NewbieQ: Outsider's perspective on B5

[asdfff]

NewbieQ: Outsider\'s perspective on B5

As a recent B5 convert, from an outsider's perspective, it is *very* easy to see why it's so hard to get any form of B5 off the ground. In this case the problem is something so fundamental that grasping at specific reasons is almost unnecessary. Textbook case of "By its fruits shall you know them". Let's look at some prime examples:

B5 tapes collection: never completely available in US. Price per God-given episode: $12.50.
Centauri Prime trilogy, book 3: $50.
Any backgroiund material: scripts, treatments, of any draft, of any series: $100, $99.98 for a xerox, or "technically" "not at all". Top price per page: $5 (crusade background, xeroxed)
Model sets: 2 (B5, starfury)
Link/ppg/action figure/any prop replica: $300 - $1000 (EDIT: or "technically" "not at all")

Now, everyone can blame anyone for everything--TNT (hint: not their fault, it was just...never their demographic), publishers, WB, marketing forces, football games, but when a property consistently is in HUGE demand and yet always fails that demand, whether product volume, availability, or quality, there's something fundamentally wrong somewhere.

Now I'm not saying blame B5's concept itself or JMS or the fans or how either handles/views the property, but after consistently blaming every large company ever involved with B5, one has limited choice of places in which to look for problems.

 

[Jan]

Re: NewbieQ: Outsider\'s perspective on B5

B5 tapes collection: never completely available in US. Price per God-given episode: $12.50.

These days they regularly sell for 10 tapes for $12.50

Centauri Prime trilogy, book 3: $50.

Yeah, I've heard that. Trouble was, they didn't sell very well when they first came out, whether due to fan 'suspicion' after the original paperbacks or 'stealth marketing', who can say. The short stories in Amazing Stories were all available by mailorder from the publisher until about a year ago for the original cover price. The B5 magazines with the short stories appear every once in a while for fairly reasonable (well, sorta) prices.

Any backgroiund material: scripts, treatments, of any draft, of any series: $100, $99.98 for a xerox, or "technically" "not at all". Top price per page: $5 (crusade background, xeroxed)

You've been shopping in the wrong places. Just a couple of weeks ago, most of the 5th season scripts were up on Ebay and sold for $20-30 each.

Model sets: 2 (B5, starfury)

Have definitely been falling in price. Starting at about $90 each, I regularly see them for $30-50.

Link/ppg/action figure/any prop replica: $300 - $1000 (EDIT: or "technically" "not at all")

Well, the action figures have gotten really cheap (again, on Ebay) but I don't know about the rest. Me, I'd love to replace my stolen Ranger and Psi-Corps pins but I hate the unlicensed knock-offs.
<snip>

Now I'm not saying blame B5's concept itself or JMS or the fans or how either handles/views the property, but after consistently blaming every large company ever involved with B5, one has limited choice of places in which to look for problems.

The hunger for new B5 stuff is a tribute to the enduring quality of the story but...the lack of new stuff being a problem is a fan's viewpoint and not necessarily shared by JMS. As he reminded people at the con this weekend, the story's done and nothing can take that away. Yes, there are stories to be told and, if somebody approaches and can make a project happen, he's happy to play in the B5 universe again. What I think people fail to see is that he's *not* going out actively looking for those opportunites-anything that comes along is 'lagniappe', an extra treat.

For the fans it's kind of a bummer but at the same time it's fun to see what JMS will come up with next.

Jan

 

[asdfff]

Re: NewbieQ: Outsider\'s perspective on B5

I didn't exactly need a point-by-point, item-by-item breakdown, but thanks anyways. For one thing (this is going to be blindingly obvious) it is wiser to purchase DVD sets instead of VHS. I'm merely pointing out "at one point". Who buys VHS today? Also, $100 for a model set? Doesn't that buy...1.5 seasons of DVDs? And doesn't $30 a script x 2 = 1 DVD set?

PS, of course I know the "right place" is eBay. No one shops in "the wrong places". Where did you think I got those numbers, bed bath and beyond.com? 'cmon. The season/series treatment xeroxes do regularly go for $100.

That's not specifically my point. As with many point-by-point deconstructions, it isn't the message text, it's the meaning; listen but not hearing and all that. My point is: huge fan demands are not being met = no sales figures to show the suits = dead cycle. Completed story? Yes. We all love it. But we want more THAT ALREADY EXIST.

Easy example = script collections. They're part of the completed story and fans who have them are hanging onto them like toilet paper post-fallout. Strangely enough digitaized versions from the B5 series are even more carefully hoarded. Thank God someone leaked scripts to twiztv awhile ago, I'm only saddened I didn't know about B5 to download them then.

Last: Yes. You're correct. For the fans it IS kind of a bummer. While a true statement, it is probably better described as an understatement.

 

[RMcD]

Re: NewbieQ: Outsider\'s perspective on B5

Is there really much demand for these things now? I've enjoyed B5 for years, but I've never felt moved to own anything except the DVD boxes, which are eminently affordable.

Besides, B5's cultural profile must be almost dead now. The spin-offs didn't work, the movie didn't happen, and the whole Star Trek phenomenon and that escapist sci-fi television drama genre seems to have imploded (perhaps on the back of 9/11, the decline of interest in the space program etc etc.), with a few notable exceptions such as BSG, which is thematically perfectly in tune with modern times.

Popular culture recycles endlessly, so one day I hope it'll come back into favour. Yes it annoys me a lot that JMS does not campaign actively to bring the B5 universe back in some form, and I hope that if he doesn't maybe someday someone else will. The point is that even now, just six years on, B5 is already starting to look sadly dated. But then it has to undergo a period of looking dated before it can be seen as 'classic 90's entertainment'. So maybe what all this represents is just the dormant phase of the cycle.

And if humans make contact with humanoid aliens some time in the next decade, just you watch how fast B5 attains mass popularity again..

 

[Jan]

Re: NewbieQ: Outsider\'s perspective on B5

The season/series treatment xeroxes do regularly go for $100.

That's not specifically my point. As with many point-by-point deconstructions, it isn't the message text, it's the meaning; listen but not hearing and all that. My point is: huge fan demands are not being met = no sales figures to show the suits = dead cycle. Completed story? Yes. We all love it. But we want more THAT ALREADY EXIST.

Easy example = script collections. They're part of the completed story and fans who have them are hanging onto them like toilet paper post-fallout. Strangely enough digitaized versions from the B5 series are even more carefully hoarded. Thank God someone leaked scripts to twiztv awhile ago, I'm only saddened I didn't know about B5 to download them then.

Sorry...you're right, I misunderstood. And misread. I missed the fact in your original post which is made very clear in this one that you *want* this stuff, want it *cheap* and don't mind getting illegal copies from theives because you demand it *right now*. Yeah, those of us who have legitimate scripts and other items don't share...hoard, if you will...because we respect who and what they came from. Not to mention that we went to *considerable* trouble to find them and more expense to obtain them. I'd love if JMS released a script collection, either on paper or CD-I'd buy it in a second- but they're his to do with as he pleases.

Last: Yes. You're correct. For the fans it IS kind of a bummer. While a true statement, it is probably better described as an understatement.

Well, you've got the B5 quote book coming out in December. Unfortunately, it looks like there *won't* be a new series of books/graphic novels, yet, at least. JMS said that the announcement 'overstepped their authority'. I'll transcribe exactly what he said once I get home.

Jan

 

[Shaal Mayan]

Re: NewbieQ: Outsider\'s perspective on B5

]Well, you've got the B5 quote book coming out in December. Unfortunately, it looks like there *won't* be a new series of books/graphic novels, yet, at least. JMS said that the announcement 'overstepped their authority'. I'll transcribe exactly what he said once I get home.



Another B5 deal down the tubes AGAIN .Do please tell a little more Jan what went wrong this time ????

 

[Jan]

Re: NewbieQ: Outsider\'s perspective on B5

Another B5 deal down the tubes AGAIN .Do please tell a little more Jan what went wrong this time ????

Just going by memory here, so don't hold me to it. My impression was that the announcement was made before negotiations for the rights were complete and that a final agreement was never reached between Mongoose and WB. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Jan

 

[Shaal Mayan]

Re: NewbieQ: Outsider\'s perspective on B5

Just going by memory here, so don't hold me to it. My impression was that the announcement was made before negotiations for the rights were complete and that a final agreement was never reached between Mongoose and WB. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

So your not sure there is another way hopefully to get answer either from JMS or the publisher directly .Kinda silly I would think if they announced a deal to make more B5 novels/graphic novels and now they may have to cancel it cause someone got too exicted and posted the message before the ink was even put on the page. This news if true really makes me mad

 

[Jan]

Re: NewbieQ: Outsider\'s perspective on B5

So your not sure there is another way hopefully to get answer either from JMS or the publisher directly .Kinda silly I would think if they announced a deal to make more B5 novels/graphic novels and now they may have to cancel it cause someone got too exicted and posted the message before the ink was even put on the page. This news if true really makes me mad

Well, I went over to Mongoose and the announcement doesn't seem to be there any longer (that I could find with just a cursory check). Also, I've noticed a few people posting on the moderated newsgroup over the past while asking JMS about them and he's never answered. Where the breakdown occurred, I doubt we'll ever know.

Jan

 

[B5_Obsessed]

Re: NewbieQ: Outsider\'s perspective on B5

We were all a bit suspicious of that announcement and the whole "I've emailed jms" thing. Although WB is not obligated to consult him on any deals of that nature, they always have involved him in the past.

I think Mongoose and the writer were trying to build a buzz with the announcement and subsequent blitzing of B5 related bboards in order to force a deal down WBs throat. That's the "Avalanche has already started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote" strategy. Didn't work.

 

[B5_Obsessed]

Re: NewbieQ: Outsider\'s perspective on B5

Oh yeah, I've still got an unopened B5 station model in my garage. Better post that sucker on there.

 

[GaribaldisHair]

Re: NewbieQ: Outsider\'s perspective on B5

As far as I am concerned, we have no right to be annoyed at JMS for not actively seeking new B5 opportunities - let's not forget that at more than one point in B5's run he was quoted as saying that should he be allowed to complete the whole 5 year story, he was getting out of TV for good, because he would have said everything he wanted to say in the medium.

Fortunately for us, he changed his mind and we got Crusade (well, a taster anyway) and Jeremiah (still waiting for S2 to show in the UK though).

Like most creative individuals, he will not be content just to keep going over the same ground again - he wants to move on and do new things, and make each new thing different from the last thing.

By now he must be sick of saying (as he had to again recently) that he never set out to make a franchise - he set out to make a five year novel for television, and he did so. It is done, complete, finished.

So, he has moved onto the next thing, and the next. And will even now be thinking about where he wants to go after this.

Don't get me wrong ... I love B5 and own the entire run on both VHS and DVD, alonf with a few micro machines and both the model kits (unopened simply because I have never had the time to sit down and build them with the due care and attention I want to). I would love to see a new TV series, a big screen movie, or even new books and graphic novels

But I have no right to demand them, especially from JMS. His promise to B5 fans was that he would do everything in his power to tell the five year story. He did that. Everything else is a bonus.

If he is more interested in other things now, that is his prerogative, and I will continue to support him because I have read/viewed and enjoyed his work in other areas than B5.

 

[Sindatur]

Re: NewbieQ: Outsider\'s perspective on B5

In my opinion the problem is that JMS has a specific idea of what he wants to do, and won't compromise the quality of a project because the Big money folks believe a "stupid" idea will rake in the cash. JMS is forever having to fight for the integrity of his projects. He doesn't want to put out hollow money making crap, as the studios would have him do, if he didn't fight for that integrity.

If he had George Lucas's money, he wouldn't need to worry about fighting for integrity of his projects, he could finance it all himself and do it the way he wants.

 

[KoshN]

Re: NewbieQ: Outsider\'s perspective on B5

Another B5 deal down the tubes AGAIN .Do please tell a little more Jan what went wrong this time ????

Just going by memory here, so don't hold me to it. My impression was that the announcement was made before negotiations for the rights were complete and that a final agreement was never reached between Mongoose and WB.

And now the deal is dead? ....or are they still trying to hammer something out?

 

[KoshN]

Re: NewbieQ: Outsider\'s perspective on B5

Now, everyone can blame anyone for everything--TNT (hint: not their fault, it was just...never their demographic),

What was their fault was the way they acted once they discovered that B5 did not fit with their core audience.

... publishers, WB, marketing forces, football games, but when a property consistently is in HUGE demand and yet always fails that demand, whether product volume, availability, or quality, there's something fundamentally wrong somewhere.

Consistently is in HUGE demand and yet always fails that demand? Relatively speaking (compared to mainstream shows), B5 is not, and never has been in HUGE demand.

Now I'm not saying blame B5's concept itself or JMS or the fans or how either handles/views the property, but after consistently blaming every large company ever involved with B5, one has limited choice of places in which to look for problems.

The "business" powers that be (e.g. at Warner Brothers, or Del Rey, etc.) see B5 as having a small but fanatical fanbase. So, stuff gets produced in relatively small quantities, if it gets produced at all. Generally, once the stuff is sold out, it's gone forever unless you catch it on the used market (flea markets, eBay, etc.). This is really bad news for new fans. How Warner Brothers expects to attract new fans to the B5 universe is a mystery to me. Maybe it's by MAGIC or wishful thinking. More likely is they do not expect to attract new fans, and see the B5 universe as dead, over, history.

B5 fans have been after Del Rey to do a B5 short story collection for years. Trouble is, Del Rey is risk averse. The three B5 trilogies didn't sell as well as Del Rey "thought they should have." There was virtually ZERO advertising at places frequented by B5 TV fans, but Del Rey doesn't think that was a problem. (The sheer magnitude of the stupidity there is astounding.. )

Warner Brothers doesn't see B5 as having enough of a fanbase to back a B5 theatrical release themselves. They only want to back a B5 movie if movie stars are in it. B5 was never about movie stars. They're risk averse, so we're out of luck there.

The bottom line is that it seems that almost everybody underestimates the size, intelligence and buying power of the B5 fanbase. As a result, stuff that gets produced is generally made in small quantities, advertising is usually non-existant or not in the right places, and lots of stuff that is really in demand, never gets produced because companies are scared shitless of taking any risk at all. Then, if Warner Brothers senses large demand for a new product, they'll jack up licensing costs to a point where the deal blows up and nothing's produced.

 

[Jan]

Re: NewbieQ: Outsider\'s perspective on B5

And now the deal is dead? ....or are they still trying to hammer something out?

Being a Q&A session, there wasn't any opportunity for follow-up questions I'm afraid. Judging from the tone of voice, I'm afraid it's dead. My tape's a little unclear on his exact words. I'll listen again tonight and try to post it verbatim.

Jan

 

[KoshN]

Re: NewbieQ: Outsider\'s perspective on B5

And now the deal is dead? ....or are they still trying to hammer something out?

.... Judging from the tone of voice, I'm afraid it's dead. ....

Figures.

 

[PillowRock]

Re: NewbieQ: Outsider\'s perspective on B5

Now, everyone can blame anyone for everything--TNT (hint: not their fault, it was just...never their demographic),

What was their fault was the way they acted once they discovered that B5 did not fit with their core audience.

First off, I never understood why it took a detailed statistical analysis for them to figure out that B5 and the programming around it were not helping provide each other with viewers. They had B5 paired with WW<whatever> (I don't keep track of the various wrestling shows). It would never have occurred to me for a second that those two things would help each other out by providing a significant number of viewers that will sample the other show, much less decide to stay longer than that (note that I said "significant number"; I'm sure there were a few).

But, yeah, I agree with KoshN. TNT Atlanta behaved reprehensibly after they finally figured that one out. Their behavior was all about inflicting as much damage as possible, so that there would be no chance that they could be criticized later for letting something go that turned into a success on another (more compatible) network.

PS: I remember reading way back when Crusade was first being put together that it was supposed to be launched in tandom with Witchblade. Now, that is a show that might have paired with Crusade to the mutual benefit of both. At the very least, there was a much better chance of that than the Crusade / wrestlemania pairing.

 

[Shaal Mayan]

Re: NewbieQ: Outsider\'s perspective on B5

And now the deal is dead? ....or are they still trying to hammer something out?


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.... Judging from the tone of voice, I'm afraid it's dead. ....

This is one of those days that I wonder why I bother to support B5 in any way and come to this board.When they can't even get a bumch of new b5 books off the ground.Especially if it turns out it ,that someone jumped the gun to soon in posting the original message that the deal was done .

 

[Jan]

Re: NewbieQ: Outsider\'s perspective on B5

This is one of those days that I wonder why I bother to support B5 in any way and come to this board.When they can't even get a bumch of new b5 books off the ground.Especially if it turns out it ,that someone jumped the gun to soon in posting the original message that the deal was done .

I know it's disappointing, I feel the same way. I'm trying to simply hope for new B5 stuff but not really believe in it until I hold it in my hand. No, that's not quite right because obviously I believed in TMoS a lot. I guess just not count on it too heavily.

Jan