Crusade: What the Hell Happened?
- Thread starter Candlelight
- Start date
Don't know and don't know. Really, I'd only be interested in reading the scripts that never went into production, and in knowing what was planned for the longer arc once the Excalibur crew went on the run.
I enjoyed Vol. 1, but I can't say whether it would be worth it for you. Vol. 1 doesn't really tell you anything about TNT's cancellation of the series, or where the story was going to go in the future. That's saved for later volumes.
Vol. 1 gives you some idea of how Crusade began. (The best part is the surreal conversation between JMS and Warner Bros. in which they told him that there was no market for Season 5 of B5, but there *was* a market for a B5 spinoff series, but only if it had nothing to do with B5.) And it gives you some idea of some abandoned concepts, but there isn't that much background beyond that. Most of the book is scripts and production art.
I don't know when Vol. 2 will come out. It seems to be taking quite a long time.
Vol. 1 gives you some idea of how Crusade began. (The best part is the surreal conversation between JMS and Warner Bros. in which they told him that there was no market for Season 5 of B5, but there *was* a market for a B5 spinoff series, but only if it had nothing to do with B5.) And it gives you some idea of some abandoned concepts, but there isn't that much background beyond that. Most of the book is scripts and production art.
I don't know when Vol. 2 will come out. It seems to be taking quite a long time.
How much are these books? I find the whole thing vaguely distasteful. You had to buy every single Babylon 5 script book in order to buy the book that was actually original material discussing the original version of the series. So basically you had to spend what $100 or so to find out the original story?
Why doesn't he just put this stuff online? Why is he charging us these ridiculous amounts?
Why doesn't he just put this stuff online? Why is he charging us these ridiculous amounts?
To repeat the mantra: no one's forcing you to buy them. Who can blame him for seeking to exploit this material and generate some income?
If the books were free, then who would sign Jan's paycheck? 
Well, someone's bound to turn up hereabouts eventually, and deliver a potted version.
I believe JMS lives in the expensive environs of Los Angeles, and he's getting on for 60, so I guess it's sort of his pension fund.
I believe you may have been misinformed. A little history here - There were 14 volumes of the original run of B5 scriptbooks. These included all of the episodes of the "mother series" written by JMS, and only by JMS. Each book was 40 bucks, but discounted to 30 during the first two weeks or so when it was released, then the price went up to "normal."
The 15th volume, the one you're referencing, was never for sale. It was never an issue of "you have to buy these, to be able to buy this other one." The 15th volume, the only one with a red cover, was *free* for anyone who bought all the previous 14 volumes. It was also signed by JMS.
There have been copies on eBay of this volume, as well as others of course, but this one was never made available to purchase by JMS or the script team.
There have been other sets, including Other Voices. OV was three volumes, and contained all the scripts by writers other than JMS, from the original series. There was the quote book (sorry, I thought that one was a major let down), the Asked and Answered set of five books, and now we're on to Crusade.
There's also the Chronology, but I haven't picked that one up yet. Maybe if there's a coupon one of these days.
Why don't you work for free? Why do you insist your employer pay you?
Yes and no. The scripts, notes, memos, and other documents and pictures, and every episode has a new essay written by JMS (in his volumes, that is) about that specific episode. These range from a few pages to dozens of pages per episode. Jan can correct this, but I believe the shortest essay was 10,000 words.
In the non-JMS ones, it was up to the writer. Some of them were new essays, in other cases (such as Kathryn Drennan), fans submitted questions about the episode, which the writer then answered in their section of the book.
So yes, there is new content in every book.
No tie back to the Centauri! No really, we needed at some point to flash to Centauri Prime and see Londo and the Drahk. Other than that, I sort of liked the show, the feel, music, and look were Babylon 5-ish, and yet distinct.
I want to know who JMS wanted to cast as Galen? I can't picture anyone but Peter Woodward in the role.
I would love to get them but the cost is too high, especially as I have now moved onto kids and houses that are too small to contain them.
Would be keen to read the remaining Crusade volumes though.
Would be keen to read the remaining Crusade volumes though.
The one thing that really made Crusade: What the hell happened? worthwhile was the pre-production art of Luc Mayrand, who designed the exterior and interior of the Excalibur.
Does it say what happened with the redesign of four struts to three? Design athetic?
Unfortunately, there isn't much commentary on the design process. Would've been neat if Mayrand wrote the captions to each of the pictures, and walked us through the evolution of the ship.
Crusade certainly had better quality sets than Babylon 5, but there was something of a "lost in translation" from Mayrand's interior-design sketches to John Iacovelli's sets.
But I've never been impressed by Iacovelli as a television production designer. His strengths are in theater-stage design, which I don't think plays well on screen despite them serving the production well in terms of quickly redressing sets.
Iacovelli's sets always seemed flimsy, taking away from the verisimilitude of the series.
One of the things that disappoints me about Babylon 5, looking at it nearly 20 years later, is that it never lived up to JMS's pitch line that it was "Hill Street Blues in space". The series was more theatrical than naturalistic in terms of the aesthetic (from acting to design).
Moreover, I was disappointed that the series proper dropped certain design elements from the pilot, such as the more moodier lighting and smoke, which hid the weaknesses in Iacovelli's sets. The lighting also gave the pilot a more interesting look that set it apart from ModTrek. But the series looked as flat as ModTrek at times, especially after the first season.
I always looked at the lower, less clear lighting as showing the lack of understanding of the Arc. The more we learned, the more "We saw the Light" and the clearer our vision was.
There was quite a bit of stuff that got removed from the pilot that would've been cool if it had stayed, like the gravity chairs in the car in the central cylinder.
Similar threads
