[B5JMS] ATTN JMS: Do You Feel Vindicated (Was: Pitching TV Series)

[b5jms-admin at cs.columbia.edu]

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From: kensu at madison.tdsnet.com (Chris Schumacher)
Date: 22 Feb 2001 07:32:00 -0700
Lines: 46

(sorry I had to make this a new subject, but my news server is a piece
of junk, and Deja.com got gobbled up by google, and they won't let you
post.)

Re: the whole DS9 debacle.

Since we're now far enough away from it to look at the matter in
perspective; at the end of the day, do you feel that you've been
vindicated? I mean, all REASONABLE people who have access to the
information know that Babylon 5 came first; so the people who say that
the concept was stolen either back down when given new information, or
still hold sleepovers at the age of 28.*
Besides which, I still think that even people not privy to an account
of the struggle must figure out that Babylon 5 was either planned out
a helluva LONG time in advance, or else JMS is a blood relation of
Longshot; because Babylon 5 is like a line-segment in geometry; it
goes from one point to another, but it hits so many other points on
the way that it's impossible to believe that a great deal of through
didn't go into it. All of it, even Season 5** had a feeling of
RIGHTNESS and complexity that I haver never before seen in anything
else but a very well-crafted and executed novel.
Deep Space 9, on the other hand, groped around in the dark for seven
seasons, and managed to hit a few of the points in-between by
accident. But the numbers of misses to hits is almost 100 to 1.

-Also, now that B5 and Crusade aren't in production anymore, have you
considered asking WB to take up the suit against Paramount for
stealing the idea? Or has the statute of limitations passed? (is there
even one for intellectual property theft? I remember the stuff with
Superman happened DECADES later...)

					-==Kensu==-
* - Taken from an episode of Clerks: TAS.
** - The main problem I had with Season 5 was that it didn't have
enough weight in most parts. Take any general Season 5 episode and
compare it to "Conflicts of Interest"***. COI carries a lot more
weight because of the realities invovled. These were people who were
struggling to climb out of the darkness and manage to live normal
lives at the same time. With the exception of the Centauri episodes,
and the stuff with Garibaldi's alcoholism, S5 floundered because it
lacked that weight.
*** - I've always saiud that COI was a season one episode in the
fourth season universe; it just goes to show how far the show's come.
In some ways, I think it's the best episode of the season, because you
can easily point to it and say "THAT is what Babylon 5 is about!"


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From: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)
Date: 22 Feb 2001 15:29:28 -0700
Lines: 20

I'm not sure vindication really enters into it.  I guess it's the word itself
that troubles me, and its ties to the word vindictiveness.

At the end of the day, as you say, what matters is the quality of the
storytelling.  Who was first, who was last...in 20 years nobody's gonna
remember or much care.  The only question that matters is, was the story told
well, and does it endure the test of time?

If it was, then it will; it it wasn't, it won't.  Everything else is ephemeral.

 jms

(jmsatb5 at aol.com)
(all message content (c) 2001 by synthetic worlds, ltd., 
permission to reprint specifically denied to SFX Magazine 
and don't send me story ideas)




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