Couple of notes on this thread 1. To Dream in the City of Sorrows, in addition to the claims that it's 100% canon, was written by Kathryn M. Drennan, who, at the time, was married to JMS. 2. In addition to needing the chrysalis technology from the Shadows, the process of becoming a Technomage, as shown in the trilogy, was long and painful. I'm not sure how Galen would make Dureena into a full Technomage without the aid of the Shadow tech or the support system of other Technomages. 3. My memory is hazy, but in the scripts that were (briefly) released for the Crusade episodes on Bookface.com, Gideon was pissed when he found out that the same technology used to build the ships that destroyed the Cerebros was powering the Technomages and the the revelation created a break in Gideon's relationship with Galen. I do remember, though, that Galen was speeding towards Mars to try to save Gideon from being assassinated prior to revealing EarthForce's use of Shadowtech. 4. The scripts (both filmed and un-filmed) are available in the books here and split among the ones written by JMS and the ones written by people other than JMS.
Oh, I'll grant that what we hear of The Hand shouldn't be taken at face value (so I shouldn't face-palm), but it still felt perilously like a retread, even if it might have proven to be a short-term one. Combined with the talk of assassination in Crusade, even if we're talking about a primary character in this case, I'm not exactly reassured.
I think that was the point. It's all misdirection. A bait and switch. You make the audience think they know what's coming because they've seen it before, then you suddenly turn it all on it's head. Again, we only saw the pilot. It's purpose is mainly to (re)introduce the world and it's characters, establish the show's basic format and move on from there. If we just looked at 'Midnight on the Firing Line' and try to extrapolate a whole show out of it, we'd naturally assume that the Narn would be the main villains, that Londo (and Vir) is nothing more than a buffoon and that the Centauri are increasingly impotent and unwilling to fight... IIRC Gideon wouldn't have died exactly, at least not at first. He would have been shot and have his mind trapped inside the Appocalypse Box for a time. Presumably depending on Gary Cole's contract negotiations, he'd either be restored (yet changed?) or lost for good.
Well, I think this is why I consider B5 the show and many of the novels quite good, but am wary of most of what came later. Then again, I had little interest in B5 until I saw a Shadow ship for the first time and I still consider S1 more miss than hit.
Well, for what it was I thyink it was done as best as it could be. But, I don't like the idea in the first place, and I think it was an avoidable situation that kind of makes all of Londo's character development invalid. He never had a real reason to take the keeper (he sure as heck could have killed the guy trying to make him take it) and even if the bad guys had retaliated on centauri Prime, in the end its shown that the planet gets almost destroyed anyway right before he has G'Kar kill him. So, he was turned into a puppet for no real reason, and it accomplished nothing outside of making the previous 5 years of Londo's story arc fairly pointless. I don't think I'd read the Centauri books if someone gave them to me for free. I'd probably throw them out in rage before getting through the first chapter of the first book. I unfortunately can't just count it as not canon like I can with the human futures from Deconstruction of Falling stars, but I certainly don't have to experience more of that poorly thought out destruction of my favorite character. I honestly don't think any cvharacter in a good sci fi has had such a screw you ending to their story arc.
Sure Londo could have resisted the Drakh...and for all we know at that point the Drakh would have destroyed the planet. To say "it ends up happening anyway" is a somewhat dishonest argument given that Londo himself doesn't know what the future holds in that regard. I don't see how you can argue that this development invalidates Londo's character development...the Londo we meet at the beginning of the series never would have needed a Keeper to begin with. If you did read the novels you'd realize that the damage seen in the future is a fraction of what it could have been. You are aware that we only really see the capital city, right? I don't see how five years of the character choosing to become a better person is invalidated by developments that force him to struggle for every ounce of free will he can muster for the rest of his life. Honestly, I think you're extrapolating a hell of a lot about a trilogy you haven't even read. Perhaps you should have a little faith.
I don't think it invalidates Londo's arc, I think it's the absolute logical conclusion to it! It shows that all actions and decisions ultimately have consequences. It's the classic situation of a character getting everything they thought they ever wanted, only to have it happen in a way that brings them no joy whatsoever. At the end of the day, Londo isn't a victim here. Or if he is a victim, he's a victim of his own decisions. He's brought this on himself by taking Mordon's help in subjugating the Narn. If Londo hadn't evolved as a character from that point, then this isn't your classic tragedy, it's a bad guy getting his just deserts. It's Londo's fantastic evolution that makes the entire scenario the perfect tragedy. It's really brilliantly done, even though its difficult to watch. It doesn't make Londo's character development invalid or pointless, it makes the character development the perfect crux of great drama.
Londo's storyline worked perfectly well for me. He made bad decisions, was responsible for the deaths of millions, and he had to pay the price for that. And he went out a hero.
Nah, sell them. You've already seen the asking price for them. I'm holding on to my copies of all three trilogies and the other two "canon" novels, though.
That's par for the course with kirk5. The more you try to convince him he doesn't know what he's missing, the more he'll argue that he knows he's right.
I disagree. I think it probably would have started slowly altering humans in a ways like the shadowtech Earthforce had developed in the unfilmed episodes or in a ways like what shadowtech did to technomages with the heightened aggression. The presentation of LotR was deliberately meant to suggest that the Hand was an Old One race like the Shadows. I think it was very much a ruse on the part of the alien antagonists and on the part of the writer. If you rewatch the movie a large part of LotR deals largely in using presentation to fool the enemy.
That's because we only got to see what could be equated to the first part of a magic trick (the pledge.) We never saw the turn or the prestige. Essentially that pilot is just JMS showing everyone that he has in his hands and ordinary deck of cards...*curtain drops* Not really fair to judge a trick that was never given the chance to be completed. For all we know that deck of cards had a rabbit in it!
So, even though I hated every second of the storyline when it was on TV, I should try to read more of it? I hated it on TV, I have no desire to see the story continued. While I liked B5 season 5 where some people hated it, it definately had problems and Londo was one of them to me. Its fine to disagree, it doesn't mean it makes me wrong about what I disliked about the show. To me, Londo got screwed and had a character arc that had no payoff at all. I liked it, but it never really ended. It got superceded by a hack alien possesion story. He got turned into a puppet for no real reason by aliens who shouldn't have been able to do anything without the Shadows anyway. Also, I have another B5 related question thats also connected to this. Does In the Beginning actually start with puppet Londo? It says so on wikipedia, and if thats true I might have to skip it. I was considering getting the movie collection (when it goes down a bit, I'm not paying $15 for it) but if the one I'm most interesting in has puppet Londo, its less of a priority, even when it gets cheaper.
Yes, it is Old Emporer Londo, telling a story to Children, as the framing story, but, there's very little of old emperor Londo in it
The framing story of In The Beginning takes place more or less during the flash-forward from War Without End. However, Londo's keeper isn't mentioned in the movie and you can pretend it doesn't exist if it makes you feel better. It's important to understand that a keeper does not control someone all the time. It can prevent them from acting against the keeper's interests, and it can briefly take control of them. But most of the time there's no reason to expend that energy, and they allow the person to do as they wish. Such is the case throughout In The Beginning's framing story. Make not mistake, it is Londo telling the story, not the keeper.