Larry DiTillio : What happened?

[glindros]

In reading Other Voices, He seemed to have a profound effect on the series up to his exit.

I have to wonder why wasn't Mr. DiTillio's contract renewed?

[Joe Nazzaro]

IÆm not sure there was ever a definitive explanation given by JMS, but it seems safe to assume that if he was planning to write all of the episodes from season three onward (because they were basically all arc episodes) it probably didnÆt make sense to have another writer on staff.

HereÆs what DiTillio had to say when we talked about it during an interview in 1995:

ôWhen I was told was the day we wrapped the second season; I was brought in and told my contract was not going to be renewed. I actually knew it in January, and the reason I knew was they said æKnivesÆ was going up right after the Christmas vacation, so youÆve got to get it in, so I busted my hump to get æKnivesÆ in. When I got back from Christmas vacation, and it needed final note changes, I didnÆt get any, and it went up more or less the way it was written at the time. Then there were five scripts left to do, and I had assumed that I would be doing a fourth script, which I already had planned after æKnives.Æ Well, æKnivesÆ was pushed back for no particular reason, and replaced with Peter DavidÆs spec script, æThere All the Honor Lies.Æ I said, æWait a minute, whatÆs going on here? Why was I rushed to get this script in if it was going to be pushed back?Æ They said this, that and the other, and I said, æOkay, so thereÆs five script slots left; one is for me, right?Æ and Joe said, æNo, see theyÆre all arc stories, so I have to write them,Æ and then he did æConfessions and Lamentations.Æ When that happened, I realized my days were numbered.ö

[DGTWoodward]

I always got the impression that Larry, a creative man in himself, was always trying to move the story in directions that JMS did not want it to go...hence no more ABBUT, no more BUREAU 13, no relationship more than a close friendship between Garibaldi and Talia. With JMS refering to them as 'Larry constructs'

If person's ideas are continuously ignored or dropped, what do you think they'd do?

[Joe Nazzaro]

Ironically, one of the ideas that DiTillio had in mind for his next script would have been to bring Bureau 13 back; having decided that Sheridan had too much information about them, they might have decided to come after him. The other was a story in which Lennier falls for a female Minbari warrior caste who turns out to be what he (Larry) calls a 'crystal dancer.' So he certainly had no shortage of ideas to play with.

[Jan]

I think that Larry did have a major effect on the series and in creating the (for lack of a better word) texture of the B5 universe. I'm thinking, for instance, that he wrote much of the louspeaker and background dialogue which was much more noticeable early in the series.

JMS said:

There's really not much *to* tell. Because I wrote 15 out of 22 this
season, and I held virtually all of the writers meetings, and personally
created and handed out the stories to freelancers, there wasn't a lot for
him to *do*; he spent a lot of time when he wasn't doing his scripts
more or less sitting on his hands. Larry's a world-builder, coming from
a gaming background, and this world was already built. There wasn't that
much for him to do, and his skills were being wasted. He'd never have a
chance to shine and come out from under the jms shadow to be recognized
for what he can do. (Very often, stuff in his scripts would get credited
to me, often incorrectly.) This situation would only get worse in later
seasons, with more and more arc stories, pre-determined, coming into the
foreground. So it was really for the best.

I note that in the interview Larry refers to "There All the Honor Lies" as being a spec script, though, which differs from Peter David's account where JMS invited him to pitch a story and gave him the assignment. In fact, from that account, "Soul Mates", having been written after the story was killed by JMS qualifies as being a spec script far more.

ETA: That last one Joe mentions sounds a little close to "Born to the Purple" but again, it would have added texture to the B5 universe. If B5 had been a 7-year story there would have been more time for that and I think it might have made the universe richer.

Jan

[Joe Nazzaro]

Jan, I think Larry's Lennier script would have been developed more in order to create a female Minbari warrior caste, almost a bit like Amazons in a sense, which would have taken it in a very different from any superficial similarity to 'Born to the Purple.'

[Jan]

Ah, now that does sound cool, Joe. And yeah, remembering what 'skin dancing' is to the Minbari, I should've realized that 'crystal dancing' would have been something martial.

Jan

[JoeD80]

hence no more ABBUT

From Larry's description in the first Other Voices book, it sounds like ABBUT was added to Deathwalker because jms wanted something to set up Talia's plot, and they wanted Gilbert Gottfried to do it, so Larry came up with the idea of the VCR for that. As for being dropped, was there really a reason for this character to be brought back? Larry says in the book that it would have worked better if Gottfried had actually been the one to do it, and I am betting the reason the character didn't come back was because it didn't quite work the way on screen they were hoping.

I note that in the interview Larry refers to "There All the Honor Lies" as being a spec script, though, which differs from Peter David's account where JMS invited him to pitch a story and gave him the assignment. In fact, from that account, "Soul Mates", having been written after the story was killed by JMS qualifies as being a spec script far more.

I don't have the later Other Voices script books yet, but Soul Mates was killed? The idea of the story appears in jms' memos from season two before production started, so it seems that jms had been planning to do the story one way or the other.

[Jan]

I don't have the later Other Voices script books yet, but Soul Mates was killed? The idea of the story appears in jms' memos from season two before production started, so it seems that jms had been planning to do the story one way or the other.

According to Peter, he did two outlines that didn't quite make it and it was after JMS told him that they weren't going to have him do it that he figured out the approach that was used. Against all advice, he wrote the script anyway and sent it in to JMS.

Jan

[glindros]

I had always assumed it was something jms had done to cut budget.

Maybe jms just wanted total control of the story and achieved it by becoming the only in house writer.

[JoeD80]

I had always assumed it was something jms had done to cut budget.

Maybe jms just wanted total control of the story and achieved it by becoming the only in house writer.

I don't think it was a secret that jms wanted total control of the story. That was kind of the whole point of Babylon 5, to tell the story that he wanted to.

jms in 1993:

As to how I came up with the new characters, it was done the old fashioned way: I thunk them up. This series doesn't work like many others; this isn't done by committee, we don't bat stuff around on this kind of level.

...

But there's an implicit understanding that this is a story that I want to tell, and I generally need to have final word on characters, stories and everything else that involves the scripts. Both Harlan and Larry are willing to defer to the reality that this is my universe.

...

I know where the story has to go when it hits the end, and we have to be sure not to fall off the tracks. I didn't fight six years to get this show on the air to turn it over to a committee.

[Jan]

I had always assumed it was something jms had done to cut budget.

Not necessarily since he said that they were still allocating money for a story editor (for that year, at least). See http://www.jmsnews.com/msg.aspx?id=1-12775

Maybe jms just wanted total control of the story and achieved it by becoming the only in house writer.

It was always his sole vision. Where it became necessary was when he ended up writing all of the episodes due to the complexity of the story by Season 3.

Jan

[glindros]

Not necessarily since he said that they were still allocating money for a story editor (for that year, at least). See http://www.jmsnews.com/msg.aspx?id=1-12775


It was always his sole vision. Where it became necessary was when he ended up writing all of the episodes due to the complexity of the story by Season 3.

Jan

Just so I understand it, the official line is that his services were no longer need due to Joe becoming virtually the only writer on the series by season 3.

I guess having Larry on staff helped the network believe in the series' feasibility to sustain itself early on. After all, one writer writing an entire season is impossible. Right?

[Jan]

Just so I understand it, the official line is that his services were no longer need due to Joe becoming virtually the only writer on the series by season 3.

Official, unofficial and everything in between since as of season 3, JMS *was* the only writer. The only other writers we've ever even heard of writing B5 scripts as of Season 3 on were Peter David & Bill Mumy (Gut Reactions) and Neil Gaiman (Day of the Dead). Could there have been other writers in season 5? Almost certainly. Should there have been? Possibly, even probably. The main problem with that was that with Claudia's departure, a fair bit of the arc fell out from under him so that would have made assigning stories difficult.

I guess having Larry on staff helped the network believe in the series' feasibility to sustain itself early on. After all, one writer writing an entire season is impossible. Right?

From the posts I've read, JMS had every intention of fulfilling his plan to have half of the episodes written by freelancers. Even after reading the entire 14-volume series, it's impossible to tell if the story became too dense for that to be realistic or whether he misjudged from the beginning. Probably a combination of the two, imo.

Jan

[OmahaStar]

The only other writers we've ever even heard of writing B5 scripts as of Season 3 on were Peter David & Bill Mumy (Gut Reactions) and Neil Gaiman (Day of the Dead).

Don't forget Harlan. Though his script never did get produced, he was supposedly working on it ... A sequel to Demon with a Glass Hand or something like that, if I remember correctly.