lurkers-guide/ftp/Usenet/latest

JMS Usenet messages for March 1999.


Date: 3 Mar 1999 23:07:58 -0700
Subject: Re: Elia Kazan

>I find it rather grimly amusing that those who profess the
>greatest horror at "The Black List" now demand that Elia Kazan
>remain blacklisted, forty years later, and get indignant, bent
>out of shape, and even violent at any cracks in *that* black list.

Langauge and words have specific meaning.

To be blacklisted means that you cannot work, cannot pursue your livelihood.

Kazan has worked successfully for his entire life.

Further, most of those prosecuted under the blacklist were totally innocent and
never did the things they were accused of doing.  No one has ever said that
Kazan didn't name names.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 4 Mar 1999 08:32:39 -0700
Subject: Re: PsiCorps 2: Deadly Relations...a readers review

I think book 2 is terrific as well, maybe in some ways better than 1 because
though it's not as epic, it really makes the Psi Corps come alive in some nifty
ways.

I haven't seen 3 yet, but it should be a real kick.

The technomage trilogy, at this point, may work out to be my favorite, given
how much of the B5 storyline it interweaves.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 4 Mar 1999 08:32:55 -0700
Subject: Re: Crusade : It's the ratings folks!

>First, it's the ratings. As I remember ACTA got something in the range
>of 2.3 to 2.8, something like that. That my friends is everything. If it
>had gotten, say a 10, TNT would be falling over itself to keep the show.

Nothing on cable -- nada -- gets a 10 rating.  The successful shows get
somewhere from a 1 to a 3 rating, that's it.  That's all the penetration you
can get given the number of sets that have cable.

Sliders, considered a big hit on SFC, generally gets a 1.0 rating.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 4 Mar 1999 08:32:59 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Is WB still interested in a B5 Feature Film?

Yeah, but I'd rather wait a bit.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 4 Mar 1999 12:59:34 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS:  Who pulled the plug?

>Was it your choice to cancel the series because you
>felt it was being interfered with creatively, or did TNT cancel it because
>you wouldn't do things their way?  

I do not have the power, authority or contractual ability to cancel a show and
take it elsewhere.  WB owns the show, lock stock and barrel.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 4 Mar 1999 13:30:27 -0700
Subject: Re: Crusade: What Episodes

>I have seen upto 16 episode titles for Crusade.  My question is what are
>the 13 episode titles that have been produced and will go to air?

Warzone
Each Night I Dream of Home
The Memory of War
Visitors from Down the Street
The Well of Forever
Patterns of the Soul
The Needs of Earth
Racing the Night
The Long Road
Path of Sorrows
Ruling from the Tomb
The Rules of the Game
Appearances and Other Deceits


The last one written and turned in was called "End of the Line."  John blames
me for the synchronicity.
 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 4 Mar 1999 22:17:25 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Book outlines, how detailed?

The usual length of my outlines tends to be about 15-18 pages per book, so
45-54 pages total per trilogy.  It's fairly extensive and has all the major
beats worked out.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 8 Mar 1999 18:12:57 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: The beginning of the next GREAT story...

Thanks...I'm looking forward to playing in other worlds.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 8 Mar 1999 18:13:27 -0700
Subject: Re: Elia Kazan and Forgiveness-"Passing Through Gethsemane"

Usually a condition of forgiveness is apology and repentence.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 8 Mar 1999 18:13:08 -0700
Subject: Re: Is the Pern TV Series JMS's next project?

Nope, ain't me.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 8 Mar 1999 18:13:33 -0700
Subject: Re: PsiCorps 2: Deadly Relations...a readers review

>By the way, is A Call To Arms novel canon with respect Galen was an
>apprentice
>to Elric or were these artistic embellishments by the author.

Yes, that's canonical.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 8 Mar 1999 18:13:58 -0700
Subject: Re: attn: JMS

>I'm curious if you have seen the commercials for the movie "Wing
>Commander". It opens with the narrator saying "Earth's Last Hope", and
>he sounds so much like the narrator for Babylon 5. I wondered if you
>would think this a compliment to your opening of Babylon 5.

No, I'm fine with it; it ain't like we copyrighted that phrase, and they
probably didn't think of us at all in that regard.  I'll certainly try to see
the film if I can, since I enjoyed the game.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 9 Mar 1999 19:06:38 -0700
Subject: Re: Sleepin' In Light

>Does any one know where I can buy the score to "sleeping in light"?
>

www.sonicimages.com


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 10 Mar 1999 15:55:59 -0700
Subject: Re: What B5 spinoffs wouldn't WB own?

WB owns it all, including any and all spinoffs.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 10 Mar 1999 19:36:59 -0700
Subject: Re: Babylon 5- Deadly Relations- Bester's Ascendant

>I, for one, cannot bring myself to purchase a book that covers ground that
>should have been covered in the Babylon-5 television series.
>

1) The B5 series was never about the Psi Corps, it was about the station and
the people who live there.

2) Should the show have told everything there was about IPX, the Psi Corps,
EarthDome, and all of the various institutions involved?  Show me any series
ever created that can do that.

3) The Psi Corps books cover over a hundred years of history, and Bester's
final fate comes years after the events of the B5 storyline.  There is NO WAY
to include all of that in any one series.  You are asking the impossible, and
complaining because we cannot do what simply cannot be done by any series,
ever, anywhere, ever created.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 13 Mar 1999 15:03:10 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN: jms: Is there hope?

"There's always hope, because it's the one thing nobody's figured out how to
kill yet."  -- Galen.
 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 13 Mar 1999 15:04:53 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Can we help?

>Would letters from viewers help them to make this decision?  And, if so,
>who should we write to?  One source suggests writing to Bonnie Hammer,
>the Senior VP of Programming.   Also, Stephen Chao, the President of
>Television and Marketing for USA

Yes, both those would be good choices.

And the best time for this would be after the episodes start airing in June.  I
think we have about 5 weeks before the actors' contracts expire in July.  (They
will be running all 13 straight through, or so they tell me.)

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 16 Mar 1999 17:11:33 -0700
Subject: Re: Attn:JMS-Biography

>I have just read "the last word" in this months B5 magazine and i was
>glad to see you writing about yourself for a change.I found it a   very
>interesting if brief insight into the man behind the story.

Thanks, I'm always leery about that, and try to keep a low profile in that
respect.

>I was wondering if you would ,at some point in the future,consider
>writing your biography, as i am sure a great many people would be very
>interested.

I dunno...I've actually been asked to write one, but have so far declined; it
just ain't that interesting a life in many respects, and I'm only 44, writing a
bio at this point would be rather self-indulgent.  I guess -- and I'm not being
fascetious here -- I can't imagine anything less exciting to read than my bio.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 16 Mar 1999 17:11:46 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: What about The Further Adventures of Lyta and G'Kar?

I'm writing 3 B5 short stories for Amazing Stories magazine; the first is a
Londo (shortly after he became emperor) story; also doing a G'Kar/Lyta story,
and a B5-setting story, all following these characters after the events of
"Objects at Rest."

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 16 Mar 1999 17:12:47 -0700
Subject: Re: From Orlando:  Thanks JMS

Thanks, the pleasure was all mine.

And it was important to get those two eps out there, because it's a *good*
show, and nothing defeats the naysayers like the truth.  Independent reactions
to the episodes is the best antidote to the nonsense.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 18 Mar 1999 19:45:30 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN: JMS

>Haven't seen them yet, but just read description of Crusade opening titles.
> Sounds sorta like the second part of the opening to The Prisoner, the part
>with the episode title and episode credits.  Was this your intent?

No, it draws from the primary questions asked in the B5 series.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 20 Mar 1999 14:31:40 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Crusade Theme


It's hard to separate out the two, the theme and the images.  We actually had
the music first from Evan, which is normally not the way we do it, we do the
visuals first.  So we set it aside, and did the edit on the shots, which are
designed to create a fairly exotic feeling.  

Then when we had it done, just out of curiousity as a temp track, we laid in
Evan's original music...and it cut right to the music, beat for beat, shot for
shot, right on the cuts, to the second.

We wuz astonished....

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com






Date: 20 Mar 1999 14:36:13 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Why are you so pessimistic? (not Crusade)


Actually, I'm something of an optimist, all things considered.  I've just
learned that only hard roads lead to good places.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com






Date: 21 Mar 1999 16:06:41 -0700
Subject: preview to jms comic out now

For those interested...the new issue of Wizard Magazine is out this week, with
both an article about, and a preview issue for, my new comic series from Top
Cow, RISING STARS.  Wizard can be found at nearly all comic stores and most
newsstands.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 22 Mar 1999 22:17:55 -0700
Subject: Re: preview to jms comic out now

I'm going to be moving back and forth in the story's timeline, using an ongoing
investigation into something happening in the present to get me into those
backstories.

Thanks on the comic...I think it's gonna be fun.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 22 Mar 1999 22:18:23 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Selling Crusade to foreign networks?

We can't sell the show anywhere, only WB can, as the owners of Crusade.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 25 Mar 1999 19:15:13 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Rising Stars Question

>I just got Rising Stars #0, & I was wondering when #1 will be out?
>
>
July, to coincide with the big Wizard comics convention in Chicago.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 26 Mar 1999 22:04:49 -0700
Subject: Re: preview to jms comic out now

>There's a web article & art preview at:
> http://www.detnews.com/metro/hobbies/comix/stories/9903/19/
>
>Are these pages from the #0 (art by Brian Ching), or #1 (art by series
>regular Kui Cha)? 

Dunno, I'll have to go look and see what they used.

BTW, just closed the deal today to write a TV movie (non-SF) for one of the
networks while we're waiting for pilots to be picked up in May.  Should be fun.
 (Can't talk about it at this time beyond that.)

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 27 Mar 1999 00:28:20 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Rising Stars & Wizard World Chicago '99

Yes, I do plan to be at Chicago Comic Con this year, schedule permitting.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 27 Mar 1999 17:54:04 -0700
Subject: Re: Attn. JMS: Rising Stars Comic

><<I saw a preview of your new comic "Rising Stars" and I'm looking
>forward to a Watchmen quality story.  It's been a while since
>something really good has been published in comics. >>
>
>It depends on what you mean by "a while"  There are some very good comics
>currently being published although most of them lean more towards four color
>action than watchmen-esque darkness.  
>

There's lots of good stuff out...the new Mage and Grendel books, the Alex Ross
stuff (any of it, definitely liked his latest, Uncle Sam), I've bought but
haven't yet read Kubuki which I hear is also quite good.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 29 Mar 1999 18:10:02 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Kosovo [off topic]

I go back and forth on this whole thing.  On the one hand, I think the
atrocities against the Albanian population *have* to be answered, and they
*have* to be stopped, and the only voice the Serbian leaders seem to listen to
is the voice of force.  (Though so far that doesn't seem to have happened.)

On the other hand...I think there's a qualitative difference between this and,
say, bombing Iraq, which is very much isolated from its neighbors, and has no
desire to piss off its neighbors (for the moment and only for as long as it's
in its own interest not to).  Yugoslavia is dead center of a lot of other
countries into which this conflict could spill over into something considerably
larger and more dangerous.

Let's remember that WW1 began with a single gunshot in that region.

So bottom line...I dunno, I go back and forth on an almost hourly basis. 
Basically, I think either it'll work, or it'll start a massive war in a region
noted for a resentful populace and any number of leftover nukes.

Roll the dice....

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 1 Apr 1999 19:47:02 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: future Babylon 5 projects ?

There are not more B5 TV movies on the boards, though next week we're shooting
the live-action elements of the Sierra computer game (with Lochley, Sheridan,
Delenn, Garibaldi and others).

Aside from the coming novels, I've just turned in the first of three B5 stories
that will be appearing in Amazing Stories Magazine.  The first one, "The Shadow
of his Thoughts," is a Londo story taking place in the days shortly after his
coronation as Emperor.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 1 Apr 1999 19:49:23 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: George Lucas on 60 Minutes

I missed it, durn it.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 3 Apr 1999 09:09:29 -0700
Subject: Re: JMS: words coming back

>I've said it before and I'll say it again as often as anybody'll stand still
>to
>listen.  What I see as your greatest strength as a writer is the 'density'
>that
>you bring to your stories. 

It's just the way I'm hardwired.  Years ago, a bunch of us (college years) went
in to help put down a carpet in a building, using scraps from a carpet store,
and everybody's putting down these huge swaths of carpeting, and I'm over in
the corner with these 2 and 3 inch pieces making a complex pattern, and they're
all "will you STOP that and just grab some big pieces," but it ain't how I'm
wired up.

It's all in the details.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 3 Apr 1999 11:07:28 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: effect of Crusade cancellation, SW:TPM on B5 theatrical

It shouldn't have any effect on that one way or another.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 6 Apr 1999 18:54:22 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Amazing Stories

>You had written about some upcomming stories that you're writing for
>the new Amazing Stories magazine. I hope that you'll let us know when
>they'll be comming out.
>
>

It should be in the one after the current one which just hit the streets this
week.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 7 Apr 1999 20:48:56 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Advice for budding writers???

>As someone who hopes to one day get into the television writing scene,
>what advice do you have?
>
>I don't mean in terms of the actual writing of the show/project/etc, but
>in terms of getting it on the air, getting the "important people" to
>actually read it? I know you went through a lot to get B5 on the air
>(especially wiht a premise that everybody doomed to failure as soon as
>they heard it), so how did you do it? You were already known in the biz
>when you pitched B5....but if someone new was trying to break through
>what sort of things would he have to do?

I get this question all the time.  There is only one reply that I can give you:
it is impossible -- let me reemphasize that, impossible -- for a newbie to sell
a TV series without a long track record working in the business.  So there's
really no advice that can be given.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 11 Apr 1999 18:09:33 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Advice for budding writers???

>are you trying to say...it's impossible? :). I figured as much
>already...but it seems like an endless circle. You cant get in w/o a
>track record...but if you can't get in...then how do you get a track
>record?

Of course you're proceeding from a false assumption.  New people get in every
year.  Every writer started out as an unknown, and not in the WGA, without a
track record.  You start trying to sell individual scripts to shows on the air
currently, then work your way up.

New members in the WGA are added every year, in substantial numbers.  Those
people all sold for the first time.  Happens all the time.

Not to flog my book...but go to your local library (cheaper that way) and check
out my Complete Book of Scriptwriting.  It may help.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 13 Apr 1999 21:50:38 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Bradbury Award

Thank you, I'm very pleased.  It's a recognition for the show, not just my
work, as far as I'm concerned.  

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 19 Apr 1999 19:12:15 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN:JMS (a few questions)

>Is Sheridan alive during Crusade or does he die between A Call to Arms
>and Crusade?

Sleeping in Light is 17 years after the events of B5; Crusade takes place about
5 years after the events of B5.  Sheridan is alive for the first part of SiL.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 23 Apr 1999 22:14:16 -0600
Subject: Re: JMS: Congrats on Hugo Nomination

We're all very pleased and honored by the nomination, thanks.

jms
 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 23 Apr 1999 22:32:28 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS - Thoughts on "Earth: Final Conflict"

Haven't seen a full episode, so can't comment.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 24 Apr 1999 20:43:17 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: And now for a word JMS- viewer reaction after SiL

Please convey to those  on de.rec.sf.babylon5.misc my thanks, both  to them and
to all the B5 fans in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.  It's amazing to watch
the end of the show roll out across the planet, with each new country
experiencing the conclusion in a new wave each time.  

Pardon the spellings and grammar in what follows, this is massively ugly on my
part, all from memory, but:

Meinen Deutsch ist nicht gut, aber zu alles B5folk auf de.rec.sf.babylon5.misc,
Deutschland, Ostterreich und Switzerland: Danke Sie.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 25 Apr 1999 17:26:30 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN: JMS - OT (The Matrix)

>Just saw"The Matrix" for the second time. Not to often that I find a
>story that tries and keep all the loose ends tight.
>What did you think of it?

I was blown away by it.  I think it's a terrific film and possibly a watershed
for SF movies.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 25 Apr 1999 19:46:54 -0600
Subject: jms = big rock

Sent this a while back, but it never got on...

For those who are interested in these sorts of things, I learned recently that
Kitt Peak Observatory in Tuscon, Arizona, has just formally named an asteroid
discovered by them in 1992 8379 STRACZYNSKI in recognition of B5.  (This is the
formal designation, as per the Astronomical Union.)

Suffice to say it's a tremendous honor.

Finally, I'm a rock star....

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 26 Apr 1999 17:04:33 -0600
Subject: Re: Attn JMS:  Sheridan:  "There is Some Much I Still Don't

There was a certain amount of intentional symmetry there, yeah.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 27 Apr 1999 19:08:38 -0600
Subject: Re: jms = big rock

>Wes, it looks like I'll have to update straczynksi'ed to include a secondary
>definition: straczynskied - (1) vt past tense - To be inspired towards
>simultaneous and profound curiosity, anticipation, awe, dread, and somber
>reflection through the skillful use of misdirection, foreshadowing, mental
>torture, and other literary devices leading to disturbed sleep, frightening
>nightmares, hallucinations, compulsive behavior, and general obsession. (2)
>vt past tense - To be obliterated by a large asteroid with the name 8379
>STRACZYNSKI that doesn't go boom 

Oddly, I heard a while back from some Russian speaking folks, and depending on
how you pronounce it and where you put the inflection, Straczynski can mean
either "terror" or "passion."  I kind of like the symmetry of both....


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 2 May 1999 19:27:33 -0600
Subject: Re: jms = big rock

>Straczynski is a Polish spelling which would make sense if it came from 
>modern Belarus or western Ukraine, which Poland used to rule.

That's my understanding, that its roots are in Belorussia (Belarus).

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 2 May 1999 19:28:53 -0600
Subject: Re: jms = big rock

>Methinks, we've discovered the fifth horseman. :-)

Well, the first 3 horsemen were sabotaged and destroyed, and the fourth
horseman disappeared mysteriously, and....

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 5 May 1999 16:47:52 -0600
Subject: Re: The Babylon File Volume 2

There is a point, however, where bias and being opinionated leads to error and
untruth, because one is so adamant to advance one's own viewpoint that all the
other facts get skewed to support that.

All through Lane's book, he skews the facts to bolster his point of view, much
as a creationist skews the facts of science to bolster his point of view.

For instance, he makes much of the fact that we shot 6 days instead of 7 for
S5, and that this therefore led to a 1/7th decrease in quality.  Well, it
didn't affect the writing, the stories were still the stories.  I wrote just
what I would have written for a 7 day shoot.

Further, a fact he omits because it would get in the way of his argument is
that we *did* have the liberty to shoot 7 days when we thought it was
appropriate *and did so*.  (I think it was either A Tragey of Telepaths or
Phoenix Rising.)  

He omits the fact, documented through shooting schedules, that on virtually
ever episode from S1-S4, we wrapped early almost every day, sometimes by an
hour, sometimes by a couple of hours.  In 110 episodes, we had only about 20
days of serious overtime, over 5 years of shooting, and in each case the
overtime amounted to only a couple of hours here and there.  Never once had a
forced call on an actor.

Why is this important?  Because if you take an average of wrapping early 1 and
a half hours per day, over six days, you *have* a seventh day right there.

When we went to a 6 day schedule, we added about a page to each day's shoot,
and we generally didn't go home early, we wrapped on time.  (Though in fact we
were able to go home early on some days, depending on the scenes.)  That's it. 
The main burden was on the art department to turn around sets quickly enough. 
But there was no other qualitative impact otherwise.  Not one.  Zilch.

To be sure that it could be done effectively, I was the first one to do a 6 day
shoot, on Sleeping in Light, figuring that if I as a first time director could
do it, anybody could.  And we did just fine.

Anyway, that kind of bias infects the whole book, because it wasn't done the
way he would have done it, and therefore it has to be bad.  And he looks for
anything to bolster that point of view, no matter how insupportable.  It's not
just that this is his POV, it has to be the truth, and he insists that no one
can have any other point of view, or that person is an uncritical fanboy.

But it's possible to be an uncritical fanboy in a positive *and* a negative
direction.  And that is the case with the Lane book.  He does not take the
facts in a critical way, examining them on their own terms, he lines them up to
try and reflect his thesis going in.  

A person can have a bias that leads them to be blindly praising toward
something; and a person can have a bias that leads them to be blindly negative
toward something.  This is a case of the latter.

I've never had a problem with critical reviews.  Diane mentioned the B5
magazine, but if you actually look at the reviews in that magazine, many of
them do say negative things about various episodes.  Mind you this is in a
publication that's licensed, and which I could have deleted that material if
I'd chosen to.  But I let it go through, because I think we can all learn from
criticism, and if our own publication was exempt from that, then it was no
longer a proper magazine.  I gritted my teeth a lot, but it went through.

There seems to be this perception that if something says positive things, then
it isn't being critical; if it's negative, then somehow it's more objective or
critical.  This is fallacious reasoning.  Criticism should be fair and
evenhanded and constructive and, where possible, based in factual reporting.

This book is none of those things.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 6 May 1999 01:50:14 -0600
Subject: Re: The Babylon File Volume 2

>I admit I have a bias going into it since I liked
>Vol 1 a lot. Also I'm more inclined to agree based on the sole fact that
>I felt the same way about many things and specifc episode. Maybe that
>does not qualify me to look at it objectively,

But that's okay, and that's the point...your feelings about the episodes are
subjective, there's no such thing as an objective *opinion*.  Facts can be
objective, opinions are a different creature.  The language means what it
means.  And you're as qualified as anyone else to give your opinion on anything
you so choose, and should not hesitate to do so.

It's when others try to disguise opinion as fact that I think a line gets
crossed.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 7 May 1999 01:48:33 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Dormammu?

I enjoyed the early Dikto Dr. Strange books quite a bit.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 7 May 1999 07:06:07 -0600
Subject: Re: Attn: JMS, re: B5 and DS9.

>Why did you not stand up
>for yourself and protect your rights and property?

I could not do so; once the contracts were signed for B5, WB owned B5 lock,
stock and copyright.  They would have been the ones to have to sue Paramount,
and they were not up for doing that on an issue like this.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 9 May 1999 23:36:26 -0600
Subject: Re: B5 Awards listing?

Let's see...this is from memory.

Two Vision awards from the Space Frontier Foundation.

Emmys forEFX and makeup.  

A bucket of reader's choice awards from SFX magazine, Sci-Fi Entertainment and
others.

Two Hugo awards.

(If you put the personal ones in the mix, you'd add the Bradbury Award and the
Inkpot Award.)

The American Cinema Foundation award.

And others that have momentarily slipped my mind.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 19 May 1999 03:12:18 -0600
Subject: Re: Attn JMS: Rising Star early release question..

>There also seemed to be a "Rising Stars" 0 (zero) issue that was
>distributed along with Wizard magazine...  Is this true?  If so, do you
>know which issue of Wizard it was in? 

It's in the Top Cow issue with the Fathom cover, just came out about a month
ago, most stores should have it.  I'd actually suggesting reading that one
*first* since it sheds light on the preview issue.



Date: 20 May 1999 01:11:51 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Star Wars Movie (No Plot Spoilers)

No, figure I'll wait until the lines die down a bit.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 20 May 1999 20:26:38 -0600
Subject: Re: Attn: JMS re. writers rights

> I am concerned
>that the ads,which imply a different plot line than the one you had
>envisioned may come to pass, as a result of "artful" re-editing by the staff
>at WB.


WB doesn't make those ads, they're made by TNT.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 21 May 1999 14:07:32 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Babylon 5 Magazine Column

>One more thing--you said in an accompanying article that the lease on
>Babylonian Productions' building is up in May.  Did you renew the lease?

Warners is trying to extend so it's still in hand if there's a second season.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 21 May 1999 18:25:22 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: A Suggestion

I calls 'em as I sees 'em.  Always have, always will.  To do any less would be
a disservice and a dishonesty.

And believe me, it ain't gonna factor into SFC's decision one way or another. 
If any of that had even the potential for being true, then I wouldn't have
pending offers from literally all 3 major networks and 4 studios to come in and
run shows for them.

It's a non-issue.  Honest.  Would this face lie?

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 22 May 1999 17:40:25 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Crusade Question

It could only be possible via licensed books, certainly, and if I'm going to
write novels, I think I'd rather do originals.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 23 May 1999 22:33:54 -0600
Subject: Re: Attn JMS: dvd release

>It seems that the release of Babylon 5 on DVD is in the works for the
>near future.
>Have you been approached by Warners to supply extra material or possibly
>do  a director's commentary?

No, not as of this writing.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 24 May 1999 21:17:47 -0600
Subject: B5 Fan Mail Reroute

Just a quick note to let folks know that any mail for the cast and crew should
go to the fan club address henceforth, not to the Ventura Blvd. mail drop. 
We're shifting all that stuff over to the FC address, which is P. O. Box 856,
North Hollywood, CA 91603.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 25 May 1999 21:06:31 -0600
Subject: Re: Attn JMS: Rising Stars Preview Issues

Thanks, I think it's going to be a good book.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 25 May 1999 21:07:29 -0600
Subject: Re: B5 Fan Mail Reroute -- Arrggghhhh!

>One hopes that the old address will still be alive for a day or two?

For a bit, yeah, but the sooner the general transition takes place, the better,
just to make sure nothing gets lost.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 27 May 1999 23:58:46 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Third Psi-Corps Book

>When will the third Psi-Corps. book be out, & what will come out
>next--the first Technomage book, or the first Centauri book?

The third Psi Corps book just arrived in manuscript form, so it should be
soonish.  After that, I'm not sure which comes next.

>So TNT wanted Sci-Fi to fund
>all 22 episodes for the first season in order for them to pick it up &
>complete the season? 

That's correct.

>I also heard that TNT wanted Dureena to be the
>"sexual-explorer".  TNT obviously has a bunch of morons running that
>network!

I think either Dureena or Eilerson would've been fine, as long as the requisite
amount of sex got in, which was the reason behind the notion.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 27 May 1999 23:59:04 -0600
Subject: Re: Attn: JMS, Re: B5 Magazine.

>Is it true that that the Babylon-5 magazine is suffering a drop in sales and
>is in danger of no longer being carried by some national chain bookstores
>such
>as "Barnes and Noble?

Nope.  If anything, the magazine has been increasing a bit in size and scope
because sales are solid and increasing, allowing that to happen.

There are always some folks out there spreading this stuff...they've been doing
it for years.  They get off on it.  All anyone has to do is *look* at the
magazine to see how it's doing.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 28 May 1999 18:57:44 -0600
Subject: Re: Attn JMS: Funding Crusade (was Re: ATTN JMS: Third Psi-Corps

>Well it seems reasonable to me.  I assume if Sci-Fi had
>picked up Crusade, they -- not TNT -- would have premiered
>all 22 eps.

Also correct.  Nor was it being stated as a bad or a wrong thing...the only
point being that SFC would have to buy another 22 ep package at a time when
they'd already picked up 3 other 22 ep series, AND made a huge deal with
Spielberg in the $40 million range.  That's a lot for that net to bite off in
one season.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 1 Jun 1999 22:29:53 -0600
Subject: Re: Attn: JMS, Re: B5 Magazine.

Further on this point, I got the following today from John Freeman, editor of
the B5 magazine.

Text follows:

Joe 
(Hope you can forward this if you think it necessary... I checked with our
distributor and the rumour is pure hogwash....)

Further to your response below I can confirm that Eastern News, our news
stand distributor in North America, is actively seeking to increase our news
stand (i.e. Barnes and Noble, etc.) sales. We're experiencing an upswing in
sales, but it's more evident in the direct sales market. BTW, in a complete
reversal of the situation in the UK, direct sales shops are more likely to
have Babylon 5 on their shelves faster than news stands.
One area we are still trying to sort out is setting up  a North American
subscription house, which has taken much longer than we would have liked,
largely because we are a non-US magazine company. However, I hope that
particular 'nut' will be cracked very soon now - the paperwork has been
incredibly complex.
I would like to thank North American readers for their patience and
enthusiastic support, evidenced by the growing size of my B5 mailbag!
Best wishes
John Freeman

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 5 Jun 1999 16:18:06 -0600
Subject: Re: Dreamwatch #58 Article

It is, by the way, a very good and well informed article.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 5 Jun 1999 16:20:40 -0600
Subject: Re: JMS: Crusade 'lost' episodes?

>I read that all of the scripts for Season 1 of Crusade had been written.
>What
>happens to them *when* we get Crusade Season 2?  Will those scripts get used
>or
>are they lost to us?  Do they belong to TNT or to Warner Bros?

We only got as far as 16, which is annoying since 14 was where we *really*
cranked up the arc, and 16 was to be the season cliffhanger, shot early to
handle the rather hideous CGI that would have been involved.

The last one written, 16, synchronistically enough, was entitled "End of the
Line."

And WB owns the TV rights to the scripts.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 9 Jun 1999 21:18:23 -0600
Subject: jms on first eps

Just for the record: I think the first one -- the only one written directly at
TNT's behest -- is probably the weakest one, certainly the one I find least
interesting.  It's lumbered with buckets of exposition, explaining things that
don't need explaining, too many fights, too many explosions, too much
swaggering around, all stuff the net wanted. 

Then we go back to the show we wanted to make...Path of Sorrows is terrific,
Well of Forever is a solid character story, The Long Road is just pure fun
(that's pretty much reverse broadcast order, btw)...there's one or two in the
bunch that are a bit slower than I'd like, but those are the exception rather
than the rule.  

Just to get my own feelings on this out there.  

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 9 Jun 1999 21:21:58 -0600
Subject: jms portland oregon query

I have some family members who are looking for a retirement village or place in
the Greater Portland area (I'm told that Portlandians will know what that
means).  It should be a nice place, with the possibility of extending health
care or medical assistance, upscale is cool, middle of the road is cool, as
long as it's genuinely a nice place, decent sized, friendly, that sort of
thing.

They've been looking on their own, but haven't found anything, and I
figured...what the heck, I'd try this venue and see if anything came up.

Replies via email, no need to burden the forum with this, thanks.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 12 Jun 1999 12:31:45 -0600
Subject: Re: Attn JMS: The Practical Side of the Crusade Universe

We do get into some of the dynamics of this, yeah...the impact of the
quarantine on trade, lifestyles, other stuff.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 15 Jun 1999 19:26:54 -0600
Subject: Re: ACtA/crusade: War Zone *spoilers*

>i've seen some people(not sure if here or un unmod) posting about
>inconsistancies between the end of ACtA, and the beginning of crusade, and
>while there is at least one(dureena acting like the excalibur is new to her)

Actually, she never gives that impression; her reaction to the others seeing
the ship and being impressed is to shrug and say, "It'll do."  She's not
impressed because she's already been there.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 16 Jun 1999 23:06:19 -0600
Subject: Re: Attn: JMS - Final Reckoning (Psi Corp trilogy)

I finished reading the book this past weekend, and it's possibly the best of
the three, which I didn't think I'd say, given how much I liked the first two.

What I think fans will like about it most is that while the first two dealt
with what led up to B5's timeline, some of able to be inferred from stuff, this
is all stuff that is yet to come...and it's nifty.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 10 Aug 1999 18:45:31 -0600
Subject: Re: JMS:  Development?

>Could you possilby tell us what genre this Series will be?
>

If it goes, it's about 98% mainstream and 2% speculative fiction...kind of an
Ivory Snow mix....

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 11 Aug 1999 02:09:26 -0600
Subject: Re: After Crusade episode 13...then what?

>Always was more of a Yog Sothoth fan myself.

ia ia Cthulhu fthagen. (spelled wrong so I won't piss off nyarlathotep)

>Incidentally... did anyone else have nightmares for days after reading "The
>Colour Out of Space"?
>

Me.  Bigtime.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 13 Aug 1999 08:17:55 -0600
Subject: Re: The reaction to Racing The Night

>I am not standing up for TNT here, but again I must point out what has been
>said in other posts. All 13 episodes that TNT is airing have been stated by
>JMS
>to be *"True Crusade"* as he saw it in his vision.
>
>The show was stopped by TNT after they wanted to interfere. Since JMS did not
>agree to the changes, TNT stopped production.
>
>I am not justifying what TNT did, but you can not blame them for the shows

Not entirely true.  The 20 pages of notes we got that were truly offensive were
turned down by me.

But they kept after us on other stuff on a daily basis.  They wanted Dureena's
makeup softened, on the theory that it was a cliche if she actually *looked*
like an alien...they kept making demands of other scripts, including revisions
in such already finished scripts as "Well" that weakened the script...

What I said was that "War Zone" was the only one written at TNT's behest, not
that they didn't have input into the rest of them.  It was only with
"Appearances" that I finally hit the wall and simply stopped taking their
notes.

Every day there was a campaign of attrition and the constant threat that if
things weren't done, either the first shut-down would be permanent, or there
would be another shut-down.  The show was essentially held hostage.

I think that there's more positive than negative in all the episodes aired, and
I'm proud of what we did under the conditions under which we had to labor; but
understand that their fingerprints are on all of the first 8 to various
degrees.  I separated War Zone from the rest because structurally, that's a
story I would never have told if there wasn't a gun to my head.

The only episodes totally free of interference are the first 5 shot.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 15 Aug 1999 00:34:50 -0600
Subject: Re: The Needs of Earth rating?

>I just noticed that "The Needs of Earth" has been given a TV-14(DS) rating
>which is for sexual content and language.  Wasn't this one of the ones
>written before TNT asked for more sex and violence in the show?  Has JMS
>mentioned anything about this?  

No, this is actually pretty stupid...there's one shot where they think a nipple
is visible (it isn't, we were very careful in editing) and another where they
think a Eilerson says "goddamnit," but he doesn't.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 15 Aug 1999 00:37:10 -0600
Subject: Re: Rising Stars #2

Just a correction...the one that's out now is actually #1, following the
previews, #2 will ain't out yet.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 15 Aug 1999 01:13:57 -0600
Subject: Re: Common Sense, Anyone? ("Memory of War" spoilers)

































>And the prize our heroes win for resolving the crisis, the scientific
>breakthrough that makes it all worthwhile, is the ability to infect
>one's self with a reprogrammed alien biological warfare agent of
>incredible sophistication - trust us, it's perfectly safe - in order
>to avoid the indignity of wearing a filter mask for a couple of days.
>
>
>This is an idiot plot, pure and simple.

Funny...the microbiology experts at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory who vetted
the script thought it would be a) a useful thing indeed, and b) extremely
useful as a template in attempting to understand how the Drakh virus works.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com

Date: 15 Aug 1999 16:26:18 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Will You Do Another B5 Spinoff?

>If Crusade doesn't come back (although I am really hoping it does
>return), would you consider doing another B5 spinoff?  I love that B5
>universe, & the thought of no more of it (especially with how bad a lot
>of the series are these days) makes me a bit sad.

No.

I like the B5 universe as well, but I would prefer to move on to other
projects, and not become a one-trick pony.  None of the other projects
currently in the works have anything to do with B5.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 15 Aug 1999 18:31:29 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN: JMS - Clark Ashton Smith?

>"Genius Loci" is the name of a very well known story by C.A.
>Smith.  Any chance you are a fan of his as well as Lovecraft?

Yes, I'm a fan of Smith's work, but no, the title is not a nod to him, since
the phrase precedes his book by several hundred years....

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 15 Aug 1999 18:31:35 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS:  Gideon's PPG?  Double barrelled?

It's a targeting sight.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 16 Aug 1999 23:00:30 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Will You Do Another B5 Spinoff?

>Would there ever be a chance that there would be a movie done for the B5
>univerce? 

WB has inquired about one several times, but I'm in no real rush.  If I were to
do one, it'd be a while down the road, and I'd want to take that time to think
of a really good story, rather than rush something out just to do it.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 16 Aug 1999 23:30:26 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Isn't someone at WB pissed?

>Aren't any of those folks still around, and if so, aren't they really ticked
>off at TNT management for damaging (possible irreparably) that potential???
>

The problem in some measure is that there is an ongoing power struggle between
WB and TNT (WB owns TNT, but the biggest shareholder in WB is Ted Turner).  And
nobody -- I mean *nobody* -- wants to get caught in the switches on this one.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 17 Aug 1999 07:31:38 -0600
Subject: Re: "Insider" info on Crusade future ????

TNT doesn't have options on *anyone*, only WB had options on the cast (which
are now expired).

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 18 Aug 1999 23:29:20 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: B5 Synchronicity

>Many times when I go by the machines, they will call out "B5".  It's so
>weird because some nights, it happens several times!
>
>Anyone else have some weird B5 concidences?

One odd thing...seems like any time I have to leave Burbank airport, I end up
going out of and returning in via gate B5.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 19 Aug 1999 20:41:06 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Most Holy?

No, no Cerberus reference was intended.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 20 Aug 1999 16:45:24 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Phoenix Rising Series

>Some people seem to think that your new series is Phoenix Rising, a
>possible new Star Trek spinoff.  I hope it isn't, because, for one
>thing, it has the same title as one of your B5 episodes (& I'm sure you
>just hate that!).  Can you confirm or deny this rumor?

No, totally and completely untrue.  I don't know where this stuff comes from.

Some folks at Paramount have indicated privately that it'd be great if I could
take over the ST TV franchise but I have no interest whatsoever in doing that. 


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 20 Aug 1999 20:24:17 -0600
Subject: Re: Norman Corwin and Babylon 5

I could do a hell of a lot worse than be compared with Norman....

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 22 Aug 1999 17:04:21 -0600
Subject: Re: JMS: new STAR WARS film

>What do you think about the new STAR WARS movie?

Pretty to look at, but not terribly involving.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 22 Aug 1999 17:05:06 -0600
Subject: Re: Special Effects on Recent Episodes

>Has anyone else
>noticed this or am I projecting the overall better episode quality
>onto the special effects?

I think it's this to some extent...also we took a somewhat different approach
to the look of the EFX, and it takes some getting used to.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 22 Aug 1999 17:11:54 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN:JMS Crusade confusing (SPOILERS for AAOD & RTN)

>Now, after watching the episode "Appearences and Other Deceits", obviously
>all
>episodes filmed, (#6-13) were filmed to have to air before #1-5.  Why would
>someone do that?? JMS is also quoted to say that the last 5 to air are the
>best. Again, why would you do that? You are wanting a campaign to try and
>save
>your series, yet you show the crappy episodes first, and drive the viewership
>away.

Let me ask you a real simple question:

What makes you think it was my decision?

TNT wanted the "new-look" episodes aired first.  They wanted to push the first
5 back as far as possible.  I initially figured we'd do 5-6 of the "new look"
ones first, the minimum possible, then the first 5, then the new-look (black
uniform) ones to the end.

TNT *mandated* that the black-uniform ones would go first.  It was not my
choice.  I have NO control over broadcast.  

Not only did they want to hold them back, they were debating if they'd even
allow us to FINISH post on the first 5.  It was a struggle to let them finish
'em, and they were the last ones to go through post.

Before you fire, it's always a good idea to know what the target is first.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 22 Aug 1999 17:21:17 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS:  Enjoyed Rising Stars #1, you dream-shaper you!

I hear this from time to time from folks, that they grew up on my work as kids
into adulthood.  (I started selling to TV in 1984, so that's...fifteen years.)

Suddenly I feel absolutely ancient....

On the other hand, if it causes some folks to grow up asking questions and
thinking about stuff, then it's a good thing and a service to the commonweal. 

Was it Emerson?  "Be ashamed to die until you have performed some service for
humanity."  It's just TeeVee...and there ain't much that's more trivial than a
TeeVee writer...but I do hope it's had an effect.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 25 Aug 1999 23:32:49 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: New B5 book

>Noticed that there will be a new B5 book coming out in the UK in November(I
>think) called the Babylon 5 Omnibus I.  It says it is written by J. Vornholt
>and L. Tilton.  Would this be a collection of the 1st three Dell novels?

Yep.  Don't know if they'll be doing any more.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 25 Aug 1999 23:36:31 -0600
Subject: Re: Authorized Scripts for sale at NASFIC

>I wonder if there' s way to flip through them first? It might be good, but
>the
>televised versions of her previous scripts on Crusade were pretty bad. 
>

When thsi script came out (going for sale at Fiona Avery's table at 11:30
Friday at NASFIC), Walter Koenig drove all the way across town specifically to
say how much he loved it...he went on to memorize huge sections of it long in
advance, and even performed sections of it in front of folks at at least one
convention (as reported by several SF magazines) and apparently wowed them with
it.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 26 Aug 1999 22:54:30 -0600
Subject: Re: Attn jms: Are you letting Crusade die?

>It was my understanding that when WB let TNT out of their contract (a favor),
>TNT agreed to relinquish their hold on show if WB could find another customer
>(a return of the favor).
>

Your understanding is most emphatically incorrect.  TNT would have had the
chance to get out of it had another network been found...no such deal having
been in place, the contract sticks, despite TNT's many attempts to get out
without paying any of the promised production budget.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 27 Aug 1999 18:17:10 -0600
Subject: NASFIC schedule change

FYI for those who haven't checked the web site in the last few days, my
presentation is now slated for 1:00 Saturday.

Thankyew.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 29 Aug 1999 01:26:18 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS:  B5 Scripts Available Through Fan Club

Yeah, we plan to sell a number of B5 scripts in chronological order, for a
limited period, one or so per month.  What that means is: we'll take orders on
a script such as the Gathering from September 1 to the end of the month.  Then
we'll print up only as many copies as have been ordered.  That's it.  Then we
move to the next one.  It'll probably take years before it would cycle through
all the scripts we make available before we got back to the Gathering again. 
So when they're gone, for all intents and purposes, they're gone.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 29 Aug 1999 22:44:54 -0600
Subject: Re: JMS:  What can't you?

>Just by catagory, I know that you've written:
>
>stage plays          novels         short stories           comic books
>song lyrics             newspaper articles       radio shows      magazine
>columns

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 29 Aug 1999 22:45:05 -0600
Subject: Re: When is TNT gonna make up there minds

>What Variety said about Babylon 5 is not very nice.  I won't
>repeat it.

To be precise, it was Variety's characterization of TNT's attitudes toward the
show.  Which, given recent history, is to be expected.  

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 29 Aug 1999 22:47:33 -0600
Subject: Re: JMS:  What can't you?

Ignore the other post...I hit the wrong flipping button.

To quote again:

>Just by catagory, I know that you've written:
>
>stage plays          novels         short stories           comic books
>song lyrics             newspaper articles       radio shows      magazine
>columns
>screenplays for both live action and animated from 1/2 hour to MOW length 
>a textbook
>So my question is:  Is there anything you simply can't or won't write?  Or
>have
>you just not gotten around to poetry and symphonies yet? <g>

I totally suck at poetry.  At best I can come up with a kind of doggerel that
should never be seen by anydamnbody.

My feeling is that each kind of writing you do makes you better at another kind
of writing, therefore it behooves you to do it all, if at all possible. 
Writing an article teaches you structure, which you use in a screenplay; a
screenplay teaches you dialogue which you use in a short story; a short story
teaches you narrative structure which you can apply to novels...and so on.

It's all meant to be a learning experience.  It's when you stop learning that
the trouble starts.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 29 Aug 1999 22:57:42 -0600
Subject: Re: Bad Feelings About the Fan Club Script Offerings

>Of course, what is being offered are cheaply produced expensive
>"collectors items."  It really gives me a bad feeling and I hope more
>thought will go into this.
>

There's several differences.  You're getting the acutal physical *script*, not
a published version OF a script, the real deal.  

Second, the Art of Star Wars published several hundred thousand copies of that
script; collector's value is zero.  We will be putting out, at most, a few
hundred copies of each one.  The rarer something is, the more it costs, and the
greater its value.

Third, the $25 price ($20 for an episode) is equal to or less than what is
charged by script houses.

Fouth, unlike these script houses that copy scripts unlawfully and never pay a
dime to the author or the studio, all the B5 authors whose scripts we publish,
like Larry or David or DC or others, will get a 10% commission on the sales.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 30 Aug 1999 10:52:07 -0600
Subject: Re: attn JMS: spoilers for: Path of Sorrows, Racing the Night,


>1.  Is the Apocalypse Box inspired by The One Ring from Tolkiens Lord of the
>Rings?

No.

>2.  Is Galen named after the town in Jonathan Carrolls "Land of Laughter"?
>

No.  He's named after a certain ancient physician.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com






Date: 31 Aug 1999 01:12:33 -0600
Subject: Re: Attn JMS: Medieval Metaphors

>After all that said, I
>want to know: why have you chosen all those medieval metaphors to depict
>the future of mankind? Do you believe we are getting back to the values
>of Dark Ages in some way?

Not per se, no, just applying some of the myths and models from that period to
the future.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 4 Sep 1999 08:00:36 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: You Seem Disillusioned

Logging on from Australia....

Actually, I'm not disillusioned.  Disappointed, sure, in how TNT chose to treat
the show...but understand that a 5 year run is the anomaly in TV, even more so
in SF.  B5 was the first non-Trek space-based SF series to go more than 3
seasons in 30 years.  So the record ain't great.

But if anything, I've been just as busy on other projects since Crusade ended,
and all of it is what Crusade was not during the last half-year of its
production: they're fun again.  I'm enjoying myself, and that's what I got into
this thing for in the first place.

There's plenty of room to do good work; you just have to find proper vessels
into which to place your work.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 4 Sep 1999 20:51:10 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Crusade final episode (spoilers)


























>And the very 
>last conversation was perfect, when Gideon says: "Life goes on." Was that 
>something you put in after you knew this would be the last episode, or 
>did it just happen to be there?

Another Babylonian synchronicity.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 10 Sep 1999 20:03:49 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Great ensemble of actors on Crusade!

They're a good bunch, no mistake.  Thanks.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 10 Sep 1999 21:24:20 -0600
Subject: Re: Attn: JMS, Re: No Hugo for *SiL*

>With the Sci-Fi Channel website reporting that the 1999 Hugo award for *Best
>Dramatic Presentation* went to "The Truman Show" do you feel this was a
>rebuke
>of B5's fifth and final season (which many are saying has lead to a dramatic
>softening of support for your sci-fi franchise)?
>

Not at all (and I still don't consider it a franchise; how can it be a
franchise if it's not continuing?).

What I was told by those involved is that SiL did not air in Australia during
or before the voting period; it did not, in fact, finally air until after the
WorldCon itself was over by three days.  And the majority of folks coming to
WorldCon were, of course, Australians.  So they didn't *see* the episode to
vote for it.  

I would not expect, or want, anyone to vote for the episode sight-unseen.  To
do so means you've missed the point of the show.

Truman Show (a damned good movie and well worth the award, btw) was written by
a New Zealander, and directed by an Australian, so was the next logical choice.


Once I knew that SiL wasn't going to air until after the Hugos, I pretty much
knew it wouldn't get the Hugo.  (As it was, according to the site with all the
official  numbers, SiL did get more raw numbers of votes than any other
nominee, but due to the Australian balloting system, which uses a weighted
scale, TS got the actual award.)

And I note that the question is phrased in your usual negative fashion, and
frankly, I heard from many folks who said that S5 was their favorite season,
and there's a great editorial in Frontier (the main SF magazine in Australia
and a fine publication) that sang the praises of S5 as necessary and right.



 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 11 Sep 1999 18:37:31 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS:  Wrestlers on Voyager

>I recently heard that UPN wants to put wrestlers on Voyager now.  What
>is your opinion on this?  I think the "Wrestlers on SF-Programs" thing
>is really getting out of hand!
>PS--I heard that the Voyager producers are going along with this
>wrestling idea.  At least you had the integrity not to.

I once heard someone say, in response to the idea of sendihng Geraldo Rivera
into space on the Shuttle, "at least we'll finally be able to see the effect of
a vacuum *on* a vacuum."

I'm sorry, what was your question again...?

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 12 Sep 1999 18:32:08 -0600
Subject: Re: JMS at Nasfic *spoilers*

>He then joked about a newmovie, "> > Women who go crazy every 28 days.  The
>Blair Bitch Project." 

Actually, it was about some women who, tied to the cycles of the moon, go nuts
every 28 days, called "The Were Bitch Project."  Otherwise the pun doesn't
work.

I also apologized in advance for that, because of all the words I use -- and I
use 'em all, I think every word in the King's english is fine by me -- that's
the only one that I tend not to use and have never used before in a
presentation, but as I said, I needed it to make the pun work.

Other than that, when it comes to language...well, fuck it.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 12 Sep 1999 18:32:52 -0600
Subject: The Gathering Script Available

Yesterday I was reading over the original script for "The Gathering," which we
are making available via thestation.com for this month only.  (Everything that
goes through for sale has to be approved by me personally, and I wanted to make
sure the copy was solid and readable, it's been a long time, after all.)  And
for those who've asked -- and I should've gotten to this before, it's just been
kinda nuts -- it does have scenes that were filmed and didn't make it into
either version of the aired pilot movie for reasons of length, and some scenes
and partial scenes that were not filmed at *all.*  I was actually kinda
surprised at just how much there was (including two very funny scenes with
Garibaldi and a tiny drunk alien in the Zocalo bar that we couldn't shoot
because the mechanical props kept breaking down).

Anyway, to those who've asked, yes, there's a pretty goodly amount of new stuff
there (well, new to anyone who never saw the script).  It was amazing to look
back at it all, after 7 years, and see it in script form again; haven't touched
it since we did the re-edit.  

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 12 Sep 1999 18:34:11 -0600
Subject: Re: Attn: JMS, Re: No Hugo for *SiL*

>Also, from what I understand, you have arranged for episode screenings at
>conventions in the past ... was there any reason why no screening of *SiL*
>was
>setup for the convention prior to voting?

Because the voting is done long before the convention, by mail.  Clearly you do
not have any clear idea on the process.

>That is their opinion and that is fine, however, the fact is that, honestly
>speaking, season five IS generally hailed as the weakest and least satisfying
>of the shows run.

So if somebody else says something, that's their opinion, but if you say it,
it's a fact, is that it?
 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 12 Sep 1999 18:34:32 -0600
Subject: Re: Attn: JMS, Re: No Hugo for *SiL*

My prior message was cut off before I finished...wonky computer today....

To finish:

>That is their opinion and that is fine, however, the fact is that, honestly
>speaking, season five IS generally hailed as the weakest and least satisfying
>of the shows run.

To repeat...if someone else says they like it, then that's their opinion, but
when you say something, it's the facts, right?  That's what you're saying here.

Please give me the facts and figures to back this up, because it ain't what I
hear at conventions, and it ain't reflected in the only -- ONLY -- objective
form of reportage on B5's history: the P5 poll.  

In the P5 poll, in which 2,403 people voted on episodes over the 5 year history
of B5, the rankings are as follows, by season:

PILOT: 6.32
S1: 7.52
S2: 8.11
S3: 8.38
S4: 8.58
S5: 8.35

With a standard deviation of .61, which means that the S5 rating could be as
high as 9.  The .23 difference between S4 and S5 is statistically insignificant
on every conceivable level, and even without that, the pilot, S1 and S2 ALL
rated below S5 in the poll and it's essentially identical to S3.

I've shown my homework, now you show yours.  Some people take it as read,
because THEY didn't like it, that everybody else feels the same way (and I've
heard from a LOT of people who very much liked S5 but just got tired of being
shouted down by a few fanatics and stopped posting).  Again, the facts do NOT
bear out your -- and I emphasize this word -- OPINION.  Sorry, but you do not
have the key to unvarnished truth, only to your opinion, which is flatly and
provably WRONG.

So the facts definitely contradict you, as they tend to so often in your posts,
from your claim through a "friend" that Harlan drinks, to this, to not knowing
or understanding how the Hugo system works before criticizing it...it's a
definite pattern on your part.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 13 Sep 1999 00:14:37 -0600
Subject: Re: JMS: a new(?!) Crusade future question (spoil?)

>I know that 3 Crusade scripts were written but not produced (To the Ends
>of Earth, Value Judgements, The End of the Line).  I've heard you
>respond maybe I'll put Crusade into novels, etc.  My question:  will you
>somehow release these 3 already made scripts?  now that's something I'll
>shell $20 bucks a pop for! 

Dunno...haven't decided yet.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 13 Sep 1999 00:15:46 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS:  Wrestlers on Voyager

>So, knowing how tough it is to make a living in *Hollywood,* your saying
>simply
>because someone makes their primary living as a professional wrestler YOU
>would
>preclude an individual from consideration for a role? I really do not believe
>you're that shallow and superficial.

Yes, I would, if it were done as a mandate from a studio as a ratings gimmick
rather than for a legitimate story reason.

As usual, your reasoning is specious.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 15 Sep 1999 22:03:33 -0600
Subject: Re: attn JMS: new Show - future of CRUSADE and BABYLON 5

>My friend is a big Dragon Riders of Pern fan and told me that he saw
>an interview with Anne McAffrey. She stated that there was Babylon 5
>writer who was coming over to write the Pern series.  That leaves me
>with two possible writers: JMS or Fiona Avery.

Nope.  It's probably Larry DiTillio, who is a big fan of Anne's, and was our
story editor for 2 seasons (and is a perfect choice for the job).

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 16 Sep 1999 00:15:58 -0600
Subject: Re: Attn JMS: First Run Of US-Based Shows In Non-USA Markets

The situation varies from market to market, but generally a non-US market buys
the rights for a given period of time.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 16 Sep 1999 18:21:57 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Fan Fiction

Fan fiction, however nice and fuzzy it may be as a community of folks, is still
a form of copyright infringement...it takes characters which are owned by a
studio and mass-produces them (well, even a few hundred copies is technically a
mass).  So no, I can't authorize or sanction it because that would put me at
legal odds with WB, which owns the copyright.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 16 Sep 1999 21:22:20 -0600
Subject: Re: Attn: JMS - Bryan Coney

>Umm, on another list, Bryan Coney just contradicted what I have heard
>you say regarding eithe Wolf 359 or Vorcon, or both about some of the
>cast members not getting paid for their appearance. I totally don't want
>to take him on, but I would like to know if I read you correctly
>regarding this issue. If not, or if the situation has been cleared up
>since last November, I need to know. I would rather not getting into a
>war of words with him. 

I was told, directly, by a number of cast members that they were most
emphatically *not* paid for their appearances at VorCon, or in other cases paid
only partially.  I have not heard anything to the contrary since then.  

Beyond that, I know that WB has initiated action against Cooney on a variety of
charges based on his convention activities, but that's all I know at this time.
 I don't really keep track of it because he's not worth the expenditure of
energy.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 17 Sep 1999 23:41:38 -0600
Subject: Re: Rising Stars?

>Has anyone seen the second Rising Stars yet?
>

It'll be out soon...just yesterday got the final colored pages and inks on the
book, so they should be going to press at any time.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 18 Sep 1999 19:51:35 -0600
Subject: Re: Attn: JMS, Re: No Hugo for *SiL*

>> There are three kind of lies. Lies, damn lies, and statistics.  Yes,
>> but there is an error in the logic JMS. You have more viewers towards
>> the end of the poll then you did at the begining. (Season 1 had fewer
>> people then season two and so on and so forth).

I'm sorry it's taken me this long to reply to this, but every time I see the
quote preceding, I fall down laughing and I get bumped offline.

Talking about errors in logic...once again, Von Bruno, you demonstrate your
own, in the most glaring way imaginable.  It's the ultimate topper to your
preceding inaccuracies.  This one is so massive and expansive that it's just
breathtaking.

Do you know *anything* about polling or public opinion measurement?  Before you
answer, let me save you the time: no.  I do.  I have a degree in clinical
psychology and a second degree in sociology, and as part of that had to take
any number of specialized courses in polling and public opinion measurement.

And here's where your logic falls down utterly.  Let me requote the above:

>> There are three kind of lies. Lies, damn lies, and statistics.  Yes,
>> but there is an error in the logic JMS. You have more viewers towards
>> the end of the poll then you did at the begining. (Season 1 had fewer
>> people then season two and so on and so forth).

The more people you have in a poll, THE MORE ACCURATE IT IS.  The fewer people,
the less accurate.  That utterly incontestable fact is at the core of every
poll ever taken.  That's why they usually show you the raw numbers ("In a poll
of two thousand people, ten percent thought Mars was not a planet but a candy
bar").

So the very element you claim made it LESS accurate in fact made it
statistically MORE accurate.

Just once, could you try to actually *know* something about what we're
discussing here?  Do just a *little* homework from time to time?  Because right
now, you're 0 for 5 on basic facts, just in the last round.

And by the way, this is probably the last time I'm going to respond to you.  I
can't lose that much work time laughing anymore.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 19 Sep 1999 01:06:18 -0600
Subject: Re: Rising Stars?

>> Has anyone seen the second Rising Stars yet?
>
>   Yep, but they took one look at the artwork and their heads exploded
>like an outtake from "Scanners."

Which is kind of difficult since I didn't approve the final artwork until a few
days ago.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 19 Sep 1999 01:07:48 -0600
Subject: Re: Attn: JMS, Re: No Hugo for *SiL*

>You can get some data out of it, but it's simply not an "utterly
>uncontestable fact" that a greater sample size confers more accuracy
>on a self-selected survey.

What I was responding to was the statement that more responses made a survey
*less* accurate.  Surely you're not saying that that's the case?  And yes, a
larger sampling universe *does* make a survey more accurate within that
preselected universe.  As long as the sampling within that universe is random
-- and there's a wide range of diversity withih that preselected universe --
the survey is accurate.

For instance, phone surveys preselect anyone who has a phone.  At one point,
there were still not a lot of phones in common use in the hinterlands, but that
doesn't disqualify the poll.  A street corner poll preselects those who happen
to be walking by the street corner.

Now, if you're going to preselect for some particular specific variable -- all
asians, for instance, or only people under 25 -- then you start to skew the
data and thus the results, making it inapplicable to the greater, non-sampled
universe.

Point is, insisting that more numbers make a sample *less* accurate -- as VB
was doing -- is utterly and totally inaccurate.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 19 Sep 1999 01:16:16 -0600
Subject: Re: JMS: Don't you get tired?

>Don't you get tired of the 'I can't discuss it yet' and the 'I can neither
>confirm or deny that' and the showing of a neutral or optimistic face for the
>sake of the project even though it's gone to hell in a handbasket?  The
>political crap seems that it would grind you down and sand off your
>integrity.
>How do you deal with it?

I don't, basically, as the whole TNT situation makes fairly evident.  I'm
simply not a political creature.  My life would be eminently simpler and less
stressful if I *were*, but I ain't.  I go for the philosophy of "Be sand, not
oil, in the machinery of the world."

The peculiar thing about it is...by all rights I should be hard-core
unemployable.  But any time I become available, the phone rings...people who
work with me invariably come back to work with me again,fully knowing that I'm
a major-league pain in the ass.  I think the reason they do so is because they
know that I'm *not* political, that whatever some might say the truth is that
when I show up at the office in the morning, I check my ego at the door and
everything I do, I do if I sincerely believe it's the best thing for the show,
and the story.

Somehow, it works.  Damned if I understand it.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 19 Sep 1999 01:19:19 -0600
Subject: Re: Babylon 5 in retrospect

>Maybe JMS will reply,  tell me I'm a fool, and that I've completely misread
>him.

Nah...you're a cutie pie.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 19 Sep 1999 16:07:50 -0600
Subject: Re: jms- B5 Copyright Ownership

No, it's of no aid to me; WB owns B5 lock, stock and barrel.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 19 Sep 1999 16:13:51 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Rising Stars #2

The final colored pages have come through this past week, so it should be out
shortly.  The interior artwork fell well behind what should have been the case.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 19 Sep 1999 16:14:47 -0600
Subject: Re: Attn: JMS - Bryan Coney

What hasn't been mentioned in all of this is that Dreamwatch Magazine did an
independent investigation of the situation, that cast members had not been
paid, spoke with the actors, and confirmed, in print, that the story was
correct.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 21 Sep 1999 17:40:05 -0600
Subject: Re: B5: Into the Fire Cancelled

Yeah, I got word of this today from one of the developers on the game;
apparently the problem is two-fold: 1) because Sierra has taken so long to get
the game out, it has become expensive, and the additional million bucks used to
relocate the facility north (and everyone involved) was charged against the
game, and 2) they made a deal with WB for X number of games in Y years, and
they've chewed up most of that time already, and WB is (I'm told, haven't had a
chance to verify this yet) loathe to renegotiate since it's now taken --what?--
three, four years to get this first game out.  

There's rumors that another studio might be interested in picking it up and
finishing it off -- it was literally inches from being finished, and it's a
spectacular game -- but again that's only rumor, I don't know anything beyond
that.

(The game would have allowed players to go through all of the major wars of the
B5 universe -- the Dilgar War, the Earth/Minbari War, the Shadow War and the
Earth Civil War -- with a chance of affecting the outcomes and dealing with the
temporal stresses caused by that.)


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 21 Sep 1999 23:50:49 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS:  Value Judgements

It's not my script, so it's not my call, but I don't think the author would
overmuch like it.  

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 21 Sep 1999 23:56:55 -0600
Subject: Re: Hugo for Y2K??? Attn JMS

>I have a ?, since Sleeping in Light was not seen in Australia at the time of
>the Hugo award presentation. Will it be eligible for consideration in Y2K??
>

Thanks for the kind words elsewhere.  To your question...no.

The only B5 stuff that will be eligible would be A Call to Arms, The River of
Souls, and Crusade stuff.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 21 Sep 1999 23:59:14 -0600
Subject: Re: JMS: Don't you get tired?

>Major nosey questions:  Have you ever been personality typed?  what were the
>results?  What did you think of them?

The one time I took a career-oriented personality inventory, it said I was best
suited to be an officer in the Army.  I think running a production company
comes in right about there.

Other than that, pretty much stayed clear of them...once had an IQ test that
put me in the genius category (was in Mensa for about a year before I ran
screaming out the door)...other than that, frankly, I think I'd rather not
know.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 22 Sep 1999 22:17:38 -0600
Subject: Re: Attn JMS: Typical Episode Budget

>For example, one of the figures I remember from the early days of TNG was the
>"$1 million an episode" factoid, and I was wondering how things compared.
>

The average Trek budget was about $1.4 million, sometimes going to $1.6.

The average B5/Crusade budget was about $920,000 per.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 22 Sep 1999 22:20:09 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Grimjack?

>I just remembered...it's been about...um...six years (what a
>coincidence...) since you've mentioned the Grimjack screenplay you were
>working on at one time.  Was there any further development on that?  Or
>is it safely tucked into the back of a drawer somewhere?

There was a rights problem between the writer of the comic and the publisher
which could not be resolved; hence, it never got written.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 23 Sep 1999 21:00:01 -0600
Subject: Re: What's Next?

I think Harlan (no surprise) put it best one day: "You get the show you want,
and it gets no PR, no respect; you get another show and a chance to redefine
SF, and they want to make it into wrestling.  You get one thing and they take
away another.  Kiddo, there is a war in heaven over you."

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 23 Sep 1999 23:45:02 -0600
Subject: Re: Attn JMS:  Why SF?

>In the midst of a small debate about just what constitutes SF, it occured to
>me
>to ask: as a writer, why do you work in SF?  What attracts you to the genre?
>

I've worked in a variety of genres -- murder mysteries, SF, detective series,
animation/comedy, horror...I kinda like all of them.  If I have a predilection
toward SF it's simply because I grew up an SF fan.  In brief: ah likes it.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 24 Sep 1999 22:22:22 -0600
Subject: Re: JMS: Don't you get tired?

>Anyone here surprised???  It didn't take me long watching B5 to realize that
>about ya Joe.  
>I'm glad you've used it for good.  Thanks for everything.
>

Except, of course, that I don't believe it *means* anything.  At the very most,
it may be some kind of indicator for potential or intuitive thinking, but at
the end of the day it really doesn't mean anything; it's what you do with your
potential that matters, and person A with less potential can do 100 times more
than person B who had more potential but less *will*.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 26 Sep 1999 23:23:22 -0600
Subject: Re: JMS: How does Del Rey do it?

>Because of this, I'm curious what the process is in making a Babylon 5
>novel from Del Rey?  Why Trilogies? 

In Minbari, all things are three.

> How are authors chosen?  

By mutual consent; they'll suggest someone, and we'll talk about it.  Keyes'
work I somewhat knew, and he seemed right...and Peter David *is* a Centauri. 
Jeanne Cavelos' work on the shadow arc made her correct for the technomage
books.

>How did
>the decision to spotlight the series' history and background, instead
>of the lead characters and the station, come about?  

It's that perverse "let's do the opposite of what the marketing people think"
thing I get into sometimes; there's so much history in the B5 universe, and I'd
worked so much of it out, it seemed a shame to waste it.

Will there be any
>single novels?  

Dunno.

Is Warners & Del Rey willing and/or interested in
>adding Crusade characters and concepts into the B5 books?
>
There will be some...Galen is all through both the technomage books and a bit
in the Centauri books.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 2 Oct 1999 20:50:46 -0600
Subject: Rising Stars #2 Is Out

I think my prior message got munched...anyway, for those who've been following
it, RISING STARS #2 hit comic stores this Wednesday.  Wanted to get the word
out quickly because they have a tendency to vanish fast.


jms
 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 2 Oct 1999 21:07:31 -0600
Subject: RISING STARS #2 OUT THIS WEEK

Just wanted to let folks know that the new issue hits the stands this week. 
It's a little mystery story about how one goes about eliminating someone who is
invulnerable...and how being invulnerable doesn't solve all your problems, and
how you get by and get a job and live a life when nothing can touch you.

It's kinda cool.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 2 Oct 1999 22:12:16 -0600
Subject: Re: JMS:  A question on one of your quotes

>When/how did Cavelos work on 'The Shadow Arc'?  I take it this means the
>Shadow War (Seasons Three and Four), but as I understand it Cavelos was
>only brought on in Season Five as a story editor (as well as editing the
>B5 numbered novels and writing 7 herself), then she went on to Crusade.
>
>wait, do you refer to her writing "The Shadow Within" (B5 Book 7)?
>
Where did you get THAT information?  She was never a story editor on the
series, she was the editor for the Dell books far earlier than S5.  And the one
she wrote (noted above) dealt with Z'ha'dum and shadow technology and other
advanced tech stuff, and so that made her right for the technomages.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 3 Oct 1999 17:39:12 -0600
Subject: Re: jms- Final Reckoning (Spoilers for this and Hannibal)

>The story issues aside, I am also curious how much of an outline do you
>write for the trilogies.  Is it a couple of paragraphs or many pages?  Are
>there any plans in the works that the fans would be able to view the
>outlines?
>

It varies, but on average each outline is about 25-35 pages.
 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 3 Oct 1999 17:39:26 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: RealVideo Cruasde Episodes on the web

>Since TNT is almost certainly not going to rerun the Crusade episodes, and we
>don't known when (or ever) we'll see them on video, would you give us the
>permission to encode the Crusade episodes and put them up on the web, until
>such
>time as they become available to the audience in some other form?

No, because I can't give that permission, the show is owned by WB, and that
would be massive copyright infringement, and deny actors their residuals.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 4 Oct 1999 22:32:27 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: RealVideo Cruasde Episodes on the web

>Personally I think that WB are doing themselves no favours in blocking the
>material being shown at cons which are run for charity or where any profits
>go to charity. It helps broaden the audience and it's poor PR when it's
>announced that "X has been pulled because the big bad men at WB/whoever
>have said no" for me this passes onto guilds/unions/whatever if they're the
>ones being sticky.
>Hell the politicians will bend over backwards to bend the
>rules if it's "For charity or in a good cause" and I'm cynical enough
>to know that there's a goodly percentage doing it becuase it makes them
>look good.

Except, of course, that a number of conventions use the charity flag to cover a
multitude of sins, often illegitimately...which also compromises the cons that
ARE sincerely raising money for charity.  And that a con is giving money to a
charity doesn't really mitigate the legalities involved; if I steal your car,
sell it, and give the money to charity, the government isn't going to go
"awwww" and let it go because the money ended up in a worthwhile cause.

A secondary concern is that if ANY kind of money is involved, for a group
screening, it can be legally constituted as a theatrical exhibition if any of
the actors or others involved choose to press the point.  In fact, that
happened to WB, after an episode of Lois and Clark was screened at a con.  One
of the actors apparently took the position that this was a theatrical
exhibition, and if you show a TV program in a theatrical venue, it triggers
*substantial* payments per the various unions involved...and in this particular
case, it cost WB in the vicinity of six figures.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 5 Oct 1999 19:12:36 -0600
Subject: Reminder re: jms email

Every so often I have to post this...folks who've seen this before and know the
drill, feel free to ignore it.

Folks...understand that there are roughly 10-15 million of you out there, many
of whom own PCs with modems.  That's a lot of people, many of whom have similar
questions/thoughts/comments.

The best place for those is here, in this forum, not in my personal email
account.  It puts me in the position of either not answering ("what a rude
sonofabitch, he says he'll answer fans but he didn't answer my email after I
sent it to him TEN TIMES asking the same question") (and one such email did
come to me with that complaint, by the way), saying I can't reply in email,
which takes nearly as much time as replying, or ultimately repeating the same
information every time somebody asks in email a question somebody else asked a
week earlier.

*Please* reserve the use of this email account for *PERSONAL  MATTERS OR
MATTERS WHICH YOU DO NOT WANT DISCUSSED PUBLICLY*, not questions about stories,
props, plots, arcs, ship armaments (you have NO idea how many of THOSE I get
daily), contracts or the like.  I'd really rather not have to change my email
address because I've had this one for a long time, but the emailbox is filling
up these days with just those sorts of questions, and I've started to miss
important email because it gets lost in the piles of "so what does Ulkesh mean
and what was Kosh's first name?" messages.

Thankyew.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 5 Oct 1999 19:16:03 -0600
Subject: B5 Jackets at thestation.com

Invariably, whenever I show up at a convention flying the colors, the #1
question I get is about the B5 cast and crew jacket.  "Where can we get one of
those?"  Up until now, the answer has always been the same: you can't.

For JUST this month, that will change: we are making a limited number (only
about 200) of these same jackets available on www.thestation.com.  These are
identical to the crew jackets, made by the same manufacturer, same materials,
same detailed embroidery, the whole thing.  On ebay these jackets have gone
from anywhere from $400-$1000, which is kind of obscene, but these are
available here for a hell of a lot less.

Also: we stopped taking orders for The Gathering script, which is now out of
print until some point in the distant future.  We're doing one per month, so
for those who missed out...it's too late.  This month it's the script for the
first B5 episode, "Midnight on the Firing Line."  Orders will be taken for this
month, and that's it.

Just to keep folks informed, especially in the case of the jackets, because I
think they're going to go fast.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 5 Oct 1999 20:41:16 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS:  The Gathering Script & Final Reckoning (Spoilers

>I liked the extra scene with Garibaldi & the insectoid-alien.  Was this
>cut for time?  I think it would've been really funny.
>

We couldn't get the prosthetic to work right, so we never filmed it.  Unless
you read the script, there's no other way to know about it.

And yeah, Greg did a great job on the book.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 6 Oct 1999 00:04:16 -0600
Subject: Re: B5 Jackets at thestation.com

>While I'm very interested in reading the scripts, I'm not particularly
>excited
>to have five seasons * 22 episodes of scripts weighing down a bookshelf.  I
>would like to encourage JMS and the fan club to offer a CD-ROM (or two) with
>all the scripts available in some convenient format (e.g., PDF or HTML). 

Only problem with that is that it makes it very easy to print up and sell
copies, or to send them out on the internet.

BTW...I'm an idiot.  I meant to say Crusade jackets in my prior message, not
the B5 jackets.  (And I'm told they'll keep taking Gathering orders until the
8th because the system was down for a bit.)


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 7 Oct 1999 16:08:49 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS:  The Gathering Script & Final Reckoning

>Tallman's afterword in Andy Lane's The Babylon File Vol. 2 confirms the
>rumor.
>

The problem with that is the way it was presented.

An actor has a fee he or she receives for a full week's work.  Let's say, for
the sake of argument, it's 7,000 for a 7 day shoot, only because that will make
the math simpler.  If you only need an actor for one or two days, it's typical
that you only pay the actor for the one or two days of work.  If it's more than
that, you generally pay full freight, seven days, $7,000.

We did this with Richard Biggs, who didn't have a problem with it, as most
don't.  When we went to shoot "Path," we only needed Pat for one day. 
Actually, it would've been only a partial day, 3 scenes.  Out around lunchtime.
 So we offered a day rate.  She wanted a full week's salary.  We couldn't do
that.  End of story.

No animosity, no acrimony, we had what we had, and that didn't work out.  But
it is utterly consistent with how all TV is done.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 7 Oct 1999 19:20:57 -0600
Subject: I'm an idiot

My prior message mentioned B5 jackets...I meant to type Crusade jackets, but
somehow it came out B5.  I must have a mental block on that name....

BTW, also to correct, because the web site was down for about a week, The
Gathering is still available, through October 8th.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 7 Oct 1999 19:22:29 -0600
Subject: Oops...Crusade, NOT B5 jackets

I'd left this info under the heading "I'm an Idiot," then I realized that
nobody would download that one to read because it isn't newsworthy or a secret.

Anyway...I stooged it: I typed B5 jackets available when I meant to type
Crusade jackets available on a prior message.  Terminal brain fart.  Mea culpa,
mea culpa, mea maxima culprrrrrrrrpppppfhhhh.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 7 Oct 1999 22:28:35 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Thanks for the laugh.

>Oh, out of curiosity, is there anywhere I can fins enough (good) information
>to
>make a report on you? It seems that they had to tell the teachers (what a
>moron) and I've gotten a wonderful extra assignment. "make a report on that
>person whom you heard that from".

I dunno, probably any of the grand jury hearings would suffice....

That apart, do a yahoo search...you'll get more than anyone would want to know.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 7 Oct 1999 22:30:43 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN: JMS - dont leave us hangin

>I dont like being left hangin.
>
>So what are you going to do? novels? online scripts? what?

Something else.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 7 Oct 1999 22:32:26 -0600
Subject: Re: Attn: JMS A Final Reckoning Question (Spoilers)

>Was Bester's job from the outline you gave Mr. Keyes

I'd have to check the outline, but I think that part came from Greg.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 7 Oct 1999 22:33:59 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN: JMS (or anyone with possible knowledge) - Crusade re-runs

>I note that from time to time someone announces that such-and-such a
>local channel (in the US) is re-running Crusade.  This would seem to
>indicate that TNT is starting to sell the syndication rights. 

TNT doesn't own the rights to that, WB does.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 8 Oct 1999 01:13:04 -0600
Subject: Re: B5 Jackets at thestation.com

>Almost as easy as it is to buy scripts from thestation, photocopy them and
>sell copies or send them out on the internet after some OCR work, no?
>
We're talking hours of work in the latter scenario, as opposed to 30 seconds to
download.  Thievery always happens, but you want to make it as difficult as
possible.

And photocopying a work into a scanner is a much clearer violation of copyright
for purposes of prosecution than transferring something already in file form.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 13 Oct 1999 00:49:28 -0600
Subject: Re: and the cost would be...?

As far as I know it has a satin lining.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 13 Oct 1999 00:50:47 -0600
Subject: Re: Crusade Writers Bible

>Does the Crusade Writers Bible, as presented on www.thestation.com,
>contain the story outlines for the entire series? 

No, that was kept out of writing.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 15 Oct 1999 22:32:48 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS - Telepath War

>I've finished the Bester series. As good as it was, I can't help
>feeling a little disappointed that the Telepath War was not covered
>in detail. Do you have any plan to tell the story or have we heard
>everything we need to know?
>

Thing is, the war is too big and too important to slip into what is, basically,
the personal story of Bester.  So we handled it in much the same way we handled
the Minbari war in most of season 1 and some of 2...we hear about it, and see
the ramifications.  And down the road, we may get a clearer picture of what
happened, and why.
                               
 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 15 Oct 1999 22:35:48 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Progress on new series

>I read on the net several months ago that you were working on a new
>television series not releated to B5.  Can you say how that project is
>developing?  When do you expect to get it on the air?
>

The process is long and slow; it took 5 years to get B5 on the air.  This one,
if it goes, will take far less, but it still takes the amount of time it takes.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 20 Oct 1999 20:25:11 -0600
Subject: B5 game article

This got sent to me from someone who got it off the Wired.com site...figured
folks might be interested.

jms
--------


'B5': Back B4 U Know It?
by Andy Patrizio

3:00 a.m. 20.Oct.99.PDT
The dedicated fans of a game based on the Babylon 5 television series are doing
their level best to find a new home -- and life -- for their favorite pastime. 

When Sierra announced in September that it was killing off three games --
including "Babylon 5: Into the Fire" -- as part of a massive reorganization
that
included 105 layoffs, angered fans went bonkers. 

"A lot of people wanted to take out the Sierra servers and do other things to
try and take Sierra out of the business," said Kevin MacNeil, aka Drazi Guy,
one
of the three coordinators of the FirstOnes.Com, a fan site that had been
following development of the game. 

"It took about a week to get everyone under control and to get ourselves
coordinated and decide what direction we were going to
head," he said. 

The plan was to spread the news of the game's demise to every gaming site and
Babylon 5 fan out there. It proved to be an effective
tactic. 

One editor for a gaming publication said he'd received more than 2,000 emails
on
the issue. Wired News has also been flooded with feedback from upset B5 fans. 

Another target was game developers, and that campaign has also paid off. 

"There are four companies who have shown interest in purchasing B5. We are now
in discussions with all of them," said Dave Williamson, Sierra's senior vice
president of business development. "Some have reviewed what we've got and some
are in the process of scheduling meetings with us. So, we are actively pursuing
the opportunities." 

The B5 team members, who were all laid off together, bonded quickly with the
FirstOnes crew. "They have been a great help for the team as far as morale,
when
it all first happened," lead programmer Dan Foy said. 

Foy has been in the games industry for 10 years and has never seen anything
like
the FirstOnes' effort. "The show's popularity is certainly a part of it," he
said. 

Another reason for the loyalty is that the developers took an active role in
the
FirstOnes forums to discuss nuances of the game. "People really enjoyed
participating with us and took it more personally when the project was
cancelled," said Foy. 

Even though the B5 team has a good severance package from Sierra, the crew is
eager to renew work on the project. Foy said they need a pretty clear picture
on
a possible buyer within a month or they'll start losing members to other jobs.
At that point, a new team will have to be rebuilt, which would delay the game
even further. 

He described the game as 65 percent complete. The engine is pretty much done,
but artificial intelligence and some missions still needed work. 

The FirstOnes faithful continue their work as well. A Web ring dedicated to
spreading word of the game and trying to find a new publisher has sprung up. So
far it has 16 member sites. Petitions to find a new publisher have almost 600
signatures, and the message board on FirstOnes.com has 700 users posting to it.


How long will they carry the torch? "We're going to hold out until the
development team has moved on to other projects and there's no hope left," said
MacNeil.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 21 Oct 1999 00:03:29 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Wheel of Fire?

>The meanings of the other season titles are pretty obvious:
>Signs and Portents, The Coming of Shadows, etc.  But could
>you give us any insight into the choice of "Wheel of Fire"
>as the title for Fifth Season?

"For I am bound upon a wheel of fire, that my own tears do scald like molten
lead."  King Lear.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 23 Oct 1999 18:14:04 -0600
Subject: Re: Attn JMS: simple question

>Do Humans evolve into Vorlons at the end of Deconstruction and then go
>back in time to fight the Shadows?
>

No.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 23 Oct 1999 18:15:19 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN: JMS (or anyone else who might know) first 3 stations?

>I was reading through the forums in the FirstOnes message boards a while ago
>and there has been some discussion about what the first 3 Babylon stations
>looked like and what colors they were

They went in spectrum order, from red, a coule of interim colors I can't
remember, to green, to blue.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 25 Oct 1999 21:59:50 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: TechnoMage Tech (Spoilers for The Long Road and Final

> I guess it begs the question:
>Is Technomage technology, SHADOW technology?

Expect more on that question in the forthcoming Technomage trilogy; for me to
say too much now would give it away.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 26 Oct 1999 00:16:29 -0600
Subject: Re: Attn JMS: What's Next?

>Rising Stars is going smoothly, albiet a bit slow, and your new show is 
>waiting for someone to latch onto it.  This makes me think you have some 
>time on your hands (finally) - which being a workaholic, you're filling 
>with something that hopefully you want to do.  A novel, perhaps?  What 
>would you like to do next, if the show takes awhile to take off?

I've been about as busy since Crusade as during it.  In addition to the comic
(which is going great guns, but the schedule is a bit off, about which I've had
some talks with the good folks at Top Cow), and the series project which is
currently in rather serious development mode....

There's the TV movie script I recently finished for CBS...the adaptation of CM
Kornbluth's "The Marching Morons" for NPR's Beyond 2000 radio series...I
finished a novel outline now being sold in NY...I have a feature film in
development that's now in script stage...I knocked down two of the B5 stories
in Amazing Stories Magazine (with one coming out this month and another due
from me in December)... the ongoing column in B5 Magazine...in the next little
bit I should finally conclude a deal for an original computer game I've
designed (have both a developer and a publisher who want to do it)...the bulk
of the original B5 novel outlines were written after Crusade was
completed...and there's been a bunch of other stuff.

But the main thing that's consumed my time has been the series development,
which has just recently begun to show signs of maybe some good news coming,
though I can't say anything more about it at this point.

Suffice to say, though, it's been kinda hectic around here for the last few
months.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 26 Oct 1999 01:40:17 -0600
Subject: Re: JMS:  Why TV?

>With all of the media that you've worked in, why have you chosen to tell so
>many of your stories on TV?  Isn't that awfully ephemeral for the breadth of
>story you tell?  

It's an ephemeral medium but a pervasive one; it hits millions of people at a
time.  A best selling novel reaches 100,000 people or so; at its worst, the
average B5 episode was seen by 10 *million* people here in the US alone.  If
the task of the writer is to tell stories to the largest number of people, then
TV gives you that ability.

And why abandon such a powerful and pervasive medium to the visigoths?

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 26 Oct 1999 15:30:58 -0600
Subject: Re: JMS:  Why TV?

>::sigh:: yes, but a book you can re-read at leisure without the distraction
>of
>commercials.

That's why god made VCRs.

>BTW, I enjoyed "We Killed Them in the Ratings".
>

Thanks...I don't do that many mainstream stories, but that was one I enjoyed
(if only to take a shot at TV in general).

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 27 Oct 1999 18:27:08 -0600
Subject: Re: JMS:  Why TV?

>The reason I asked is that there's an ethical dilemma in "We Killed Them in
>the
>Ratings" that I think is a thorny problem for any journalist in any media.

Exactly, which is why I chose to examine that particular question in the story;
I like questions that don't have particularly easy or facile answers.  And this
is one of them.

There isn't any hard and fast rule.  For instance: in recent years there were
two particular cases of self-immolation here in the US, both as protest but
also both were just a little bit not right in the head.

Anyway...in one case, the reporter saw what was happening, and rolled film,
made no attempt to intervene.  He was pilloried for his inaction and
inhumanity.  In the other case, the other reporter saw what was happening,
grabbed a coat, and rushed to put the fire out...and was pilloried for getting
personally involved with the story instead of staying the "objective outsider,"
which in truth does not exist because the only way to be TRULY objective is to
not have any prior beliefs, convictions or experiences that would color one's
perceptions.  

I don't think there is a right answer or perspective on the question...which
makes it fun to explore as a writer.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 27 Oct 1999 18:33:45 -0600
Subject: Re: JMS: How do you work?

>I was just wondering in what kind of environment you work in.  At home?
>In an office?  And if in an office, do you rent a permenant one
>somewhere or something (since you're obviously not working in a
>TNT-Crusade office).

Between shows, I work at my home office.  I travel light, don't have a lot of
folks working for me, it's just me, so there's no need to maintain an office
anywhere else.  I have a home office equipped with phone, fax, modem,
computers, reference books, music, TV, every distraction I could ask for.

>And during B5/Crusade, where did you work?  Was
>there like an office of writers or something (which of course would have
>gotten lonely in Y3, 4, 5 !)? 

My office was in the B5 production building/studio in Sun Valley, at the end of
the hall, bordering the Wall of Death (a wall where all the generators and
power sources were, which was on the other side of the wall right behind
mydesk...and for a studio we're talking a LOT of power...I didn't think much of
it until we had an eletrician do an EMF sweep, came to the wall (where I sat
every day for 3 years) and literally paled.  HIs comment, "Jesus, you could fry
eggs over here."  So I moved to the other side of the office, and a lot of the
fatigue I'd had for the preceding couple of years faded.)

>Did you live/work near the set where they
>shot? 

Live, no...about 20 minutes away.  My office was about 15 feet from Stage C.

>How much personal contact did you have with the actors?  Did you
>ever watch them act/shoot the scenes?

Constant personal contact.  We'd eat together at lunch, I'd go by the stage
whenever possible (and often it wasn't) to watch scenes being shot, we
sometimes would get dinner or otherwise hang out.

>And is your office extremely
>cluttered or organized?

Yes.  It is extremely cluttered -- frighteningly so -- but I know where
everything is.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 27 Oct 1999 23:10:34 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: *sigh* a quick Question

>The only MAJOR changes were in "War Zone" and the other episodes, discluding
>the last five, were only minor changes. Correct? They weren't something like
>what they did in "War Zone"; they didn't change the plot/whichever that was
>in WAR ZONE. Right?

This is a greyer question than appears at first blush.

You need to understand that the notes-giving process was ongoing, that every
day was a fight, and every day there were pressures from WB and others to
accede to those requests and notes.  We were told repeatedly, "Look, give 'em
the show they want for the first year, then you can make it your way in the
second season."  

I've always had a policy that if a note makes sense, whoEVER it comes from -- a
network, a grip, a carpenter, whoever -- then I'll listen to it.  So I tried,
where possible, to listen for any notes that made sense in the whirlwind of
ka-ka that came our way.  Some who were not there said that I was acting
unreasonably, and that only the one script WarZone was really affected, that
the other scripts were already written and thus not affected.  But nothing
could be further from the truth.  They were all whittled at in big or small
ways.

If a note didn't make sense...then the answer had to be No.

The "big no" meeting was specifically about a small percentage of the
scripts...and only one meeting out of many.  They kept at us *constantly*.  

As Michelangelo said, "Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle." 
Sometimes the notes nibbled at big issues, sometimes at small ones, but there
are profound effects either way.  Sometimes doing something as small as
changing the rhythm of a scene can destroy it.  Take a particularly memorable
piece of classical music (I won't even name it to illustrate the point further)
that begins "dah-dah-dah-DAAAH."  

Now change it to "dah-dah-dah-BLAAAT."  It's only one note difference.  You can
say it' s just a teensy change.  But your gut says it ain't right, something
there doesn't work.  

Just for the hell of it...I'm going to reprint now one of my memos to TNT,
omitting the name of the person involved.  This is emblematic of some of the
exchanges.  (This memo was widely distributed to TNT, WB and Babylonian folks
involved in the creative stuff, so it's by no means private.)

Message follows.

**********************************

To: 	
From:	Joe Straczynski
Date:	December 8, 1998
Re:	Latest Notes on Cuts and Scripts

Dear 

We've had a chance to review the latest batch of comments, and have some
thoughts on how some of them can be done.  Others, as will be examined below,
are more problematic.

Prior to that, though, a general thought: when the notes process began in
earnest subsequent to 105, we voiced the concern that we seemed to be getting
conflicting reactions�on the one hand we received requests for action, on the
other hand we got requests for more dialogue about what the stories mean to the
characters, scenes that allow them to express their feelings to one another. 
Prior to then, with the possible exception of a few scenes in 101, we had been
primarily an action-based series.

We said at this time that we needed clarification: did TNT want more action, or
more dialogue scenes/exposition?  Since then, the script notes have been
primarily oriented toward creating more dialogue scenes, more background on the
characters, their feelings toward one another and the situations they're in,
and the emotional consequences.  Essentially, expository scenes of one sort or
another.  We have complied with those notes as much as we possibly could.

So you can understand my concern when, having done as TNT asked, we get notes
on the cuts that essentially pillory us for having a slower pace.  The pace is
in large measure the result of adding in those expository scenes.  If TNT asks
for new scenes or to expand scenes in which characters talk about their
feelings, it's going to perforce slow down the action aspect.  

I feel it's unfair to take us to task for doing what we were told to do.

The Senator scene in 108 is particularly emblematic of this.  That scene was
originally much shorter.  TNT asked for more information about how this was
affecting people back home, how they felt about it.  We did that, and now are
being told that the scene is too long.  It wasn't too long when we started with
it.  It only became too long after we added in all the things that TNT asked us
for.

It is both confusing and demoralizing for all of us involved in the production
of Crusade to receive contradictory notes.  As I mentioned in our previous
meetings, there has to be consistency; if the goal post keeps getting moved
around the field, we have no idea what to move toward.

To be honest, the pacing that the current notes seem to be asking for is most
embodied by episodes 101-105, the kind of show we were making prior to the
hiatus and notes process.  

Anyway, that's a general reaction that I think we need to address at some point
in the future.  Meanwhile, on to the specific notes.

NOTES ON PRODUCER'S CUTS

(jms note to reader: a producer's cut is made after the episode has been filmed
and we edit the thing.)

THE WELL OF FOREVER

"The opening seems slow.  Is there a way to open with the scene in which Galen
convinces the crew to go to the Well of Forever?  This scene will catch the
attention of the audience."

There are only two scenes in the opening: a walk-and-talk scene with Matheson
and Gideon, in which we learn that Matheson is going to get tested to ensure
that he has not been improperly scanning people telepathically, and the
convince-the-crew scene.  The most we could do structurally would be to flop
the two scenes in sequence.

Both are dialogue scenes.  The first one keeps us in motion, and sets up that
Gideon is en route to a meeting; the second scene is that meeting.  We cannot
edit out that part because it comes at a point where the camera is moving and
we're well into the scene.  It seems to us best to start in on movement, to
pull the audience in, and end on the conference scene, because that sets up the
mystery: no one has ever come back.  To have that moment, and then the
walk-and-talk, would eliminate the dramatic end of the teaser, which we're
hoping to use to make the audience want to come back after the commercial
break.

So on careful reflection, this one can't really be done without actually
working against the overall pacing and structure of the episode.

WAR ZONE

'The pacing of this episode, as well as 106 and 107, is consistently slow."

While there may be some validity to this as far as 106 is concerned, about
which more later, I find "slow pacing" a very difficult concept to apply to
this episode.  

WAR ZONE contains 25 interior shots, 52 exterior shots, and a total of 115
scenes over 43 pages, averaging 3 scenes or major shots per page, which is
something of a record for a script on this or just about any other show.  It
has stunts, fights, hand-to-hand combat, air-to-air combat, air-to-ground
combat, sneaking, shooting, and buckets of other action.  It is, frankly, the
most ambitious and fastest-paced episode we've ever produced, rivaled only by
103, which is in your hands now, and which is anything but slow.

I believe that, as with 103, the pacing will become more evident once the CGI
and other effects are in. 

"The fight scene in the opening�is choppy and unrealistic."  We did the best we
could there with what we had in the dailies, which were also sent to TNT.  It
was a small set, and we really only have the two scenes with which to play.  

However:

� I agree that there are some places where a couple of transitional shots (such
as the downshot, and the crew running out the door coming into the stairwell
scene) are a bit awkward, given the coverage we had.  We jumped into the scene
a bit faster because we wanted to speed up the pacing, get into the
confrontation with Gideon quickly, rather than wait for them to start at the
top of the stairs and come all the way down.  

� We can try to further expand the fight by lengthening the first piece, but
only by double-cutting some of the footage we have from B-camera and grabbing
bits of side-action, but this will add more cuts and that may also make it more
"choppy."  

� If you want additional fight stuff for that scene, it would have to be shot
as new material, and there will be costs involved in doing that.

"�the scenes which include the senator's speeches need to be cut back."  As
noted previously, this scene was expanded to meet TNT's earlier notes. 
Virtually all of the information presented here is necessary for the audience
to understand what the show is about: the plague, the blockade, why Gideon was
chosen, and what the mission is. 

� However: there is a small piece or two that can be lifted, about 5-15 seconds
worth, which may help to pick up the pacing.  It would, however, mean
eliminating some of the material asked for in earlier notes.  So if TNT is okay
with that, we can trim up the scene and add those seconds to the fight scene in
the teaser.

If "unrealistic" could be better defined for us, that would be very helpful,
because that one has us kind of stumped.

� One other thing we can do in future episodes that will help the pacing is to
work more closely with the directors, who tend to loved their long panning
shots to open up a scene, rather than just jumping into it.  (We sometimes get
stuck with those long pans because coverage tends to start later into the
scene, leaving us unable to cut into the scene any later.)   

"Gideon doesn't seem to have an understanding or a rapport with his ship."

So that I can better understand the note, at what point does Gideon indicate
that he doesn't understand his ship?  

As for "a rapport with his ship," in this episode he is assigned to the
Excalibur for the first time.  He's only been there for a few hours; it seems
unrealistic to expect to build a rapport with a place in just a few hours.

"There are also logic problems.  How does he know where the conference room is
on the Excalibur without some investigating?"

In the first Excalibur scene, Matheson escorts Gideon to the bridge.  Gideon
can see the conference room from his chair.  Since it is in his clear line of
sight, I'm not sure how much further investigation is required in order to find
it.

"Introduce Trace by name earlier."

� We don't have any footage of this, but we can add an ADR line using his name.

Regarding the Chambers scene�here we must agree to disagree.  Her letter to her
sister seems very emotional to everyone here and at WB.  Further, it's not a
crying scene because that scene is about encouraging her sister about their
intention to find a cure.  She has to be strong for her sister, not fall apart.
 This had to be done as a recorded letter to her sister because we couldn't
afford another actor at that point.

Also, that scene was sent through in script, and everyone was fine with it at
the time.

Regarding 106 and 107�as we noted in our conversation prior to their
publication in script form, having done massive action shows in 101-105, we
needed to have a couple of smaller, quieter shows in order to balance out the
costs involved.  So yes, they are slower episodes, as I noted at the time they
would be.  You can't produce every episode at a screaming pace and expect to
stay on budget.  Some are loud, some are quiet; the key is just to do more
louds than quiets.

SCRIPT NOTES

(jms note to readers: this refers to scripts that were then in the
preproduction stage)

APPEARANCES AND OTHER DECEITS

"Can we have one of our primary characters become inhabited by the being
instead of either Rice or Janey?"

This is not possible; in order to provide the solution to the problem, we need
Chambers, Eilerson and Matheson outside, and free.  I chose those individuals
specifically because they're the ones who together work out the solution.  If
you take any of them out of the equation, you don't have the people necessary
to resolve this.  So they can't become inhabited.

If we choose another character from our roster of regulars, that means a
substantial rewrite and increased cast costs�and we have further problems
because we only have access to a limited number of episodes per cast member,
and we're trying to spread them out for maximum effect.  So this one we can't
really do.

"It might be fun to play up the comedy with (the fashion consultant)�have him
get the crew into more trouble, not out of it."

That would be kind of the clich� way to go, in my view; to have him even
inadvertently help the process is a nice surprise.  Also, to create a thread
where we have to set up a third problem in the script (the changes being asked
for by Earth being one, the infestation being the second) and pay it off
requires more room than we have in 43 pages, and is an unnecessary beat.

"Can we heighten the crew's annoyance with the changes being made on the ship?"
 The changes are not actually made until the end of the episode, which makes
this rather problematic.  We can add material in which they voice their
concerns about what might be done, but this will again add expository dialogue
that will slow down the pacing of the episode, and that seems to contradict
what we are being asked for elsewhere.

� Re: "decoding of 'the air is human,'"�I'll look at that and see if we can
extend the discovery of what he's trying to communicate to make it clearer
about how they get there.  Be advised, again, that this will add time and
exposition and slow the pace.

RULING FROM THE TOMB

Regarding the recap of the request to edit down the Jehanne dialogue on page
13, expressed at the time because it seemed too "far out"�as noted later in the
script, we are using the actual dialogue of Joan of Arc in the script.  So if
we are to retain our historical accuracy, we can't really change that material.

"Henderson's murder at the end of the teaser needs to have more physical
action�have it become more of a hand-to-hand struggle."

We have already had to pull back on some of the stunt work in that episode due
to budget limitations, and adding one more here is not within the limits of
what we can do.  Also, the suddenness of the attack is what we're looking for,
dramatically, rather than a prolonged struggle with someone we've never met.

� However, I've spoken with John Copeland about this (he's directing this
episode), and he will do what he can to maximize the action of that scene
without having to add stunts or other costly elements.

I hope that this will be of assistance in clarifying the situation.  We will
certainly try and do what we can in the areas where we indicated we have some
room to work, but as always, the degree to which we can make modifications is
dictated to us by the budget, and we have an obligation to both WB and TNT to
stay within those limits.

Sincerely,

Joe Straczynski

********************************

Back again.

Hardly the picture of someone who is being hostile, I'd say.  But it does show
that the notes process was ongoing.  Every script meant defending against the
addition of exposition and dumb scenes (such as a scene in which Matheson shows
Gideon where the conference room is, which is 10 feet from his chair, because
somebody at TNT thought it would be confusing to the audience otherwise to
figure out how he could know it's there.)

>Meaning, you'd be pretty damn proud of those episodes [The Path of Sorrows,
>Patterns of the Soul, Rules of the Game, ect.] that were only slightly
>changed?
>

I'm proud of pretty much all of them, because of what they required.  If
someone hands you a palm frond, a blender, and a car battery, and says, "Make
me a radio out of this," and you actually DO it, you're proud of the result. 
It ain't as pretty as it could be, but given the conditions under which you
were laboring, it ain't bad.

Some succeed more than others; but all would have been better *without* the
kind of interference we received, the day to day battles, the war of attrition,
the confusing and contradictory notes, and so on.

That's why 101-105 are overall the best episodes, because they were troubled
the least by outside forces.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 28 Oct 1999 18:52:50 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: *sigh* a quick Question

>Joe, it sounds like these notes were coming from several people and
>directions.
>Would it have been a reasonable request that TNT filter them all through one
>person? Theoretically, this might have put that person in the position of
>ensuring some consistance?

That was *precisely* the problem.  The LA office wanted the exposition stuff,
and the Atlanta office wanted the action/sex stuff, and we were constantly
caught in the switches.  We tried constantly to get them to speak with one
voice; it never worked.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 29 Oct 1999 04:17:47 -0600
Subject: Re: JMS: Apologies in advance... a TNT Question

>My question:  what the hell happened?  How did TNT change so much in
>regards to B5/Crusade?  From what little I know, it seemed that the
>execs thought since it was a new series they could change it (unlike the
>already established B5), but what happened?!

Simple answer: TNT Atlanta had never gotten involved before.  Also, B5 was a
known commodity, it was never a question of getting input on the direction of
the show, we just kept doing what we'd been doing.  Crusade was a new show, and
people who didn't understand SF wanted a hand in determining the direction of
the series.  

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 29 Oct 1999 18:30:02 -0600
Subject: Re: JMS: Apologies in advance... a TNT Question

>Then, since hindsight is 20/20, it appears you should have sold Crusade to
>TNT as being as B5-like as possible.  Ties to the known commodity could only
>have helped here (e.g. B5 actors guest appearing on Crusade often). 

Except at first TNT said they wanted NO connection to B5, or as little as
possible, because they wanted it to be THEIR show...then, after they began to
realize that the connection made sense (well into the writing process, I might
add), they said no, no, it's OKAY to have B5 stuff going on...which is why
Lochley is gone for so long.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 30 Oct 1999 16:24:30 -0600
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: *sigh* a quick Question and a follow on request

Alyson: that's a very good analysis of the situation.

>Compounded on this dynamic seems to be an additional one of lack of
>knowledge on some (both?) of the TNT parties about when and where they
>can affect the product.

This is also very much true.  In one scene we shot, there's a slight reflection
on the monitor wherein we can see Gideon's face reflected.  (Intentional on the
director's part.)  They asked if we could give them the scene without the
reflection.  No, we can't...unless we reshoot it.

One other area where we ran up against a  problem with understanding was on the
EFX and delivery.  They simply couldn't visualize what was going into a CGI
shot before we actually *did* it.  They'd look at a scene where we'd slugged
time for action, and think it was slow, because no, there isn't anything there
NOW, but there will be when the CGI is done.

They also kept saying (after the first 5) that the show was too dark, that they
couldn't see anything, that the colors were muted.  That's one reason they
wanted the sets repainted, to make them more colorful.  We kept saying, no,
it's NOT too dark, we don't know where you're getting that.

I finally found out when I went to visit someone at TNT and looked at what THEY
were looking at...not the digibeta footage, or a good clean copy of the
edit...they were looking at a fourth- or fifth-generation dub of the *avid
output*, which is a digitized version of the film, somewhat low-res.  

So finally, we brought in their tech guy, and showed him the digital beta
version, the actual footage.  He looked at it, and said, "Oh, okay, you're
right, it's not dark at all."  But by then the mandate had come down from on
high, LIGHTEN THE SCENES.  Which is why the first five have a moodier, more
stylistic look to them than the rest.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 30 Oct 1999 16:26:46 -0600
Subject: Re: Attn JMS:  A third story? (Was "Re: Attn JMS: What's Next?")

> If I'm understanding correctly, and there
>is a third story in the works, can you share what it will be about?

Haven't decided yet.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 31 Oct 1999 23:25:04 -0700
Subject: Re: Attn. JMS B5 on Space

>The Space channel (out of Toronto) is currently airing season 5 eps 3
>times a day. (3 PM, 7 PM and 3 AM ET)  Think about this for a
>moment--this amounts to fully one eighth of their broadcast day--not bad
>for the little show that could, eh? 

Cool...thanks, I had no idea.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 31 Oct 1999 23:25:01 -0700
Subject: Re: Attn JMS: A third story? (Was "Re: Attn JMS: What's Next?")

>How have the tales been doing for Amazing?  The editorial says a lot of
>copies cleared down at the con in Australia. 

What the folks at Amazing have indicated is that the B5 story issues have been
among their best sellers, beating out nearly everything else.  That's kinda
nice...

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 2 Nov 1999 03:46:08 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS--B5 Calendar canon?

>I just picked up the new year 2000 B5 calendar from Slow Dazzle, a very nifty
>thing btw, and was wondering if the various dates mentioned are considered
>canon.

I don't know since they still haven't sent me one (though I've asked).

>I understand a detailed chronology of the B5 universe will be published
>shortly
>in the B5 magazine; looking forward to that quite a bit.

It's *truly* an astonishing piece of work.  I commend everyone out there with
even the vaguest interest in B5 to pick up these issues with the chronology
(it's just *huge* and totally inclusive).  

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 2 Nov 1999 20:40:14 -0700
Subject: Re:Attn: JMS: TNT notes (WAS *sigh* a quick Question and a foolow

>Unfortunately, Joe doesn't seem to be listening to us.  As I understand
>it, some form of production memos are pretty normal on most shows. I had
>thought Season 1 of B5 just for reasonable comparison.
>

No...it's just that there really aren't any, in terms of story.  The very few
comments that came from our WB liaison were always sensible; if I disagreed, he
deferred to my judgment; and they were always handled within a 2 or 5 minute
phone call.  There's practically zero paper trail for that period.  

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 2 Nov 1999 23:21:56 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS:  What did Walter Koenig think of Bester's fate?

>Do you know if Walter Koenig had a chance to read the "PSI Corps Trilogy",
>and if he did, what does he think of Mr. Bester's fate?  After all,
>other than yourself, he was probably was the one most involved with the
>character.

I'm having lunch with him tomorrow...I'll ask.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 3 Nov 1999 19:45:57 -0700
Subject: Re: New Amazing Stories Issue

Just a general note...because Amazing is a quarterly publication, they don't
rush to get the magazine out nationwide...it's still hitting newsstands and
will be for a while yet, so if it ain't there, it will likely be there soon.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 6 Nov 1999 23:37:43 -0700
Subject: Re: JMS in new Wizard magazine

>You know.  I thing I hate the term comic book about as much Harlon
>Ellison hates being termed a science fiction writer.
>

I dunno...*I* always thought I was writing a comic book....

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 8 Nov 1999 18:35:48 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: How do you feel TV show creators should treat fans?

>However, creators such as Chris Carter (of X-FILES fame) are notorious
>for "teasing" fans and then either not delivering or deliver something
>totally different altogether, sometimes being more disappointing than
>not. Or saying "we'll never do this on our show" and then a season or
>two later, do it.

Well, I don't really know if that's necessarily true of Chris, I think he
always tries to be straightforward with folks.

>How do you feel about this? Do you think this way of "teasing" the fans
>is good or would you rather be upfront and truthful? And are your fans
>important enough to you that you know if you cry "Wolf!" too many times
>they won't believe/respect you?
>
I think you have to be careful to always be as accurate as possible.  (And bear
in mind that one of the whole reasons for this exchange is to provide an
accurate transcript of how a show is made, to help folks better understand the
process and thus get better TV and have more input into that process...and that
process is compromised if bad data is entered into the system.)

I take some small pride in the fact that in 6 years of having this on-line
conversation, when it comes to talking about this show, I have never once been
caught out in a prevarication.

Which is why I was kinda frustrated when the whole Claudia Christian situation
went down, when she was saying she was fired when in fact she walked away over
money.  People said "Well, who should we believe here?"  At that moment, to be
honest, it felt to me like, "Why have I bothered to establish this reputation
and conversation all this time if suddenly my word doesn't mean anything?" 
Later, of course, Claudia came out and said, well, yeah, she did walk away, and
it was over money, which is of course utterly her right, I just wish she'd said
that at the start rather than much later...since the situatoion led to threats
against me and abusive email and the like.

So really, some people will believe what they choose to believe no matter how
straight you've been with them in the past...that's been a hard lesson that
I've had to learn.  All I can do is to keep doing what I've been doing, talking
straight about the show to the best of my knowledge and ability.  And if I'm
wrong about something, I cop to it instantly.

What's good about that is that if I think a show didn't live up to
expectations, I'll *say* so...quite bluntly sometimes.  But that way, when I
say that show X is really, really *good*...fans know I ain't blowing smoke up
their collective butts.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 9 Nov 1999 19:11:54 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: How do you feel TV show creators should treat fans?

>"Will you ever do a cameo on Babylon 5?"
>
>     "No."
>
>Ahem.
>

I said as straight as I can be about what happens in the show on the production
side to within my knowledge and ability.  That means mainly what happens behind
the scenes.  I a) consider the cameo to be a story thing, and b) what was I to
say to that question?  "Oh, yes, I intend to be in the last episode shutting
off the lights before B5 blows up"...?  That would be a massive spoiler.  And
it ain't the point.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 9 Nov 1999 20:17:40 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: How do you feel TV show creators should treat fans?

>Well, no speaking role, and really, who better to be the one to pull the last
>switch to shut down B5?
>
>

Besides, it was supposed to be a *surprise*.  There's a qualitative difference
between talking about what's happening, and something planned for down the road
(if I had the courage at the last to do it, which I was never sure about).


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 9 Nov 1999 20:44:22 -0700
Subject: Re: A dumb ratings question...

>> As someone who does nothing BUT watch TNT's air, I can tell you without
>> a doubt that Crusade was promoted TO DEATH on TNT, and to a lesser
>> extent on all the other Turner networks.  Although I have forgotten the
>> exact figure now, I know that the ad campaign even before the first
>> episode aired was well into the millions.  Lack of advertising was NOT
>> the problem.

That's simply not true.  For one thing, the few ads they had on TNT were comps,
meaning they don't cost much of anything, and only appeal to viewers watching
TNT to begin with.  For the B5 launch, they bought ads on other cable networks,
bus ads, billboards, you name it...they did none of that for Crusade.  Zero. 
Reviewers and journalists were constantly calling me to ask if they could get
material for the show because TNT wouldn't give it to them.  I saw their ad
campaign before they launched it, and even they admitted that it was only a
small part of what they'd done for B5 and were doing for other shows.

Your perception is your perception, but it doesn't jibe with the facts.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 9 Nov 1999 21:51:55 -0700
Subject: Finally! B5 Bible/Treatment Available!

Folkses:

For the last six years, I've been asked repeatedly -- in email and at
conventions -- "Are you ever going to make the original B5 series writers'
bible available?"  My general reaction was to simply say...maybe someday.

After considerable reflection, and as a Solstice present to B5 viewers...we're
finally going to make it available.

TWO such *its*, to be precise.

First: The original Babylon 5 Series Treatment

This is the 23 page document, written in September 1988, that was used to sell
the series for the five years it took to find a buyer.  It has different
characters than were ever seen in the show, such as Dr. Chakri Mendak (a role
that later became Dr. Stephen Franklin) and more background on Vice-Commander
Laurel Chang... Sinclair's background is also quite different from what we
eventually ended up with (including the fact that he was widowed, a piece I
pulled away from his character for the series and held for someone like
Sheridan)....the Vorlons were warlike, squabbling aliens....

This was the first attempt to put B5 down on paper, in a process that would
change and evolve over the next 5 years.  Ideas that were never used,
characters who would never be seen again, the first stirrings of the Minbari
War story (including a never used alternate explanation for why they
surrendered), Delenn was a male character... Kosh had a mate who came with him
to B5...on and on and on.

Second: The original Season One Babylon 5 Writer's Bible

This massive tome weighs in at over 60 pages, with comprehensive backgrounds on
all the characters as well as guidelines for writing SF for TV in ways that
would be different than all of our predecessors.  It lays out the first year of
the arc and warns potential writers away from areas we plan to explore in later
years, has additional backgrounds on regular characters never actually used in
the series (such as a strange fellow named Mr. Jones who would have been
alternately a bane and ally to Garibaldi), stories that would eventually be
filmed, other stories that would never be used, information on the the history
and technology of the B5 universe, Psi Corps, Earthforce, the various
governments, and other areas...this is the Big One, the Grail of the B5
fictional world.  The table of contents alone covers 2 pages.

This bible was ONLY given to prospective writers, who were in turn asked to
keep the material totally confidential.  The treatment was ONLY given to
network/studio. heads and others in a position to buy the series.

In addition, BOTH of these documents will be peppered with the original
illustrations by Peter Ledger used to sell and visualize the series in its
earliest stage, including the original keyhole logo, many of them reproduced in
full color, others b&w.  Some of these images have shown up in various places,
but others will be seen here by the world at large for the first time.

(Note: the page counts given do NOT include the pages of artwork, which expand
the length further.)

I debated long and hard about whether or not I would ever make these available,
but finally decided to give in to the many requests for the release of this
material.  

This material will shortly be made available at www.thestation.com and via
phone orders.  I don't know how long we'll make them available, but I suspect
it may not be very long.  

In reading through the documents, it's like taking a trip back through time to
what was, to the very beginnings of the series, what would be, what might've
been, what never was...what got abandoned on the side of the road, what was
kept.  At times the material is coy, informative, deliberately misleading in a
couple of places where I wanted to avoid leaks, rude and sometimes it actually
makes a rough kind of sense.

They're going to cost a bit more than the scripts, because at 60+ pages in the
case of the bible, and with the color illustrations, they're more expensive to
produce, and we're only doing a limited number of these.  

Expect the full info to go up on thestation.com in a few days.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 9 Nov 1999 21:53:10 -0700
Subject: Rising Stars #3 Out November 22nd

Just wanted to say that...er, well...I guess the title of this message just
said it.  The next issue of Rising Stars out 11/22 tells the story of Lee
Jackson, the pyrokinetic whose fiery outburst started the whole thing rolling. 
This one also features the artwork of Christian Zanier, who comes on board as
regular penciler with this issue, and does a bang-up job.  This issue also
hints at the motive for the ongoing murders.

It's a corker.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 10 Nov 1999 00:02:20 -0700
Subject: Re: CRUSADE Rumor

>The rumor is that Sci-Fi is negotiating with TNT to do some sort of
>one-time special CRUSADE marathon.  All the episodes would be shown back
>to back, and if the ratings were high enough to please the Skiffy Suits,
>talks would begin for possible purchase of CRUSADE by Skiffy.
>

It's news to me, so I doubt its authenticity.  Also, they'd have to factor into
the equation that the episodes have just run on TNT recently, so a lot of folks
have seen 'em.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 10 Nov 1999 22:13:16 -0700
Subject: Re: Finally! B5 Bible/Treatment Available!

>When I clicked to add either B5 Bible to my cart, it gave me the "We're
>sorry, but this product is not currently available with the attributes you
>selected." message.

The info is *just now* starting to go up, so I imagine they are still adding in
the info to the system.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 11 Nov 1999 22:45:59 -0700
Subject: Re: Finally! B5 Bible/Treatment Available!

>BB-01A  Babylon 5 Autographed Bible  $45.00  
>BB-01  Babylon 5 Bible   $35.00  
>173-CB-01  Crusade Writers Bible  $20.00  
>
>Are the items in question?
>

The Crusade bible is a different thing; it's the additional B5 treatment that's
being made available starting right now.  The Crusade bible was made available
a bit ago.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 13 Nov 1999 00:56:03 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Sleeping In Light (and a heart-felt thank you)

No, thank you...you are most kind.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 13 Nov 1999 18:47:17 -0700
Subject: Re: Finally! B5 Bible/Treatment Available!

>I've been meaning to ask this since I got the Crusade Bible...Does the
>writers
>bible change year to year?  I would think it would, if only to take into
>account everything that is revealed in past seasons and to point out which
>directions you want the show to go, but this is just guesswork.
>

I think we did a supplementary thing to the bible for year two, but that was
it, and my memory could be off about that.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 14 Nov 1999 16:32:45 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Sifl & Olly Will Return!

Yeah, I heard that the other day...I'm looking forward to it.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 14 Nov 1999 16:34:31 -0700
Subject: Re: Hands Outstretched

>Hand of Friendship--
>

Delenn reaching out her hand to Sheridan.

And of course gloved hands in the Psi Corps.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 14 Nov 1999 23:02:13 -0700
Subject: Re: Finally! B5 Bible/Treatment Available!

>On that note, do you plan on releasing the supplementary things or
>season 2 through 5 bibles of Babylon 5 for sale on The Station, now that the
>S1 bible is up for sale?
>

I very much doubt it; there was just minor tinkering done to the thing.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 15 Nov 1999 05:27:55 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN. JMS - Odd questions

>1) Is Kosh supposed to be the Oracle of Delphi? It just hit me today that he
>has those babbling sounds in the suit (that sounds like wind rustling in
>leaves) and then he makes a short statement that no one understands until
>what he has said has come to pass.
>

Yeah, that's always how I kind of looked at him.

>2) Did you, long ago, have a glimpse of your future like Londo did?
>

Some things I probably should not comment on.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 17 Nov 1999 23:11:08 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Lyta & G'Kar Story (Spoilers)

>Also, this may sound dumb, but I was wondering how Lyta was able to send
>G'Kar a telepathic message in the story, since he isn't a telepath.  I
>guess I missed something in the series!

We've had other examples in the show of someone sending a telepathic signal to
someone else who wasn't a teep...Kosh to Sheridan being the one that comes to
mind right offhand.  We've established in the books that a teep can send into a
normal, but obviously it doesn't work in the other direction.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 19 Nov 1999 02:17:14 -0700
Subject: Re: Attn JMS: Rising Stars

Your words are most kind; thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the book.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 19 Nov 1999 02:17:15 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Chris Carter Rumor

I can't comment at this time.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 20 Nov 1999 16:56:54 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: four quick questions

>I read in the german Babylon 5 newsgroup that all Crusade episodes will
>be available as rental video tapes with german synchronisation in
>february 2000. Do you know anything about that? Will Crusade also be
>available in the stores?

I'm afraid I've no idea.

>The Lurkers Guide mentioned an artikel from Cleveland Live
>(http://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/pd/news/tuesday/e16scif.ssf)
>with a very interesting quote:
>
>"X-Files" creator Chris Carter and "Babylon 5" creator J. Michael
>Straczynski are teaming up for a CBS drama. 
>Any comments from you? ;-)
>
Not at this time.

>Is there a chance to see you next year in London? In march there will be
>the Starfury Millenium Con (no Wolf359 con AFAIK) with
>Peter, Andreas, Richard and Jason and some german B5 fans, too!
>
No, no plans for UK conventions next year, and would not be involved with this
one in any event given some of the folks involved.

>And final...any news from the DVD sector?

Not that I've heard.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 20 Nov 1999 17:00:31 -0700
Subject: Re: Crusade Jacket MIA?

No, there's not a problem.  We wanted to wait until the last of the orders were
in, and then ship everything pretty much at once, which is easier for the
fulfilment house to deal with given the bulk of the items involved.

I think they've either stopped taking orders, or will stop shortly, so stuff
should go out soon.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 20 Nov 1999 18:17:24 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Crusade and NDEI site

It's a typo.
 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 21 Nov 1999 23:07:16 -0700
Subject: Re: JMS: Selling B5 Scripts & Pricing

>So we must spend $20 a script on thestation.com for a B5 script...
>
>just thought you'd be interested to know that for $20 you can buy a
>multimedia CD which includes ALL 175 Deep Space Nine scripts along with
>their video promos.  Same thing for Next Generation.  Why didn't you do
>this?

First, is this CD by any chance licensed?  

Second, that is the going price for actual, physical scripts.  Go to any other
place in town, X-Files, or a script store, and that's the going price to get an
actual script.  Lots and lots of folks don't want just a CD, they want the
physical script.  I can get all of an Mark Twain's books on CD, but I *prefer*
to buy them in book form.

Third, these are collectibles whose value is more than just the paper.

If you don't get that concept, there's nothing I can do that will explain it to
you.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 21 Nov 1999 23:11:33 -0700
Subject: Re: JMS: Some bible questions/praise

>
>s
>p
>o
>i
>l
>e
>r
>
>s
>p
>a
>c
>e
>
>p
>r
>o
>v
>i
>d
>e
>d
>
>b
>y
>
>m
>e
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>That should be enough space.  (maybe more than enough LOL).
>
>What I enjoyed most was seeing how you moved some of the pieces of
>peoples lives around.  I can't find it know but one of your suggested
>stories was Garibaldi talking with his father in the hospital, not
>Ivanova.  Or the fact that you mentioned in the bible Franklin was
>divorced with two kids, that didn't come out in the show (to my
>recollection).  So many ideas to play with, so little TV time to show
>it.
>

The first was a story that Larry looked at in the treatment and suggested would
be better given to Ivanova since Garibaldi had already had a lot of
character-related exposure.  And as for the latter...I didn't get a chance to
bring it up early on, and finally vetoed the thing as laying in too many
threads, especially since an ex-wife would end up playing significantly in the
Sheridan thread.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 21 Nov 1999 23:12:49 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN: JMS - Babylon 5 "SERIES 1" Bible

>1) The bible refers out to a 200-page Arc document.  Can you tell me if
>this is ever going to be released in any way, shape, or form.

Not a chance.

>2) The bible covers *Season 1* only !  Does this mean we have 4 more of
>these bibles to look forward to (Please say "yes").
>

No, since there were only minor modifications done to the thing for S2, and
there were no other changes done for S3-5.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 22 Nov 1999 07:10:12 -0700
Subject: Re: SFX Magazine, JMS and Double Standards

I think that we have a British/American misunderstanding here, because the
gesture reported is not designated as one that calls the person asking the
question a "wanker," at least not in this country, though it may be in the UK. 
It's more meant here as indicating that the person talking doesn't have a clue
and is just jerking around with the answer.

Though it's a moot point, since SFX is a fairly useless publication on just
about every imaginable front.  Never have so many jumped-up fanboys done so
little, with so much, for so long.

Wankers.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 22 Nov 1999 19:19:48 -0700
Subject: Re: JMS: Selling B5 Scripts & Pricing

>I appreciate the fact that they are collectibles, my point is some people
>(like
>myself) aren't willing to spend about $2,200 on 110 scripts... it's too much
>money!  I really do want these scripts, but it's too much.  Can't there be a
>cheaper alternative?

Well, for one thing, we're not going to release all 110 scripts, only the
highlights and justifiable releases.  Grey 17 for instance will never be
released, it may only plan to escape....


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 22 Nov 1999 21:00:58 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: TV Production Role

>I came across "Executive Story Consultant" but not Story Editor, is
>Executive Story Consultant just another wording for Story Editor?
>

No.  A consultant can read scripts and give suggestions...a story editor
rewrites.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 23 Nov 1999 18:07:18 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN: JMS - 200 page document

First, you have to understand that there is no requirement that I release
*everything* that has ever been done for the show, and that I do have some
rights to privacy, and to keep some things for myself.

Second, the original document was such that is was random notes bunched
together by time and character, sometimes cross-referenced, sometimes not. 
It's like an outline to oneself that is never supposed to make sense to someone
else because it was never *written* for someone else.  They are my private
notes, to myself.

Where does anyone here have a problem with the concept of private notes?

Further still...the material contains bunches of quick premises for possible
stories or episodes, some used, some not, and if I let them out then those
not-used stories can never be used, and may end up elsewhere.

Lots of people seem to have this idea that the final result was widely
divergent from the original arc, hence this interest, and that proceeds from a
false premise.  It really didn't change that much.  Anyone looking at the S1
bible right now sees stuff that was laid out for the later seasons, and it was
pretty much all done...right down to telling writers not to get Lyta into a
relationship because she would eventually become starstruck by Byron, and I
didn't want anything else to get in the way of that.

So it really *isn't* that different.  What the original material *is* is
scattergun, written in quick fragments or sudden thoughts dashed down in the
middle of the night or while working on something...it's in no condition to
release to anyone.  I'd have to go through the material, reorganize it in a way
that would be all-chronological or all character, take out the stuff that I
would want to hold onto for future use...and then it wouldn't *be* the original
document anymore.

Whereas the overall approach was there from the git-go, the details were always
a work in progress, refining the ideas further and further during the five
years it took to sell the darned thing.  Imagine five years of random notes as
the story coalesced, and you've got a pretty solid idea of the mess it looks
like.

>JMS how often would you refer to this 200 page document yourself?  Did you
>refer to it as much through out season 5 as you did the first season?  

Yeah, I referred to it constantly.  Early on, to expedite things, since it is
such a clutter, I broke out each season at the very start of S1, putting each
episode on a card in a black binder, which had two-sided sheets that held 10
cards per side.

I did this for all five seasons before we ever shot a frame of film on S1.

That binder sat on the first shelf on the left in my office for five years. 
People would come in and ask where the material was, and I'd explain that the
original material was in the triple-encrypted file...and they never knew that
the distillation of that material was sitting right behind them, close enough
to reach over and pull down off the shelf.

>Did you
>have a similar document for Crusades or was Crusades included in the
>original document in some form

Not as lengthy, no.

>Several weeks ago I remember you saying
>something about the final fate of a few of the major characters.  Does this
>document contain this sort of information?  If so then I do understand the
>desire to not release it

There's a lot of that in it as well, on the theory that even if I never used
it, *I* would have to know what it was, in terms of the history of the B5
universe and where it and the characters were all going.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 23 Nov 1999 19:57:40 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Final Approval

Damn...that one slipped by.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 23 Nov 1999 23:02:03 -0700
Subject: Re: SFX Magazine, JMS and Double Standards

>Maybe now they aren't <that> good.  Most of their crimes are those of
>self-indulgence, and self-congratulation.

Having been a journalist myself, I also kind of have a problem with an editor
of a publication using that publication as a tool in a fanboy vendetta.  But
that's just me, I'm whacky that way.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 23 Nov 1999 23:04:24 -0700
Subject: Re: JMS:  Chronology question

>I'm really looking forward to the chronology in the upcoming B5 magazines.
>Can
>you tell us how it will be set up?  There are various 'canon' items that
>weren't actually shown on screen (books, comics, magazines) and I wondered if
>they will be included and annotated as to the source?  Also, how many issues
>will it take?
>
>

I think it'll be stretched across 2-3 issues.  The thing can't quite be
explained as you've outlined the question here, it really kinda has to be seen.
 It incorporates a LOT of stuff from various sectors into a detailed timeline
that has been checked and cross referenced with our material to ensure its
accuracy.  It's real nifty.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 23 Nov 1999 23:59:57 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: four quick questions

>> In article <s3gg97ng3ef16@corp.supernews.com>, Ryan Nock
>> <Tai_sa@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> > Jms at B5 <jmsatb5@aol.com> wrote in message
>> >
>> > "> >Is there a chance to see you next year in London? In march there will
>be
>> > > >the Starfury Millenium Con (no Wolf359 con AFAIK) with
>> > > >Peter, Andreas, Richard and Jason and some german B5 fans, too!
>> > > >
>> > > No, no plans for UK conventions next year, and would not be involved
>with
>> > this one in any event given some of the folks involved."
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > JMS, I hope it's not true, but that reply seems to imply that you have a
>> > problem with Peter, Andreas, Richard, or Jason.  Again, I hope that's not
>> > true, but I wouldn't expect you to explain why even if it is true.
>> 
>> I don't think he's referring to the actors, but rather the folks who
>> put on the con. ISTR some problems with one of the UK cons last year...
>
>AFAIK is there only a problem with Wolf359 (a UK Con runner) since the
>Wolf359-Con "The Alliance" 1997 in Blackpool. I hope there is no general
>problem from JMS visiting Cons in the UK.

Correct, I have no problems with the cast attending, or with the UK.  That
unpleasantness with Boston Harbor is long,  long forgotten....

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 24 Nov 1999 22:03:49 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN: JMS - 200 page document

>But, Joe, I would ask this of you.  Keep the thing around, and let it be
>released someday -- 50 years after your death, if you like.

You must understand: if you go through all of my files, for all the scripts and
stories I have written, you will find ONLY final drafts.  I routinely destroy
ALL of my annotated drafts, rough drafts, preliminary drafts and most notes.  I
think that, in the end, what has to stand or fall is the work, and one doesn't
let out one's rough drafts or unfinished work.  

A while back, there was a long and heated debate between me and some other
online folks on the issue of unfinished work and annotated drafts; I'm
foursquare against them being released posthumously.  This, to me, falls under
the same heading.

All the rough-draft stories, all the MSW scripts, and all my B5 scripts with my
handwritten edits, changes, annotations, deletions, and revisions...are mulch. 
As they should be.

One does not go out in public only partially dressed.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 26 Nov 1999 00:35:04 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Music Tastes (B5 Magazine)

>In the latest B5 Magazine (US), they were asking people involved with
>B5, including yourself, what their musical-tastes were.  You said that
>you like a group called Kodo.  I have never heard of them--what kind of
>music do they perform?

It's KODO, all caps, and they're a Japanese...I don't know if group is the
right word, collective?...bunch who use Kodo drums and similar massive drums
for traditional Japanese music of the kind that gets the blood moving.

For a newcomer to that kind of music, I suggest SAI-SO, their latest which is
actually a remix of their Iridori album by Western DJ/mixer guys.

If you just want to jump in, get their Live at the Acropolis CD...it's fucking
brilliant.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 26 Nov 1999 17:16:49 -0700
Subject: Re: JMS: Some bible questions/praise

>My recollection is that this is something that The Great Maker
>has admitted lying about.  The triple-encrypted computer files
>were actually a boxful of index cards on a shelf in his office
>where he could stare at them while telling visitors about
>the triple-encrypted computer files.

No, that is completely untrue.  The cards were a distillation of my notes,
broken down by season.  

Please don't put words in my mouth, I have enough trouble with the ones that I
put there on my own.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 26 Nov 1999 17:21:50 -0700
Subject: Re: JMS: It's been a year

No, I understand the motivation and whence it comes; on a much higher plane,
it's the kind of stuff that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had to deal with after he
sent Sherlock Holmes over the falls of Reichenbach, after Dickens dispensed
with some of his characters...so I do understand it.

And thanks.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 27 Nov 1999 19:32:39 -0700
Subject: jms recommends....

Flumadine.  You've never heard of flumadine?  

Lemme explain, 'cause this stuff just saved my ass.

Flumadine has to be taken within 48 hours of contracting the flu, which I just
recently got.  (After you've had pneumonia, as I did about a year and a half
ago, it makes you much more susceptible to flu and upper respiratory infections
and the like...and I'm susceptible to begin with, you can set your flu-calendar
by me).

What does it do?  It's a prescription drug that produces an enzyme that blocks
reproduction of the virus.  So what you have in the first 48 hours is all you
have, and those die off in time.  The result is that your symptoms are cut by
about 50%, and the duration can be similalry cut.

It's only been out for about a year, so most folks don't know about it...even
most of the staff at the medical center didn't know about it, though the doctor
was familiar with it.  I figured, having gotten the flu, I didn't have anything
to lose by taking a shot.

And sonuvagun...it worked.

So I commend it to you heartily.  Just remember, though: if you think you're
getting the flu, you *have* to get it within the first 48 hours or it won't be
effective.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 27 Nov 1999 21:26:42 -0700
Subject: Re: jms- Rising Stars #3

I believed it was supposed to be this week, but it looks like there's been a
delay in shipping; expect it next week.  Much apologizings....

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 27 Nov 1999 21:30:35 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: B5, TNT, & SCI-FI

>My question is, is there a
>time limit on this contract?  If so, how long before it expires?  Are there
>other stipulations such as requiring them to air the reruns (even if it is
>in a really crappy time slot)?  Has anybody (SCI-FI Channel included)
>expressed interest at picking up the reruns after TNT's contract expires or
>is it way to early for that?  And is Crusade part of the same contract or
>is it another deal all together

I believe that the license for TNT to run B5 runs through late 2001, so it
would be available thereafter.

>And speaking of Crusade, is it officially 100% dead yet?  I know that
>budget concerns were the initial reasons SCI-FI couldn't pick it up (at
>least that's the story we were told) and I know they've cancelled Slider's
>and Poltergeist, but they're also producing a couple of new series, so is
>there still no room in their budget for Crusade or is it too late even if
>there were (what with your other projects and expired actor contracts,
>etc)? 

My feeling is that if it hasn't happened by now, it's probably not going to. 
The efforts made by the fans have been terrific, and appreciated, and valued by
all involved...but if it were to happen, it would have had to have happened by
now, I think.  Mind, I could be wrong, odder things have happened, but that's
how it looks to me at this point.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 27 Nov 1999 21:32:53 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Strange "Rising Stars" Promo

>   On the other hand, the listing announcing "Rising Stars" #5 for 
>January 2000 was decidedly different:
>   The unknown issue! Tempers reach an all time high as deadline
>     crunches weigh heavy on the shoulders of all! Atist, inker and
>     colorist are still unknown but JMS will still deliver one heck of
>     a story. Soon to be lengthened into a 900 page novel, grab
>     yours today. Peace!
>
>What's *that* all about?
>

I've no idea, since the script for #5 was turned in *ages* ago.  In general,
the scripts have stayed 3 issues ahead of the publishing schedule.  And even
before it was turned in, I provided TC with a synopsis of the story for use in
solicitations.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 27 Nov 1999 21:45:46 -0700
Subject: Re: Attn: JMS - Souls

>I am told you are an atheist; I am just agnostic.
>Question: do you believe in souls? (cf Soulhunter, River of Souls)
>--

Define exactly what you mean by souls.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 27 Nov 1999 21:46:31 -0700
Subject: Re: SFX Magazine, JMS and Double Standards

Paul...

Re: your synopsis.

Marry me.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 28 Nov 1999 01:08:50 -0700
Subject: Re: Attn JMS: I agree w/you re: original notes.

>So to my mind, the B5 universe is closed fer business. It's as you wanted:
>a good story, nothing more or less, to be re-read from time to time when
>the real world isn't too appealing, up on the shelf with all the other
>classics. 

>Thanks for everything, from pilot episode to release of original scripts
>and bibles. Thanks for a good time. Ciao.

You're welcome.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 28 Nov 1999 21:43:22 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: A way to get B5 reruns off TNT

The B5 reruns expire on TNT around fall 2001, if I remember correctly.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 28 Nov 1999 21:48:53 -0700
Subject: Re: Attn: JMS - Souls

>I think it's rather easy to define - a non-physical component of a 
>person which is independant of their physical existence and still
>incorporates all important elements of their personality such that
>it would be unmistakeably unique.  (being non-physical it would
>be undetectable and unaffected by any physical processes)

Except of course that this also defines *mind* just as well as it does *soul*. 
The mind exists IN the brain, as the soul reputedly exists IN the body, but you
can poke around someone's cerebral cortex all you want, you won't find *mind*. 

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 30 Nov 1999 15:52:49 -0700
Subject: Re: This rests on your shoulders.

>What do *you* think souls are?  I would never 'define' souls, but since you
>didn't say you outright did not believe in souls, your belief must go at
>least to a certain point.

But of course the definition is key to asking and answering the question. 
Unless one can say what one means one can never mean what one says.  If you're
talking about an immortal soul that goes to heaven or hell...then my answer is
no.  If you're talking about the personality, as in "she's a very soulful
person," or having a lot of soul in one's work...then that's a whole different
*concept*, and in that case being more psychological than spiritual, then the
answer is yes.

As someone else once said...god is in the details.  Literally, in this
discussion.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 30 Nov 1999 15:53:51 -0700
Subject: Re: Attn JMS:  Morden in shadows *spoilers for Macbeth*

>Then I remembered how two or three times Morden sort of shrank into shadows,
>as though the lights above him dimmed.

We moved a screen between him and the light-source, then moved it away again.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 1 Dec 1999 00:32:07 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Would you ever do a DVD "special edition?"

I'd be only thrilled to do something along these lines.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 1 Dec 1999 23:14:02 -0700
Subject: Re: Attn: JMS - Loscon clarification

The project is being moved around, but the development season which goes from
about June through October was pretty much over when all hell broke loose, so I
expect nothing much can be done with it until next June at the earliest.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 1 Dec 1999 23:14:49 -0700
Subject: Re: jms Tells the Chris Carter/CBS story at Loscon

Just to jump in a bit...

The irony of course is that if Harsh Realm had been canceled even a week later,
we would've concluded the deal with CBS for the show I'd created and which
Chris, Frank Spotnitz and I would exec produce.  CBS had agreed to a pilot
production deal, and they were haggling over the per episode license fee should
the show get picked up for series when HR got canceled and the ripple effect
started.

The other thing I wanted to mention is that in my years in the biz, I have
rarely enjoyed a partnership with anyone as much as with Chris and Frank, who
are not only stand-up guys, but in all of our discussions I don't think a
single idea got broached that didn't make sense.  

Their approach is the same we had at B5: you check your ego at the door and do
what's best for the story.  I have nothing but good things to say about them,
and even though Fox felt that they needed to go forth only with 100% CC after
HR was canceled (the logic being that it didn't work because Chris didn't
actually create it), I consider the experience a positive one.

They're good people over there at 1013.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 1 Dec 1999 23:14:49 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS. Sleeping in Light

No, John's not in the ep.  We'd shot a group shot of all of us wheeling
somebody down the hospital aisle, but cut it for time.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 1 Dec 1999 23:15:15 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN: JMS - Re: 200 page document

>> Anyone looking at the S1 bible
>> right now sees stuff that was laid out for the later seasons,
>> and it was pretty much all done...
>> right down to telling writers
>> not to get Lyta into a relationship
>> because she would eventually become starstruck by Byron,
>> and I didn't want anything else to get in the way of that.
>
>I thought Byron was originally intended for Ivanova, up until Claudia
>decided to leave the show...???
>

Correct.  Note the use of the word *starstruck*, not *involved with*.  The
theory was that Byron would have gotten involved with Ivanova, who -- feeling
she'd messed up by being too closed off to a somewhat similar person decides to
take a chance with someone, only to have it blow up in her face -- while Lyta
suffered from unrequited love (a constant B5 theme), which would no less fuel
her desire to avenge him.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 2 Dec 1999 23:36:09 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Difference between CoS script and actual filmed episode

Any time you shoot an episode, some lines or other, or even partial scenes (or
whole scenes) can end up on the cutting room floor to fit.  Dry, we ran about
42 minutes 15 seconds 12 frames (I think), and we had to hit that every time
for formatting purposes.  So you edit it all to fit, and sometimes you have to
leave stuff out to make it all work.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 4 Dec 1999 15:40:23 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN:JMS Rising Stars #3

>In RS #3, a comment was made that Flagg had to change his name over the
>copyright. Was this for real, (As I know there used to be another Flagg in
>another company's line up.)

To a certain extent.  After the PR for Rising Stars got going, Howard Chaykin
noticed the Flagg name, and he did (and does) have the rights to Flagg.  I'd
thought it was only American Flagg! that he had the rights to, and it wouldn't
be an issue, but apparently it's otherwise.

It wasn't a big deal, really...I saw Howard one night at dinner (we're not
close friends, but we are friendly acquaintances, and I've always been a big
fan of his work), and we chatted about it, and I suggested the solution that's
in the book, he laughed, thought it was a great and funny idea, and that was
the end of it.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 4 Dec 1999 15:42:19 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Characters Who Have Problems

>I've noticed, from watching B5 & reading Rising Stars, that you tend to
>write characters who have problems they need to overcome.  This is what
>I like about your writing the most.  I've all ready mentioned my problem
>with depression & how B5 helped me to deal with it (along with therapy,
>of course) here.  I also had to deal with OCD (obsessive-compulsive
>disorder) along with it, so I had a tough time.  It's nice to see
>characters who also face real problems on television & in print.  So
>thank you again!
>
>
Thanks...I don't believe in totally perfect people, we all have our flaws as
well as our virtues, and that's what makes us interesting, particularly from a
storytelling point of view.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 4 Dec 1999 15:43:53 -0700
Subject: Re: jms Tells the Chris Carter/CBS story at Loscon

>How will this effect your writing workload?  More novels and/or short
>prose stories?  Maybe another comic series?

There's still plenty to do, and several other projects in the works while the
project I was doing for Chris is being shopped elsewhere.

Believe me, I never lack for stuff to work on.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 4 Dec 1999 15:45:46 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS. Sleeping in Light

Yeah, that was me...but in truth, it was self-indulgent and at the end of the
day, it was clear to me that it had no business being there.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 6 Dec 1999 00:15:38 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Characters Who Have Problems

Marcus was a martyr waiting to happen, looking for something worth throwing his
life away on because he could find little worth in his own.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 11 Dec 1999 18:52:53 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN: JMS B5 section on the SFC Internet site

>Yes, but stopping Crusade was a breach of contract with WB.  Why doesn't WB
>yank
>B5?  The shows might be different, but the owner and broadcaster are the
>same.

You can't apply one situation against another; their license on B5 is solid and
by contract until the end of 2001 or thereabouts.  To pull B5 would breach WB's
contract with TNT, and they would be liable.  

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 12 Dec 1999 12:34:55 -0700
Subject: various from jms

Some overall quick notes, just some business and housekeeping stuff to get out
of the way....

1) It looks like the genie.com site and address will be unreachable after the
first of January, so anyone using that email address for me should delete it.

2) By a similar token, after the first of the year I'm going to be
quasi-retiring the jmsatb5@aol.com email address, since technically I'm *not*
at B5 anymore, and I'm kind of clearing the decks for other stuff in future.  I
won't delete the ID, because at AOL but rather let it go dormant, because if
you delete it somebody else can begin using it soon after, but I'll gradually
be shifting over to the new address, straczynski@aol.com in terms of answering
email.  

3) Folks sending fan mail to the cast should do so at the fan club mail address
rather than the Ventura Blvd. address, because that's soon going to be set
aside for only personal stuff.

4) My Last Word column in the new B5 Magazine (as well as the one in the issue
prior to this) got foreshortened by about 50% due to an apparent glitch at the
magazine.  So if it ends kinda whacky, that's the reason for it.  They'll
reprint the whole thing in an upcoming issue (and such errors will not occur in
future).

5) The Paul Harper wedding is off, I've decided instead to stay in the bathroom
all night and cry.

Thankyew.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 12 Dec 1999 17:10:30 -0700
Subject: Re: Attn JMS: The Mars Missions

>In light of the recent failures of the Mars probes, I'm hearing
>increased talk of cutting funds to NASA, launching Congressional
>hearings, and just rethinking the whole space idea and/or strategy.
>Your work and perspective are highly regarded by many at NASA, maybe
>even Congress. As someone with a vision of space, is there anything
>you can think of to say to these obviously frustrated people?
>

Maybe if they'd *had* proper funding, instead of having to scrape by and
compromise things, the damned thing WOULD have landed intact.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 12 Dec 1999 17:11:25 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN:JMS/PAD Centauri Prime Bk. 1 (SPOILERS)

No real spoilers here....

>1: Is Kane really Galen?

No.

>2:Is the Senna the young nanny in ItB?
>

Yes.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 12 Dec 1999 23:09:24 -0700
Subject: Re: Attn JMS: The Mars Missions

>She's been grumbling a lot about how all that
>money for failed missions could've gone to the homeless and worthier
>programs

Or one stealth bomber.

Do her and yourself a favor: buy her a copy of Michael Moore's DOWNSIZE
THIS...and let her get a sense of where far, FAR more money is really going.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 14 Dec 1999 16:10:32 -0700
Subject: Re: JMS:  B5 Declared Vulgar?!

And I couldn't possibly be prouder.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 14 Dec 1999 20:16:29 -0700
Subject: two quickies (from jms)

Forgot two points in my Various note...encroaching senility, I suppose....

1) Many folks have sent me email asking when Rising Stars #3 comes out...it
actually came out about a week ago.  So it's still out there, though copies are
starting to get hard to find.

2) For folks who are mainly planning to stay home New Year's Eve and watch the
apocalypse happen on national TV...a special 2 hour edition of 48 Hours airs
that night, with the Future being its topic.  Oddly, they thought I might have
a thing or two to say about it, so in theory (at least until they develop the
film and see the true horror that is joe), I'm supposed to be in a segment or
two of the thing.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 14 Dec 1999 22:03:08 -0700
Subject: Re: What's that Irish Poem again? (No Compromises on TNT)

>> I'm paraphrasing it here but it's commonly a prayer for alcoholics.
>
>It's called The Serenity Prayer:
>
>

And it never appeared in the show.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 15 Dec 1999 05:39:31 -0700
Subject: Re: JMS:  B5 Declared Vulgar?!

>I can usually see where these groups are coming from (not agree with them,
>but see where they are at - very important to remember that :-), but in this
>case I can't even imagine what they might be on about...

Doesn't matter, and don't bother, because it ain't about the show, it's about
this group trying to garner publicity and attention by attacking TV shows, the
oldest and smarmiest trick in the book.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 17 Dec 1999 16:24:07 -0700
Subject: Re: two quickies (from jms)

>Would staying home and watching "Apocalypse Now" count?
>

Depends on whether or not you plan to burn down the house while you're doing
it.

And for folks looking on, as I'm sure is no surprise to many of you, this
padguy is Peter David, author of the first of the Centauri books that just hit
the stands.  (Who better to write one than a latent Centauri?)

So if you have questions, here's the guy to ask.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 18 Dec 1999 14:26:49 -0700
Subject: don't abuse jms email

Those of you know know the drill can ignore this.  The rest....

I've said it here again and again: If you have a technical question, post it to
the newsgroup.  MY PRIVATE EMAIL IS TO BE USED ONLY FOR PRIVATE MATTERS THAT
CANNOT BE DISCUSSED PUBLICLY FOR WHATEVER LEGITIMATE REASON.

Also, series on the air or not, DO NOT SEND ME STORY IDEAS, or send me a note
with a question you're asking for a fanfic thing you're writing and then
proceed to tell me the story as it's "not a story idea, it's the story I'm
writing for my fanfic publication."  Only an idiot cannot perceive that these
two are the same thing.

Yet, despite this request, I continue to get constant email broaching those two
requests, really the only ones I've put in, and I don't think they're asking
too much.  And now they're starting to come in email to the straczynski@aol.com
address.

I'm appending just one of the endless such notes I get these days as an example
of something that could be just as well posted publicly, and has a zillion
questions, which if I answered every one, for every email I get, I would do
nothing else, ever, at any time.

Folks, and you know who you are, either you play by the few small rules I've
asked you to honor, or I'm going to have to start closing off my email address
to only people I know...because I use those addresses for business and I have
to wade through ten thousand "what's the defense grid EMP output?" type
messages to find the mail I have to answer.

I don't want to have to do that, but if I continue to get essentially spammed
with this sort of thing, I will.

So do NOT send me the following sort of note.  Please honor the request
detailed above (and sending me a note that says, "I know you said not to send
you this kind of note, but this is just a one-time question" doesn't work
because there are FIFTEEN MILLION of you with "one-time questions".)

I've always tried to maintain an open email policy, but it really is starting
to get abused beyond the point where I can handle it efficiently.

Thank you.

jms

-----------------
What Not To Send Me.  I have removed the person's name to avoid subjecting him
to ridicule.  Call me a softy.  (And don't you love how it says "A question"
when it's 8 questions?)

Subj:	 A question about tech, the novels, etc.
Date:	12/16/1999 9:39:39 AM Pacific Standard Time
From:	
To:	straczynski@aol.com

I already sent you an email to your Jmsatb5@aol.com addy, so I will not make 
this one tremendously long, because you'll have my other questions to answer 
if you can get to them :)

1.)  White Stars - did the Minbari actually have the ability to build more?  
I know that Delenn mentions around season 3 that the "First Wave" of White 
Stars have been built, yet around Season five, Sheridan's comments about 
"running out" eventually make it sound like they cannot build them anymore.  
Is this a case?

2.) Some discussion amongst some friends and I have centered around a 
definition for a "Defense grid."   Did you or anyone involved in B5 actually 
define what a defense grid is? (I know that, at least for EF, its 
interceptors and possibly ECM - is there more than just stealth or 
interceptors to a defense grid?  Some speculation has included "EM Fields" 
or "grav-fields" like some pseudo-shield technology, but I am wondering what 
you have to say on this.)

3.) Does ANY race on bablyon 5 use anti-matter based weaponry, or a type of 
reactor system?  I recall a quote from SEason five from Franklin dealing 
with the nature of weapons, and "disrupting" is mentioned, which is why i 
asked. Also, do Minbari employ some sort of "Forcefield" in their weaponry?  
I noticed that in In the Beginning, their tractor beams emitted from the 
weapons emittors it would seem, so I ask because of this.

4.) Vorlons and Shadows:  another discussion between me and some other 
people considered whether or not the shadows employed nanotechnology in 
their ships, rather than a more "biological" or "Cellular" approach for the 
Vorlons.  Further, I was wondering if Vorlon and Shadow technology each 
reflected their beliefs (The Vorlons favor a more "Evolutionary" approach - 
they keep most of the same tech over a long period but refine it to great 
degrees, making it more powerful, while the Shadows seem to appear to favor 
many new and different approachs.. more revolutionary.)

5.) Once in a comment you made reference to "gravimetric drives" on the 
White Star being based on magnetic and gravitic principles - is this 
something that you received from your tech advisors (JPL I think?)

6.) I've noticed that with the demise of Crusade, a large influx of novels 
seems to have started again...  is the B5 universe moving to a print media?  
Or have you considered this?  (By the way, have the Technomage books you 
mentioned Jeanne Cavelos, sorry If I misspelled her name, come out to your 
knowledge?  I really enjoyed book 7, and have been wondering.)

7.)  Just two verification notes, if you could.  In "Final Reckoning", we 
learn Lyta apparently is dead.   Did she die during the telepath war, and if 
so, was Bester involved?  (And do we learn in any way how she dies?)

Secondly, I ran across a note that you had made a interview in a magazine 
called "Dreamwatch" that talked about technomage technology, and had 
mentioned that the Shadows had "loaned" technology to the technomages, and 
if so, was ALL their technology shadow based, or did they have more beyond 
that (IE other technology from other races, or their own tech) and you had 
also mentioned that the reason the technomages left was to avoid repaying 
the debt.  I missed the issue, so I am just wondering if you had mentioned 
those things, and if there is anything you are allowed to add, or any 
summary that i might have neglected mentioning or got wrong.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 18 Dec 1999 14:31:38 -0700
Subject: jerry doyle runs for congress

I'd heard this rumor the other day, and called Jerry to see if it were true or
not.  Well, he called back, and it's true.  He's running for US Congress in the
24th district, state of California (just north of the valley).  

I differ with Jerry on just about every one of his political views, always
have, but I think that his entering the race is great.  And while our views
differ, the thing about Jerry is that he talks straight and you always know
where he stands on an issue, no waffling.  So on that basis alone I think it'd
be great if he won.  I don't have to agree with his positions to respect their
origin, and the forthrightness with which they are expressed.

Go get 'em, Jer.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com





Date: 18 Dec 1999 22:32:24 -0700
Subject: Re: SFX Tries to get one back...

>Then on the back page in the smallest of small type they suggest "a
>course in British Sign language for JMS".

Perhaps while they're recommending classes they could try taking Journalism 101
to learn how real journalists work.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
(all message content (c) 2000 by
synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
to reprint specifically denied to
SFX Magazine)





Date: 19 Dec 1999 17:17:58 -0700
Subject: Re: River Souls Novel.

>The lady who was going to write it supposedly posted to one of these B5
>lists. The author and B5 continuity person (Avery I thinks her name) got
>into a tiff. The author posted her side of the deal, I think on this list??
>So if that was really her, she explained the continuity person wanted to be
>listed as a co-author or something like that. Ended in a pissing match with
>the author dropping the deal and moving on to other projects.
>
>
Not correct.  

The book felt massively padded to me.  For instance, we're into the vault in
the movie within about 3 minutes.  That segment was stretched out to something
like 20 pages or more.  

I went through and made indications were the padding should be cut out...and
after it was all cut, there was only about two-thirds of a book left.  It
needed a b-story or elemen to flesh it out, which Peter and others did with the
novelizations, but wasn't done here.  So I asked Fiona to come up with one,
since I was frantic at the time with production and we didn't get any
indication from Del Rey of a desire to come up with one.  She did so, writing
out a detailed outline that fit and worked well.  There was no money involved,
she did it just to help, and asked only for a small credit somewhere in the
book, along the lines of "additional material supplied by...." 

In any event, the process dragged on, and it didn't seem to work out, and
finally the book was jointly killed.  It's obvious the author tried her best,
but we look for a kind of approach that fits in with the rest of the books, and
this one just didn't work on that level.

If the author is slamming our reference editor, that's unfortunate, because it
was my call on the book from start to finish.  

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
(all message content (c) 2000 by
synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
to reprint specifically denied to
SFX Magazine)





Date: 20 Dec 1999 19:50:16 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS. Kosh and Lorien debate

When Ulkesh said "we are all Kosh," he was simply being metaphorical, not
literal; too many people took that as a literal statement.

And yes, Lorien knew Kosh hisownself.  Long, long ago....

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
(all message content (c) 2000 by
synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
to reprint specifically denied to
SFX Magazine)





Date: 20 Dec 1999 19:57:27 -0700
Subject: Re: 2 Questions about "Sleeping in Light"

>When Shariden was talking to Franklin and said that Delenn was grey
>concil in training if not in fact what did he mean?

That she had been trained as Grey Council, and that even though she was no
longer a member of the Council, hence not a member in fact anymore, that
training was still much in evidence.

>Vir signing something with a Ranger was the Ranger Zack Allen?

It was Zack but he wasn't a Ranger, he was an advisor/counselor to the throne.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
(all message content (c) 2000 by
synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
to reprint specifically denied to
SFX Magazine)





Date: 20 Dec 1999 21:56:57 -0700
Subject: Re: JMS:  Synthetic Worlds?

>I just noticed a new addition to your online signature <g>.  Is Synthetic
>Worlds your company?  Love the name.  Think the copyright will help?
>

Synthetic Worlds, Ltd. is my personal company, which has been around for about
15 years, give or take.  (The credit appears on the original B5 pilot.)

As for the copyright info...I've freely given permission for my material to be
reposted to other groups, but NOT to anyone to put into magazines or books. 
One publisher lately had to redo his entire book because he tried to use my
material without permission.  Courts have ruled that internet postings are the
copyrighted material of the poster...and one can deny permission as much as
allow it.  So that's what I did.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
(all message content (c) 2000 by
synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
to reprint specifically denied to
SFX Magazine)





Date: 22 Dec 1999 01:16:46 -0700
Subject: Re: SFX Tries to get one back...

>they go on to say "SFX is the only SF magazine not afraid to say what it
>thinks"

If that were actually true, then the magazine would consist mainly of blank
pages.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
(all message content (c) 2000 by
synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
to reprint specifically denied to
SFX Magazine)





Date: 30 Dec 1999 17:43:59 -0700
Subject: airdate correction

I was incorrect about the airing of the 48 hours thing for which I was
interviewed; apparently it's going to air Thursday night on CBS, not Friday
night.  Again, I have no idea how much of my interview they did or didn't use,
so I can't guarantee anything, except that I probably said something stupid in
there somewhere.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
(all message content (c) 2000 by
synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
to reprint specifically denied to
SFX Magazine)





Date: 31 Dec 1999 00:02:14 -0700
Subject: Re: B5 VCD, is this authentic??



It's certainly nothing *I've* ever seen before.

>Saw this on Ebay, looks weird, so I don't know if it's authentic
>(although I'm betting no)
>
>So if anyone could check this out and tell me if it's real or fake:
>
>http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=226037261
>


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
(all message content (c) 2000 by
synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
to reprint specifically denied to
SFX Magazine)





Date: 31 Dec 1999 00:08:57 -0700
Subject: Re: Attn JMS: Comments on KODO

>Well, after reading your reccomendation, I put "KODO: Live at Acropolis" on
>my
>Christmas list

>What are my thoughts?
>
>I think it's f*cking awesome, and I don't attach that label to many things.
>In
>fact, my fingertips are now bruised from drumming along with the CD too much.

>Track 5 in particular ("O-Daiko") is mind blowing. 
>

Here's what you have to know about that cut.  Go look at the back cover.  See
that massive drum off to the left, the one twice as big as a person?  Now look
at the front cover.  See the guys standing there with the sticks in front of a
smaller version of that drum?  Those sticks weigh something like 5-10 pounds
each.  They hold those sticks high above their heads to reach the drum, one in
particular who keeps the main beat going, and they keep doing that for the full
length of that track, which is an astonishing accomplishment.  You think he's
going to fall over after a while.

When I heard that, and saw the video, my first thought was, "Ah, well, there's
someone else who knows what it felt like to make B5."

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
(all message content (c) 2000 by
synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
to reprint specifically denied to
SFX Magazine)





Date: 31 Dec 1999 00:03:01 -0700
Subject: Re: airdate correction

I was even more incorrect than I thought; apparently (given a phone call today
from CBS), they thought the piece was important enough to justify pulling it
out and making it a stand-alone piece on its own.  It's going to air twice,
once Sunday morning, once I think Monday (I'll have to check the message
later); the longer version of the two runs about 8 minutes.

More as I get specifics.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
(all message content (c) 2000 by
synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
to reprint specifically denied to
SFX Magazine)





Date: 31 Dec 1999 00:25:01 -0700
Subject: Re: Attn: JMS - B5's impact on ordinary folk

That's really wonderful to hear; please extend my thanks for the kind words.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
(all message content (c) 2000 by
synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
to reprint specifically denied to
SFX Magazine)





Date: 31 Dec 1999 03:06:57 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS  TNT scheduling & contractual obligations

>when we make a deal
>for syndication of a show there are specifics as to when and how often it is
>to be aired.  Is this not the case with TNT? 

Apparently it wasn't done, especially since this is not syndication, but cable.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
(all message content (c) 2000 by
synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
to reprint specifically denied to
SFX Magazine)





Date: 31 Dec 1999 00:17:09 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN: JMS Crusade Jacket quality

>Opened box for Crusade jacket with some forboding because ordering
>clothing online is not something I do easily. Software, okay, but clothing
>is so personal. However, I am VERY impressed with the  quality of material
>(classy), design (simple but elegant), embroidery (tight, bright and
>proportioned) and overall proportions and shape. 

Thanks.  You have to understand that what we did was to make the jackets
*identical in every way* with the ones we gave the cast and crew in workmanship
and quality.  That's why it's kind of a big deal.  It costs a hell of a lot to
get that quality, so there really ain't much profit in it, but if we were going
to do it, I wanted it done right.

>That said, I couldn't help bring back an old but related topic, namely the
>Babylon 5 jackets. 

We're planning those for the spring, again in a limited edition.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
(all message content (c) 2000 by
synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
to reprint specifically denied to
SFX Magazine)





Date: 31 Dec 1999 06:39:16 -0700
Subject: Re: JMS: B5 mag story?

>
>Is this connected to the Amazing Stories work?
>

No, totally separate.  Readers can clip out the entry, choose one of four story
areas, and I'll write a story to fit that category.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
(all message content (c) 2000 by
synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
to reprint specifically denied to
SFX Magazine)





Date: 2 Jan 2000 23:25:59 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Genie online service finally shut down

>I think you were still a member when I left in early 1996, when its
>new owners yanked up the rates, driving off many long-time users. This
>withered the content. Did you stay until the end?

Until they turned off the lights.

>An aside: I recall that you appear regularly in a forum in CompuServe.
>I have heard recently that owner AOL is making changes to CompuServe
>that will make that service far less attractive to content providers
>such as yourself.

If true that would be most unfortunate; it's been a good forum, and the one
I've been on the longest, since something like 1985.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
(all message content (c) 2000 by
synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
to reprint specifically denied to
SFX Magazine)





Date: 2 Jan 2000 23:28:15 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN: JMS - A belated thank-you

>So thank you, for creating something very special.
>

Your words are most kind; thank you for them.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
(all message content (c) 2000 by
synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
to reprint specifically denied to
SFX Magazine)





Date: 5 Jan 2000 21:03:05 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: when is next Centauri Prime book scheduled?

I'm not entirely sure; I have the cover for it in hand, so I suspect it will be
arriving soon in manuscript form.  I'd hazard a guess at late spring.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
(all message content (c) 2000 by
synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
to reprint specifically denied to
SFX Magazine)





Date: 5 Jan 2000 21:05:27 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Rising Stars Trades?

>Since Rising Stars is a maxi-series and not ongoing, will it be
>collected in trade paperback/s in the future? 

Dunno...I've heard rumblings about a graphic novel or suchlike, but haven't had
time to pursue the conversation.

BTW, Issue 4 hits newsstands THIS WEEK.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
(all message content (c) 2000 by
synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
to reprint specifically denied to
SFX Magazine)





Date: 5 Jan 2000 21:08:09 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS:  Thank you.

>Thanks to Babylon 5 I am now majoring in Computer Animation.

That's great; good luck to you, and thanks for the kind words.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
(all message content (c) 2000 by
synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
to reprint specifically denied to
SFX Magazine)





Date: 5 Jan 2000 23:40:00 -0700
Subject: Re: attn jms: writing

>
>Can you tell us a little bit about the way you write your storys?
>
>How do you get your ideas for stories and characters and how do you handle
>them?

I always start with character.  Character gives you plot; if you start with
plot and try to back your way into characater, you can go afoul very easily.

You have to know who your character is, what he wants, how far he will go to
get it, and how far someone else will go to stop him.  Answer those questions
and 90% of the plotting work is done for you.  

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
(all message content (c) 2000 by
synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
to reprint specifically denied to
SFX Magazine)





Date: 6 Jan 2000 17:54:17 -0700
Subject: Re: Attn: JMS ... permission?

>Basically, I'm asking you now if we have your permission to "play" with
>your characters in B5 fanfic?  I just wouldn't feel right doing it if
>you said no.

I can't give permission because WB owns the rights to those characters, not me.
 And I think they would still view it as a form of copyright infringement.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
(all message content (c) 2000 by
synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
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SFX Magazine)





Date: 6 Jan 2000 17:57:57 -0700
Subject: Re: Attn: JMS - The Complete Book of TV Production?

>I was wondering if there are any plans for a companion tome to The Complete 
>Book of Screenwriting that would deal with TV Production.
>

I think it would probably be a less viable book in the marketplace since that's
a more specialized audience, so I don't know if I could make a go of it.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
(all message content (c) 2000 by
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SFX Magazine)





Date: 7 Jan 2000 18:25:40 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Rising Stars Trades?

>> BTW, Issue 4 hits newsstands THIS WEEK.
>>
>>  jms
>Yeah, pull the other leg.  This series would probably be finished sooner if
>it were on TV, rather than at Top Cow.
>

Actually, it IS out this week, and the rest of the schedule is falling into
place as well.  Christian is massively catching up on the scripts in hand.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
(all message content (c) 2000 by
synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
to reprint specifically denied to
SFX Magazine)





Date: 13 Jan 2000 18:23:20 -0700
Subject: Re: Attn JMS: Comments on KODO

>I get to see KODO perform live in LA on January 30th, and I'm just
>jumping up and down inside at the prospect. I've seen them live several
>times, and it just gets better and better each time. I'm doing the happy
>dance right now, you will just have to trust me on this one.

Where are they performing?

jms
 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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Date: 14 Jan 2000 19:28:28 -0700
Subject: Rising Stars 4 is out

Just FYI.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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Date: 14 Jan 2000 19:36:35 -0700
Subject: Repost: fyi, Rising Stars #4 is out

Re-sent, since the prior message seems to have gotten crunched.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
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Date: 14 Jan 2000 20:10:30 -0700
Subject: Third AMAZING STORIES Story

The first one was a Londo story because I really wanted to do something
different and cool with the character, go inside his head and show the
transition to being emperor, let folks know that inside he was still the same
Londo...the second one with Lyta and G'Kar was mainly for fun, to play with
them and see their relationship together out there.

The third, which I just finished and turned in to Amazing Stories, and which
will appear I think around May, was written with one express purpose: to set
the proverbial cat amongst the proverbial pigeons with something that's going
to send a ripple all through B5 fandom; it's a story I don't think anyone ever
expected to see.

Just the first line alone should stun a number of B5 folks

And that's all I'm going to say about it.  But just know...there's a real
toad-strangler coming up in May.

(And Rising Stars 4 is out now.)


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
(all message content (c) 2000 by
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Date: 16 Jan 2000 01:17:20 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: It could have been great

>Any chance we can burn the Galactica 1980 tapes and have a repeat shot at
>the original concept with JMS at the helm?

I'd sooner stick an ice pick in my ear.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
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Date: 16 Jan 2000 01:18:46 -0700
Subject: Re: jms-Amazing Stories?

>When's your third B5 story supposed to appear in Amazing Stories? 

May.  Check my message in another thread about the third story....

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
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Date: 16 Jan 2000 01:19:17 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Future of B5 On Space...

>Have you done as well
>financially as you hoped you might from B5?  I remember you saying that
>you own a piece of the *net* profits from B5.  Has it shown a *net*
>profit yet? 

No, nor will it ever.  That's how Hollywood bookkeeping works.  We know,
because e were told, that when the show was still first airing on PTEN, it was
a mandate that ALL PTEN shows had to show a profit every season in order to be
renewed.  That was a hard and fast rule.  

Each year, we got renewed, because we made a profit for WB.  Once, in a meeting
with the execs after year 3, they complimented us on how much money the show
had made for WB.

Then they turn right around and, for purposes of net participation, pump out
balance sheets that show we'll forever be in the red.

Net means nothing because they can continue to charge anything and everything
against the revenue, and you can never show a profit on paper; it's only if you
own a piece of the gross that actual money appears.

 jms

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Date: 16 Jan 2000 01:19:51 -0700
Subject: Re: JMS: Rising Stars questions

>1) Are you going to do a letter column in the comic?  I'm not too
>familiar with Image/Top Cow's policy.  It appears some comics have a
>letter column and others just have advertisements.
>

We're discussing that now.

>2) I've been searching the posts and haven't seen you state how long the
>series is going to run. 

24 issues.

> Are you really running Flagg's new name
>in front of focus groups?  Do the readers get to write in and help pick
>the new name?

Nope and nope.

 jms

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Date: 16 Jan 2000 01:21:36 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN. JMS:  Rising Stars Comments

>One thing that is probably out of your hands somewhat is the loooonnnng
>time between issues.  

Actually, TC is really getting that part together; 4 came one month after 3,
and we just locked down the pencils and inks on 5, so that's heading toward
hitting the next deadline, or damn close to it.

Five, by the way, is probably the strongest issue of the bunch, and definitely
kicks over the table on the storyline.  

 jms

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Date: 16 Jan 2000 01:25:30 -0700
Subject: Re: Rising Stars #4

Actually, Pyre -- Jerry -- is alive; it's the other firestarter, Lee Jackson,
who's dead.

 jms

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Date: 16 Jan 2000 01:33:21 -0700
Subject: Re: Third AMAZING STORIES Story

> That being the case, does
>WB have story approval? 

Nope.  They don't get into it.

Consequently, don't think I haven't played with the idea of going nuts from
time to time....


 jms

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Date: 16 Jan 2000 01:24:34 -0700
Subject: Re: More comments, and a question

>All my friend wants is an
>honest, balanced representation of her religion, and not one where the only
>person who seems to have any faith in Rising Stars is a zealot. 

1) Not every single so-called religious person is a good person, as Jimmy
Swaggart and his ilk have shown.  I portray that which is appropriate to the
story.  Having done some very even handed stuff on religion on B5, I don't feel
I have anything to prove on this issue.

2) If fairness is an issue with her, may I expect that she will solicit an
honest, balanced representation of atheism from the pulpit of her church
sometime soon?


 jms

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Date: 16 Jan 2000 16:03:47 -0700
Subject: Re: Rising Stars #4

>I think the confusion between the two comes because Pyre hasn't been
>named, to my recollection, in any of the regular issues yet, and there's
>a scene of him fighting Flagg, Jason, in #3 while in the midst of Lee's
>story.  See one guy on fire in the middle of the story of another and
>it's understanable that one might confuse the two.

Yeah, that's correct.  I'd wanted one panel in 3 that helped separate them out,
but it didn't quite come out the way I'd described, but we should clarify that
soon.

 jms

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Date: 25 Jan 2000 21:42:51 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Harlan ?

>I was always surprised that for whatever reasons Harlan never wrote a
>B5 episode.

Except of course that we collaborated on a couple of produced episodes.


 jms

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Date: 29 Jan 2000 00:01:30 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN. JMS - One Question

>How would you characterize network interaction (notes, suggestions,
>requests, demands, etc.) that occurred in Season 1 of Babylon 5 vs. Season 1
>of Crusade?

Our scripts were reviewed at WB by our liaison, Gregg Maday, who from time to
time would call with what was basically a question.  "I'm wondering if we may
need to clarify X for the audience," or "Is there some way to strengthen this
element?"  In each case, the conversation was left with, "I'll leave the
disposition of this to your discretion." 

The thing about Gregg's notes or suggestions were that they were generally
well-considered, thoughtful, and totally aimed at making the story work.  So we
always got along great.  

And by the time season 2 rolled around, we got a couple of notes on the first
couple of episodes, then that was literally that...we were on our own after
that.  He trusted us to do the right thing by the story, and we never violated
that trust.

>I'd have thought that after writing/producing five full seasons of Babylon
>5, any network would have let you alone based upon your recent track record.

Yeah, one would think that...though that's also what Rod Serling thought after
doing Twilight Zone, only to find himself torpedoed amidships creatively during
Night Gallery.

 jms

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Date: 31 Jan 2000 03:36:42 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Dureena in "Path of Sorrows"

>Besides, how does Galen know what buttons to press? Didn't he meet
>Dureena fairly recently? I didn't see them really getting to know so
>much about each other during the show.

If a technomage can know the 6 words to make someone fall in love with you
forever, he can sure as heck know which buttons to push on Dureena.

 jms

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Date: 1 Feb 2000 22:10:32 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS:  Untold Secrets?

>When Babylon 5 was finished, there were many plot threads left hanging -
>some of them major ones.  For example - David Sheridan's fate

That will be covered in one of the Centauri novels being written by Peter
David.

 jms

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Date: 1 Feb 2000 22:11:32 -0700
Subject: Re: JMS: Gil Kane

>Just got the word this afternoon about Mr. Kane's passing on. Heavy
>mourning in progress on rec.arts.comics.misc and rac.dc.universe, by the
>looks of it...

I hadn't heard this until now.  It's a terrible loss.  He was the one person
who could make the Atom *not* a silly character.

 jms

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Date: 1 Feb 2000 22:14:47 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN: JMS - Religion in B5

>But even if you don't
>belong to any church or organized religion, I was wondering if you might
>
>be a Unitarian-Universalist and just didn't realize it...?

The way I see it, if you're going to be a unitarian you may as well be an
atheist and get it over with.

 jms

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Date: 2 Feb 2000 21:32:11 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN: JMS - Religion in B5

>Oh, dear--JMS isn't playing nice again!  :)

Hey, c'mon, I'm pulling my punches here.

>You should've heard what he said at Westercon in '98!  He said he
>wouldn't believe in God until God put up a message in the sky, in huge
>letters, saying "Come here, MF!" (I won't write it out, but you know
>what the term is.)  It didn't go over well with some people, bu it made
>me laugh (me & my irreverent sense of humor!).

Yeah, but I also ended with, "But I'd *still* like to see where that neon
sign's plugged in."


 jms

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Date: 4 Feb 2000 22:23:41 -0700
Subject: Voice in the Wilderness scripts

Just as an FYI, we'll be making the scripts for the two-part episode "A Voice
in the Wilderness" available via www.thestation.com for a limited time.

 
 jms

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Date: 7 Feb 2000 22:25:55 -0700
Subject: rising stars #5 out 2/16

Just to let folks know it's coming out next week.  I think this one's the best
of the bunch so far, and a LOT happens and gets revealed.


 jms

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Date: 7 Feb 2000 22:53:03 -0700
Subject: Re: OT: The Haunting

It's one of my all-time favorite films.

 jms

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Date: 8 Feb 2000 01:45:40 -0700
Subject: Re: rising stars #5 out 2/16

>Is this the way you've structured most of the story: each chapter having 
>more punch and being better than the preceeding one?  Thus each one will 
>be the best of the bunch when published?  Or are there to be peaks and 
>troughs? (I realize any particula issue might span the range, generally 
>from low to high...)

There are always peaks and valleys; the first bunch of Rising Star issues were
really establishing the rules and who some of the characters are; the fact that
the murders are going on, the possible motive, and introducing a bunch of
suspects.

Now all that pipe has been laid, and I can start to really move the arc of the
story forward, do more in present-tense than in flashback.  That's kind of
where the fun really kicks in.

 jms

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Date: 9 Feb 2000 16:59:50 -0700
Subject: Re: OT: The Haunting

>I'd seen it as a teenager, and I was not a fan of horror films, and
>to prove the point it scared the bejeebers out of me. The scariest part of
>'The Haunting' was that the audience never saw the monster. That's what
>kept the intensity of the fear going throughout the movie.

About the only film of that period that's more unsettling is SECONDS, with (of
all people) Rock Hudson.  It's a terrific film, marginally speculative fiction,
but it'll utterly leave you with the heebie-jeebies.

 jms

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Date: 9 Feb 2000 17:00:01 -0700
Subject: Re: Voice in the Wilderness scripts

> The binding had snapped apart in the post and the thing had to be
>treated with kid gloves. I've since heard others have had similar problems.

The binding was done rather than just using brads because we thought it would
make the thing spiffier.  I've copied your message to the manager of the club
and we'll see about making the packaging better.  This is the first time I've
heard of the problem.

 jms

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Date: 9 Feb 2000 23:43:44 -0700
Subject: Re: Voice in the Wilderness scripts

I emailed Val, the current head of the fan club, concerning the few that have
had problems, and this was her reply:

**********8

"Joe

We are meticulous about padding our shipments.  We also replace damaged
bibles to everyone who notifies us of any problems.  This binding is not
cheap, it costs us $1.00 per unit plus labor in addition to duplication.
Unfortunately, if these customers don't make me aware of the problem I can't
rectify it.

I am more than happy to replace damaged items.  I understand that sometimes
despite padding and "Do Not Bend"
stamped all over the package the US Postal Service still sees fit to mishandle
packages.


Val"
 jms

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Date: 10 Feb 2000 22:46:20 -0700
Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: B5 this year on DVD in UK

>I really hope that you will have the chance to work with the people from
>WB and give some input to the project.

So do I.
>Did someone from Warner contact you?

Nope.

>Can you tell us something about what kind of material you want to see on
>a Babylon 5 DVD? 
>My first thoughts was comments from you, lost scenes, bloopers, story
>background and some information about the CGI from FI and ND would be
>great, too.

You just answered that for me.  I'd like to see all that stuff on, plus
commentaries from cast or crew, script pages, storyboards, sketches, all the
stuff that is still find-able, but which may begin to disappear over the years.

 jms

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Date: 10 Feb 2000 22:47:18 -0700
Subject: Re: Crusade on Video?

>Anyone know if Crusade will appear on video in the near future? 

Apparently it's now coming out in the UK on tape.

 jms

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