Bought new B5 DVD!

[shakiroz]

Having commentaries on every movie is great, the menu is beautiful bit but not having ANY trailers is pretty disapointing, you think theu would be consistent.

The TNT trailers produced were so cool its a shame we'll never get to see them...

There was also a 30 behind the scenes B5 special they could'have included but it almost seems like TNT lost all their B5 stuff...from what I was told the season 5 episode previews are not the same that TNT aired...

Does anybody knows whats up with TNT?

[Jan]

Re: Bought new B5 DVD!

Originally posted by shakiroz

Does anybody knows whats up with TNT?

Keep in mind that TNT and WB weren't exactly on the best of terms after Crusade. That might have something to do with it?

Jan

[Jan]

Which is pretty much the same answer as you got over at B5TV.com....


Jan

[Towelmaster]

Re: Bought new B5 DVD!

Originally posted by shakiroz
Having commentaries on every movie is great, the menu is beautiful bit but not having ANY trailers is pretty disapointing, you think theu would be consistent.

Erm... I have the first four seasons on DVD(region 2) and they do have the trailers for all the episodes on them... Perhaps with the exception of season 1, I'm not 100 % sure about that one.

Which DVD(s) are you referring to?

TM.

[Jan]

Re: Re: Bought new B5 DVD!

Originally posted by Towelmaster
Erm... I have the first four seasons on DVD(region 2) and they do have the trailers for all the episodes on them... Perhaps with the exception of season 1, I'm not 100 % sure about that one.

Which DVD(s) are you referring to?

TM.

The same DVDs referred to earlier in the sentence - the movies.

Jan

[Joseph DeMartino]

from what I was told the season 5 episode previews are not the same that TNT aired...

The S5 episode promos were exactly the promos that TNT aired - they are the only ones that ever existed, since the show was produced for TNT. Perhaps this confusion arises from the fact that TNT's promotional spots for the S1 through S4 reruns and S5 as a whole were not included. Or maybe from the fact that the first four sets used the unaltered PTEN promos, rather than the versions used on TNT which were identical except that a different announcer re-recorded the narration. (And and in a couple of cases hilariously mispronounced names - "Linear" comes to mind, as does the announcement that at the start of S2 "Sherman takes over".)

TNT may have allowed WB to use the episode promos which are more purely "watch the next episode" pieces while withholding the "watch our network, we bring you cool shows like this one" pieces. (Or, conversely, maybe WB didn't want or refused to pay for the TNT ads. Considering that TNT ripped them off for about $10 million by the time the dust settled in the Crusade fiasco, they may not have been inclined to pay for the privilege of promoting their corporate sibling. )

Erm... I have the first four seasons on DVD (region 2) and they do have the trailers for all the episodes on them...

Perhaps with the exception of season 1, I'm not 100 % sure about that one.

Good call on adding that caveat. The PAL/R2 version of S1 does indeed lack the episode promos. They were produced strictly for U.S. consumption and were never used elsewhere and were only featured on the North American (NTSC/R1) release of S1. WB only started including the trailers with S2 after fans complained about their omission from the S1 PAL sets in R2 and elsewhere.

Regards,

Joe

[DGTWoodward]

"...in a couple of cases hilariously mispronounced names at the start of S2 "Sherman takes over"

Wow! Did I miss that one!

"...TNT ripped them off for about $10 million by the time the dust settled in the Crusade fiasco"

That is an awesome amount of money so no wonder if they were abit miffed! As just an ordinay person with no production connection to TV shows, I just didn't realise quite how expensive these things are. It is easy to throw around these figures and be very glib about them but the actual truth is rather unsettling!


I am wating for my R1 MOVIE BOXED SET to arrive from my personal importation seller. The R2 set has 2(!) movies sliced out of it! Personally I cannot wait to hear the commentaries on them as this has been, by far, my favourite feature about DVDs, and a favourite of the B5 disks in particular. In the cast-member commentaries especially, you can hear that these people are still friends even after such a long time.

[bakana]

22 Episodes/Season x 5 Seasons + 5 Movies

If "it" means the series, it's always been under $900 thousand per episode.
If "it" means ItB, the production cost was just a tick under three million bucks.

jms

That works out (being a little conservative) to around $90 Million for the regular episodes and between $12 - $15 Million for the movies.

$100,000,000 approximately for the B-5 series plus the Movies.
A few more dollars for Crusade.

Hey, a million here, a million there, pretty soon you're talking real money...

[Joseph DeMartino]

Hey, a million here, a million there, pretty soon you're talking real money...

Right. By the time Crusade came along I think inflation had pushed the per episode cost to just about an even million. TNT had given WB a firm order for 22 episodes for the first season of Crusade. When production ended with episode 13 they were still contractually obligated to pay for the remaining 9 episodes - or about 9 million bucks. TNT tried to argue that JMS had "quit", so they weren't on the hook, but WB wasn't having any of that. I've heard that the whole thing was headed for the courts until someone high up at Time-Warner realized that in the long run the parent company would end up paying for all the lawyers on both sides plus whatever "damages" were awarded as they - in effect - sued themselves. So they put the kibosh on the whole thing.

On top of that, of course, TNT wanted Sci-Fi (or WB) to pay them $13 million for the rights to the finished episodes, and a truly insane amount for the rights to the B5 reruns (which belonged to TNT for a couple of more years.) All of this was designed to price the two shows out of the market so that no one else would be able to pick Crusade up. (Since anyone who took a chance on the as-yet-unseen Crusade would also want the rights to the parent series.)

Bastards.

Regards,

Joe

[Jan]

From the Movie Set Intro

Just got my Movie set a short time ago and found this in the intro written by JMS in the booklet:

"As the DVD set was being completed, we learned that Richard Biggs ad passed away at far too young an age. His loss is devastating to us all. Dr. Franklin was the heart and conscience of Babylon 5 and without Biggs, the world of B5 is diminished. With love and appreciation, this boxed set is dedicated to his work and his life, in memory still bright."

Jan

[Shadow-Sentient]

Re: From the Movie Set Intro

Originally posted by Jan
Just got my Movie set a short time ago and found this in the intro written by JMS in the booklet:

"As the DVD set was being completed, we learned that Richard Biggs ad passed away at far too young an age. His loss is devastating to us all. Dr. Franklin was the heart and conscience of Babylon 5 and without Biggs, the world of B5 is diminished. With love and appreciation, this boxed set is dedicated to his work and his life, in memory still bright."

Jan

Thanks for that Jan ... interestingly, I posted on the B5 tv site that it was too bad that none of the DVD's couldhave had the Rick Biggs tribute film on them. At least there is a small note of acknowledgement.