Re: Does any tv series / book saga / movie saga achieve B5's plot structure?
 

I think that's true of anything, though. You rarely know where a character is going when you start writing, but you figure it out along the way. The timing of the death of Kosh surprised JMS himself, and Marcus, who had been brought in for Season 3 to give us a swashbuckling "face" of the Rangers, conveniently fell into place as the one most likely to use the alien healing device that had been sitting in storage since Season 1.

Writing is synchronicity, serendipity, and just plain luck.

Re: Does any tv series / book saga / movie saga achieve B5's plot structure?
 

i watch lots of anime, and those who say it's badly acted/dull, need to stop watching dubs, expecially those done by for kids. most animes have a well thought out/planned story as they come from manga which isn't in danger of being canceled every year, as it's cheap to produce. the bleach anime is over 200 episodes long, and while it has the odd filler episodes/serieses that is merely to account for the diferences in speed of action against comic (it takes 2 or 3 chapters of manga to fill one 30 minuite anime episode, and their both relesed weekly).
please don't dis anime if you've only seen the dubbed versions

Re: Does any tv series / book saga / movie saga achieve B5's plot structure?
 

I tried to watch Akira and... well I forgot what the other famous anime thing was, ghost something.... they were dubbed but that's not what made me lose interest. Because let's be honest- reading subtitles can be a pain in the ass.

Some genres are just not gonna connect with people...

Re: Does any tv series / book saga / movie saga achieve B5's plot structure?
 

I actually liked "Ghost in the Shell" somewhat. Anime is awfully violent for me, and a bit predictable sometimes. I likely haven't seen the best of it, I admit. But I"ll take "The Seven Samauri" or most any Kurosawa movie any day.

Just my opinion, of course. But the anime I've seen look a lot like video games to me.

Re: Does any tv series / book saga / movie saga achieve B5's plot structure?
 

anime can look like computer games, but that's cause most modern anime is CG and anything that isn't live action will look like a computer game

Re: Does any tv series / book saga / movie saga achieve B5's plot structure?
 

Actually, I wouldn't tend to agree with you there. Disney's "Snow White" or even "Shrek" doesn't look like a video game to me. And I was speaking about the action, actually. Nothing wrong with it, it just was not much to my taste. It did, however, bring up a topic or two that were interesting which is why I didn't say I didn't like it at all.

I admit, that the cop team science fiction story base is one that I think has been terrily overused in sci-fi.

Re: Does any tv series / book saga / movie saga achieve B5's plot structure?
 

I think an example of a show axed before it had a chance to achieve what it wanted is Dark Skies. That was to have a five year structure and had ambitious plans. The future glimpse in Ancient Future always reminded me of the similar visions that cropped up in B5 every now and then. The series bible for DS was recently published online, but was taken down quickly. It seems there was a structure outlined for the whole show. A great shame it was never produced because it's one of my all time favourites.

Re: Does any tv series / book saga / movie saga achieve B5's plot structure?
 

I'd say, arguably, that there are several shows that do. Most obviously, and popularly, is "Lost," which had a conceptual beginning, middle, and end when they started out, and although they are guilty of winging it quite a bit when actors decide to leave or when the network told 'em to stretch it out in the 2nd season, I do think it's comparable to B5. I don't think it's as good, but I think it's in the ballpark.

Others have pointed it out, but I think "Avatar: The Last Airbender" is every bit as epic, heroic, sprawling and noble as B5, and beautifully animated. I love that it's aimed at kids, but doesn't really talk down to 'em. I'd also say the first two seasons of "Justice League Unlimited" were nearly as good. Of course that brings up the point of the DCAU as a whole, which, if we assume it to be one series (Which it isn't) and internally consistent (Which it mostly is) ends up being....well, I dont' want to say it's better because it's nowhere near as focused, but it almost became like one series in its final iteration, you know, where they aggressively incorperated the history of all the shows in to one.

I'd probably mention Stargate SG1, which did it accidentally and simply by virtue of a very long run. It's nowhere near as noble nor as smart, nor as good, but by the end its plot structure was labrynthine.

Re: Does any tv series / book saga / movie saga achieve B5's plot structure?
 

I too love B5 for its commitment to one planned out arc – it allowed for one of the most epic and ambitious stories on television. But I’d also like to add a criticism to that praise. Because of its pre-planned nature, upon re-watching the series there are points where you feel that events aren’t happening organicly, but because the structure of the story needed them to.

The most obvious moments are when a actor left the show and a new character had to be created. Instead of being their own unique person, that charcter inherits the narrative burden of the previous character. For instance, it’s obvious Cahterine Sakai was set up to have the same fate as Sheridan’s wife. As it stands, were are left with foreshadowing in Sakai’s arc to events that eventually DID expire, but with the replacement character instead.

Again, this is only noticeble a second time around, but it is distracting and in some ways a disadvantage of creating a planned out arc: it can feel constructed instead of organic.

Re: Does any tv series / book saga / movie saga achieve B5's plot structure?
 

Ironically I think life itself sometimes works out that way. ;)