rangerPHIL
Beyond the rim
Well, speaking for myself....too late. Way too late.
(they're coming to take me away, ha-ha. They're coming to take me away, ho-ho-hee-hee-ha-ha...)
Jan
I'll be in the next padded cell.......
-
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A Call to Arms: Fighting for the original cast
- Thread starter Joseph DeMartino
- Start date
I'll be in the next padded cell.......
B5_Obsessed
Regular
Re: A Call to Arms: Fighting for the original cas
Ick, a soul patch. Those are only appropriate for latte swilling Seattle slackers.
And Joe: Of course it's ridiculous to speculate on TMOS based on facial hair, but prolonged boredom will do that to a man. The post was somewhat tongue in hairy cheek.
Ick, a soul patch. Those are only appropriate for latte swilling Seattle slackers.
And Joe: Of course it's ridiculous to speculate on TMOS based on facial hair, but prolonged boredom will do that to a man. The post was somewhat tongue in hairy cheek.
Re: A Call to Arms: Fighting for the original cas
why bother in sending letters etc to get the original cast back, after all the same thing was done not to get crusade cancelled, and to what effect. also we were told back then that the big companies never listen to these types of protest. There is far more to this than just recasting. Because it makes no sense to recast. firstly the x files and star trek did it without changes. secondly, the fans of the show would be pissed off , and thirdly, if they want big names then they would be in new roles. it's politics!
why bother in sending letters etc to get the original cast back, after all the same thing was done not to get crusade cancelled, and to what effect. also we were told back then that the big companies never listen to these types of protest. There is far more to this than just recasting. Because it makes no sense to recast. firstly the x files and star trek did it without changes. secondly, the fans of the show would be pissed off , and thirdly, if they want big names then they would be in new roles. it's politics!
Jan
Regular
Re: A Call to Arms: Fighting for the original cas
Crusade was cancelled because TNT wanted out of the contract and was willing to use dishonorable means to do it. If you actually want to know what happened, go to JMSNews.com and do some research.
Again, not true, though I keep hearing that. One post of JMS's said that letter writing campaigns "...have kind of been devalued with the studios over the years...". That doesn't mean that they have no value. Where once, one letter may have counted as being the opinion of a hundred people, if it's now counted as being the opinion of 50 people does that make it worthless?
Sorry, nothing in your post even begins to add up to it making sense to do nothing. I, at least, intend to voice my desires and opinions as long as there's the slightest possibility it can do any good. You, of course, are welcome to remain as helpless and hopeless as you like.
Jan
Crusade was cancelled because TNT wanted out of the contract and was willing to use dishonorable means to do it. If you actually want to know what happened, go to JMSNews.com and do some research.
Again, not true, though I keep hearing that. One post of JMS's said that letter writing campaigns "...have kind of been devalued with the studios over the years...". That doesn't mean that they have no value. Where once, one letter may have counted as being the opinion of a hundred people, if it's now counted as being the opinion of 50 people does that make it worthless?
Sorry, nothing in your post even begins to add up to it making sense to do nothing. I, at least, intend to voice my desires and opinions as long as there's the slightest possibility it can do any good. You, of course, are welcome to remain as helpless and hopeless as you like.
Jan
Sindatur
Regular
Re: A Call to Arms: Fighting for the original cas
HEHE, wouldn't it be funny (well, kind of) to discover a naysayer going from site to site, with their "Why Bother..." turned out to be a studio exec trying to derail the campaign because they're already feeling the pressure of it?
HEHE, wouldn't it be funny (well, kind of) to discover a naysayer going from site to site, with their "Why Bother..." turned out to be a studio exec trying to derail the campaign because they're already feeling the pressure of it?
KoshN
Super Moderator
Re: A Call to Arms: Fighting for the original cas
Apples and oranges. Crusade was a TV show. B5:TMoS is a feature film.
With respect to a TV show, the customer is not the TV viewer. The customers are the advertisers.
With respect to a feature film, we, the ticket buyers, are the customers. Companies pay attention to what the customer wants. If they don't, the customer can directly hurt them where it really matters to them, in their wallet.
Snail mail letters show them what the customers want.
So, you're expecting people in the entertainment business to act rationally? I think that was one of the things JMS wished for when somebody asked, that people in the business would act rationally (or logically). Can't find the quote at the moment.
X-Files was on broadcast TV, won some mainstream awards, and got adopted by the mainstream fans. Trek, in one form or another, had been around practically forever and had generations of fans. It was virtually Paramount's license to print money. On the other hand, B5 had been on in syndication for four years (on at different times and on different stations all across the country.), and then was on cable for one year, with reruns on two cable channels, TNT and Sci-Fi.
I think these people who want to recast, want to do it as a matter of policy, because they view the B5 actors as being too obscure for the feature film to make enough money with them in it. They don't realize or do not care how closely the B5 cast is tied to the B5 story.
They probably think that there are not enough of us to matter, to affect their wallets much. This is where snail mail letters really count. One snail mail letter reflects more than just one fan. There are probably 10 to 100 fans per letter, who will or will not buy a movie ticket based upon how this recasting thing goes. Just try to get somebody to compose and actually go out and mail a snail mail letter. It's like you're asking to ritually sacrifice their firstborn in the backyard or something. The resistance to doing ANYTHING is absolutely astounding! Instead of writing in to support something they supposedly love, lots of fans will spent 100 times as much time explaining:
<ul type="square">[*] why they won't write and/or
[*] why the effort is doomed to failure and/or
[*] why anybody who does write is a fool (and the especially pretentious, sanctimonious and self-righteous ones really don't want to appear to be a fool. How others view them is of paramount importance here. ).
[/list]
Why? For a studio suit, who has probably never watched any of B5, and is highly unlikely to watch even a few episodes even if a gun was held to his/her head by their employer, why would that matter to them? They are not reaching a decision from the point of view of a B5 fan. They do not see things from our perspective, and very likely do not understand us at all. They do not have the background of the B5 fan.
It's very likely unmitigated ignorance and arrogance. Add those two together and you get unmitigated stupidity.
Apples and oranges. Crusade was a TV show. B5:TMoS is a feature film.
With respect to a TV show, the customer is not the TV viewer. The customers are the advertisers.
With respect to a feature film, we, the ticket buyers, are the customers. Companies pay attention to what the customer wants. If they don't, the customer can directly hurt them where it really matters to them, in their wallet.
Snail mail letters show them what the customers want.
So, you're expecting people in the entertainment business to act rationally?
I think that was one of the things JMS wished for when somebody asked, that people in the business would act rationally (or logically). Can't find the quote at the moment.X-Files was on broadcast TV, won some mainstream awards, and got adopted by the mainstream fans. Trek, in one form or another, had been around practically forever and had generations of fans. It was virtually Paramount's license to print money. On the other hand, B5 had been on in syndication for four years (on at different times and on different stations all across the country.), and then was on cable for one year, with reruns on two cable channels, TNT and Sci-Fi.
I think these people who want to recast, want to do it as a matter of policy, because they view the B5 actors as being too obscure for the feature film to make enough money with them in it. They don't realize or do not care how closely the B5 cast is tied to the B5 story.
They probably think that there are not enough of us to matter, to affect their wallets much. This is where snail mail letters really count. One snail mail letter reflects more than just one fan. There are probably 10 to 100 fans per letter, who will or will not buy a movie ticket based upon how this recasting thing goes. Just try to get somebody to compose and actually go out and mail a snail mail letter. It's like you're asking to ritually sacrifice their firstborn in the backyard or something.
The resistance to doing ANYTHING is absolutely astounding! Instead of writing in to support something they supposedly love, lots of fans will spent 100 times as much time explaining:<ul type="square">[*] why they won't write and/or
[*] why the effort is doomed to failure and/or
[*] why anybody who does write is a fool (and the especially pretentious, sanctimonious and self-righteous ones really don't want to appear to be a fool. How others view them is of paramount importance here.
). [/list]
Why? For a studio suit, who has probably never watched any of B5, and is highly unlikely to watch even a few episodes even if a gun was held to his/her head by their employer, why would that matter to them? They are not reaching a decision from the point of view of a B5 fan. They do not see things from our perspective, and very likely do not understand us at all. They do not have the background of the B5 fan.
It's very likely unmitigated ignorance and arrogance. Add those two together and you get unmitigated stupidity.
GaribaldisHair
Regular
Re: A Call to Arms: Fighting for the original cas
The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.
Harlan Ellison
The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.
Harlan Ellison
darth_librarian
Regular
Re: A Call to Arms: Fighting for the original cas
This is also a good definiton of a lot of Politics.
This is also a good definiton of a lot of Politics.
Flounder
Regular
Re: A Call to Arms: Fighting for the original cas
"Ahhh... arrogance and stupidity in the same package. How very efficient of you" --Londo
<Cedaie> Your ignorance isn't helping.
<@KTottE> How am I ignorant?
<Cedaie> <@KTottE> Do it again, do it right - Ooh great help *clap* *clap*
<@KTottE> http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=ignorant
<@KTottE> Maybe the word you were searching for was http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=arrogant?
<Cedaie> yeah thats the one
<Cedaie> Your arrogance isn't helping,
<@KTottE> Neither is your ignorance
Seen on IRC
eh, back on topic anybody?
"Ahhh... arrogance and stupidity in the same package. How very efficient of you" --Londo
<Cedaie> Your ignorance isn't helping.
<@KTottE> How am I ignorant?
<Cedaie> <@KTottE> Do it again, do it right - Ooh great help *clap* *clap*
<@KTottE> http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=ignorant
<@KTottE> Maybe the word you were searching for was http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=arrogant?
<Cedaie> yeah thats the one
<Cedaie> Your arrogance isn't helping,
<@KTottE> Neither is your ignorance
Seen on IRC
eh, back on topic anybody?
LondosHair
Regular
Re: A Call to Arms: Fighting for the original cas
bash.org freaking RULES.
bash.org freaking RULES.
Elenopa
Regular
Re: A Call to Arms: Fighting for the original cas
Just got the latest Dreamwatch. B5 has a whole page in the news section.
There is nothing new. There are pieces on:
JMS's commentry being cut on Crusade,
The recasting rumours,
JMS writing for FF comic,
JMS was to have been EP on Global Frequency.
Most of this is stuff I have known for a month or more on the internet. I wish Dreamwatch would actually give us some news from WB or Elstree as well as repeating the rumours.
Just got the latest Dreamwatch. B5 has a whole page in the news section.
There is nothing new. There are pieces on:
JMS's commentry being cut on Crusade,
The recasting rumours,
JMS writing for FF comic,
JMS was to have been EP on Global Frequency.
Most of this is stuff I have known for a month or more on the internet. I wish Dreamwatch would actually give us some news from WB or Elstree as well as repeating the rumours.
Jan
Regular
Re: A Call to Arms: Fighting for the original cas
I think in large part it's due to the time lag for print media that everything is less than current. Also, I noticed quite a while back that a fair number of publications get their info from JMS's posts online. Still, I'm glad that the recasting issue is getting coverage. Thanks for letting us know.
Jan
I think in large part it's due to the time lag for print media that everything is less than current. Also, I noticed quite a while back that a fair number of publications get their info from JMS's posts online. Still, I'm glad that the recasting issue is getting coverage. Thanks for letting us know.
Jan
Joseph DeMartino
Moderator
Re: A Call to Arms: Fighting for the original cas
Sending another letter certainly couldn't hurt. My guess is that no decision has been made yet. For various reasons I think we would have seen some indication if it had - and no, I really can't be more specific than that. Given how long this has been a live issue, this suggests that the fight is still going on. The people who contacted the original members of what is now the War Council did so specifically to encourage them to rally fans because they needed something to shore up their own arguments and thought they were otherwise in danger of losing. Those in the business who have subsequently confirmed the basic facts of the matter agree. Let's face it: the people with the money have most of the power. The creative types don't have much leverage. Yeah, they can threaten to quit, but in the long run that hurts them (financially) and the project (creatively) and the fans. If they stay with the project they can at least mitigate the effect of bad decisions made elsewhere. If they leave they have no influence, on this film or any subsequent projects.
So if the money people want something, have wanted it for months, and have the power, when it comes right down to it, to dictate terms, why are we still here? This started in Decebmer and we're almost into February, and no one has told the War Council to stop with the damned "B5 Bucks" already. Two possible reasons: Although they have the power, the suits are reluctant to simply dictate because that runs the risk of people quitting and badmouthing the project or staying on and being miserable to work with and giving less than 100% effort. JMS has talked about how useless it would have been to enforce their contract and make Robert Foxworth skip DS9 to make his last scheduled appearance on B5. He would have ended up with an unhappy, cranky actor phoning in the part. The same applies to writers, producers, directors and the like. And WB wouldn't want to risk any of the creative people quitting because, in Lyndon Johnson's memorable phrase, it is better to have certain people inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in.
So to a degree this may be a matter of each side trying to convince the other of the rightness of its position, rather than bully or blackmail the other side into accepting dictated terms. (Or trying some kind of compromise, which really doesn't seem to be in the cards here.)
One of the ways you convince someone that yours is the better argument is by undermining his. If you oppose building a new elementary school and I support it, our reasons matter. You don't want it because you think the design is ugly and you think it might cause traffic problems, but mostly because it will threaten the habitat of the endangered spotted gak. I want the school to alleviate overcrowding, reduce the need for school buses (because most of the kids it serves can walk to it) and help raise our town's embarassingly low standardized test scores.
I may not give a rat's ass about the spotted gak, I may be a big fan, but think school overcrowding is more important. But if I can come up with evidence that the school project won't harm the gak, I've knocked the stongest pillar out from under your argument. If I convince you that I'm right about the gak, you might come over to my side because the overcrowding thing and the reduced bus traffic off-sets you concerns about increased car traffic and the schoolds ugliness. Conversely if you can persuade me that test scores and pupil-to-teacher ratio don't track at all, I might come off my support of the school.
The letter writing campaign is part of an effort to - at a minimum - make the people who want to recast the roles less sure of their position. If they can't go in there and say "We know 100% that this will increase the box office" or at least provide insuranc against failure because they're so dubious about the film's ultimate appeal, they can't just toss aside opposition. At the very least they might have to do some polling or focus groups to show that something other than their gut instinct is at work here. Our letters may help sew those seeds of doubt, and if that's all they do, that's something. Those letters may remind them that Warner Home Video also doubted the appeal of the show. They wouldn't release it on VHS, and finally licensed it to others for release. When those sold surprisingly well, they started their own VHS release. When that also did "surprisingly" well (why were they always surprised the second and third time the show succeeded) they started talking about a DVD release - and foolishly said so in public. Anticipating that the DVDs would come soon, people stopped buying the tapes and the laserdiscs. WB took this as confirmation that there was no market for the show and promptly cancelled plans for a DVD release. A few years later, with TV-on-DVD establishing itself as the fastest-growing segment of the market, WHV finally released a B5 "test disc" with no advertising or marketing support whatsoever. When this, predictably, "sold surprisingly well" they went into production on the season sets which "sold..." well, you get the idea.
And now, as our letters can remind them, a new group of Warner Bros. executives is expressing the same old doubts about B5 based on the same conventional wisdom that has been wrong each and every time they have applied it to this show. There wasn't supposed to be a market for TV series on home video at all. There was. There wasn't supposed to be a market for TV shows on DVD. There was. Nobody was ever going to spend 70 or 80 bucks to buy a whole season of a show at once, people would want individual discs of maybe two episodes each so they could "cherry pick". Wrong. Nobody cared about widescreen. Everybody hates those black bars.
All the way down the line the studio was wrong and the fans were right. And it is worth reminding the people in charge of making today's bad decisions that some of us have been here before.
And I hope that one of the reasons this isn't all over yet is that our letters have caused someone to hestiate, to wonder, to consider it possible that he might be mistaken, and to weigh the possible downside of being wrong his way vs. being wrong the other way.
So keep those cards and letters coming in folks. When we were lobbying for a DVD release I sent a letter to WHV on average about every three months - from the fall of 1997 until after the first season set was released. Sometimes a fall of pebbles is what starts an avalanche.
Joe
Sending another letter certainly couldn't hurt. My guess is that no decision has been made yet. For various reasons I think we would have seen some indication if it had - and no, I really can't be more specific than that. Given how long this has been a live issue, this suggests that the fight is still going on. The people who contacted the original members of what is now the War Council did so specifically to encourage them to rally fans because they needed something to shore up their own arguments and thought they were otherwise in danger of losing. Those in the business who have subsequently confirmed the basic facts of the matter agree. Let's face it: the people with the money have most of the power. The creative types don't have much leverage. Yeah, they can threaten to quit, but in the long run that hurts them (financially) and the project (creatively) and the fans. If they stay with the project they can at least mitigate the effect of bad decisions made elsewhere. If they leave they have no influence, on this film or any subsequent projects.
So if the money people want something, have wanted it for months, and have the power, when it comes right down to it, to dictate terms, why are we still here? This started in Decebmer and we're almost into February, and no one has told the War Council to stop with the damned "B5 Bucks" already. Two possible reasons: Although they have the power, the suits are reluctant to simply dictate because that runs the risk of people quitting and badmouthing the project or staying on and being miserable to work with and giving less than 100% effort. JMS has talked about how useless it would have been to enforce their contract and make Robert Foxworth skip DS9 to make his last scheduled appearance on B5. He would have ended up with an unhappy, cranky actor phoning in the part. The same applies to writers, producers, directors and the like. And WB wouldn't want to risk any of the creative people quitting because, in Lyndon Johnson's memorable phrase, it is better to have certain people inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in.
So to a degree this may be a matter of each side trying to convince the other of the rightness of its position, rather than bully or blackmail the other side into accepting dictated terms. (Or trying some kind of compromise, which really doesn't seem to be in the cards here.)
One of the ways you convince someone that yours is the better argument is by undermining his. If you oppose building a new elementary school and I support it, our reasons matter. You don't want it because you think the design is ugly and you think it might cause traffic problems, but mostly because it will threaten the habitat of the endangered spotted gak. I want the school to alleviate overcrowding, reduce the need for school buses (because most of the kids it serves can walk to it) and help raise our town's embarassingly low standardized test scores.
I may not give a rat's ass about the spotted gak, I may be a big fan, but think school overcrowding is more important. But if I can come up with evidence that the school project won't harm the gak, I've knocked the stongest pillar out from under your argument. If I convince you that I'm right about the gak, you might come over to my side because the overcrowding thing and the reduced bus traffic off-sets you concerns about increased car traffic and the schoolds ugliness. Conversely if you can persuade me that test scores and pupil-to-teacher ratio don't track at all, I might come off my support of the school.
The letter writing campaign is part of an effort to - at a minimum - make the people who want to recast the roles less sure of their position. If they can't go in there and say "We know 100% that this will increase the box office" or at least provide insuranc against failure because they're so dubious about the film's ultimate appeal, they can't just toss aside opposition. At the very least they might have to do some polling or focus groups to show that something other than their gut instinct is at work here. Our letters may help sew those seeds of doubt, and if that's all they do, that's something. Those letters may remind them that Warner Home Video also doubted the appeal of the show. They wouldn't release it on VHS, and finally licensed it to others for release. When those sold surprisingly well, they started their own VHS release. When that also did "surprisingly" well (why were they always surprised the second and third time the show succeeded) they started talking about a DVD release - and foolishly said so in public. Anticipating that the DVDs would come soon, people stopped buying the tapes and the laserdiscs. WB took this as confirmation that there was no market for the show and promptly cancelled plans for a DVD release. A few years later, with TV-on-DVD establishing itself as the fastest-growing segment of the market, WHV finally released a B5 "test disc" with no advertising or marketing support whatsoever. When this, predictably, "sold surprisingly well" they went into production on the season sets which "sold..." well, you get the idea.
And now, as our letters can remind them, a new group of Warner Bros. executives is expressing the same old doubts about B5 based on the same conventional wisdom that has been wrong each and every time they have applied it to this show. There wasn't supposed to be a market for TV series on home video at all. There was. There wasn't supposed to be a market for TV shows on DVD. There was. Nobody was ever going to spend 70 or 80 bucks to buy a whole season of a show at once, people would want individual discs of maybe two episodes each so they could "cherry pick". Wrong. Nobody cared about widescreen. Everybody hates those black bars.
All the way down the line the studio was wrong and the fans were right. And it is worth reminding the people in charge of making today's bad decisions that some of us have been here before.
And I hope that one of the reasons this isn't all over yet is that our letters have caused someone to hestiate, to wonder, to consider it possible that he might be mistaken, and to weigh the possible downside of being wrong his way vs. being wrong the other way.
So keep those cards and letters coming in folks. When we were lobbying for a DVD release I sent a letter to WHV on average about every three months - from the fall of 1997 until after the first season set was released. Sometimes a fall of pebbles is what starts an avalanche.
Joe
