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652 lines
18 KiB
652 lines
18 KiB
JMS (and coproducer George Johnsen) Usenet messages for July 1998.
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Date: 3 Jul 1998 15:12:16 -0600
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Subject: Why More Producers Aren't Here
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Here's a small slice of life to explain why more producers and cast members
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aren't online.
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I kept getting emails (and public postings) from a fellow going by the handle
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of goodx6 here on AOL (goodx6@aol.com). I have said before that I would rather
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that general plot questions (which these were) would be addressed in the public
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forums, but frankly, these were not questions that I really felt warranted
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answering because much of it had been covered. So I didn't answer, and spent
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that time answering other questions.
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More of the same exact emails continued to come in. I ignored them. The
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person in question then *demanded* that I answer his emails and his public
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messages. I explained that I did not *have* to answer any questions at all,
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and with limited time, tried to put my efforts and energies into questions we
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hadn't already covered. He sent another very harrassing note, and I plinked
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him.
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So today, I found out I couldn't get email (and there were several important B5
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related emails that should have been here). I found that I couldn't receive
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ANY email because I had received nearly 1,000 emails from the same account
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(masquerading under two different names, but sending identical emails) saying
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that I was a queer for not answering goodx6's questions. (The handles were
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jesus4834 and TWare97181.) Obviously goodx6 either asked this person to do
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this, since the conversation was originally carried out in email, or they are
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all the same person.
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The assumption here seems to be that I am *required* to respond to inquiries,
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and that if I don't, I'm entitled to be harrassed.
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This is not the first time this has happened to me. And this will probably not
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be the last. It took me about 20 minutes to clear out my mailbox, deleting
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almost 1,000 harrassing emails by hand, another 10 minutes to send on the info
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to AOL's terms of service...and it shoved out all the online AOL email
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backfiles, some of which I use for reference.
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And this is the kind of thing that after a while makes one more convinced that
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pulling away down the road is exactly the right thing to do.
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jms
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(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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B5 Official Fan Club at:
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http://www.thestation.com
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Date: 7 Jul 1998 13:15:13 -0600
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Subject: Re: ATTN: JMS: in the spinoff...
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My feeling for now is to make the feature, if one gets done, fairly
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self-contained, since I imagine a lot of folks may go who haven't seen the
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show.
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jms
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(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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B5 Official Fan Club at:
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http://www.thestation.com
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Date: 8 Jul 1998 10:08:52 -0600
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Subject: Re: ATT: JMS: A Challenge!
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It would be a question of what the group of rogue telepaths had *done* prior to
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his running into them. If, for instance, they had killed any of his fellow Psi
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Cops, I think (to turn a phrase on its head) the gloves would come off.
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Byron's people weren't a threat to Psi Cops until the very end.
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jms
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(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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B5 Official Fan Club at:
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http://www.thestation.com
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Date: 8 Jul 1998 10:08:57 -0600
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Subject: Re: Attn JMS: A curious new effect of watching B5
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>Has exposure to "Babylon 5" innoculated me against the mass of US TV?
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Maybe...meanwhile, continue to take two episodes and call me in the morning.
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jms
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(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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B5 Official Fan Club at:
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http://www.thestation.com
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Date: 8 Jul 1998 19:11:44 -0600
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Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Thoughts and thanks
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Thank you...as someone will note later this season, the part of me that is
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going will very much miss the part of you all that is staying.
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jms
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(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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B5 Official Fan Club at:
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http://www.thestation.com
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Date: 8 Jul 1998 19:12:30 -0600
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Subject: Re: ATTN: JMS and all other victims of cyberstalking
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Thanks for the information...I'll be using it.
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jms
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(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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B5 Official Fan Club at:
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http://www.thestation.com
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Date: 9 Jul 1998 17:27:50 -0600
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Subject: Re: ANT JMS - how many Vorlons could dance on the head of a pin?
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>How many Vorlons could dance on the head of a pin?
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As many as want to.
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jms
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(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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B5 Official Fan Club at:
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http://www.thestation.com
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Date: 10 Jul 1998 11:24:22 -0600
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Subject: Re: ATTN:JMS my deepest gratitude...
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Thanks, that's great to hear, good luck.
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jms
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(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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B5 Official Fan Club at:
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http://www.thestation.com
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Date: 11 Jul 1998 16:24:01 -0600
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Subject: Re: ATTN: JMS The Kosh figure is hideous!!!!
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I guess opinions vary...I think it looks kind cool.
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Question: did you get the one that actually says Kosh, or the Vorlon Visitor
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figure? If the latter, the color scheme is off because it ain't Kosh. The one
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that says Kosh is pretty close, in my view.
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Got mine the other day, and rather like it.
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jms
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(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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B5 Official Fan Club at:
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http://www.thestation.com
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Date: 12 Jul 1998 03:53:52 -0600
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Subject: Re: White's Guide exclusive figure
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The only figure I know is the one that's out at most any comics store, so I
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don't see how it's exclusive to them (and it looks like the regular one as
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well).
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jms
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(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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B5 Official Fan Club at:
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http://www.thestation.com
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Date: 12 Jul 1998 03:57:28 -0600
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Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Not WS LD's- what happened?
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>Havne't seen any explanation of why you had no pull in this, after
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>saying that you wanted to have WS LD's and DVD's. We all thought your
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>merchandise pull was sufficient that you wouldn't have let these new
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>LD's go without the WS treatment.
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WB is one of those big companies where one branch often doesn't know what the
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other is doing. No one told me about the LDs until I heard about it on the
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nets, because it never occured to anyone to mention it. (I've since mentioned
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it to the folks at Image, so we'll see about the WS stuff.)
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What you have to understand is that the video aspect of the show is not
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considered by contract a part of merchandising. (I know, doesn't make any
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sense, but it's one more way of keeping money out of the hands of the writers
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involved. Same with soundtracks, so I don't get a piece off either of those
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except for the WGA mandated royalty, which is more or less zero.)
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As some note of how far off these things can be, a big full-page ad in Video
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Magazine this month for the VHS tapes mentions that the show is now on TNT,
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instead of **UPN*** (it began on PTEN, which is WB, as opposed to UPN, which is
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Paramount).
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jms
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(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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B5 Official Fan Club at:
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http://www.thestation.com
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Date: 12 Jul 1998 04:00:03 -0600
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Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Not WS LD's- what happened?
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PS...just to be clear, btw, the show *is* available in widescreen *right now*,
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having worked with the WB high-tech boys to produce these versions over the
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last year for HDTV and foreign use. I've seen a couple of the finished
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widescreen versions, and they're gorgeous.
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jms
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(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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B5 Official Fan Club at:
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http://www.thestation.com
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Date: 12 Jul 1998 04:04:13 -0600
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Subject: Re: Did you say...
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>You were going to DragonCon because HE was going to be there? What be
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>your plans as of late on that con? I'm seriously looking into going
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>now....
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Nope, won't be there.
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jms
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(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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B5 Official Fan Club at:
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http://www.thestation.com
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Date: 14 Jul 1998 18:41:05 -0600
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Subject: Re: ATTN JMS:RE: OTHERSYDE
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Thanks, it's a good book. "Demon Night" was a first novel, and therefore kinda
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rough in places. "It's Getting Dark" has yet to be written.
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jms
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(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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B5 Official Fan Club at:
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http://www.thestation.com
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Date: 14 Jul 1998 18:42:42 -0600
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Subject: Re: Way cool promo with JMS
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>And it had the added bonus
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>of actually seeing JMS talk about the movie. Now I have a face to put with
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>the notes.
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Yeah, well, nothing's perfect....
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jms
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(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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B5 Official Fan Club at:
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http://www.thestation.com
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Date: 16 Jul 1998 00:22:19 -0600
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Subject: Re: Thirdspace
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Anybody can follow this movie and enjoy it; whether you've seen the show before
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or not.
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jms
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(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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B5 Official Fan Club at:
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http://www.thestation.com
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Date: 16 Jul 1998 00:23:05 -0600
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Subject: Re: Attn: JMS
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>Do you watch your own shows after they are done? If yes, (and I assume it is
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>yes), have you ever been able to watch the show with fresh eyes?
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I watch the episodes bunches of times; pieces during shooting in dailies, the
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directors cut (twice, once to just watch, again to make my notes), again when
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John and I do our producer's cut/edit, again when we do the audio spotting
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(sound EFX and music), again when we mix the episode, again on VHS to check how
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it sounds on a regular TV stereo, and again when it airs to check the
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transmission. That's 7 times just to start.
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It takes me about a year or two to be able to really *see* the show, to stop
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anticipating each line before I hear it.
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jms
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(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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B5 Official Fan Club at:
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http://www.thestation.com
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Date: 16 Jul 1998 00:25:45 -0600
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Subject: Re: ATT JMS Re: Demon Night
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Thanks...apparently, some dealers are selling the book(s) for a couple hundred
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bucks apiece, which I'm kind of chagrined about, wishing they were better
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books.
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Which is why the next one I write has got to be a good one, because a lot of
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folks will probably pick it up as an act of faith and a compliment to B5, and I
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don't want to disappoint them.
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jms
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(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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B5 Official Fan Club at:
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http://www.thestation.com
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Date: 21 Jul 1998 11:12:17 -0600
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Subject: Re: Thirdspace ( *Spoilers* )
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>Was it just me or did that dream scene with Ivanova and Vir looking at
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>>the
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>>tower and the buildings around it look like something out of one of Wayne
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>>Barlowe's paintings?
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If you check the credits, you'll see that we engaged Wayne's services to help
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us design both the creature, the artifact, and the dark city.
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jms
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(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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B5 Official Fan Club at:
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http://www.thestation.com
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Date: 24 Jul 1998 14:05:22 -0600
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Subject: Re: attnJMS:Gary Cole on Crusade?
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Yes, I can confirm that Gary Cole has signed on to play Captain Matthew Gideon
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of the Starship Excalibur in CRUSADE.
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We're very excited to have him aboard.
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jms
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(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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B5 Official Fan Club at:
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http://www.thestation.com
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Date: 24 Jul 1998 23:51:56 -0600
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Subject: Re: Thirdspace--------Why?
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Okay, you want an answer to this, I got an answer for you.
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Because I felt like it.
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Because I've done five years worth of angst and dark storytelling, and I wanted
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to do one story that was just for fun.
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Because I'm a huge fan of the type of Cthulhu mythos stories done by H. P.
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Lovecraft and August Derleth and Clark Ashton Smith and Lord Dunsany, and all
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my life I wanted to just cut loose and do something like that.
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Because I hadn't done a story like that for B5, and I want to try new things,
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experiment, do a funny story, a spooky story, a high-tech story.
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And because a show needs to be shaken up once in a while.
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A while back, Neil Gaiman pointed out to me that the problem with a certain
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percentage of fandom is that they like your work for what it is, because it's
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different, but then they won't tolerate any variation from what you're doing,
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and what you've done in the past. They condemn it because it isn't exactly
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what they figured they would be getting.
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No, this wasn't a huge part of the arc, which is one of the main complaints (as
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is the case here). So what? Look, not everything that happens to me in my
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life, or you in yours, is part of a specific thematic arc. I came up with the
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idea of a five year arc as a tool to give me MORE flexibility in storytelling,
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to add a new tool to the form...not to find myself being told that if I do
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something outside that very rigid arc that it's meaningless and shouldn't have
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been made.
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It was meant to be a light entertainment set in the B5 universe, nothing more,
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nothing less. That should be the purpose of the movies, to do some hard-arc
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stuff, some lightly related stuff, and some stuff that is totally
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self-contained...heavy stories and light stories, to provide the freedom to
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*play* in the B5 universe.
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And *that's* why I wrote the thing.
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And the ratings were terrific, with each quarter hour improving over the one
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before, and I've gotten more positive email from people who have never watched
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the show before than I have on anything else. Because you don't have to know
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the show to just sit back and enjoy this one.
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Not everything should require that you do a massive amount of homework in order
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to watch it; not everything has to be of the arc; not everything has to be
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about angst.
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I wrote this one just for fun.
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If you don't like it, fine; but to say it should not have been written, that
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somehow it doesn't belong in the arc and therefore in your opinion shouldn't
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exist, ain't your call to make, frankly, and just slaps on more limitations.
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This is why there is so little divergence in the Star Trek shows; the studio
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has learned that it has to more and more narrowly define what constitutes a
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Star Trek story...and in time it becomes so narrow that you can't do much of
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anything new in it.
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What the hell is the point of HAVING your own show if you can't from time to
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time go out and just do a story that's completely off-base, just for fun, just
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for yourself? If nobody watches it, then you've got a problem...but in fact
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this came out to be the 5th highest rated cable movie of the week, so by gosh a
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lot of other people liked it as well.
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I'm not defending the movie because there is nothing to defend. It succeeded
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for me, creatively, and it succeeded for TNT in the ratings, we got to test out
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some new tech and CGI, and I got to fulfill a years-long desire to play with a
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kind of Old Ones/Lovecraftian story.
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Deal with it.
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Maybe *you* want to so narrowly define the B5 universe that something like this
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could not be done...but *I* have no interest in doing that.
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The moment you lose the ability to change the format and play and tip-over the
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whole thing, and do totally arbitrary things because they please you...you may
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as well find yourself a comely shroud, because creatively you're dead.
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jms
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(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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B5 Official Fan Club at:
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http://www.thestation.com
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Date: 26 Jul 1998 04:20:48 -0600
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Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Who Was Jack The Ripper Really???
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Who was the one person whose wife actually wrote a letter to the London Times
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suggesting that the ripper maybe was trying to tell them something, and that
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maybe he'd stop if they listened? Who was the last person to see at least two
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of the victims alive on missions of mercy to the jail? Who was reported to
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have become unhinged by the filth in the area around the murders when he found
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a rat in his breakfast? Who had medical experience? Who left England suddenly
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after being questioned, with the murders stopping soon afterward? Whose
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transcripts of interviews with church officials and British police are *still*
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kept under lock and key? Who is the sort of person who might say -- as the only
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witness to hear the ripper reported hearing him remark to one of his victims --
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"You would do anything but pray?" Who had the same last name -- and was a
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likely relative -- of the man living with the very last victim, the only one
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killed in her room (suggesting she knew the killer)?
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The Reverend Samuel Barnett. That's my choice.
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jms
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(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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B5 Official Fan Club at:
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http://www.thestation.com
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Date: 26 Jul 1998 15:19:19 -0600
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Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: From UK: Final 5 - are they finished?
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Yes, the episodes are finished, and in the can; have been for some time. I
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suspect, given the time frame here, that WB felt they should wait until the
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final 5 are shown here for them to be shown overseas.
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jms
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(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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B5 Official Fan Club at:
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http://www.thestation.com
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Date: 29 Jul 1998 16:12:59 -0600
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Subject: Re: Cable Ace Awards?
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>I was wondering when the cable ace awards are during the year. It
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>seems like a place ripe for B5 to pick up a few awards.
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Absolutely.
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Unfortunately, they just canceled the awards to fold cable into the regular
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Emmys.
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This is typical of our luck.
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jms
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(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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B5 Official Fan Club at:
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http://www.thestation.com
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Date: 29 Jul 1998 16:14:27 -0600
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Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: B5 Making of?
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>When B5 will show its final episode, it would be great to see a really big
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>"B5-Making of" with behind the scenes-scenes, bluper (blooper?) reels and so
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>on. I think that would be great for the fans.
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I'll mention it.
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>A week ago, "DF1", the german digital Pay-TV showed the whole 4th season at
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>once (!!!) Yes, really! No kidding! no breaks, one episode after the other
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>(I guess 18 or 22 hours.)
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Holy smokes...I wonder what the reaction was for folks seeing it that way.
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jms
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(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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B5 Official Fan Club at:
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http://www.thestation.com
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Date: 29 Jul 1998 16:42:54 -0600
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Subject: Re: Attn JMS: Mind wanderings
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I dunno...I don't like to spend a lot of time poking around in my subconscious
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on these issues; there's albino alligators living down there, y'know.
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jms
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(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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B5 Official Fan Club at:
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http://www.thestation.com
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Date: 30 Jul 1998 17:35:36 -0600
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Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Interesting B5 Experience
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>I did some editing and found that I
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>could fit a season on two T-160 cassettes (in the EP mode) if I only had one
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>open/close credit per tape and cut all commercials.
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>
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>What I discovered is this, Babylon 5 really is incredible when viewed this
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>way, it's like a 7h 35m movie!
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Exactly. That was the challenge, to make it work on an episodic basis, but
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then run together.
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This particularly works in S5 starting from about "Meditations" right through
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"Sleeping in Light." Just play it straight through, and it's one long episode.
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jms
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(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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B5 Official Fan Club at:
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http://www.thestation.com
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Date: 30 Jul 1998 23:43:32 -0600
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Subject: Re: jms-B5 Comic Collection?
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Yes, they may collect other issues in future.
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jms
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(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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B5 Official Fan Club at:
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http://www.thestation.com
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Date: 31 Jul 1998 17:17:23 -0600
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Subject: Re: Attn JMS: Bravo on acquiring Cole! A few questions, though...
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>So - when will the series start? Have you any episodes written / or even
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>started filming? Cole is to be the captain of what? A white star? A
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>Terran Starship? I'm anxious to start on this new adventure!
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Begins airing January 6th; 6 episodes are now written; we start filming Monday;
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and Cole's character is captain of the Excalibur, a prototype destroyer
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combining human, Minbari and Vorlon tech.
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jms
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(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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B5 Official Fan Club at:
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http://www.thestation.com
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