With the end of Crusade and the great reduction in the volume of
  posts by JMS, I have decided the time has come to discontinue
  production of the Digest. I will continue to collect and repost any
  JMS traffic through at least the end of September, but unless SciFi
  (or somebody) picks up Crusade and the message volume increases the
  Digest will end no later than the end of this year. What a ride it
  has been!

  The administrivia for this digest may be read at
  http://www.wolfenet.com/~jhardin/JMS-Digest-Administrivia.txt
  It was last updated Sat Feb 13 10:21:30 1999

  Replies to this digest go to John Hardin.

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Date: 19 Oct 1999 14:54:00 -0700
From: Graham Smith <74010.764 at compuserve.com>
To: J. Michael Straczynski <71016.1644 at compuserve.com>
Subject: Is there a Best Episode?
Message-ID: <forum.babylon5.72137 at compuserve.com>
References: <forum.babylon5.72122 at compuserve.com>

> I dunno...maybe THE MEMORY OF WAR, though if anything deserves it,
> it's THE MATRIX. 

Interesting choice in "The Memory of War".  I was just re-watching it
this weekend and was once again surprised at how well it seemed to
start off in one direction then suddenly surprised us by heading off in
another.  As I said at the time, this episode really came on strong and
hinted at some of the incredible potential the characters and story
had.

As to "The Matrix", I think you may be betting on the winner there,
but strangely I found the story a trifle weak.  Perhaps because it was
so overshadowed by the extravagant visual effect.  I'd hate to have to
pay the tab for just 10 seconds of that film.

 --Graham

------------------------------

Date: 20 Oct 1999 20:01:05 -0700
From: J. Michael Straczynski <71016.1644 at compuserve.com>
To: Graham Smith <74010.764 at compuserve.com>
Subject: Is there a Best Episode?
Message-ID: <forum.babylon5.72155 at compuserve.com>
References: <forum.babylon5.72137 at compuserve.com>

"As to "The Matrix", I think you may be betting on the winner there,
but strangely I found the story a trifle weak.  Perhaps because it was
so overshadowed by the extravagant visual effect.  I'd hate to have to
pay the tab for just 10 seconds of that film."

      The story is fairly straightforward and parts of it do not bear
close scrutiny, but the mythology of the thing is very well done, and
obviously the action stuff is the best I've ever seen.  The DVD is
particularly cool; it has the movie, commentaries, the ability to dive
out of the movie to see the sequence done segment by segment, then see
the whole thing, and you can see it from script to storyboard to filmed
end-product.  I've probably watched the whole thing through about 4-5
times.

      As much as I have a personal investment in Crusade and all
things Babylonian, I can't think of much that could compete with the
Matrix in terms of quality.

      (And to the question of what episode I'd consider...absent the
Matrix for a moment, it occurs to me that A Call to Arms and River of
Souls are both also elibigle for this year.)

                                                                  jms

------------------------------

Date: 19 Oct 1999 18:44:01 -0700
From: Bob Ingria <70373.1164 at compuserve.com>
To: Graham Smith <74010.764 at compuserve.com>
Subject: Final Reckoning
Message-ID: <forum.babylon5.72139 at compuserve.com>
References: <forum.babylon5.72136 at compuserve.com>

>
> You're proposing that JMS decided to project a transient, and
> externally imposed, disturbance between Garibaldi and Sheridan into
> SiL. 

Quite the opposite. My point is that things between Garibaldi and
Sheridan got *extremely* strained by during season 4. That more than
adequately accounts for the comments in SiL.
>>>

Not to me; the falling out is too transient and besides it's not
Garibaldi's fault.  Hell, by 'Rising Star', Sheridan is virtually
boasting to Bester about Garibaldi's eventual revenge on Bester, hardly
the actions of somebody who's carrying a grudge.  And hardly something
to be remembered so pointedly 20 years later.

> Whereas you seemed to be suggesting that events that had not yet
> happened when SiL was filmed - possibly even events not covered by
> Season 5 - were responsible for the comments.
>
Except that you're forgetting, as JMS already pointed out, that JMS
knew what was going to happen between Garibaldi and Sheridan, whether
it was filmed before SiL or not, or whether it was or would be
dramatized in the series at any time at all.

There are innumerable (well, a denumerable infinity) of details that
either alluded to or were foreshadowings of 'events that had not yet
happened when [the episode] was filmed' throughout Babylon 5's run. 
(For example, Sheridan's return from the dead at Z'Ha'Dum is alluded to
several times; e.g. in 'Messages from Earth', when Ivanova tells
Sheridan 'You look pretty good for a dead man'; or 'Ceremonies of Light
and Dark' when Sheridan asks the C and C staff: 'Haven't you ever seen
somebody who's been reborn?')

By the way, I note that SiL clearly does refer to 'events that had not
yet happened when SiL was filmed '.  For example, there's Lennier's
death. (Remember that Lennier is toasted as one of the 'absent friends,
in memory still bright'.)  Franklin being the head of Xenobiology back
on earth. Garibaldi being head of Edgar's Industries (although this is
implicit in 'Rising Stars').  The whole point is: it's twenty years
later and lots of things will have happened that we won't have, and
couldn't possibly have, seen.

 -30- Bob ('Joe') Ingria As always, at a slight angle to the universe

------------------------------

Date: 20 Oct 1999 20:12:13 -0700
From: J. Michael Straczynski <71016.1644 at compuserve.com>
To: Bob Ingria <70373.1164 at compuserve.com>
Subject: Final Reckoning
Message-ID: <forum.babylon5.72156 at compuserve.com>
References: <forum.babylon5.72139 at compuserve.com>

"By the way, I note that SiL clearly does refer to 'events that had
not yet happened when SiL was filmed '.  For example, there's Lennier's
death. (Remember that Lennier is toasted as one of the 'absent friends,
in memory still bright'.)  Franklin being the head of Xenobiology back
on earth. Garibaldi being head of Edgar's Industries (although this is
implicit in 'Rising Stars')."

      Exactly so.  Franklin's situation even predates any thought at
all about Crusade as a series.

      Garibaldi's death (a much quieter passing than he would have
imagined waiting for him), Franklin's final fate on a distant,
unexplored planet, Delenn's final journey (a quest involving Valen,
though no one else around her believes it), Lennier's sacrifice...it's
all mapped out, on the theory that whether or not it ever gets used,
*I* had to know it.

      (Incidentally...in a coming issue of the B5 magazine, there is a
canonical timeline that covers the history of the B5 universe from the
Big Bang to a million years in the future...and it's really nifty to
see the whole thing laid out like that, to realize that, sonuvagun, it
really does work.  I commend it to everyone in the highest possible
terms.)

                                                                  jms


------------------------------


End of JMS CIS Digest 20-Oct-99 20:01 through 20-Oct-99 20:12
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