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Lost Crusade Scripts...

D

**DONOTDELETE**

Guest
i seem to remember an unproduced crusade script in which dureena was supposed to be interrogated by the thieves guild, and receive some mysterious sword or something like that. does anyone else remember this or am i halucinating it, and how do you think it would have developed in the series had it continued. also, why would JMS have stretched the Gideon hunting for the shadow/EA hybrid ship over two episodes back to back, wouldnt that have kinda downplayed the significance and the threat of the thing later on in the series? i mean, i just think that it would have pushed the series too fast, but then that is just my opinion...
 
The Dureena/sword story has certainly been mentioned, but I'm not sure it ever got to the script stage. That would have been a mni-arc extending over several episodes. The episode where she actually gets the sword was not among those published on-line at Bookface.com. I think she may have had the sword in one of the Bookface scripts, though, since I believe one of them took place after she got the weapon. (It was written earlier, though, because it was slotted earlier in the production schedule.)

The two scripts dealing with the Shadowtech/EarthGov plot were not intended to air back to back. "To the Ends of the Earth" was slated to shoot as episode 114 (production order) and would have aired fairly close to the mid-point of the season. JMS's idea was to air the minimum number possible of the early "black uniform episodes" - say 4 or 5 - then "Appearances", then the grey uniform eps - then "To the Ends of the Earth" (which contains the famous laundry accident that sends the crew "back" to the black uniforms.) So it would have aired somewhere around episode #12, maybe #13, or S1. "The End of the Line" (production order 116) was the S1 cliff-hanger, and would have aired as episode #22 - 9 or 10 episodes after "To the Ends of the Earth". "Value Judgments", Fiona Avery's Bester script and the third script published at Bookface.com, would have shot as episode 115, in between the two JMS scripts, but I'm not sure when exactly it would have aired (other than that it would be in the second half of the season.)

Regards,

Joe
 
Wasn't there another script written by Avery called "Tried and True" or am I just imagining this? If it does exist, where would it fit in?
 
There may be another Avery script, but it wasn't posted on Bookface and I'm not familiar with it. If it is floating around it is probably something she is selling at conventions.

One problem with the "missing" scripts/stories is that the titles and general plot information was given out for any number of proposed Crusade stories, but it is unclear how far each of them progressed. Standard practice under Writer's Guild rules is that the writer gets paid in stages, as each part of an assignment is completed. So the writer does an outline (also called a "treatment") of say, 15 or 20 pages. The production office approves, makes suggestions, etc. then they move on to a first draft script. (In some cases they also move on to another writer - paying the first one off for the outline, and assigning the actual script to someone else. This often happens to new screenwriters on non-arc shows.) So, depending on where exactly each of the remaining 9 episodes was at the time that production was halted and the money cut off, they could range from titles and one paragraph descriptions that JMS had written but had not yet assigned to freelance writers, to outlines, all the way to completed scripts.

Which is a very long-winded way of saying, "Beats me." /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Regards,

Joe
 
JMS posted two unfilmed scripts for Crusade on a site called Bookface.com. He did it as a treat for the loyal fans. I think he also might have done it to show people what he would have made the show into if TNT hadn't gotten weird on him.

The site no longer exists, and JMS specifically does NOT want people distributing copies of them. I'm not really sure why, if he isn't planning to rewrite them into short stories or novels and he himself says that Crusade is probably dead.

One of the posted scripts was, I think, the proposed season 1 ender. It was definitely a cliff-hanger that would have left us asking "did this really just happen?"
 
</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
<font color="yellow"> Originally posted by Nancy: </font color>
What scripts were posted on bookface.com?

[/quote]

"To the Ends of the Earth" (JMS) - would have been a mid-season ep.
"End of the Line" (JMS) - would have been the Season 1 finale.
"Value Judgements" (Fiona Avery) - The Bester episode.
 
</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
JMS hopes to either sell the scripts into Crusade II or to form part of a book.

[/quote]
But didn't he just say at a conference that there was pretty much no hope of either?
 
I don't recall hearing anything about his abandoning his idea of (perhaps) eventually publishing B5 and Crusade scripts in book form. (That is, printing the actual scripts, ala Neil Gaiman's Day of the Dead, not adapting them as stories or novels.)

Crusade certainly is pretty much dead in terms of television, but as recently as six months ago JMS was backing away from his previous opposition to continuing the story as a series of novels. But that doesn't impact his right as author to sell the scripts themselves in their original form, much as Fiona Avery has done with her Crusade scripts at conventions, or via the 'net. So he still has an interest in keeping them from being freely distributed, as do all the other writers on Crusade (and every other TV show ever since the Writer's Guild won publication rights away from the studios.)

He's also publicly floated the idea of making the B5-universe graphic novel he's signed to produce a B5/Crusade/Rangers cross-over, so it hardly sounds like he's given up on the idea of further exploring the Crusade story.


Regards,

Joe
 
Joe, I was referring to the recent post Lyta made, in which she quoted the following Q&A's:

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
Question: Is there any chance that Crusade will be [unintelligible]?

JMS: Any chance that Crusade will be coming back? Probably not.

Question: [same person, faintly] Any other formats, like books?

JMS: Other formats? Uhm, again not that I am aware of.


[/quote]

While it's not a definitive 'no', it seems he has no immediate plans or prospects of doing anything with the scripts
 
Well, "not that I'm aware of" sounds like there is no publisher interested in a Crusade novel, and maybe he's off the idea himself. But there is a difference between continuing the story in some form (which was what the original question was all about) and eventually selling the original scripts produced for the show the first time around. The Q&A did not address the specific issue of scripts, and I don't think that's what either he or the questioner had in mind when the topic of "books" came up. In any event, even if it is just a matter of personal preference, rather than any immediate profit, he still has every right to keep his scripts off the 'net and to ask people not to give them to others just because they are his and that's what he wants.

Regards,

Joe
 
Agreed, Joe. I was just wondering why and if he might have possible plans for continuing Crusade in some shape or form.

I did have copies on disk of the stories, but since deleted them after I heard of JMS's objections.

It would be nice if he could sell the scripts, some people really do want to read them in a legal way. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif It would be even nicer if Crusade could be continued in some form.

But I, for one, am not holding my breath. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif
 
</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
<font color="yellow"> Originally posted by Demon: </font color>
Joe, I was referring to the recent post Lyta made, in which she quoted the following Q&A's:


In reply to:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Question: Is there any chance that Crusade will be [unintelligible]?

JMS: Any chance that Crusade will be coming back? Probably not.

Question: [same person, faintly] Any other formats, like books?

JMS: Other formats? Uhm, again not that I am aware of.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


[/quote]

Demon, when and where did JMS say that?
 
I'm not Demon but I assume she is referring to the post Lyta made in the "JMS in Vancouver" (or sth like that) thread in the General forum - from the Q&A session of JMS' appearance at the V-Con last Saturday.
 
Ah, for some reason I was thinking that V-Con was this Saturday. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif
I've been up since 0420 and have only had 1/2 cup of coffee. zzzzzzz /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

Don't worry, I was not planning on going. Too far away. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif
I haven't been reading that thread because I thought it hadn't happened yet (the con) and I had no chance in hell of going.
 
</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
In any event, even if it is just a matter of personal preference, rather than any immediate profit, he still has every right to keep his scripts off the 'net and to ask people not to give them to others just because they are his and that's what he wants.

[/quote]
Certainly wouldn't disagree with that! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Kribu, thanks for answering KoshN's question for me. Spot on!
 
*tries to understand the logic of not reading a thread about a jms convention*

Spoilers? Too painful to read because you can't go? Don't care?

*wonders if she should start a new thread that people would actually read* /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
 
</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
*wonders if she should start a new thread that people would actually read*

[/quote]
Hey, I read it! /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

So did Kribu /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
 

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