[B5JMS] Babylon 5 Scripts Site Nearly Ready, And More!

Sun Oct 30 09:43:02 EST 2005

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From: jmsatb5 at aol.com
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2005 13:39:14 +0000 (UTC)
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First, an advance word to those who are looking on...as noted here
earlier, all of the B5 scripts that I wrote are going to be published
in book form via www.babylon5scripts.com (a clever and inventive
title), and I just had it confirmed to me that the site will be going
on line right around the 28th of this month, give or take a day or so.

There will be 14 volumes, containing all the episodic scripts that I
wrote, plus "In the Beginning" (in the 14th) and in volume 1 the
ORIGINAL 1989 version of "The Gathering" that was used to sell the show
but which was massively changed prior to production, which features
different characters and gave Kosh a life-mate named Velana.

The 15th volume will be given without charge to those who pick up all
14 volumes...even the shipping charges will be covered.  That volume
will contain the lost Soul Hunter script (well, not lost, I recalled it
because I'd unwittingly written a Star Trek style script instead of a
B5 style script), a never-before-seen draft of Midnight on the Firing
Line written a YEAR before we got the go-ahead for the series to show
WB how the series would work, which is *massively* different (and a bit
more surreal) from what was filmed...the original B5 series bible...the
5 year arc overview given to WB before we started filming season one to
show how the series would work (and which followed Sinclair's character
all through those five years on B5)...and the script used in the
now-famous (or infamous) practical joke played on Andreas and Peter
which had G'Kar changing genders and ending up in bed with Londo.

Each volume also has an original introduction from me, and a lengthy
discussion of each episode, averaging about 40 pages per book, with a
lot of behind the scenes information never revealed before, along with
what went into the writing and producing.

There will also be a collection of B&W photos from my private
collection taken behind the scenes, which have never been seen by
anyone before.  (Some books will have more photos than others,
depending on how often I made it to set that week.)

As noted before, for the first week or so after each new volume is
released, they'll be knocking ten bucks off the price of each volume to
reward the B5 community for keeping an eye on this.  And yes, they do
ship internationally.

Moving on to other topics for a moment....

The same week, the 26th, will also see the publcation of issue one of
"The Book of Lost Souls," the new comic I'm doing with Colleen Doran,
and published by Marvel.  This book is not like anything I've ever
written before (the closest would be Midnight Nation), and it's
definitely not like anything else Marvel is doing, and it's just
gorgeous to look at (and not bad to read, either).  No spandex, no
costumes...a kind of modern dark fantasy, very adult, sometimes very
dark but ultimately hopeful...and best of all, it has a talking cat
named Mystery who is modeled after Buddy the Miracle Cat, so really,
how can you go wrong?

Finally...and I almost hate to type these words for fear of jinxing
anything...but in addition to the network project in development, I've
been offered show-runner on another series which should, if all goes
according to plan start shooting up in Vancouver in the spring.  That's
all I can say about it for now, except that I've accepted the offer and
we're now concluding negotiations.  More on this as it develops.

jms

(message content (c) 2005
Synthetic Worlds, Ltd.
Reprint permission specifically
denied to SFX magazine)

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From: Trish Crowther <trix_mine at yahoo.com.au>
Date: Sat, 22 Oct 2005 02:47:59 +0000 (UTC)
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On Fri, 21 Oct 2005 13:39:14 +0000 (UTC), jmsatb5 at aol.com wrote:

>First, an advance word to those who are looking on...as noted here
>earlier, all of the B5 scripts that I wrote are going to be published
>in book form via www.babylon5scripts.com (a clever and inventive
>title), and I just had it confirmed to me that the site will be going
>on line right around the 28th of this month, give or take a day or so.
>
>There will be 14 volumes, containing all the episodic scripts that I
>wrote, plus "In the Beginning" (in the 14th) and in volume 1 the
>ORIGINAL 1989 version of "The Gathering" that was used to sell the show
>but which was massively changed prior to production, which features
>different characters and gave Kosh a life-mate named Velana.
>
>The 15th volume will be given without charge to those who pick up all
>14 volumes...even the shipping charges will be covered.  
<snip>
>jms
>
>(message content (c) 2005
>Synthetic Worlds, Ltd.
>Reprint permission specifically
>denied to SFX magazine)
>
>

Do you have any idea what the shipping charges will be (I'm
particularly interested in shipping cost to Australia) or will we have
to wait till the site's got the details to find out?

Trish

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From: jmsatb5 at aol.com
Date: Sat, 22 Oct 2005 10:07:45 +0000 (UTC)
Lines: 28

Well, this is cool....

I've been going through my archives for graphics and other stuff we can
use in the B5 script books, and I saw two directories named MEMOS.  So
I went into the directory and found literally hundreds of memos that
I'd written during the course of producing and writing B5...from the
first presentation up through Crusade.  We've already put the first two
volumes of the script books to bed, but they can certainly be quoted
starting with volume 3 and thereafter, and I may pop some of the most
formative memos concerning season one and the Gathering into volume 15.

The cool thing is that there's stuff in there that I'd competely
forgotten...the list of other actors I put forth for Captain Sheridan,
a new regular character I'd wanted to insert starting with season two
but didn't have the funds for, early discussions about Minbari
culture...it's pretty nifty stuff.

So there's an extra starting with volume 3...quotes and excerpts from
the memos that flew back and forth that led to the design of the B5
universe and the behind-the-scenes production world.

Now I'm going back to read some more of this stuff...boy, talk about a
flashback....

jms

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From: "Stefan" <coljost at yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2005 12:49:11 +0000 (UTC)
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jmsatb5 at aol.com schrieb:

> I've been going through my archives for graphics and other stuff we can
> use in the B5 script books, and I saw two directories named MEMOS.  So
> I went into the directory and found literally hundreds of memos that
> I'd written during the course of producing and writing B5...from the
> first presentation up through Crusade.
[snip]
> The cool thing is that there's stuff in there that I'd competely
> forgotten...the list of other actors I put forth for Captain Sheridan,
> a new regular character I'd wanted to insert starting with season two
> but didn't have the funds for, early discussions about Minbari
> culture...it's pretty nifty stuff.
[snip]
> Now I'm going back to read some more of this stuff...boy, talk about a
> flashback....

Concerning completely forgotten stories...

You wrote in a rastb5m posting (09-08-2000):

"When Claudia left, I roundfiled (trashed) the few scripts I had been
working on with her character because they could not be used. They
were first and in some cases second drafts, or partial scripts."

Msg-ID: <20000908195433.19705.00000228 at ng-bg1.aol.com>

Ultimately trashed?
_These_ drafts weren't possibly emerged from the deeps of your
archive, no?
Would be very interesting how things were gone the other way.

Stefan

Weekly B5-DVD-Rankings at:
http://hometown.aol.com/redstephen4/myhomepage/babylon5.html

-- 
Oct-15-2005: 10th jubilee - DE.REC.SF.BABYLON5.MISC

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From: jmsatb5 at aol.com
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 00:30:37 +0000 (UTC)
Lines: 40

Stefan wrote:
> Concerning completely forgotten stories...
>
> You wrote in a rastb5m posting (09-08-2000):
>
> "When Claudia left, I roundfiled (trashed) the few scripts I had been
> working on with her character because they could not be used. They
> were first and in some cases second drafts, or partial scripts."
>

Not thus far, no...I've come across a few script fragments that I
started and abandoned ("Festival!" which I think is about halfway
written, before being totally set aside and reworked as "The Parliament
of Dreams"), and a couple of others, but thus far not the fifty season
stuff, which I think I actually may have erased, given how upset I was
at the time.  But I'm still going through it all...there's just
hundreds of memos, mostly private or of no real outside interest, but a
lot of them have some pretty cool stuff.

In terms of the premises written, I found the original premises for
"The Long Night of Susan Ivanova," "The Commander's Hour," and a bunch
of others, as well as the Season 5 Christmas letter I sent to the crew,
which I'd forgotten about but is very moving, as well as the letter
sent to all of the cast and crew when the script for "Sleeping in
Light" came out, which spells out our options for the future...if there
were to be one.

There's also stuff in the memos and in my intros about characters we
were going to introduce in the series but ultimately couldn't fit in,
including an ISN reporter I wanted to embed on B5 full time...the
mysterious Mr. Jones...others.

As far as the script fragments are concerned, though, I'm not sure if
they're worth including or not, except as oddities...still thinking
about that one.  At this point I'm inclined to leave them out.

jms

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From: jmsatb5 at aol.com
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 00:33:06 +0000 (UTC)
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That should be FIFTH season, not FIFTY season.  That would've killed me
for sure.

jms