Covers eyes and heads back to the other thread^Oi! Get back on your own thread, you'll get spoiled hanging around here!
So Mr Straczynski... it's now 'after April'...
- Thread starter Candlelight
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Umm...y'know...I'm not sure that we have anything in the works that it would fit into. Must consult with Jason. I'll let you know if I find out anything.
Jan
Green Latern is a 50 year old property (and actually goes back further into the Charlton Comics days as a magic-based character) with fan spanning multiple generations. It's seen some animated feature success, but except for a REALLY brief late 1970ies video series attempt at doiong the JLA on TV has never had a Liv Action adaption.
B5 is a nearly 20 year old property that honestly never garnered big rating even when it was in first run syndication; and had a couple of very uninspired attempts at a continuation (the B5 universe that is) that also underperformed. Also, even though there are enough episodes, the series never really had much re-syndication after TNT pulled the plug on Crusade due to mediocre ratings and JMS having ego issues during its production.
IMO - it's apples and oranges. But I doubt even a modestly budgeted B5 film project (ie a 50 - 75 million budget) would be profitable. B5 still only haas a really niche following much lower in number than Star Trek or Star Wars <---- and Styar trek has had a few large feature films that still underperformed or outright flopped.
There are all kinds of ideas that may be developed within the Babylon 5 universe which have nothing to do with the series' mythology and continuity and which could become perfectly satisfying standalone stories. You could make a movie about the birth of Psi-Corps without anyone suspecting that it has anything to do with Babylon 5. It wouldn't necessarily be expensive and it could be very good.
I suppose my question for those kind of stories would be this: why set them in the Babylon 5 universe at all? If they're so far removed from previous forays into the universe (like the recently mentioned Polaris script) that only hard-core fans will even notice that it has anything to do with Babylon 5, why make the effort to do it at all?
Maybe because JMS had put so much thought into the universe (e.g., politics, physics, levels of technology), so why reinvent the wheel?
E.g., he already envisioned a phased plasma gun (PPG) for B5. So why go back to the drawing board to conceptualize a sidearm which is different yet serves the same function? The B5 universe probably fits like an old shoe for him.
It's like asking why Asimov set Foundation and Robot in the same universe. Because he could?
E.g., he already envisioned a phased plasma gun (PPG) for B5. So why go back to the drawing board to conceptualize a sidearm which is different yet serves the same function? The B5 universe probably fits like an old shoe for him.
It's like asking why Asimov set Foundation and Robot in the same universe. Because he could?
You get to talk the suits into greenlighting the movie, with a promise that it's a clean start and that it won't get confusing, and at the same time you get to please the hardcore fans and use them to spread the word for you.
Of course, Crusade was cancelled before it ever aired so there's no way it had mediocre ratings. The audience for the B5 ratings was consistent with TNT's other offerings but the core TNT audience would leave when B5 came on and the B5 audience only came for B5 and not the rest of TNT's programming so there was no increase in numbers of viewers. *That's* what caused TNT to want out of the contract they'd already signed.
As for his ego, this is one small sample of the notes he was getting:
That's an actual transcription from one of their memos. Other notes included wanting Gideon to have a dog and have Gideon arrange for Dureena to be raped.
Eeewww. Thank heavens JMS had those 'ego' issues!
Jan
^ Didn't it ultimately come out that notes like that were because TNT wanted to cancel the show from day one (some sort of power-play between the east and west coast offices, I think), but needed a fig-leaf justification beyond "We felt like it," so they asked for increasingly nonsensical and arbitrary changes to provoke a situation which would allow them to say they gave the project an honest chance but the creative differences were insurmountable?
The East/West coast offices were part of the problem, yes; they regularly gave JMS conflicting notes with one suggesting more exposition and the other wanting more action so that JMS would have had to have fist fights and exposition at the same time. And yes, they needed to justify breaking the contract because "oops, sorry" just doesn't cut it in business so they needed to go to WB and say that JMS just wouldn't give them the show they wanted. JMS didn't find most of that out until a few years after Crusade was over. He's been convinced ever since that if he'd acceeded to every note they gave him, TNT would still have found a reason to get out of the contract.
Jan
^That's more or less what I've read over the years. I think the east/west coast office rivalry thing is the explanation that was floating around at the time of cancellation (I think it's even mentioned in the official mag back in the day), the idea being that the notes were coming from the corporate office rather than the creative office that actually knew what they were talking about and had hands-on experience with TV productions.
The bit about TNT intentionally firing off nonsense notes in an effort to sabotage a project they wanted out of didn't come to light until several years after the fact, (I think JMS said heard it directly from a former employee who was around at the time.) In light of that it's not clear if the east/west coast thing was ever the case or just a story floating around at the time.
[EDIT] Ninja'd by Jan!
I gather that there were definitely conflicting notes but I don't know if it will ever be completely clear how much was incompetence and how much deliberate. However...there was definitely somebody sending notes who didn't have *any* idea what was entailed in TV making or actual drama and his 'notes' are the source of some of the chapter quotes we've been using in the last two books.
Sorry! I shouldn't have been posting from work but I did anyway.[EDIT] Ninja'd by Jan!
Jan
The two aren't mutually exclusive. I would love to see a big screen B5 movie, but on the flip side I've never read a B5 book, nor do I have any incling to do so (and before you jump on me, yes, I do read sci fi).
You should read the Trilogies and the 2 Good ones from the 9 Del Ray #7 Shadow Within and #9 To Dream in the City of Sorrows [/gratuitous stock statement]
I'll correct myself; I have read City of Sorrows but ages ago.
The technomage trilogy is interesting, but the two storylines I liked least in B5 was telepath and centauri stories, and so those trilogies don't interest me (although the fate of Bester does).
The Centauri trilogy was my favorite, followed by the Psi Corp Trilogy.
My guess is that a movie would either be an adaptation of Polaris (about which I only know vague details) or something to do with Psi abilities (Teep war or Psi Corp trilogy derived). I can't see stories about technomages being morally compromised for using Shadow tech or the machinations of Centauri society being suitable fodder. Heck, even the Psi stuff is doubtful --it might come across as a rip-off of Scanners without the dubious benefit of seeing heads exploding -- just people staring hard at each other until one falls over.
I'm not sure why others are suggesting it has to do with other stuff when the "After April" comment was in response to future Babylon 5 projects specifically.
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