Was "Deconstruction of Falling Stars an Alternative Ending?

[Jan]

My impression is the recut GATHERING is mainly just restoring GATHERING to the way JMS had it before it had to be cut (plus getting a decent new score), not that it had to get all fixed up and altered.

No, it was a complete re-edit, not just restoring footage, though that was part of it. In fact, I believe the running time stayed about the same. Adding the greeting from Kosh was one change, putting back Tamlyn Tomita's original voice performance was another.

Jan

 

[JoeD80]

assuming Warner et. al. didn't have O'hare canned.

If Michael O'Hare had been fired by WB, the studio wouldn't have allowed him to be in a third season episode.

??????

It's like this: if a studio doesn't like an actor and they fire him. they will not want to pay for his services again. If WB had been the one to make the decision, when Joe forwarded O'Hare's name as a guest star for a season 3 episode, they would have stopped it right there. Since they didn't care one way or the other, it's unlikely the studio was ever involved in the initial decision (as has been stated many times by Joe and Michael both BTW).

 

[Neroon]

^I disagree. There could easily have been an equally simple but less idiotic way of handling the medical stuff than "life energy transfer." Hell, having no explanation whatsoever would've been a vast improvement over that.

Then we shall have to continue to agree to disagree. It doesn't get in the way of my enjoying the overall stories involved, whatever shortcomings it may possess.

If Michael O'Hare had been fired by WB, the studio wouldn't have allowed him to be in a third season episode.

??????

It's like this: if a studio doesn't like an actor and they fire him. they will not want to pay for his services again. If WB had been the one to make the decision, when Joe forwarded O'Hare's name as a guest star for a season 3 episode, they would have stopped it right there. Since they didn't care one way or the other, it's unlikely the studio was ever involved in the initial decision (as has been stated many times by Joe and Michael both BTW).

Technically, O'Hare did appear as Sinclair in season two's "The Coming of Shadows".

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

putting back Tamlyn Tomita's original voice performance was another.

In her case it's a pity they couldn't have added in some actual ACTING performance as well.

 

[Forbin]

Doesn't matter. Tamlyn's got one of those faces that makes my heart melt. I rarely hear what she's saying anyway.

 

[Reverend]

I'm talking about something more fundamental than that -- the idea that the length of time someone has to live is determined by something as simplistic as how much "life energy" they have -- that by transferring "life energy" from one person to another, you increase one's life expectancy by X years and decrease the other's by an equivalent amount. As if we were all born with a fixed amount of "life" and it could be added to or subtracted from like gas in a tank. As if longevity and health had nothing to do with nutrition, exercise, environmental factors, stress, infection, cellular mutation, the quality of medical care, or anything else. That goes far beyond pseudoscience into something out of a fairy tale.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall it being said anywhere that "life energy" had anything to do with the length of somebody's life. In fact, I'm particularly recalling that Franklin compared the possibility of using the alien healing device in the same way that blood can be donated. Blood is renewed/replaced after being donated although losing too much of it will cause death, just as having your life energy drained as Marcus did caused death.

Jan

Exactly. The device, though a little vague (which is fair enough, since they didn't even know where it came from, much less why it worked) transferred energy from one life-form to another. Ivanova didn't get the remaining years from Marcus, she got the sum total of energy in his body at the time, which the machine used to repair her injuries. Like a jump start. Lorien's "20 years" was something else, though there was an "energy transfer", it was basically his doing the best that he could with what was essentially a cadaver from a species he'd never encountered before. The fact that he managed to restore him at all demonstrates just how powerful he really was. Hell, if he had a mind to, I'm sure he could potentially have wiped out all the remaining First Ones himself.

^I disagree. There could easily have been an equally simple but less idiotic way of handling the medical stuff than "life energy transfer." Hell, having no explanation whatsoever would've been a vast improvement over that.

Well that's more or less what we got. Franklin's explanation was just a rough idea based on observation of the medscanner's reading of a patient during the process. That doesn't mean he has the first clue as to the mechanics of it. Indeed, in the case of the machine, it took nothing short of 500 years and the discovery of the planet the device came from to understand it enough to revive Marcus.
In the case of Lorien's life extension, after 20 years as head of xenobiology, curing the Drakh plague and several years out on the rim with G'Kar Franklin still had no clue how that worked.
The point is, both of these were exceptional circumstances using alien tech so advanced it make nanites look about as sophisticated as a flint axe. So long as it's used consistently and not as a pure deux ex tech that would instantly disappear, never to be mentioned again *cough*Star Trek*cough* I don't see a problem with it.

 

[trevanian]

If Michael O'Hare had been fired by WB, the studio wouldn't have allowed him to be in a third season episode.

??????

It's like this: if a studio doesn't like an actor and they fire him. they will not want to pay for his services again. If WB had been the one to make the decision, when Joe forwarded O'Hare's name as a guest star for a season 3 episode, they would have stopped it right there. Since they didn't care one way or the other, it's unlikely the studio was ever involved in the initial decision (as has been stated many times by Joe and Michael both BTW).

Clearly, you've never read up on any of the hundreds of situations best summed up with, "I never want to see that SOB on this lot again... unless we need him!" that characterize the way Hollywood has ALWAYS operated (which might also explain why Harlan Ellison has been invited to write so many STAR TREK films ... )

 

[Mistral]

I'm talking about something more fundamental than that -- the idea that the length of time someone has to live is determined by something as simplistic as how much "life energy" they have -- that by transferring "life energy" from one person to another, you increase one's life expectancy by X years and decrease the other's by an equivalent amount. As if we were all born with a fixed amount of "life" and it could be added to or subtracted from like gas in a tank. As if longevity and health had nothing to do with nutrition, exercise, environmental factors, stress, infection, cellular mutation, the quality of medical care, or anything else. That goes far beyond pseudoscience into something out of a fairy tale.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall it being said anywhere that "life energy" had anything to do with the length of somebody's life. In fact, I'm particularly recalling that Franklin compared the possibility of using the alien healing device in the same way that blood can be donated. Blood is renewed/replaced after being donated although losing too much of it will cause death, just as having your life energy drained as Marcus did caused death.

Jan

Exactly. The device, though a little vague (which is fair enough, since they didn't even know where it came from, much less why it worked) transferred energy from one life-form to another. Ivanova didn't get the remaining years from Marcus, she got the sum total of energy in his body at the time, which the machine used to repair her injuries. Like a jump start. Lorien's "20 years" was something else, though there was an "energy transfer", it was basically his doing the best that he could with what was essentially a cadaver from a species he'd never encountered before. The fact that he managed to restore him at all demonstrates just how powerful he really was. Hell, if he had a mind to, I'm sure he could potentially have wiped out all the remaining First Ones himself.

^I disagree. There could easily have been an equally simple but less idiotic way of handling the medical stuff than "life energy transfer." Hell, having no explanation whatsoever would've been a vast improvement over that.

Well that's more or less what we got. Franklin's explanation was just a rough idea based on observation of the medscanner's reading of a patient during the process. That doesn't mean he has the first clue as to the mechanics of it. Indeed, in the case of the machine, it took nothing short of 500 years and the discovery of the planet the device came from to understand it enough to revive Marcus.
In the case of Lorien's life extension, after 20 years as head of xenobiology, curing the Drakh plague and several years out on the rim with G'Kar Franklin still had no clue how that worked.
The point is, both of these were exceptional circumstances using alien tech so advanced it make nanites look about as sophisticated as a flint axe. So long as it's used consistently and not as a pure deux ex tech that would instantly disappear, never to be mentioned again *cough*Star Trek*cough* I don't see a problem with it.

The Vorlons used organic tech to build their ships. They weren't as advanced as Lorien. Earth had the capabilities to design nanite tools. What Lorien had may have been the (much advanced) version of nanite 'scrubber', that is, designed tech to clear out the poisons in Sheridan's body to keep him alive. Not knowing Humans, Lorien could only alter their programming in a general way-hence the 20 year lifespan.

 

[Christopher]

That still doesn't explain how Lorien could know Sheridan had 20 years left. Aging and health are far too complex and multicausal to allow such exact predictions. That's the point. It doesn't matter how magically advanced the medical technology is -- it's still fundamentally wrong to assume that human biology itself is so simplistic and predictable. By the same token, you could write a story postulating terraforming technology of godlike advancement, but if the story assumed that the Earth was flat, the advancement of the alien tech wouldn't excuse the gross folly of the premise, because that's not where the error lies.

 

[Neroon]

putting back Tamlyn Tomita's original voice performance was another.

In her case it's a pity they couldn't have added in some actual ACTING performance as well.

Doesn't matter. Tamlyn's got one of those faces that makes my heart melt. I rarely hear what she's saying anyway.

Strange as it may sound, I am in complete agreement with BOTH of these comments.

That still doesn't explain how Lorien could know Sheridan had 20 years left. Aging and health are far too complex and multicausal to allow such exact predictions. That's the point. It doesn't matter how magically advanced the medical technology is -- it's still fundamentally wrong to assume that human biology itself is so simplistic and predictable. By the same token, you could write a story postulating terraforming technology of godlike advancement, but if the story assumed that the Earth was flat, the advancement of the alien tech wouldn't excuse the gross folly of the premise, because that's not where the error lies.

Given that Lorien was such an ancient being, how hard is it to accept that he might have some insight into how the more mysterious parts of the universe - including human biology -work?

 

[Christopher]

^He'd have to be able to see into the future to be able to predict every detail of Sheridan's health, lifestyle, and so forth. How could he know Sheridan wouldn't adopt a better diet and extend his life by another 50%? How could he know Sheridan wouldn't be struck by a stray cosmic ray, develop cancer, and die after only 12 years, or come down with a virus that he would survive but be permanently weakened by, giving him only 16 years? When you're dealing with something influenced by this many factors, plenty of which are random, it is literally impossible to predict the outcome with any certainty, I don't care how advanced you are. Advancement is not a magical way of knowing or doing everything, and claiming otherwise is bad SF writing. Even the most advanced knowledge and technology runs up against certain limits. Lorien couldn't predict the flip of a coin any more than you or I could. And we're not talking about one coin, but a body containing trillions of cells, any one of which could randomly mutate in a way that would shorten that body's lifespan. It's just plain foolish to treat human longevity as something that can be predicted down to the year. That's as stupid as Star Trek computers being able to predict to the second when stress on the hull will reach a critical point and cause a breach. Some things in life just don't work that way, period. There are too many random and chaotic factors involved. The best anyone of any advancement could do is calculate a probability. Lorien might be able to say that Sheridan's most probable life expectancy is 20 years, but there'd surely be a pretty wide bell curve around that date. The best he could do is to extrapolate how long Sheridan would most likely live if nothing significant changed from the condition Sheridan was in at the time he made the estimate. But unless he were precognitive, he couldn't know that things wouldn't change thereafter, for the better or for the worse.

 

[Mistral]

And I believe that was all he did predict-how much time he imparted to Sheridan. He didn't say, "By the way, you're going to die on March 15th, exactly 20 years from today." As for a being older than the First Ones having a knowledge of biology far enough advanced to predict the impact of his "treatment" of Sheridan, at least in general terms-where do you get the idea he wouldn't have such a capability? You have some mysterious insight into Lorien's race the rest of us lack? Your argument is, at best specious, and at worst full of logical holes. You are pre-supposing that our current knowledge base provides support for your argument about an alien race's level of capability when we demonstratibly do not have the ability to duplicate the technology exhibited. So how could we have the knowledge to pass judgement on what can or can't be done? That's like a 17th century Englishman explaining-based on his level of tech-that airplanes are impossible. Circular at best, insubstantial, and lacking in supportive evidence-particularly when the plane flys over his head.

 

[Jan]

I guess we all have different things that break our suspension of disbelief. I don't have any trouble with Lorien knowing that whatever it was that he gave to Sheridan had a limited shelf-life. I found it more distracting that Sheridan had dreams that warned him that it was time to die so he had time to throw a farewell party.

Jan

 

[JoeD80]

Clearly, you've never read up on any of the hundreds of situations best summed up with, "I never want to see that SOB on this lot again... unless we need him!" that characterize the way Hollywood has ALWAYS operated (which might also explain why Harlan Ellison has been invited to write so many STAR TREK films ... )

Well I have lived in Hollywood for about 10 years now so I don't have zero experience in this area. The fact remains that Joe is the one that made the initial decision for Michael to leave, which Michael also agreed to, a fact confirmed by all sides ten times over.

 

[JoeD80]

I believe Lorien said "barring sickness or injury, 20 years" or something along those lines.

[oops sorry for that double post]

 

[David cgc]

I believe Lorien said "barring sickness or injury, 20 years" or something along those lines.

[oops sorry for that double post]

I've just googled up an exact transcript, because this reminded me of another line in the scene that might be relevant. I've bolded the interesting parts

Lorien: "He was gravely wounded at Z'ha'dum. He was dying. He was dead. I did all I could to help him, but I cannot create life. Only the universe can do that. I can extend, enhance. There is no magic, nothing spiritual about it, only the application of energies, healing and rebuilding cells."

John: "I had Franklin do a complete medscan. He found things in my neurosystem. Some kind of biochemical energy repairing and sustaining me. He's never seen anything like it."

Lorien: "I did the best I could. I gave him back a portion of his life, but only a portion."

Delenn: "How long?"

Lorien: "In human terms, barring injury and illness, perhaps twenty years. But no more than that."

Delenn: "Twenty years!"

John: "I'll be in my early sixties by then. It's a good run, Delenn."

Delenn: "You told me that humans live to be a hundred years old, even older. You can't..."

Lorien: "Twenty years. No more. And then, one day, he will simply stop."

So, basically, Lorien gave Sheridan some kind of cellular iron lung that could keep him moving even though he was, technically, dead. Sheridan can be hit by a bus, or develop cancer, or have a massive heart attack, or some other thing, but if none of those things happen, then the battery of Lorien's life-support will still run out in no more than 20 years. Might even stop sooner than that. But Lorien didn't heal him. What he did didn't save Sheridan's life, it was keeping him alive continuously, as an ongoing process. And no matter what happened to Sheridan, that process would peter out in about 20 years.

 

[Reverend]

I guess we all have different things that break our suspension of disbelief. I don't have any trouble with Lorien knowing that whatever it was that he gave to Sheridan had a limited shelf-life. I found it more distracting that Sheridan had dreams that warned him that it was time to die so he had time to throw a farewell party.

Jan

I assumed that was Lorien "calling ahead" from the Rim. What stumps me though is how "netherworld Kosh" knew Sheridan had to meet Lorien there and exactly who Zoe thought she was talking to when she got the message.

 

[Jan]

I assumed that was Lorien "calling ahead" from the Rim. What stumps me though is how "netherworld Kosh" knew Sheridan had to meet Lorien there and exactly who Zoe thought she was talking to when she got the message.

Excellent questions. When one really thinks about it, there are a lot of things that are never explained in B5.

Jan

 

[Neroon]

I assumed that was Lorien "calling ahead" from the Rim. What stumps me though is how "netherworld Kosh" knew Sheridan had to meet Lorien there and exactly who Zoe thought she was talking to when she got the message.

Excellent questions. When one really thinks about it, there are a lot of things that are never explained in B5.

Jan

It can be "explained" but only within the context of fantasy, not within our normal laws of physics. Since "netherworld Kosh" at that point is inhabiting a different dimension, I'd say we can safely assume normal laws of space and time as we currently understand don't apply. Events may not have to operate on a cause & effect, one after the other organization. Vorlons already had the ability to perceive time and space in a more advanced way than humans.

 

[RoJoHen]

I believe Lorien said "barring sickness or injury, 20 years" or something along those lines.

[oops sorry for that double post]

I've just googled up an exact transcript, because this reminded me of another line in the scene that might be relevant. I've bolded the interesting parts

Lorien: "He was gravely wounded at Z'ha'dum. He was dying. He was dead. I did all I could to help him, but I cannot create life. Only the universe can do that. I can extend, enhance. There is no magic, nothing spiritual about it, only the application of energies, healing and rebuilding cells."

John: "I had Franklin do a complete medscan. He found things in my neurosystem. Some kind of biochemical energy repairing and sustaining me. He's never seen anything like it."

Lorien: "I did the best I could. I gave him back a portion of his life, but only a portion."

Delenn: "How long?"

Lorien: "In human terms, barring injury and illness, perhaps twenty years. But no more than that."

Delenn: "Twenty years!"

John: "I'll be in my early sixties by then. It's a good run, Delenn."

Delenn: "You told me that humans live to be a hundred years old, even older. You can't..."

Lorien: "Twenty years. No more. And then, one day, he will simply stop."

So, basically, Lorien gave Sheridan some kind of cellular iron lung that could keep him moving even though he was, technically, dead. Sheridan can be hit by a bus, or develop cancer, or have a massive heart attack, or some other thing, but if none of those things happen, then the battery of Lorien's life-support will still run out in no more than 20 years. Might even stop sooner than that. But Lorien didn't heal him. What he did didn't save Sheridan's life, it was keeping him alive continuously, as an ongoing process. And no matter what happened to Sheridan, that process would peter out in about 20 years.

Yeah, plus, Lorien did say "perhaps" 20 years, as if it was the maximum amount. That's no different than if a doctor were to tell me right now that I would live to be perhaps 100, and no more. Now, I could live that long, but I'm guessing that I probably won't.

Whatever Lorien did didn't restore his previous healthy condition. Sheridan should have died. Whatever Lorien did extended his life, but he knew it wouldn't last more 20 years. He never said, "You will die exactly 20 years from now," just that under ideal circumstances that was his maximum life expectancy.