Joseph DeMartino
Moderator
He\'s BAAAAaaaaaccckkk!
Sorry I've been so silent lately. The storms were problem one, the clean-up and mess at work problem two (including a mold-infestation in our building, no air conditioning and the complete or total loss of a couple of other clinics and office buildings which required lots of shifting of resources and improvisation.) Finally, when all of that seemed to be settling down, people started getting sick. Not sure if it was the mold or the usual health department syndrome - sick people come to our locations, our techs go to the same locations and come back to headquarters, the germs and viruses just keep getting spread around. Throw in immune systems impaired by stress, lack of sleep, poor diet and long work hours and you get what I got - almost three weeks flat on my back followed by several more weeks of sneezing and assorted aches and pains that don't seem to want to go away.
I also had storm-related computer problems that ended up way down on my post-hurricane priority list. (Heck, I only replaced my dead cordless phone and answering machine and retired my "princess phone and 30 foot telephone cable" arrangement last week. <g>)
Oh, and did I mention that I was right in the middle of a home remodeling project in the middle of all of this? (The delivery of my washer and dryer was scheduled for 24 hours before one of the storms was due to hit.)
So I haven't had the time, inclination or energy to deal very much with the internet - and given the passions that got stirred up around election time and inevitably spilled into virtually every discussion on the 'web (except on fora where politics is banned) this didn't seem like such a terrible thing at least through November.
Now I'm suddenly coming back to a couple of rather bizarre controversies.
I'm not sure what to make of the movie rumors and I haven't caught up sufficiently with the newsgroup to know what has and hasn't been confirmed. But here are a couple of thoughts:
1) If the rumors are right and the film is more a "Crusade", technomage, maybe Rangers thing, I'm not all that interested in the first place. Call me crazy, but I think the first "B5" feature film ought to be part of the "B5" story - not one of the spin-offs. If they have to recast such a thing, that's regretable, but it isn't like their tinkering with a TV classic.
2) Given that what supposedly got WB all hot and bothered about doing a feature film was the *"B5"* DVD sales, I can't understand why they would sign off on a script that was not about the regular characters and the station. I'm also not sure why Richard Brigg's passing would require a major re-write for the film described on the 'web. Frankly it strikes me as unlikely that WB would do a non-B5 film and just as unlikely that they'd dump the main cast (which was the big draw for the hugely successful DVDs) on top of everything else. Warner Home Video being stupid and gutless with regard to the Crusade release is a very different thing than the feature film division shooting itself so spectacularly in the foot. And would they really risk big bucks by committing to a Crusade or (worse) Rangers-inspired theatrical film with little or no involvement from the B5 main cast before either of those projects had seen a DVD release?.
Sci-Fi went with Rangers as a B5 project in light of the B5 ratings. They refused to consider Crusade until they'd had a chance to see how it did "on their air". Why would WB take a different approach to gambling what could be anywhere from 30 to 50 million or even more on a movie resembling what's been rumored?
JMS's silence? Could be contractually required. (WB knows what a blabbermouth he is) Or it could be strategic. Given how much he hates leaks I don't think it would be beyond JMS to put out some disinformation for anyone dumb enough to pick it up and run with it without confirming the data. Just a thought.
3) I'm not buying the "Crusade" DVDs and have written Warner Bros. to let them know that, and to know why. TNT order? JMS commentary cut? No thanks, no sale. I'd like to see others boycott the discs as well *and* protest the bastardization of the set to WB.
4) I don't think it is too late to express our displeasure about what we're hearing. At least in the U.S. - and I have to assume the U.K. as well - not a hell of a lot of work gets done in any business between mid-December and mid-January.
5) If we find the right angle we might be able to get a mention of this whole thing into the kind of outlet, print, TV or on-line, that *other* media like to quote. Let me think about that for a couple of days.
My thanks to all who have expressed an interest in how I'm doing and where the heck I disappeared to, and to those who included me in the august company of fans who make up the "war council" trying to organize a response to whatever WB is up to.
Regards,
Joe
Sorry I've been so silent lately. The storms were problem one, the clean-up and mess at work problem two (including a mold-infestation in our building, no air conditioning and the complete or total loss of a couple of other clinics and office buildings which required lots of shifting of resources and improvisation.) Finally, when all of that seemed to be settling down, people started getting sick. Not sure if it was the mold or the usual health department syndrome - sick people come to our locations, our techs go to the same locations and come back to headquarters, the germs and viruses just keep getting spread around. Throw in immune systems impaired by stress, lack of sleep, poor diet and long work hours and you get what I got - almost three weeks flat on my back followed by several more weeks of sneezing and assorted aches and pains that don't seem to want to go away.
I also had storm-related computer problems that ended up way down on my post-hurricane priority list. (Heck, I only replaced my dead cordless phone and answering machine and retired my "princess phone and 30 foot telephone cable" arrangement last week. <g>)
Oh, and did I mention that I was right in the middle of a home remodeling project in the middle of all of this? (The delivery of my washer and dryer was scheduled for 24 hours before one of the storms was due to hit.)
So I haven't had the time, inclination or energy to deal very much with the internet - and given the passions that got stirred up around election time and inevitably spilled into virtually every discussion on the 'web (except on fora where politics is banned) this didn't seem like such a terrible thing at least through November.
Now I'm suddenly coming back to a couple of rather bizarre controversies.
I'm not sure what to make of the movie rumors and I haven't caught up sufficiently with the newsgroup to know what has and hasn't been confirmed. But here are a couple of thoughts:
1) If the rumors are right and the film is more a "Crusade", technomage, maybe Rangers thing, I'm not all that interested in the first place. Call me crazy, but I think the first "B5" feature film ought to be part of the "B5" story - not one of the spin-offs. If they have to recast such a thing, that's regretable, but it isn't like their tinkering with a TV classic.
2) Given that what supposedly got WB all hot and bothered about doing a feature film was the *"B5"* DVD sales, I can't understand why they would sign off on a script that was not about the regular characters and the station. I'm also not sure why Richard Brigg's passing would require a major re-write for the film described on the 'web. Frankly it strikes me as unlikely that WB would do a non-B5 film and just as unlikely that they'd dump the main cast (which was the big draw for the hugely successful DVDs) on top of everything else. Warner Home Video being stupid and gutless with regard to the Crusade release is a very different thing than the feature film division shooting itself so spectacularly in the foot. And would they really risk big bucks by committing to a Crusade or (worse) Rangers-inspired theatrical film with little or no involvement from the B5 main cast before either of those projects had seen a DVD release?.
Sci-Fi went with Rangers as a B5 project in light of the B5 ratings. They refused to consider Crusade until they'd had a chance to see how it did "on their air". Why would WB take a different approach to gambling what could be anywhere from 30 to 50 million or even more on a movie resembling what's been rumored?
JMS's silence? Could be contractually required. (WB knows what a blabbermouth he is
) Or it could be strategic. Given how much he hates leaks I don't think it would be beyond JMS to put out some disinformation for anyone dumb enough to pick it up and run with it without confirming the data. Just a thought. 3) I'm not buying the "Crusade" DVDs and have written Warner Bros. to let them know that, and to know why. TNT order? JMS commentary cut? No thanks, no sale. I'd like to see others boycott the discs as well *and* protest the bastardization of the set to WB.
4) I don't think it is too late to express our displeasure about what we're hearing. At least in the U.S. - and I have to assume the U.K. as well - not a hell of a lot of work gets done in any business between mid-December and mid-January.
5) If we find the right angle we might be able to get a mention of this whole thing into the kind of outlet, print, TV or on-line, that *other* media like to quote. Let me think about that for a couple of days.
My thanks to all who have expressed an interest in how I'm doing and where the heck I disappeared to, and to those who included me in the august company of fans who make up the "war council" trying to organize a response to whatever WB is up to.
Regards,
Joe
