JMS once described Babylon 5 as "Casablanca in space," so what's the point of doing these character driven stories, where only one character is focused upon in each feature story, rather than adding to the mythology of the show.
shareBabylon 5 has ALWAYS been about the characters.
shareOf course Babylon 5 has always been about the characters. But what B5 did so well was that it was about MANY characters within a story that had an EPIC scope. The Lost Tales seems to throw this out the window. And I understand that JMS couldn't really do any of what the original series did with the budget he had but if you watch some of the extra's he's made it clear that he doensn't want to do any big stories or really add to the overall mythos at all with the Lost Tales. He just wants to do small character driven stories that answer the largely unimportant unanswered questions. How did Sheridan live out the rest of his life?, what happened to Delenn? So if JMS is just going to do these small short stories that focus on individual characters instead of bringing back ALL the characters and for a HUGE story that will add to the overall mythos of the show then whats the point of telling these smaller B5 stories at all when the show was once described by its creator as "Casablanca in space."
shareLost Tales is EXACTLY what JMS wanted it to be, very specific stories about each character. He specificlly stated that the story of Babylon 5 has been told and is done, and that he's now excited to be focusing on these smaller more specific stories within the universe itself. You seem to be missing the point. You don't have to answer questions to tell a story. It's about exploring the human condition and other issues, which the Lost Tales continues to do.
shareHeliosphere you seem to be missing the point that I'm trying to make. I understand what JMS wants the Lost Tales to be. I've stated it twice in both my posts now. So to help you better understand what I'm saying I'll try using smaller and simpler sentences to make my point. Babylon 5 was a story that focused on many characters at the same time. And JMS put all of these characters at the center of an epic story regarding politics, love and war. And if JMS says he only wants to focus on small character driven short stories that would presumably be on a much a smaller scale than the television series than these Lost Tales aren't really Babylon 5 at all. Speaking metaphorically JMS is playing in a sandbox with his toys but refuses do anything significant with any of the toys. So we're then simply investing our emotions in stories that aren't going to go anywhere and only offer the illusion of change in the B5 universe. So then I ask again what's the point of having these stories where only one character is focused upon in each feature story that don't add anything to the overall mythology of the show instead of a 100minute feature movie where JMS can develop many characters at once while telling an epic tale.
shareNo, YOU'RE missing the point. The point is, Babylon 5 is JMS's series. It's not "about" anything except what he wants it to be. If you don't like that, tough luck kid.
shareWhat I'm trying to discuss in this thread is that the Lost Tales is an insignificant and poorly done version of Babylon 5. And that it can't possibly bring anything to the larger story. As well that it shouldn't even be made. What you're advocating is that whatever *beep* JMS decides to put out is golden regardless if he no longer follows the original vision of B5.
And I suppose by this logic then you could say that JMS's tenure as writer of the Amazing Spiderman comic book is great too. After all he could make it about anything he wants. He could even write an arc where it was revealed that Norman Osborne and Gwen Stacy once had sex and that she later had kids who are actually age 8 but have adult bodies because of daddy's Green Goblin serum. And write a panel for the artist where we see Osborne giving Gwen his "Oh" face.
It doesn't matter that JMS's original vision for his Spiderman tenure was to have Peter Parker’s powers revealed to be part of some mystical animal totem crap. The only thing that matters is that he can do whatever he wants with it because he writes it. And he doesn't have to follow the original vision of his former stories because he's the great Joe Michael Straczynski.
Is that right Heliosphere? Or did I get that all wrong?
Yes you got it all wrong. You personally don't have to think anything is good or has a point. But JMS is the writer, he's the one with the vision, it's HIS universe, HIS story. It can be whatever he wants it to be, and he has no obligation at all to you personally to make it what you want it to be, because it's his universe his creation. You don't have to like it, but you have no right at all to tell him how to write his own series.
shareIt's since been revealed that Lost Tales was intended to ultimately be a vehicle for telling us about the Telepath Wars, and possibly wrapping up the Drakh Plague thread. But mostly it was to resolve the dangling Telepath Wars threads.
shareI agree with your arguments, and compared to the original B5 epic tales and mythos, the making of LT is not justified. But the point, I'm afraid, is as simple as: Make money from a well established franchise. It is the way of hollywood. And quite frankly: If you were JMS, and had the opportunity, wouldn't you? I would. As long as it didn't trow bad light on the series. It's only filler.. (like some of B5's episodes and subplots as well)
shareAnd for the record I did enjoy Voices in the Dark, mostly. I thought the first story was a good one but I thought the conflict presented in the story wasn't really a Babylon 5 story. It was too spiritual for a show that always liked hover around the middle of science and spirituality. And the second story I felt was flawed as well in that the solution that Sheridan came up with felt to easy, he didn't work hard enough to solve his problem.
And also my snarky comment about using smaller and simpler sentences was out of hand Heliosphere. My bad.
What's the point of this thread?
Because you have something to communicate, something you want to share, you wish to make a connection with people through the medium of a discussion board.
What's the point of The Lost Tales?
JMS has something to communicate, something he wishes to share, he wishes to make a connection with us through the medium of short, character driven stories.
He wants to entertain us.
From a more down-to-Earth perspective, I think he just enjoys and misses writing Babylon 5, working with his friends in the cast and crew and writing dialogue for the characters he created and spent so many years working with, although the epic story of B5 has been finished to his satisfaction. Although he HAS said he would like to tell the story of the Telepath Crisis on DVD at some point.
"Many people are stupid, but at least they used to be suitably ashamed of it to keep quiet about it."
B5 was just a TV series, not some sort of evangelial spiritual or philosphical epic. Admittedly it was almost the only series that has actually been plotted out almost entirely in advance and was very good TV series. But you certainly remember that there were many episodes that were not really super-fantabulous, and others that may have primarily been single character centered.
One could just as well ask what was the point of making B5 at all.
The only real point anyone has in making any TV series is to make money, sure they may claim to have some sort of high-fallutin' vision but that is just BS.
Writers mostly write because they like to tell stories and make a living doing it. All they are doing is telling stories.
And the Lost Tales are just some more stories. I was delighted to revisit the B5 universe again and would welcome more Lost Tales.
You appear to just be suffering from the "once a mystery is solved it isn't that interesting anymore" syndrome.
I have to admit I was already starting a slide into that area during the 5th season of B5.
Even if JMS had wanted to continue to weave a more complex multi-character mythos-expanding tale or set of tales, it would not really have been possible
given the amount of time that had passed and the loss of some of the main actors. After all he had actually already tried doing that earlier with the failed follow-up series.
Most authors who have created some great epic have either never attempted continuing the story past the point they had originally conceived as the end, either because they died before they got around to it, or they were busy with other things, or they couldn't come up with anything worth writing.
(Imagine the tale of whatever happened to Frodo and the elves after they left Middle Earth and went west) Tolkien isn't really a good example for this anyway because he wasn't really writing fiction for a living.
Authors who have created great characters have often been pestered to write more stories about that character - e.g. Sherlock Holmes, or other writers have attempted to continue writing such tales - e.g Conan.
Typically the continuations are not as successful, but fans still enjoy reading them, so you could say the "point" was to satisfy the fans of the series (as well as make some money), not to impress self-styled critics who tend to over-analyze everything.
One could just as well ask what was the point of making B5 at all.
The only real point anyone has in making any TV series is to make money, sure they may claim to have some sort of high-fallutin' vision but that is just BS.
Writers mostly write because they like to tell stories and make a living doing it. All they are doing is telling stories.
It's very hard to judge the "purpose" of The Lost Tales from this initial offering, which was basically tossing a baited line in the water to see how many B5 fans were still in the lake. As such, I don't expect that Voices in the Dark was a definitive demonstration of what JMS intends to do with the B5:TLT project.
JMS can do pretty much anything with TLT that he wants to do, including weaving in threads that he didn't have the opportunity to develop in the original B5 arc. He can go back to the last Shadow War with Sinclair as Valen mustering the forces. He can jump forward to the last days of Babylon 5 as the failing station manages to stave off one last serious threat by...something.
In fact, I'd love to see some stories where the now 20-year-old B5--which was built on a shoestring budget because all the money went into B4--is falling apart at a time when it's still needed.
Proud denizen of your Ignore List since 2007.
May be JMS has another arc up his sleeve but he does not want to start it currently because it might not work, I mean this DVD is to "test the water" so if it had good sales and people reacted well then he can have yet another one.
To start a full arc story JMS needs to have a clear unquestioned support from one of the production companies, so he can continue his dream, but since he is not sure about the level of support they might offer him it will be a waste of resources to start a story that he might not be able to finish. Look at the legened of the rangers for example, he did start a story and the reaction was killing so it was left dead without continue.
May be he is trying to avoide the same results here
Currently the best thing we can have is those small lost tales, one or two per DVD every 6 or 7 months, this will help move the waters and re-collect the fans and give them something to talk about and keep the B5 alive.
Again to have a full arc story needs huge commitment.
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Narnia sucks
Potter Rocks
B5 is the BEST
I am not sure what point you are trying to make here.
The "Casablanca in Space" arc has ended. That story is told. JMS was told that WB was interested in exploring the B5 universe further, and agreed to do a series of shorter, character-driven stories that would explicitly _not_ be Casablanca in Space (that story having been told, already, in 110 episodes and five movies) to reward the fans and actors of the show with a bit more content essentially unrelated to the "Casablanca in Space" arc.
We were promised "B stories" that never got told and that is exactly what we got. The answer to "what's the point of even having the Lost Tales?" is to tell "B" stories that never got told.
Secretly, I am unconvinced that what we saw were really untold "B stories" from the original series, and are instead brand-new "B stories," but i will still maintain that JMS gave us what he told us he would give us. I would be rather disappointed if he suddenly inserted an arc into TLT, because I don't think he could ever fulfill the unspoken promise that an arc would imply. TLT and the script books are, IMO, his means of saying goodbye to the B5 universe without breaking any body's heart.
I always thought that the way the stories were told in Babylon 5 were told as "Casablanca in space." And that it was not simply an arc in B5. And that because The Lost Tales was simply going to focus on one character per story that it wasn't really a true Babylon 5 story.
But with the reasoning that everyone is giving I think I can see some possibilities for the Lost Tales even if it isn't what I seem to think what Babylon 5 is.
I would love to see JMS do another show in the B5 universe, but that isn't likely. He probably made more from the sale of his script for The Changeling (which Clint Eastwood is directing) than for all of Babylon 5. I don't think he has the time anymore to run a show like he ran B5, so the Lost Tales is all we are likely to get.
shareI tend to agree with you. I found B5 kind of empty and depressing. Their were so few characters or extras I found the stories to be overly wordy. Esp. the demonic one.
The best thing to me was the tribute to Biggs and G'Kar. That was worth the price of admission but compared to B5, the Lost Tales just isn't B5.
Maybe the other disks will be better. Maybe JMS will figure out how to write shorter stories when there are so few characters so they don't talk to death.
I'd rather see some major movies to tie up Crusade than these Lost Tales.
For goodness sake, the Centauri don't even give body guards to the up and coming emperors anymore! And it's no wonder Demons are booking passage to B5 the place is a ghost station.
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Just got this for Christmas - which I didn't realise had even been made! My initial thoughts were - why?
Having had such a hard time getting through the 5 Series originally, with the constant threat that it wouldn't get renewed, I was a little surprised that JMS would want to, but I guess that a) He was always very fond of it, and b) wanted to make some more money.
It's been such a long time since it was around I'd have thought that most of the fans would have long since moved on, and new fans would be difficult to find? Even though I loved it at the time, I personally was struggling to remember some of the character names, never mind all the storylines of the original series.
Having now watched it, I felt completely uninspired by it. Sure, it was nice to briefly revisit the universe again, but the trouble is that you're in a no-win situation. For me, stories such as these feel trivial after the huge and complex original, and they felt like they'd cost next to nothing to make and were just cheap knock-offs that had the wrong feel. So you're either going to be disappointed because it has no chance of living up to the original, or disappointed because nothing really happens, or disappointed because you yearn for a whole new series, which is never going to happen, and even if it did, you personally have moved on in 10 years since the last one, and probably would feel it didn't live up to it.
It felt like they were 'filler' episodes from the original series, which they used to do inbetween the interesting episodes.
What a depressing post this is! Not as depressing as the interminable 'Extras' though, which wasted about an hour of my life with total drivel (except the Memorials of course, which were nicely done).
Having seen and thought about these new 'Lost Tales', I'm inclined to say, just leave it all alone forever, and we can all just remember how good it back then and be happy. (And maybe watch it all the way though again one day!)
I think that Babylon 5 has long since run it's course. It would be hard to start over again because a couple of the actors are not deceased. I would like to see the original series air on television more often. This was a great series and should be enjoyed for years to come. Even by today's standards the special effects are great.
I do feel like the Lost Tales was treated like yesterdays leftovers warmed up in a microwave. Not as good.
I just enjoyed B5 Lost tales and in Cantonese (Chinese) there is a saying that might apply to this situation Ho ga Mo, "Better than nothing". Seriously, I read through several view points and it is different in the B5 movies with less characters. The mix of characters interacting was always the best in the series and kept me anxiously waiting each week for Friday at 10pm. I still enjoy the movies as B5 is a Sci Fi Universe in and of itself. If JMS did this just for the money, then I wish JMS would feel like making even more money in a down market? Please make as many B5 films as you want and money at the same time. Also, the updates to sequences are fresh and can serve several movies, save money on each film. It was great seeing Bruce Boxleitner, he didn't look like he aged very much (if at all) between series and this movie. I was just getting settled in for a great story when it ended. Enjoy the movie while it lasts and if we get anymore we can count our lucky stars.
shareI thought the first story was okay but really didn't seem to fit in the 'B5 Universe'. I actually rather enjoyed the second story.
The thing that made the biggest impression was the updated CGI, however. It was really great to see the station and the ships done with modern visuals - And pretty shocking considering I watched it just after Crusade:)
And two years after the last post (if my maths are correct)... I am finally getting all the "extra" movies from B5. I think I've seen most of them, but its been so long, I forget.
Yeah the special effects of the original series are dated, definitely, but they do hold up OK - it would be interesting to see if they could modernize the effects part of the show, but would anyone buy?
I think, actually, Farscape (another great series) had a similar issue, as it really should have been wide screen from the get go. I think most of the eps, but many feel 'compressed' and I think on one early ep (season 2?) when they have that large bartender in the space station - they is actually a 'wide screen character' shoehorned into a standard (4:3) view... and well BSG is wide screen and (iirc - mostly) in HD.
So Crusade is (was) good and had potential to be great like B5 ... maybe it could have started better, things might have been different, who knows?
Now the 'Rangers Saga' .. to DIE IN STARLIGHT was kinda odd. I'm not sure what went on there, but to Die in Starlight was definitely a waste. As many of you know, it used to be, "We live for the One, we die for the One." Then they changed it for some reason... (of course there were other flaws, but that seemed to be the biggest one).
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