JMS cleans someone's clock! (March 16)

[Jan]

Originally posted by Z'ha'dumDweller
Jeez, JMS is not a very humble guy. I dislike people who brag. This one guy I know used to call and e-mail every time he bought something. "I got a NEW laptop!" Awards mean pretty much nothing, unless they are chosen by fans. I don't know if Hugos and SFWA's are, but who cares? I would have just laughed off the ignoramus. My mom used to have a saying..."Laugh your way to the bank."

After somebody attacks you for having a 'poor track record' isn't it fair to come back and say 'well, *these* groups didn't think so' by listing the awards that they gave? As for awards not meaning anything unless chosen by the fans, when I asked JMS about what awards meant the most to him, he wrote:

<<Subject:
JMS: Awards?
From:
Jms at B5
Date:
03/17/2000 01:28 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Which award means the most to you? Is there any one that you would really
>love
>to be awarded?
>

The one that always means the most to me is the Hugo, because that one comes
from the fans, the viewers, not the critics, or the literary establishment, or
even from peers. That one comes right from the people who read your stuff, and
it is thus the most meaningful.

jms>>

Though I'd disagree with you that awards by his peers would be meaningless in an industry where name recognition is the name of the game.

Jan

[B5_Obsessed]

Why not create this character and let him [hmm, that's an interesting way of NOT doing what the execs wanted and still follow orders] her be in a few, like 2, episodes and then go to the planet where [that mantis guy who used to live in Downbelow during season one] lives. Considering the mantis mating habits, I guess after a sexual encounter with a mantis, a funeral scene would be appropriate...

/IaS [/B]

That joke has already been used, in a way, in the first 5 minutes of Babylon 5.

(paraphrasing)

In The Gathering, Sinclair warns a human about picking up an alien female in the casino. The guy says, "What are you, Some kind of racist?" Sinclair replies, "No. They eat their mates."

Supposedly, N'Grath (the mantid) was taken out by a competing crimelord in Down Below, but I was switching the channels one day and saw that he was living in a basement on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". It was Buffy that killed him.

[iamsheridan]

Originally posted by B5_Obsessed
That joke has already been used, in a way, in the first 5 minutes of Babylon 5.

(paraphrasing)

In The Gathering, Sinclair warns a human about picking up an alien female in the casino. The guy says, "What are you, Some kind of racist?" Sinclair replies, "No. They eat their mates."

Cool, I had forgotten about that.
But I don't think it matters because the execs probably haven't seen The Gathering.

Supposedly, N'Grath (the mantid) was taken out by a competing crimelord in Down Below, but I was switching the channels one day and saw that he was living in a basement on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". It was Buffy that killed him.

Ahh, that's his (?) name!
My memory is good but doesn't last long!
/IaS

[Capt.Montoya]

SFWA

The SFWA is the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America... the association of people that write and thus best know SF...
Their screenwriting award is the Ray Bradbury award (named for reasons that may be obvious to many SF fans)... the official SFWA Bradbury awards page is:
http://www.sfwa.org/awards/bradbury.htm

An award like that I think is just the same, or more meaningful, than the Hugo... and just check how infrequent it has been bestowed if unconviced of how special it is.

No idle boasting, but a showing of relevant credentials....

[Towelmaster]

Just my 2c :

As an avid and fanatical SF-reader, who has read thousands of SF-books and stories through the years, I feel free to say :

Anyone who doesn't know the value of the Hugo- and Nebula-awards should start investigating before commenting. Read the list of other winners and then ask yourself if these awards have value. The lists are veritable who-is-who-listings of SF and Fantasy.

One could of course argue that other winners like Larry Niven, Robert Heinlein, etcetera never amounted to much...


Hugo's :

http://worldcon.org/hy.html

Nebula's

http://www.sfwa.org/awards/index.htm

BTW : The SFWA awards Nebula's. Hugo's are awarded via the World Science Fiction Society.

TM.

[nanorc]

I¿ve never found any single award to be reliable in the arena of all things taste related.
Too often it ends up being someone elses twisted notion of they percive as beautiful, insightful, or mystifying.

...leaving me with little more than nausiating notions of my own : P

[grumbler]

It is somewhat ironic to hear SFWA be lauded as somehow vindicating JMS, when in fact he and SFWA have had issues in the past and JMS has generally been pretty dismissive of the group.

[grumbler]

Just to show how much more mellow JMS is these days, I will post something I ran across looking for something else, from

But for Eugene Glover, whose own life is notably sheltered from public view, this is insufficient, and his own prejudices and internal bile levels, as indicated by the quotes from him, pursuade him that I am a liar.

Piss off, Eugene. You're a mean, vindictive little guttersnipe who has nothing better to do than piss in other people's punchbowls, absent of any perceptible life, overwhelmed with your own feelings of self importance and righteousness, when in reality you simply suffer from delusions of adequacy. I rarely use this kind of term, due to its basic offensiveness to SF/ST fans...but Eugene...get a life, get a grip, get a clue, but most of all...get away.

1994

[Capt.Montoya]

Originally posted by nanorc
I¿ve never found any single award to be reliable in the arena of all things taste related.
Too often it ends up being someone elses twisted notion of they percive as beautiful, insightful, or mystifying.

Well... I've found the Hugo and Nebula awards to be reliable in pointing to works and authors worth reading in Science Fiction.
Sure, sometimes they go for "trendy" or popular (the Hugos are usually more at fault on the latter) but I do think that writers and fans of SF have done a pretty good job of identifying and recognizing what is outstanding in the field.

Can you point to some specific disappointments from those awards nanorc?

JMS's disappointment with SFWA came from the way they discounted script work for some awards... is that still the situation?

[grumbler]

Originally posted by Capt.Montoya
JMS's disappointment with SFWA came from the way they discounted script work for some awards... is that still the situation?

The Nebula for scripts was reinstated starting in the 2000 awards for 1999 (interestingly, the year after they gave JMS the Bradbury Award). However, that doesn't erase a lot of past history. I would love to find (or be sent) a copy of the speech by GRR Martin in the mid/late-1990s that had JMS all upset.

[nanorc]

Take the Demolished Man, the first ever HUGO winner for instance.

Yes, the setting was an original one, and yes it may have broken a few standards a while back, though as far as the plot went, there was nothing in there to seperate it from your average, typical crime novel.

I *hate* crime novels : P

Also, that Jap movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon that got such fantastic reviews was horrible. Especially the fake, cheesy, laughable combat sequences, as with many of the other Hong - Kong style ''fighting'' movies.

Like I said, its a taste issue. One person's delight is another man's dung hill.

[bakana]

that Jap movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

For what it's worth, the movie is Chinese.

If you're going to use racial slurs, get the nationality right.

Both Chinese and Japanese people Hate it when you get the insults wrong.

And, most people seem to disagree with you about the Quality of the movie, too.
It's Very Popular.

[jal]

Z'ha'dumDweller wrote:

I don't know if Hugos and SFWA's are, but who cares?

i do, Hugos are fan based awards, jms got two of them, sounds like you are just sore that they beat trekkies ds9.

Jeez, JMS is not a very humble guy.

no, possibly not, but who cares?

[nanorc]

Originally posted by bakana
For what it's worth, the movie is Chinese.

If you're going to use racial slurs, get the nationality right.

Both Chinese and Japanese people Hate it when you get the insults wrong.

And, most people seem to disagree with you about the Quality of the movie, too.
It's Very Popular.

First, nowhere in the last post did I claim it was anything but my own opinion.

Second, I don't really give a shit where the movie was made, how much money it made or how many people thought it was popular; it sucked.

So please spare me from all your tight-assed, politically correct retentive little innuendos and get your paraniod head out of your ass.

Oh, by the way, I heard a wonderful racist joke the other day.

Q. Whats the difference between a jew and a pizza?

A. A pizza doesn't scream when you shove it in the oven.

[jal]

Also, that Jap movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon that got such fantastic reviews was horrible. Especially the fake, cheesy, laughable combat sequences, as with many of the other Hong - Kong style ''fighting'' movies.

i thought it was quite good myself, i preferred the undubbed version better.

as for the fight sequences, most fight sequences are a bit hokey to begin with anyway, even the old Errol Flynn and Stewart Granger swordfight scenes were spiced up to make them more appealing to audiences.

at the end of the day, if you can laugh at Crouching Tiger, then you can laugh at The Matrix, Pirates Of The Carribiean and many other movies.

if you want something more "real", get Band Of Brothers, now that`s a good show.