Crusade Scripts Available Online???

[OmahaStar]

Originally posted by colonyearth
Does that make your balls balloon up?

No comment.

[Jan]

Originally posted by colonyearth

JMS says, "it greatly reduces my ability to ever
sell them or publish them in book form in future." This was three years ago...he's obviously talking about a now possibly hampered future for these Crusade story ideas. Could he not therefore still have plans for these ideas in the B5 universe? Something big we don't yet know? Someplace he might've been going that was way cool? Thus his anger that these things have reduced his ability to use them in future. Interesting if you wanted to read between the lines so to speak. Although, granted this is something more akin to guessing between the lines since no ones knows what in Valen's name actually goes through JMS's head at any given moment.

Two items may have been going through it that I've heard of. First, at one point he said that if the owner of a copyrighted work didn't agressively protect his rights, that the work could fall into Public Domain without the owner intending that. Others seemed to think that rule only applied with trademarks but I don't think anybody really was expert enough for the opinion to be definitive.

Another thing is that there've been many requests for the scripts and comics and short stories to all be published on paper or on CD. The reissued books don't seem to be drawing a lot of attention so that's probably not happening but the CD idea might still be viable.

Somebody said that the Star Trek scripts were put out on CD, anybody know anything about that?

Jan

[OmahaStar]

Originally posted by Jan
Somebody said that the Star Trek scripts were put out on CD, anybody know anything about that?

Jan

There have been two releases so far. One has all the scripts for The Next Generation; the other has all of them for Deep Space 9.

Each cd has all the scripts for that series as well as trailers for all of the episodes, and they retail for (I believe) 20 dollars USD each.

They were published by Simon and Schuster Interactive.

Hope that helps.

[RCmodeler]

I may never do this again because it greatly reduces my ability to ever sell them or publish them in book form in future. You have, in effect, stolen my property and are freely distributing same.

There is a book being published about Crusade, and it will include the scripts. If the scripts are available for free, the book might not sell well, thereby hurting JMS' income.

[Dr Maturin]

<<Somebody said that the Star Trek scripts were put out on CD, anybody know anything about that?>>

I bought this 4 pack of ST CD-ROM stuff for a killer price and the DS9 companion has all of the scripts, I do believe.

[NotKosh]

If one found a thread on a major B5 forum, where someone had posted a synopsis of one of the scripts, would that be deemed against JMS's wishes?

[Jan]

Originally posted by NotKosh
If one found a thread on a major B5 forum, where someone had posted a synopsis of one of the scripts, would that be deemed against JMS's wishes?

Not that I'm aware of. Back when the series was on he used to be a little annoyed when detailed synopses would show up on 'spoiler' sites because people would start commenting on the worth of the episode before even seeing it. The only other mention I saw (in a search of the archives for the word 'synopsis') was regarding the posting vs emailing of an episode he screened at a convention. He didn't want that posted due to headaches with the studio.

Jan

[MALCOLM XERXESÖ]

Originally posted by Doktor
Generally, I've found that the more polite you are with people, the more likely they are to conform to your wishes. The ruder you are, the more likely they are to do the exact opposite of that which you wish.

DOKTOR,

Receive 100 bonus marks & go to The Top of The Class.

[NotKosh]

Well I'll go ahead.

Check out ISNNews, this discussion of TNT vs. JMS

http://www.isnnews.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=2244

[Joe Nazzaro]

Crusade Scripts, etc

Here's a couple more Crusade episodes from season one that never saw the light of day:
War Story (episode 19) by Richard Mueller and The Walls of Hell (episode 20) by Larry DiTillio were supposed to be the first two parts of a loosely-connected trilogy, with JMS writing episode 21 to wrap it up. I don't think either script should have been finished because TNT had already pulled the plug by then, but I believe Mueller finished his script and handed it in anyway.

And regarding TNT's interference w/Crusade, I'd certainly heard a lot of those stories when I was covering the series. A couple of years ago, when I was interviewing various SF television creators for my book, Writing for SF and Fantasy Television, I spoke to JMS at length about this very topic and was surprised to hear a very different explanation:

[After Babylon 5, you immediately went into production on the spin-off series, Crusade, which was a much less pleasant experience for you. When did you get the first inkling that the show was going south?

JMS: It was after episode five. We'd gotten minimal notes from TNT, pretty much along the lines of the Warner Bros notes we had in our first season of Babylon 5, so things were going pretty swimmingly. Then, out of nowhere, they gave us the shutdown so they could look at the show. That wasn't a small sign, it was more like an explosion going off on the set. They had seen everything we'd done from start to finish, but it was like they suddenly saw the show for the first time and thought, 'Oh my God, what is this?' when they had actually seen the finished cuts, they had seen everything. So my first thought was, something is going on here to which we are not privy. As things became more egregious over time, I kept saying to anyone who would listen to me, 'There's something going on here that we 're not privy to and they're using it as a reason to beat us up!' It was only after I had left that I ran into TNT executives who had been working there at the time, who said, 'We're sorry about what happened.' I asked them under promise of confidentiality what had happened, and what it came down to was two things. They had done a multi-year audience survey, and finally got the results in right around the time we were shooting episode five, and it said that the TNT audience does not like or want or respond to SF. Secondly, the B5 season five reruns had started on TNT, and they discovered that when B5 came up, the TNT audience left and the B5 audience came in. When the episode ended, the B5 audience left and the TNT audience came back in again literally, so it had no effect in building the shows that followed it. What I was told is that when they saw those figures come in, they decided that they wanted to get out of the contract and use that money to buy repeats of Law & Order, which their survey indicated would be a good buy for them. It you look at the trades for that time, they were kind of surprised when TNT came in on this bidding war and nailed it. Everyone thought their budget for the year had been allocated, so where was this money coming from? By sheer coincidence, the money they paid is equal to what they were going to pay for a full season of Crusade.

So buying just 13 episodes of Crusade freed up a lot of money.
JMS: Plus they didn't want to have to pay for the first 13. By trying to say it wasn't the show they ordered, they were trying to get out of paying anything and stick Warners with the bill. That was the purpose of the notes that came through. They could say, 'We gave them notes, and they wouldn't do them.' No, because they were egregious and wrong and I couldn't do them, but at the time, I knew none of this. And as one TV person told me after the fact, 'Had you done every single note that they asked you for, they would have found some other reason to get out of that contract.' They were trying to paper their way out of the deal, which makes me even gladder that I stood up when I did. If I'd done what they asked, and compromised what the show should be, even more than it was already compromised in a thousand smaller ways, it would have been for nothing. If you're going to sell your soul, you should at least get something out of it.]


I also asked JMS on the record if there was any truth to the rumor that he was ending season one with the cliffhanger because he was trying to re-sell Crusade to the Sci-Fi Channel and they weren't all that keen on Gary Cole. That rumor was refuted by Joe, but I've heard otherwise from a couple of other production people at the time, so I still have my doubts. Guess it's all a moot point now.

[MALCOLM XERXESÖ]

JMS versus TNTÖ

NOTKOSH & JOE NAZZARO,

Thanks for your respective intel!

[Jan]

Re: Crusade Scripts, etc

Originally posted by Joe Nazzaro
Here's a couple more Crusade episodes from season one that never saw the light of day:
War Story (episode 19) by Richard Mueller and The Walls of Hell (episode 20) by Larry DiTillio were supposed to be the first two parts of a loosely-connected trilogy, with JMS writing episode 21 to wrap it up. I don't think either script should have been finished because TNT had already pulled the plug by then, but I believe Mueller finished his script and handed it in anyway.

::groan:: Oh, no, that's more that I'm missing. I'd heard of one other script that Fiona Avery was close to finished with, also.

I also asked JMS on the record if there was any truth to the rumor that he was ending season one with the cliffhanger because he was trying to re-sell Crusade to the Sci-Fi Channel and they weren't all that keen on Gary Cole. That rumor was refuted by Joe, but I've heard otherwise from a couple of other production people at the time, so I still have my doubts. Guess it's all a moot point now.

Wow, I'd never heard of that, thanks. Hard to believe that they had a problem with Gary Cole, he was so good. But then it's obvious that TV execs think differenly from real people.

Jan

[Kevin]

If Gary Cole hadn't been the Captain, I most likely wouldn't have been kept intrested. In the first few eps, he was the only character intresting enough for me to keep on watching the personally.

You know it'd be pretty neat if a lot of these lost scripts could somehow be thrown together on the Crusade DVD set. Give people an idea of how the first Season would have progressed, and maybe some hints towards where the series in general would have eventually gone. Just a thought.

[MALCOLM XERXESÖ]

BABYLON 5: CRUSADEÖ

KEVIN,

While I respect MR. GARY COLE, I did not watch CRUSADEÖ for his character, but rather for the characters of the alien thief & the doctor, portrayed by MS. CARRIE DOBRO & MS. MARJEAN HOLDEN, respectively.
The guest stars like MR. EDWARD WOODWARD didnÆt hurt, either!

Your DVD script idea is brilliant, & I hope it comes to pass.

[Joe Nazzaro]

While I wouldn't mind seeing some of the scripts, outlines, etc, bear in mind that most writers like to be paid for their work- there's a big difference between doing a commentary and handing over your work to be 'published' on a DVD- and I don't think the powers-that-be are willing to plunk down much money. And frankly, why should the writers be expected to give anything up for free?

I'm reminded of a time during B5 season five when I went out to LA to cover Day of the Dead. Because I was going to be out there for the entirety of filming, I asked the producers for permission to take photos while covering the episode. As I pointed out to them, their normal stills photographer usually only showed up for one day, maybe two at the most, and there were going to be some pretty cool characters showing up every day: Adira, Morden, Rebo and Zooty and so forth. So the producers said okay.

A few months later, I get a call from the merchandising arm of WB who were doing the next batch of trading cards. They'd heard (surprise, surprise) that I had some of the only photos from Day of the Dead, and would I mind giving them some so they could use them for the trading cards. Bear in mind, they didn't say sell or lease or anything that involved money. So I think I pointed out that it was hardly fair for me to give them something which they would then own copyright on, plus they'd be selling tens of thousands of boxes of trading cards. Maybe we could work out a swap so they could send me a bunch of boxes of cards and I'd send them a bunch of photos. Sounds fair, right? Never heard from them again. People who subsequently bought those cards will probably remember that they ultimately used some reall bad screen grabs, which probably cost them al lot more than they ever would have paid me! So if I seem a bit dubious about Crusade scripts showing up on the DVDs, you'll understand why.