Have B5 fans . . . well, ever done anything!

[Jan]

Back in the day, there was plenty of interest and talk and trading cards. After this long, there's not a lot left to say.

[Jonas]

This

One of the things that surprised me, remembering I was relatively new to the net never mind online fan communities, is how that aspect of the story was so often overlooked. I notice than comic fans view the drawings, ink work and colouring as important as the text. Though in television , especially something like B5, the visual/audio elements of the narrative are generally ignored, no matter how important they were to the whole story. Which is doubly strange when you look at the range of interests surrounding movies!!!?

is not this:

There’s also a lot of wild speculation and some very strange misconception kicking around, which a good central informational site could prevent. My interest is waning, fast. And that’s not down to the lack of new shows but the lack of accessible information. I keep wanting to find stuff out, only to find that it may have been covered in one of the official magazines, or appeared in an interview in a 1996 issue of the TV guide.

Personally, I’d have been happy to expand B5Scrolls, considerably, and into other areas, but, and I ain’t looking for a fight here - there’s a problem. jms has come to so dominate the virtual landscape when it comes to the show that those who could, do little to nothing to put forward information that may contradict something he’s said or knock a dent in the “great maker” myth. Kind of ironic, and a little sad, especially given the truly unique, HIGHLY co-operative way in which the show was made by a team of inovative and talented artsits, including jms.

You see, no-one here is opposed to celebrating the creativity of the non-writing members of the production team. No-one is against making available information about the CGI, the prosthetics, the music, and any other aspects of the show that are not its cast or its scripts. It may not be our primary interest in the show, but you will not find a single forum member who has a problem with you or anyone else putting up information about these subjects.

And it doesn't really matter to anyone if the people involved have negative things to say about each other or contradict each other. As with just about any social activity, people are bound to have disagreements. You'll not find a lot of animosity towards Claudia Christian for leaving the show, for example, and that was a much bigger brouhaha than anything related to the CGI. Jerry Doyle has made being a jerk a profession, and Patricia Tallman was quite candid about what was unpleasant about the B5 experience. None of those people are being ignored or censored, and neither are fans trying to disparage their contributions to the show. The Other Voices scriptbooks also contain many criticisms of how scripts were rewritten by JMS, and no-one has tried to stop the writers from expressing their dissatisfaction.

What no-one is interested in is your constant insinuations that there is some kind of JMS-centric conspiracy to censor the opinion of other production team members, or that the fans in their foolish hero-worship have simply forgotten all the information that used to be out there and have constructed this "great maker myth." The only myth being perpetuated here is that people would be too intimidated to contradict JMS, either by JMS himself or by the fans. To the people interested in Babylon 5, who are precisely not the kind of random fans who just want to play dress-up and obsess over trivia, these insinuations are quite offensive. Thus the response.

You're not the lone crusader out to dismantle the narratives of the foolish majority, because these unassailable myths you claim to be struggling with are of your own imagining. And we're not going to beg you to change your mind because you told us that your interest is waning fast; do you expect encouragement from the people you were just talking down your nose at?

If you want to celebrate the contributions of the other creative and organizational minds involved with the show, go ahead. You will find a lot of support from this community, the people here having accumulated quite a bit of the old behind-the-scenes material, and even from JMS himself (who has never been shy about pointing out the contributions of others, or acknowledging when he was wrong about something). The Babylon Podcast managed to interview all sorts of people; I'm sure nothing stands in your way to do the same. But if you continue to peddle this myth of the brainwashed fanbase and the never-to-be-criticized Great Maker, then you will get little more than scorn.

[Triple F]

I could respond by pointing at examples, but as I mentioned a little while back my level of interest isnÆt what it was. Lets just agree that we have different opinions û and different information - about some things. By the way, conspiracy is your word, not mine. To suggest a conspiracy is ludicrous.

[Jonas]

I could respond by pointing at examples, but as I mentioned a little while back my level of interest isn’t what it was.

Then why do you insist on bringing this up over and over?

Lets just agree that we have different opinions – and different information - about some things.

And here we go with the insinuations again. Oh, you have different information, you know the dark secrets that my JMS-clouded mind cannot accept.

By the way, conspiracy is your word, not mine. To suggest a conspiracy is ludicrous.

Then why do you keep doing it? This has been your modus operandi from the beginning - insinuate that people are too intimidated to talk, that it's about JMS and his ego, that the fans are blindly worshipping everything JMS says - and then, when confronted about it, claiming that you would never claim such a thing.

"I believe this animal is winged, feathered, egg-laying and warm-blooded, one of the kind common on Earth."
"So you're saying it's a bird."
"I would never suggest something so ludicrous!"

[Triple F]

Let it go indy. ; )

[OmahaStar]

Glad to know I'm not the only one who can't stand Triple-F and thinks he's a wack-ado nutcase with delusions of importance.

[Jan]

Omaha...I did say please. Jonas, please leave it alone now.

Triple-F...you might want to quit now, too. As I've said, your phrasing always leaves *much* to be desired and frankly, unless you can contribute *positively* rather than beating the same drum over and over, maybe it's past time for your interest to wane completely and for good.

Jan
Moderator.

[Jonas]

Omaha...I did say please. Jonas, please leave it alone now.

Triple-F...you might want to quit now, too. As I've said, your phrasing always leaves *much* to be desired and frankly, unless you can contribute *positively* rather than beating the same drum over and over, maybe it's past time for your interest to wane completely and for good.

Jan
Moderator.

Leaving It Alone Manoeuvre engaged. We live for the Jan, we die for the Jan.

[Jan]

Leaving It Alone Manoeuvre engaged. We live for the Jan, we die for the Jan.

Oh, I don't think it needs to go quite that far! But thanks.

Jan

[Marsden]

Plus, you were scaring me with your strange posts. I like this place because it's a nice place, not scary. No nasty posts like a lot of other places I've seen. *Runs and hides behind Jan*

[Capt.Montoya]

[...] There's no 'leaders' of B5 fandom and I doubt there ever will be. That doesn't make B5 fans any less than other fandoms.

There's no leader said the woman that leads this JMS forum, arguably the most popular B5 related forum, and the one whose knowledge of the scripts is so many times germane to the discussions, and who is also involved in the script books??


Kidding aside, there were leaders behind the Save Crusade campaign, others took the lead in the letter writing campaigns for Memory of Shadows, I'd say that in a sense the moderators of rastb5m are some sort of leaders too, way back then Steven Grimm could have been called a leader of sorts because of his involvement with The Lurker's Guide.

There are leaders, I believe, but maybe there aren't campaigns to be led, or the existing would-be-leaders are not interested in the campaigns that could be started, or the leaders to lead those campaigns have yet to rise.

I had thought that the idea of creating a comprehensive online archive of B5 related material would have been a good campaign for the fandom to get into... too bad some people seem willing to dismiss the idea because they dislike some things written by the person proposing it.

BTW, I want to thank Triple F for making his Babylon 5 Scrolls site available for download, it is a great resource.
It's a shame that so many B5 related sites have disappeared without anyone archiving them.

[Jan]

There's no leader said the woman that leads this JMS forum, arguably the most popular B5 related forum, and the one whose knowledge of the scripts is so many times germane to the discussions, and who is also involved in the script books??

Many thanks. But given that my main job around here is Head Spam Basher, I don't think my head will be swelling any time soon.

Kidding aside, there were leaders behind the Save Crusade campaign, others took the lead in the letter writing campaigns for Memory of Shadows, I'd say that in a sense the moderators of rastb5m are some sort of leaders too, way back then Steven Grimm could have been called a leader of sorts because of his involvement with The Lurker's Guide.

I'd include Sandy Bruckner in that group, too.

I had thought that the idea of creating a comprehensive online archive of B5 related material would have been a good campaign for the fandom to get into... too bad some people seem willing to dismiss the idea because they dislike some things written by the person proposing it.

Not sure where that comment's aimed but...frankly, what you're proposing doesn't sound anything like what I think Triple-F was proposing. And did anybody notice that nobody cared enough about the proposal to post the suggestion in the Site Support and Suggestions forum to see if DougO might consider adding to this site?

It's a shame that so many B5 related sites have disappeared without anyone archiving them.

As I recall, FirstOnes.com has offered space to anybody who wants to archive their site with them. Or they did at one point. IIRC, a poster here who was involved with the letter writing for TMoS archived his page with them.

Jan

[Zoltan]

As I recall, FirstOnes.com has offered space to anybody who wants to archive their site with them. Or they did at one point. IIRC, a poster here who was involved with the letter writing for TMoS archived his page with them.

Jan

My site was also archived on FirstOnes.com. Unfortunately, the links to my animations are broken on the pages (the files are uploaded though, so I'd only need to change the URLs) but I failed to get a reply when I tried to contact sanfam directly or someone at the "siteadmin" address. Does anyone here have a direct contact with the admins?

[Jonas]

I think what would be really great is a better wiki. None of those I've seen are terribly good, and they tend to be bad in a way that discourages contribution. Maybe I'm being unfair and should take another look. A well-developed wiki would also be a great place for a lot of behind-the-scenes information, including multiple perspectives of how certain things happened. A good wiki might do quite a bit for B5's reputation and accessibility to new fans.

Equally important, I think, would be the production of more academic material about B5: essays, analyses, etc. This is also an aspect that most of the Wiki entries I've seen are completely lacking - looking at B5 as a work of fiction. B5 uses intertextuality, historical references and other such devices more than just about any other show, and those layers of meaning are too often ignored. Only the Lurker's Guide has some of that info.

It's currently completely impossible for me time-wise, but I'd love to write some analytical essays about B5 for websites like PopMatters. Maybe later this year. If anyone else is interested in this sort of thing, please go ahead and do that, too.

[lotjx]

I could get into why Firefly fans are starting to form their own internet Jonestown even though they got a movie out their complaining. A movie that basically ended the need for the show to go on. If anyone has a right to complain about their show dying too quick of a death its Twin Peak fans. Yet, they too got screwed with a movie that was a piece of garbage expect it resolved nothing and bombed. Those fans have a legit gripe about getting hosed, Firefly fans do not since they got a movie that resolved at least one story arch, actually two if you count the engineer and doctor love story. So, really quite your complaining.

It has been said before, but needs to be said again, Babylon 5's story is done. Yes, we all want to see the PSI Corp War or how Crusade ended or what happened during Londo's reign and so on, but we kinda know how they ended. Earth is still around and habitable in Sleeping in the Light. Crusade gave hints about the PSI Corp War. The books took care of the Centauri storyline quite well and we know that the humans will evolve into the Vorlons. All that is left is loose threads. I would love to see more B5, but I don't want a rehash. I think most fans are content to let B5 stay dead. You really don't want to have a studio do to B5 that Trek became before the movie or get fairly and unfairly maligned like Star Wars is right now. Its better to let some things just stay where they are.