Looking for a certain scene

[Eddie]

Theres different versions of this scene. The one I'm thinking of is with Dukhat and he's in the grey council chamber with delen and another minbari who looks suspiciously like byron. They are looking at the approching earth ships, and it goes something like this:

Dukhat: "...I've never seen those markings before, who are they?"
Delen "I believe they are the humans."

Theres more conversation here, but I may be mixing up the versions. I'll skip to the important part.

The ships are coming in, Robert Atkin-Downes says his line about approching with gunports open. THEN someone points and says "soul hunters! They only come where there is great death!"
Dukhat yells "close the gunports!" And everything goes to hell. Great scene and I always thought the added line about soul hunters (which is not in a pervious version) added a lot of tension for anyone paying attention.

Its so funny how memory works. Yesterday I would have sworn up and down that this scene was in In The Beginning. I watched it today, no scene. At least, not the exact one I'm describing. So that would mean, its gotta be season 5 right? Or am I crazy?

[Lunan]

the dreaming. its about the wedding and delen being called home

[Jan]

Lunan is right. That segment that includes the Soul Hunters is in "Atonement" which is Season 4.

Jan

[B5_Obsessed]

Yes, the appearance of the Soul Hunters was definitely prophetic, and right in line with the original Soul Hunter's recalling of the event in Season 1. It was his failure to capture Dukat's soul that led to his breakdown and caused him to be more, shall we say, proactive?

I believe for "In the Beginning", jms had even wanted to show the Soul Hunters attempting to reach Dukat and the Minbari desperately holding them back. In the final analysis, he realized this was just a "wish list" sort of thing that he would have liked to have seen, but that would have certainly caused those coveted new viewers watching ItB to throwtheir hands up and say "WHAT THE HELL...?"

[I love Lyta]

In the final analysis, he realized this was just a "wish list" sort of thing that he would have liked to have seen, but that would have certainly caused those coveted new viewers watching ItB to throwtheir hands up and say "WHAT THE HELL...?"

Then why -on the other hand- go as much into detail as showing Michael York in his Star Fury during the Battle of the Line in ItB?

[Jan]

Possibly because, while the Soul Hunters didn't have anything to do with the story of the Earth-Minbari war, the man who fired the first shot was definitely part of that story.

Jan

[vacantlook]

...Michael York in his Star Fury during the Battle of the Line in ItB....

What we saw of Michael York's character, he wasn't a Star Fury pilot but a gunnery seargent on the Prometheus. I don't remember anything being told about what his character did during the Battle of the Line.

[Jan]

I think I Love Lyta was slightly mistaken. The only scene with Michael York in ItB that I recall was his firing the shot that started the war. Unless he meant Michael O'hare/Sinclair?

Jan

[Joseph DeMartino]

Then why - on the other hand- go as much into detail as showing Michael York in his Star Fury during the Battle of the Line in ItB?

Presumably you mean Michael York aboard the Prometheus at the start of the attack on the Minbari. Other end of the movie, other end of the war.

If you are talking about Michael O'Hare - well, you'd kinda expect to see something of Sinclair's involvement in The Line in a film about the origins of Babylon 5.

We got a brief shot of Michael York firing the guns of the Prometheus to start the war. To a newbie he's just an anonymous EarthForce gunner firing his weapons at the captain's order. To a fan he's the guy from "Avalon". Either way JMS uses a few seconds of film that was already on hand to add a grace note to a scene.

This isn't remotely comparable with having the Soul Hunter fleet show up, the Hunters board the Grey Council ship, be stopped by a Minbari "wall of bodies" and then withdraw. This would create several problems in ItB.

1. You'd have to explain the Soul Hunters. Easy if the Soul Hunters are a major focus of your story ("Soul Hunter", River of Souls) and you have characters around who've never heard of Soul Hunters and therefore need to have them explained. Otherwise you end up with a bunch of Minbari who have all been raised on horror stories of Soul Hunters since they were knee-high to a P'ak'mara explaining what Soul Hunters are to one another - which makes either the writer or the Minbari look pretty dumb.

But in ItB the Soul Hunters would have come out of nowhere for one brief scene and then vanish again. How the hell do you work in all the necessary exposition so first timers aren't left slack jawed and muttering "WTF was that?"

2. Money. You'd need a whole bunch of Minbari and Soul Hunters, all in costume, some in full prosthetics, others in cheaper (but still not free) full-head appliances. Then you'd need the time to shoot the scene. Tough to do on a tight schedule for a scene that adds nothing to the main storyline of your movie. Both the Michael York and the Michael O'Hare footage in the film already existed, and except for reuse fees negotiated with the actors, didn't cost JMS a dime. (He considered and rejected the idea of flying Michael O'Hare out to be in the film, but he couldn't justify the expense for what would have amounted to two scenes - one of which would have been a reshoot and extension of a scene he already had and one which was not integral to the plot - a brief meeting at a spaceport between Sheridan and Sinclair.)

3. Time. The S.H.-Minbari relationship, culminating in the wall of bodies around the dying Dukhat, is a whole other story, separate from that of ItB. JMS would have had to take at least five or six of his precious 94 minutes of screen time to set this up and tell it properly, and the main tale of the Humans and their near-destruction would have ground to a halt while all this was going on. This would have been deadly. There was simply no practical way to fit that event into the movie. Hell, JMS couldn't even find the room (or the money) to show it in "Atonement", and for much the same reasons.

Regards,

Joe

[vacantlook]

I wonder if jms would ever consider showing said minbari-soul hunter confrontation in a future TLT vignette, or if he more or less considers that part of the story a done thing even with it having not been fully shown.

[Jan]

It would certainly be interesting visually but I wonder if there's really anything we need to know about that scene? We know that the Soul Hunters tried to get Dukhat's soul and were prevented by the Minbari and that caused the Soul Hunter we saw in Season One to start losing it and begin to take souls before they were actually dying.

Jan

[I love Lyta]

I think I Love Lyta was slightly mistaken. The only scene with Michael York in ItB that I recall was his firing the shot that started the war. Unless he meant Michael O'hare/Sinclair?

Jan

No, I meant Michael York of course. And I'm pretty damn sure he sat in a Star Fury during the BoL and NOT in at a gun control on the Prometheus during the first encounter, although I KNOW it's supposed to be that way.
Heck, I saw that movie just two weeks ago and I don't believe my alzheimer has progressed THAT much. But I will check those scenes again this evening.

[Dipper]

Hope you remember to do it and remember doing it afterwards


-Dip

[I love Lyta]

*LOL* good one.

[vacantlook]

No, I meant Michael York of course. And I'm pretty damn sure he sat in a Star Fury during the BoL and NOT in at a gun control on the Prometheus during the first encounter, although I KNOW it's supposed to be that way.

All footage of Michael York in "In The Beginning" is reused from "A Late Delivery From Avalon". As such, there is no way there is any footage of York's character in a star fury at the Battle of the Line. The only footage is a quick shot (again resued from ALDFA) of him as a gunnery seargant on board the Prometheus firing the shot that began the Earth-Minbari War.