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369 lines
21 KiB
369 lines
21 KiB
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[1][ISMAP]-[2][Home]
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### GUIDE ### [3][Background] [4][Synopsis] [5][Credits] [6][Episode
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List] [7][Previous] [8][Next]
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_Contents:_ [9]Overview - [10]Backplot - [11]Questions - [12]Analysis
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- [13]Notes - [14]JMS
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_________________________________________________________________
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Overview
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Seismic activity on the planet near the station uncovers what may
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be signs of an extinct alien civilization. An old mentor pays a
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visit to Ambassador Delenn. The unrest on the Mars Colony
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intensifies. [15]Louis Turenne as Draal. [16]Curt Lowens as Varn.
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Sub-genre: Suspense/mystery
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[17]P5 Rating: [18]8.50
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Production number: 120
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Original air date: July 27, 1994
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Written by J. Michael Straczynski
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Directed by Janet Greek
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_________________________________________________________________
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Backplot
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* Before Sinclair asked him to be security chief on Babylon 5,
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Garibaldi was working for the security division on Mars Colony,
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where he fell in love with a woman named Lise Hampton. Their
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relationship was rocky ("I was pretty messed up") and ended when
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he accepted the B5 assignment.
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* The Psi Corps has a secret training facility very close to one of
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the Mars Colony cities.
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* There is growing lack of purpose and dissatisfaction among the
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ordinary citizens on Minbar.
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* One of Londo's wives was a dancer at a club, who comforted him
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when he was depressed. He married her that night, and regretted it
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the next morning and ever since.
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* The planet the station is orbiting is called Epsilon 3.
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Unanswered Questions
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* What came through the jumpgate?
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* What is the function of all the machinery buried beneath the
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planet's surface?
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* Why was the alien connected to the machines, apparently against
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his will?
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* How was he able to project himself to Sinclair and Londo on the
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station?
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* Was the defense system designed to prevent someone from finding
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the machinery, or to stop someone from rescuing the alien?
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Analysis
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* The alien might well be native to Epsilon 3, since he was able to
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breathe the atmosphere once he was disconnected from the
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machinery. In the shuttle, Ivanova can be seen fitting him with a
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breather unit, presumably since the shuttle's air is Earth-style.
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Perhaps the proximity of Babylon 5 to Epsilon 3 is not a simple
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coincidence.
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* A possible inconsistency: if the missiles were being fired from
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within the fissure, how could Sinclair and Ivanova safely enter
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it? All their cover fire was high in the atmosphere; the missiles
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could have hit them before they had time to react once they were
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underground. Of course, it's possible the missiles are only useful
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above a certain altitude (true of some present-day surface-to-air
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missiles,) but in that case, why wasn't the fissure protected by
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short-range weaponry?
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Notes
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* The scene with Ivanova and Sinclair crossing the tunnel bears
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similarity to a scene from the 1956 film Forbidden Planet. (See
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[19]jms speaks)
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jms speaks
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* We're halfway through filming the two-parter, "A Voice in the
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Wilderness," which is coming along nicely. From a CGI and sets
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point of view, this is the largest and most ambitious thing we've
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shot yet, with ore of each category than in any other episode.
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* In the two-parter, btw, [Christopher Franke] went absolutely
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full-out and gave us some of the best scoring of the
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season...gorgeous stuff, second only to either "Sky" or
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"Chrysalis."
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* ...Delenn has quite a few moments when she's laughing, and funny,
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but always in a dignified fashion; it's a strange but very
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appealing combination. (And there's one scene she's in that is
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played *absolutely* straight, but is fall-down funny.)
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* It was always intended to be a two-parter, and was written that
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way. Background: the B5 2-hour pilot has done VERY well overseas
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in cassette form. Many of the prejudices in the american press
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that caused us problems don't exist overseas (it's done
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*extremely* well in Japan on laserdisk, in Germany, and England,
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among others). So they asked if we could do a two-parter that
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could be sold as a two-hour episode overseas. By all means, sez I.
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So I structured it accordingly.
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Bit of B5 trivia: during the dead of winter last year, I got hit
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by the flu as badly as I've ever been hit. Temperature so high
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that I was near delerious at times, but refused to go to the
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hospital (I don't like doctors, and I was under deadline and
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couldn't afford the potential time away.) We're talking mondo
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sicko here. It was during this time that I wrote "The Quality of
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Mercy," a script which I have *no* memory of ever writing. I know
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it's here, and I know I wrote it on an intellectual level, but the
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process...gone in the fever.
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It was also around this time -- either at the top or bottom of the
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flu, I can't remember now -- that I wrote the "Voice" two parter.
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And here's the trivia part...this isn't the original two-parter
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that I wrote. My brain already deteriorating, I wrote something
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that even I could see wasn't up to par. Wrote the entire two-hour
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script. Printed it up, and gave it to Doug and John. Before they
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could even respond, I looked at it and decided it had to go. So I
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trashed the entire script. By now we were getting very close to
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pre-production, and I was getting sicker and sicker...but I more
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or less locked myself in my office, swallowed down massive amounts
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of vitamins (as much as my stomach could handle), kept forcing
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down coffee, and wrote 12 hours a day for about six days, after
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which the original draft was finished. Turned it in; did some mild
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polishes thereafter, but what was filmed was essentially what I
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turned in in first-draft stage. In this case I do remember some of
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the process because the only way I could focus was to keep the
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stereo up full blast; in the writing of "Quality," it didn't
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help...I was beyond recall.
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* I tried to develop a basic language structure for each of the
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races on B5. There are certain commonalities to the structure of
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names. I came up with some prefixes and suffixes, and assigned
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meanings to them, the same as real names. For instance, Rathenn
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(referred to by Delenn in "Voices") and Delenn have the same
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suffix, which has a specific meaning. You can break it down;
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Ner-oon (Legacies), Del-enn, Rath-enn, Der-onn, and so forth. The
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various parts do have specific meanings, but I generally keep that
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to myself, just for amusement.
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* I try not to hype shows that I like unless I know beyond a doubt
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that it's absolutely kick-ass. I like "Voice" a lot; it is the
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point at which we really start cranking, speeding things up as we
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barrel toward "Chrysalis." I think the CGi is nothing less than
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terrific, Christopher Franke went balls-to-the-wall and did an
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*amazing* job with the music, the performances are good. I like it
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a lot. I haven't commented upon it a lot because it's kind of the
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weird child in the brood; when I write, I generally write tight
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and fast. By the third act, you're *moving*. In this case, you
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have to pace yourself out *very* differently, so part of my brain
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keeps doing this "c'mon, speed it up, speed it up" when I'm
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watching the first part because I'm used to a different one-hour
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kind of pacing.
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Kathryn says I'm nuts. But then this is nothing new.
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Anyway, I do think it's pretty cool, and does a lot with virtual
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sets and composite sets.
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* Re: the elevator/transport tube gag...yes, we set this stuff up
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WAY in advance. The first time is in the tube where he tells Talia
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about his second favorite thing in the universe. The second time
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is in "Mind War" when he gives her the mental once-over and she
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belts him. And then we paid it off later with her line about him
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always being there.
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One nice thing about the way we're doing this show is that we
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don't just have to set up gags within an episode; we can set them
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up *weeks* ahead of time, as long as the payoff is self-contained,
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but then when you see the earlier shows, now you get more out of
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it.
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* A First Contact situation is one unlike any other: you don't want
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junior officers around to screw it up. Remember, the Earth/Minbari
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War began when a First Contact situation got screwed up. EA's
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policy is that it's better to risk two people than a full war, and
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those two people have got to be command-level personnel. Soldiers
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get killed; it happens. And yeah, you can leave a backup person at
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the shuttle ...but what if *he's* the one to make actual first
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contact? You're screwed. Ivanova and Sinclairhave been trained in
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this; in "Soul Hunter," Sinclair makes reference to the rules of
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First Contact Protocol. If you like, I'll elaborate on this in
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some future episode.
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* Re: the commander and Ivanova going...remember, this is a First
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Contact situation, and that requires the presence of at minimum
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one command officer under EA regs. Two is preferred. You don't
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want junior officers hanging around or taking hostile stances
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which might provoke a fight. Remember that the last major First
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Contact situation was with the Minbari, which went afoul and gave
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us the Earth/Minbari War. EA would rather lose two replaceable
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officers than start another war via misunderstanding or a fouled
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move. This is a part of their First Contact Protocol, referenced
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in "Soul Hunter." (I should probably expandupon this a bit in
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future episodes.)
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* RE: the big bridge shot...the storyboard artist came up with 3
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shots we could use. One of them was a wide shot across a
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crystalline ground like area, through which a path can be seen at
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ground level, but it was narrow and still really didn't convey the
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scale of what I wanted. One other was not much different. The
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third was a downshot designed to pull back, and though I knew it
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would make folks say "Krell!", I knew that it was the right shot
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for that scene, so chose that one and decided to live with it.
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* It's real simple. Ron Thornton showed me three variations on the
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Great Machine shot. Because you're looking at a composite shot,
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you have to shoot either sharply angled down, or dead across, and
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full-figured, since you have to put them into another piece. That
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meant either a horizontal shot, or a 3/4's vertical shot.
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Two of the shots on the storyboards were horizontal; one showed
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our characters way off in the distance on a ribboned path lined by
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crystals. It'd be pretty, but it looked like another tunnel shot,
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and I wanted to show something that wasn't claustrophobic. Also,
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we'd be limited in the camera move, and our characters would look
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kinda like peanuts. Not terribly dramatic. The second shot just
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didn't work for me, I don't entirely recall the reason now. The
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third possibility seemed the most dramatic...it was a high angle
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shot, it had depth, it would let us start on our characters and do
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a camera move/pullback in post production, it worked on every
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level.
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My second thought was, "Shit, somebody's going to gig us on the
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Forbidden Planet thing." Nonetheless, it was the right shot, for
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the right reasons, and we chose to go with it.
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* How does one come up with stuff like Londo's song? Easy, really;
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you start by putting yourself in the position of an alien trying
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to understand us. And if you step back for a second, we do some
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*very* weird stuff. What he says about the song is exactly right
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in terms of its meaning.
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* Yeah...I love Londo's song, that whole scene. The director wanted
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to cut Ivanova's coda after her mantra, but I really felt we
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needed it, and it played perfectly with her Russian character,
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which tends to have this unusual relationship with higher forces
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(he said vaguely). I love character based humor, because it's very
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powerful once you know the characters, and it can really
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blind-side you if done right. Ivanova's reaction in the core area
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was about as real as would probably happen, but it's funny to hear
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her *say* it.
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* Londo and Garibaldi really are two sides of the same coin, in some
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ways. There's an odd friendship there, almost grudging; Londo had
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little to gain by cheering up Garibaldi, except a drink perhaps,
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but that's what friends do.
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* I love monologues. They are a legitimate part of any drama. The
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MTV generation has had its tastes so thoroughly bastardized by
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quick cuts, lowering the attention span further and further, that
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any bite of more than ten seconds and they start to wander, it
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becomes a block of words and they blur out.
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Go rent Network by Paddy Chayefsky, watch nearly any of the TZs by
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Rod Serling, go see "The Lady's Not for Burning" by Christopher
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Fry...all chockablock with moments where you park for a moment and
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let fly with a chunk of dialogue that smashes your head against
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the wall. Not every single exchange has to be foreshortened so
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that you lose the *impact* of what's being said. Because people's
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attention spans have been greatly foreshortened, suddenly more
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than 3 lines at a time is somehow viewed as wrong. It ain't. Just
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that lots of folks are afraid to try it, afraid to rely on just
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the words and the actors. And sometimes it works, and sometimes it
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doesn't. But it's legitimate.
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The monologue in particular, done right, isn't just to convey
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information, it's to create a mood, to paint pictures with words,
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to expand on the obvious. Yeah, I could've just written, "The
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narns hate us, we hate them, it's equal math." But that doesn't
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carry the same meaning, the same sense as "so here we
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are...victims of mathematics." The use of the word "victim"
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connotes, hey, it's not my fault. Yeah, the former is shorter, but
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you lose the rhythms, the imagery, and the *sense* of what is
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intended. You could say, "The narn hate us." But to say, "if the
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narns gathered together in one place, and hated, all at the same
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time, that hatred would fly across dozens of light years and
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reduce Centauri Prime to a ball of ash," draws a picture, lends
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power to the emotion.
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Point being...I like 'em, there's nothing wrong with them, and
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they're staying.
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* Re: your suspenders of disbelief becoming unhitched....
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You will learn how the alien knows English in the next part of the
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two parter. (Hint: after all, he's been there for a long while, in
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a high-tech machine...you'd think maybe he could monitor
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transmissions.)
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I don't think the Sinclair or Ivanova did automatically believe
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him; but they also had no real reason *not* to believe him. And
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granted the place was going to hell, quakes and danger. He wasn't
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armed, he seems rather sick, had to be helped away, almost
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carried...they won't turn the station over to him, they'll keep
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him isolated on the station, but there was no reason *not* to try
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and help him.
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How do you know he's a good guy? You don't. But he wasn't exactly
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imprisoned in that thing; it was a support, more than anything
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else, a was shown by the fact that they were able to get him out
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fairly easily.
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(And yes, your first guess was correct, it is a life support
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gizmo.)
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Regards to your suspenders.
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* Once removed from his place, Varn was able to lead them back to
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their shuttle. It's not terribly dramatic, and I figured that was
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a fairly logical leap, so didn't feel the need to put in a scene
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which would just consist of Varn saying, "Left....now right...."
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* Ivanova's line: "We don't know if we can find our way back or
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not," not that it was closed off. So showing them wandering around
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to find another open tunnel seemed not dramatically interesting;
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you have to pick what's important and what's not, and what will
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work dramaticall on screen. If she had said "there's no other way
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out," then you would've had to show it. She didn't. One can also
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argue that the alien showed them which way to get out. Either
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way...all you've got is one hour to tell your story. You can't
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show everything, you have to let your audience assume some things.
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Roy: there is a quantum difference between a computer game and a
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TV show. It's not "lowest common denominator," which means making
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the story stupid; I'm saying that if you showed the missiles at
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full speed, YOU WOULD NOT SEE THEM AT ALL. And, again, there's
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nothing nearby with which to get a sense of how fast they're
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going, no landmarks, so it's very hard to convey that. Again, look
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at space footage; the shuttle is going *incredibly* fast...but as
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far as we can tell it looks nearly motionless, because there are
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no landmarks.
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Re: not explaining WHY the Starfuries can't enter the atmosphere,
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we did that. Ivanova says that they're not built to function
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within an atmosphere. Now, I could stop the scene for a long
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dissertation on the relative aerodynamics of planes with wings vs.
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starfuries, but here you say only what you have to. You show,
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don't tell.
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It seems like in the same breath, it's accused of catering to the
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lowest-common denominator, and being over the head of its viewers
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by requiring them to *think* about what they're seeing.
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Which means we're probably doing it right.
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* It seems to me that every generation thinks that things are
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changing, usually for the worse. In some cases, they may be right.
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The B5 story is set at a point in time where things are very much
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in a state of flux. Every so often, the wheel turns. Everybody's
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feeling a sense of growing uncertainty, of the chairs being moved
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around. They're right.
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* Actually, this was not the first B5 or Sinclair had heard about
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the escalating problem on Mars; remember, that was the main reason
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that Ben Zayn had been sent to B5 in "Eyes," smoking out
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sympathisers with the Free Mars movement.
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* The Mars Colony situation will be raising its ugly head on and off
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again for quite some time to come.
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Also, the fissure wasn't created by the quakes; Tasaki mentions it
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was artificial, but nudged open by the tremors.
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* No, a shuttle like this, which is designed to function in
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alternate atmospheres, and may have to evacuate groups, has about
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7 standard or most common atmosphere cannisters. Medlab has the
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same thing, but in larger numbers. This is SOP on the show.
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* No, the sets weren't redresses of regular sets; they were built
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new and entirely for the two-parter; you can get a better look at
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them in the second part, and some angles of the first.
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[25][Next]
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[26]Last update: October 30, 1996
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References
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1. file://localhost/cgi-bin/imagemap/titlebar
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2. LYNXIMGMAP:file://localhost/lurk/maps/maps.html#titlebar
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3. file://localhost/home/woodstock/hyperion/docs/lurk/background/018.shtml
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4. file://localhost/home/woodstock/hyperion/docs/lurk/synops/018.html
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5. file://localhost/home/woodstock/hyperion/docs/lurk/credits/018.html
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6. file://localhost/home/woodstock/hyperion/docs/lurk/episodes.php
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7. file://localhost/home/woodstock/hyperion/docs/lurk/guide/017.html
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8. file://localhost/home/woodstock/hyperion/docs/lurk/guide/019.html
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9. file://localhost/home/woodstock/hyperion/docs/lurk/guide/018.html#OV
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10. file://localhost/home/woodstock/hyperion/docs/lurk/guide/018.html#BP
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11. file://localhost/home/woodstock/hyperion/docs/lurk/guide/018.html#UQ
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12. file://localhost/home/woodstock/hyperion/docs/lurk/guide/018.html#AN
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13. file://localhost/home/woodstock/hyperion/docs/lurk/guide/018.html#NO
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14. file://localhost/home/woodstock/hyperion/docs/lurk/guide/018.html#JS
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15. http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Turenne,+Louis
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16. http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Lowens,+Curt
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17. file://localhost/lurk/p5/intro.html
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18. file://localhost/lurk/p5/018
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19. file://localhost/home/woodstock/hyperion/docs/lurk/guide/018.html#JS:FP
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20. file://localhost/lurk/lurker.html
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21. file://localhost/home/woodstock/hyperion/docs/lurk/guide/018.html#TOP
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22. file://localhost/cgi-bin/uncgi/lgmail
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23. file://localhost/home/woodstock/hyperion/docs/lurk/episodes.php
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24. file://localhost/home/woodstock/hyperion/docs/lurk/guide/017.html
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25. file://localhost/home/woodstock/hyperion/docs/lurk/guide/019.html
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26. file://localhost/lurk/lastmod.html
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