• The new B5TV.COM is here. We've replaced our 16 year old software with flashy new XenForo install. Registration is open again. Password resets will work again. More info here.

A new JMS message and hint 4/29

According to the page you linked to the Star Wars films have a 2.35:1 Cinemascope aspect ratio in which "there is usually slight matting in theatres which results in a theatrical aspect ratio closer to 2.40:1." This is the matting you refer to in your post above.

If I remember correctly the LOTR films have a Panavision 2.40:1 aspect ratio. In practice both films have an effective aspect ratio close to 2.40:1 despite having slightly different listed aspect ratios.

Interestingly the LOTR films are often listed as having a 2.35:1 aspect ratio which underlines the interchangeable "aspect" of these ratios.

I as well will take whatever Robert Harris says about this as the final word on the matter but I think that what I have stated above is what he is referring to.
 
In a project of this nature, and this size, there's stage
one (let's do this) stage two (let's make everybody's deal) and stage three
(making it).

Apparently JMS was trying to simplify a very complex process into something easier for the uninitiated to understand. Those of us with formal business training know that stage one is "steal underpants" and stage three is "profit". :)

Regards,

Joe
 
Am I the only cockeyed pessimist on this board? First came "Crusade," then "Legend of the Rangers." All these bleepin' bellyflops are giving me a tummyache, already. I'd like to see one of these projects actually succeed as one whole TV season or one complete TV mini-series or one feature film before I get excited. So I ain't sayin' "Woo hoo" 'til I see the dried ink on the contract. But I certainly won't complain if we *finally* get to see a B5 feature film after all this frelling hint-dropping.
 
What, you mean no one's thought to post this at ISN News?! Sigh. Reverting to a previous incarnation, Kasidy Yates, freighter captain, delivers another topic from B5TV to ISN.
 
I agree - with the point about Rangers and Crusade.

Although I can remember Crusades last ep - and thinking to myself that it was turning into something really good. It was just a shame that TNT made it - I suppose we can speculate all day if it may have survived on another channel so i'll give that one a miss.

Legend of the Rangers - Never really stood a chance.

BUT - B5 - that is a different story. It has a good fan base ( if not spectacular ). People who really love the series ( look at the dvd sales - Being in the UK I only have seasons 1 to 4 but S5 will be purchased on realease ), and a good writer ( step forward mr JMS ). It also has someone who can bring in things under budget.

Warners have always supported the show and there is no reason why they could not support a feature. With the MATRIX now finished they will be looking for the next big thing which B5 could well be.

:LOL:

ps - I'm still smilling!

:D
 
I certainly hope you're right--it's about time B5 became "the next big thing!"

In the meantime, I've done my "Kasidy Yates, freighter captain" impersonation, copying JMS' message and posting it at http://www.isnnews.net/forums Might else well give more of the B5 fans something to cheer about.
 
RS, I can understand your concerns, especially re: TLotRangers. Unlike Crusade, TLotR had no excuses of studio interference, and yet it was worse than Crusade. Some of the things JMS was so proud of beforehand (e.g. the kickboxing weapons console) were some of the worst things about the show. The script (especially dialogue and pacing) was probably the show's single biggest weakness.

I am hoping that JMS learned his lesson from TLotR and delivers the kinds of goods he did in B5 and the first few filmed Crusade episodes, because the franchise needs a hit... it has two strikes already.
 
Yeah, about the only thing that saved Legend of the Rangers was the presence of G'Kar. But this is a feature film - far more is at stake, JMS is bound to turn out one hell of a script, and budget certainly isn't going to be a problem :D
 
Some of the things JMS was so proud of beforehand (e.g. the kickboxing weapons console) were some of the worst things about the show.

In what parallel universe was he "so proud" of this last-minute compromise with the budget gods? He may have tried to put the best face on things by calling it "different" or "original" before the movie aired, but that isn't the same as boasting about it.

Before the film was shot he probably said a few very positive things about the weapons control system that appeared in his script, which did not involve "kick-boxing", which was never part of the original plan. But when it came time to build the thing it became clear that it would bust the budget, and neither Warner Bros. nor Sci-Fi would pony up the extra dough to make it happen. What ended up in the film was what JMS came up with looking around the soundstage, seeing a wire "flying rig" and asking, "Could we do it this way?" only days before the start of shooting.

Rangers suffered a lot more from a studio and network that were not on the same page and Sci-Fi's own indecision about what kind of show it wanted, not to mention a too-small budget and too-rushed schedule (especially the writing schedule) than is generally realized, in part because JMS never talks about it directly. (Before their final break he did much the same with TNT, putting the best possible "spin" on their notes and decisions, because he planned to work with those people in the future and wanted to be able to get along.)

Sci-Fi, unlike TNT, remains a logical contender for future B5 TV projects, and Warner Bros. is obviously the studio that owns the show, so he has good reason to minimize any problems he may have had with either or both - but that doesn't mean there haven't been any, or that Rangers took the shape it did solely because that was his intention. I'm more inclined to cut him some slack on Rangers which, despite its flaws, was a decent pilot (no worse than the first cut of The Gathering from what I've heard, and better than the interminable Voyager pilot which cost 10 times as much, was in development for over a year and had a longer shooting and post production schedule.) The show had some intriguing elements, and I was curious to see what he was going to do with the giant red-herring of "The Hand". I can't believe how many so-called JMS fans fell for this obvious bit of misdirection. ("Another 'ancient race'? How boring!", "More powerful than the Shadows? That doesn't make any sense; this is going to suck") You'd think the people who dismissed Crusade as a live-action version of Starblazers or who said that the plague story was a dead end because it couldn't be carried for five years and we already knew that life on Earth wasn't wiped out would have remembered by the time Rangers rolled around that JMS also knew about Starblazers and that Crusade therefore wasn't about curing the plague and was never intended to be from the beginning. Instead the plague story would lead to the real story, just as Sinclair's missing 24 hours and the Minbari War led into the Shadow War and its aftermath, and "The Hand" would have led into whatever JMS really had planned for a Rangers series. (And the backstory of his own universe. Either we'd find out that the Hand were lying or we'd learn that Lorien, the Vorlons and the Shadows either lied or didn't know as much as everyone assumed they did.)

So frankly, my only worry is the director. Directors tend to be egomaniacs and control-freaks (back me up on this CE :)) and in contemporary Hollywood culture they rule the film set and the editing process to an absurd degree. In TV the producer is king, in movies the director is. JMS is either going to have to direct the film himself (if Warner is willing to risk that kind of money on a first-time film director with exactly one TV credit) or find someone who will make the film he wants to make, and sees the script as he does. This either means finding an established film director who shares his vision or selling WB on giving one of B5's old TV director's a shot at the feature. If I were a betting man, I'd bet on the latter. A Mike Vejar would very much know and accept that B5 is JMS's baby and he'd work to serve the script. Any "name" director would want to make his (or her) movie and would insist on total control and (if possible) final cut. After his TG experience, I'd imagine that JMS either already has or is trying to lock up final cut for himself - and that's going to eliminate a lot of potential directors right there.

Regards,

Joe
 
More or less what Chris Carter went through during the "development" of The X-Files film (and is likely going through again, right now) from what I recall reading -- he ended up receiving "final cut" on the flick...although he certainly possesses (or possessed) substantially more comparative clout in Hollywood than JMS, due to the far-ranging crossover success of X-Files versus that of B5.

Still...Mike Vejar is most folks' personal pick 'round these here parts -- were anyone laying odds on a directorial choice -- for the one person whom *might* be agreeable to both the WB film studio brass and Joe himself (Janet Greek notwithstanding). He's already helmed no fewer than two major B5 pilots (Legend of the Rangers and A Call to Arms), and his work on In the Beginning would be enough of a "test-reel" to convince anyone that he deserves his first chance at a feature.
 
While I'm thinking on this a bit more, it got me to wondering about which -- if any -- crew from the television series might be carrying over to the feature.

Christopher Franke is a virtually certain lock to land the composing gig, we might perhaps see the production and costume designers onboard also, but with of cinematographer? I, for one, can live with someone whom is experienced in painting across a wider, 2.35:1 canvas than what we saw on the series...if they still want to go with, say, John Flinn or someone, I'd have no problem with it, I suppose; but if they're able to score another DP more accustomed to widecscreen composition and able to pull off a totally new "look" for the B5 universe, I won't bitch.
 
RS, I can understand your concerns, especially re: TLotRangers. Unlike Crusade, TLotR had no excuses of studio interference, and yet it was worse than Crusade. Some of the things JMS was so proud of beforehand (e.g. the kickboxing weapons console) were some of the worst things about the show. The script (especially dialogue and pacing) was probably the show's single biggest weakness.

Agreed.


I am hoping that JMS learned his lesson from TLotR

Do you think that it was because he was away from the B5/Crusade universe for so long when he wrote TLotR (TLaDiS)? He was "cold." Back when he wrote Crusade, he was just coming off B5. He went straight into Crusade. He may have been tired, but he hadn't had time to cool down. Now, with B5:TMoS, we've had another long cool down period between the cold level he was at with TLaDiS and B5:TMoS. :( Hope he's got some good science advisors this time, who can at least get basic physics right, and not have obvious errors like he had in Crusade (just off the top on my head):

<ul type="square">[*]"Racing the Night" - Excalibur unable to resist the pull of the enhanced gravity field even with full engine output. Shunting almost all power to the main guns, and not showing either any change in acceleration toward the planet, or not having Matheson say that the gravitational force had reduced (to explain the lack of change in ship motion) before the main guns fired. If you're hanging from a cliff and your rope is slipping, and you then cut the rope, you should fall faster.
[*]"The Path of Sorrows" = If the tube ran at 120 miles per hour for any appreciable amount of time, the ride would have been over before Galen and Matheson finished their conversation. Including acceleration/deceleration times, the longest tube trip on the Excalibur (length of habitable horizontal fuselage plus up one fin all the way out to the forward point of an main gun/engine tip) should be 1.8 miles, or about 70 seconds.
[*]The Needs of Earth" - "Slow by 1/4." (from top speed), and the ships are shown stationary (facing each other, not going in the same direction unless one is moving backwards), but that seems kind of awkward. Why not call an all stop and maintain position? If Starfuries could do it in hyperspace (B5 - "A Distant Star"), why not the Excalibur?
[/list]




...and delivers the kinds of goods he did in B5 and the first few filmed Crusade episodes, because the franchise needs a hit... it has two strikes already.

Hell, if JMS could deliver something at the level of the Crusade episodes, I'd be happy. The Rangers pilot was well below that.
 
The DP will probably be selected by the director. They tend to like to work with folks they're comfortable with. That doesn't mean it can't be John Flinn, BTW. If a B5 TV director gets the nod, he or she could well tap Flinn. And apart from the extra time, money and a slightly wider frame, the process may not be as different as you think. Unless they shoot in the true Panavision process with anamorphic lenses, they may do the theatrical film on Super35, just like they did the series, and compose for both widescreen and eventual standard TV, VHS and airline releases at 4:3 - just like Jim Cameron has done since at least Terminator 2 and Ron Howard since Apollo 13. (The difference, of course, is that with a movie schedule and budget they can do the FX either for both aspect ratios or favor widescreen and pan and scan the shots for 4:3, the way most 1.85:1 and Super35 mm sourced films do it.)

Regards,

Joe
 
In what parallel universe was he "so proud" of this last-minute compromise with the budget gods? He may have tried to put the best face on things by calling it "different" or "original" before the movie aired, but that isn't the same as boasting about it.

That "parallel universe" was the one where he said
PREVUE: What is take it to the next level?

STRACZYNSKI: Part of answering that question would mean giving away what we are going to do in the two-hour movie. How can I put this without giving away too many trade secrets? Traditionally in CGI based space shows you have the stuff inside, which is all live-action, and the stuff outside, which tends to be all CGI. Often, it’s hard to connect the two. It’s hard to personalize the action. When a fight starts, someone says “fire,” and someone pushes a button. The challenge is can we completely rethink that mechanism? How can we completely re-conceptualize what it is to be in battle by doing something that’s never been done before? We came up with a way of doing that. We spent a lot of time working out the technology of it, doing the tests with the camera work, the wire works and other stuff. It’s going to be a whole different kind of a look. I won’t give it away, because there are other shows out there. When you see it, you will say, “of course that’s an obvious thing to do.” But, nobody’s ever done it before. I don’t want it to get into enemy hands too early!
See Prevue magazine's interview while filming. This sounds like a bit of boasting about a long-planned procedure to me... of course, in your parallel universe things may be different.

Before the film was shot he probably said a few very positive things about the weapons control system that appeared in his script, which did not involve "kick-boxing", which was never part of the original plan. But when it came time to build the thing it became clear that it would bust the budget, and neither Warner Bros. nor Sci-Fi would pony up the extra dough to make it happen. What ended up in the film was what JMS came up with looking around the soundstage, seeing a wire "flying rig" and asking, "Could we do it this way?" only days before the start of shooting.
Link, please? Or did JMS tell you this? And have you actually read the script to be so sure what it said?

Rangers suffered a lot more from a studio and network that were not on the same page and Sci-Fi's own indecision about what kind of show it wanted, not to mention a too-small budget and too-rushed schedule (especially the writing schedule) than is generally realized, in part because JMS never talks about it directly. (Before their final break he did much the same with TNT, putting the best possible "spin" on their notes and decisions, because he planned to work with those people in the future and wanted to be able to get along.)
Link, please? Because JMS himself said
Q: When you were working on the sequel series Crusade you had to contend with what you considered meddlesome intervention by cable network TNT. What kind of creative latitude are you getting from SCI FI Channel?

A: So far, a very special latitude. I gave them the outline, which had to be done very quickly because by the time they made up their minds to proceed, we were looking at a possible labor action by the Writers Guild. So I had about four days to write the outline, and then a week-and-a-half to write the script. And then [SCI FI Channel] had about six or seven notes on the outline, and about five or six notes on the script. And they were all reasonable notes; that's par for the course.
in this interview. Now, he may have been "fibbing" but unless I see evidence to that effect I assume he is being honest.

Sci-Fi, unlike TNT, remains a logical contender for future B5 TV projects, and Warner Bros. is obviously the studio that owns the show, so he has good reason to minimize any problems he may have had with either or both - but that doesn't mean there haven't been any, or that Rangers took the shape it did solely because that was his intention. I'm more inclined to cut him some slack on Rangers which, despite its flaws, was a decent pilot (no worse than the first cut of The Gathering from what I've heard, and better than the interminable Voyager pilot which cost 10 times as much, was in development for over a year and had a longer shooting and post production schedule.)

I don't see what Voyager has to do with this, and I am not quite so ready to blame the flaws of TLotR on mysterious "others." I think that JMS's record on writing longer stories is mixed, and I hope he learned from TLotR that he needs to seek more feedback (pretty much everyone but him felt the kickboxing weapons control looked pretty silly the first time and looked even sillier the second). And anyone with any brains reading the script could have pointed out the over-use of the hrase "we live for the one..." It would have been tougher, perhaps, to realize that the story doesn't get going until very late and then is resolved in far too simplistic a fashion, but it is possible to find such people and solicit their feedback (and if time didn't allow this on LotR the the lesson for JMS should be "don't accept such rushed projects."

Bottom line: in my "parallel universe" I call 'em as I see 'em, and I don't make excuses for a guy who doesn't need them. TLaDiS was a feeble effort by JMS (sure, it had possibilities, but so does Gilligan's Island) and he needs to look hard at what went wrong to make sure it doesn't happen again.
 
Wouldn't framing for tv be less of a concern in coming years with HDTV spreading? Are we at the point yet where this is not that big of a concern? I don't think the aspect ratios will be exactly the same put won't the horrors of pan and scan become less of a concern?

If Joe could ask the underpants gnomes I'd be grateful.
 
Before the film was shot he probably said a few very positive things about the weapons control system

He was also doing that on rastb5m after TLaDiS aired.
Review of Liandra's Weapon System


...that appeared in his script, which did not involve "kick-boxing",

How do you know what appeared in his script? Got one on hand?



Rangers suffered a lot more from a studio and network that were not on the same page

More than Crusade ??? No way, not unless JMS is still staying hush-hush about what went on at Skiffy, leading up to the Rangers pilot. Maybe he's just trying to avoid looking like he can't work well with others (TNT on Crusade, Skiffy on B5: TLotR, and MGM on Jeremiah)? :confused:


...and Sci-Fi's own indecision about what kind of show it wanted, not to mention a too-small budget and too-rushed schedule (especially the writing schedule) than is generally realized, in part because JMS never talks about it directly. (Before their final break he did much the same with TNT, putting the best possible "spin" on their notes and decisions, because he planned to work with those people in the future and wanted to be able to get along.)

Then why did JMS say this, a little under three months after TLaDiS aired on Sci-Fi?

From: Subject: Re: SFC management - 04/09/2002 04:54 PM

KoshN (It was my question.): "It looks like TLaDiS suffered from a lack of time to develop a script, a lack of resources (the B5/Crusade CGI files), and lack of time to re-develop the CGI that was lost. They were under time pressure to produce something before it could be affected by the looming strikes."

JMS: "Not true."

JMS: "The script worked fine, the CGI worked fine, the time constraints were not an issue."





Sci-Fi, unlike TNT, remains a logical contender for future B5 TV projects, and Warner Bros. is obviously the studio that owns the show, so he has good reason to minimize any problems he may have had with either or both - but that doesn't mean there haven't been any, or that Rangers took the shape it did solely because that was his intention. I'm more inclined to cut him some slack on Rangers which, despite its flaws, was a decent pilot (no worse than the first cut of The Gathering from what I've heard,

I'm less likely to cut him some slack on TLaDiS, because he wasn't getting Crusade/TNT-Atlanta-level interference from Sci-Fi, or if he was, he hasn't mentioned it. However, I guess you could say TNT-Atlanta knew what kind of show it wanted, "Wrestling Meets Baywatch in Space." :p They just didn't know that JMS wouldn't deliver that kind of show, or they knew it and acted the way they did to scuttle the project on-purpose, because it didn't fit whth their network/audience.



The show had some intriguing elements, and I was curious to see what he was going to do with the giant red-herring of "The Hand". I can't believe how many so-called JMS fans fell for this obvious bit of misdirection.

It was beginning to look like Buffy/Angel, with a newer, badder "big bad" (The Shadows, Thirdspace aliens, The Hand). I can just hear Ivanova making fun of "The Hand" ala "What kind of dopey name is that?<S>"


("Another 'ancient race'? How boring!", "More powerful than the Shadows? That doesn't make any sense; this is going to suck") You'd think the people who dismissed Crusade as a live-action version of Starblazers or who said that the plague story was a dead end because it couldn't be carried for five years and we already knew that life on Earth wasn't wiped out would have remembered by the time Rangers rolled around that JMS also knew about Starblazers and that Crusade therefore wasn't about curing the plague and was never intended to be from the beginning. Instead the plague story would lead to the real story, just as Sinclair's missing 24 hours and the Minbari War led into the Shadow War and its aftermath, and "The Hand" would have led into whatever JMS really had planned for a Rangers series. (And the backstory of his own universe. Either we'd find out that the Hand were lying or we'd learn that Lorien, the Vorlons and the Shadows either lied or didn't know as much as everyone assumed they did.)

Unfortunately, in today's TV environment, where shows get shot down after a few episodes (e.g. Century City, Wonderfalls, Keen Eddie, The Tick, etc.) or one pilot (B5:LotR), they are rarely given enough time to show the audience that they aren't all about the initial idea (e.g. Crusade's cure for the plague). Also, given the Nielsen families' penchant for zero depth/instant gratification/cheap thrills reality shows, it doesn't look like JMS is going to be given enough time for his show to find an audience anymore. That said, I am heartened by the following list of CANCEL vote getters. :devil: :devil: :devil:

Readers remote: keep or cancel?




So frankly, my only worry is the director. Directors tend to be egomaniacs and control-freaks (back me up on this CE :)) and in contemporary Hollywood culture they rule the film set and the editing process to an absurd degree. In TV the producer is king, in movies the director is. JMS is either going to have to direct the film himself (if Warner is willing to risk that kind of money on a first-time film director with exactly one TV credit) or find someone who will make the film he wants to make, and sees the script as he does. This either means finding an established film director who shares his vision or selling WB on giving one of B5's old TV director's a shot at the feature. If I were a betting man, I'd bet on the latter.

Agreed.


A Mike Vejar would very much know and accept that B5 is JMS's baby and he'd work to serve the script.

or Janet Greek, or David Eagle...


Any "name" director would want to make his (or her) movie and would insist on total control and (if possible) final cut.

Sadly true. They also tend to make light of the writer, like the writer is an inconvenience or something. In B5's case, the writer is damn near everything.
 
Grumbler asked:
And have you actually read the script to be so sure what it said?

I have. Can't say I think what he described is really what showed up on screen:

Sarah grabs onto a bar leading into a drop tube, falling into--
INT. GUNNERY POD
--a round, black space that suddenly, LIGHTS UP with the view of surrounding space in a complete 360 display, her seat suspended in the center of it all. Visually, it's a corss between a WW2 flying fortress tail gunner, and the circular readouts on the fighters in the Lost in Space feature.)

It does mention that the system tracks her aiming by eye and that she fires by clenching a fist, but nothing about kicking in any of the scenes.

Jan
 
JMS will have another fear. He sold a film script for $1,000,000 with an option for 2 more. Behind his back they brought in a second writer to totally rewrite the script.

It was for one of his comics, I think it was Raising Stars.

JMS will want to keep control of the Babylon 5 film. Possibly why he is busy hiring everyone.

Note: Has JMS started advertising for support people, like transport, yet?
 
It does mention that the system tracks her aiming by eye and that she fires by clenching a fist, but nothing about kicking in any of the scenes.
So the system portrayed in the movie (3D VR) was the one intended all along? That's kinda what I thought from the way JMS described it. JMS approved of its charactorization as "taking advantage of the close-combat skills of the Rangers" though he didn't quite charactorize it that way himself.

As JMS has said, you have to take risks and do things differently if you want to stay on top. My point is simply that he should have had someone, somewhere with the power and authority to tell him that this idea was terrible.
 
The DP will probably be selected by the director. They tend to like to work with folks they're comfortable with. That doesn't mean it can't be John Flinn, BTW. If a B5 TV director gets the nod, he or she could well tap Flinn. And apart from the extra time, money and a slightly wider frame, the process may not be as different as you think. Unless they shoot in the true Panavision process with anamorphic lenses, they may do the theatrical film on Super35, just like they did the series, and compose for both widescreen and eventual standard TV, VHS and airline releases at 4:3 - just like Jim Cameron has done since at least Terminator 2 and Ron Howard since Apollo 13. (The difference, of course, is that with a movie schedule and budget they can do the FX either for both aspect ratios or favor widescreen and pan and scan the shots for 4:3, the way most 1.85:1 and Super35 mm sourced films do it.)

Regards,

Joe

I agree with you about all of that -- the recompositing, the "Super35" aspect-ratio versatility, and everything else related -- and I certainly won't be the dissenting voice of objection if Flinn does get the job (hell, he certainly earned something after pulling five years' duty on the series). There's something else that might be under consideration by the studio, to boot:

In other words, shooting (literally) for an entirely different look for the movie, and bringing onboard a true, bona fide artiste to lense the picture, which could give the final result that additional dimension of cinematic craftsmanship.

As a f'rinstance, I'm thinking specifically here of Kevin Smith -- whose previous films' looks have been described as "a camera set atop a cardboard box facing some actors" -- managing to land the great Vilmos Zsigmond to shoot Jersey Girl, which (IMO, having seen it) kicked it up several f-stops along the Cinematic Platonic Empyrean of Kevin Smith Flicks.

I'm not certain if Flinn has had past experience in 2:35.1 (as you said, the overall process may not be all that hugely different), and I'm sure he'd do the film proud, given the opportunity...but someone who's worked in 'Scope for virtually their entire career could bring that added something "extra" to the table that might help the film avoid the dreaded "glorified TV episode" label that critics are infamous for appending to their reviews. (Again, not that Flinn's work would ever necessarily get tagged with this moniker, but why not hedge one's bets...)

Such a similar coup could pay substantial dividends in the film's overall reception down the road, and -- on an infinitesmally smaller scale -- give us longtime fen something of a wonderful aesthetic payoff for having waited so many years to see this thing finally made.



Hope he's got some good science advisors this time, who can at least get basic physics right, and not have obvious errors like he had in Crusade (just off the top on my head):

<snippage>

What, like you're somehow going to do BETTER than the NASA space scientists at JPL...?? :LOL:
 

Latest posts

Members online

No members online now.
Back
Top