B5 must go on

[Ranger1]

Is the world of TV gone mad? can't they see that B5 still going strong after all these years? so many people want it back,even with the original cast and crew...like there's enough stories to go around until Sheridan dies and all.
The spinoffs until now (Crusade and legend of the Rangers) were kinda slow imho.
There is a demand for Star Trek,so you get Star Trek.
There was a demand for Star Wars,you get Star Wars.
And there is certainly a demand for Babylon 5 and all we get is a nice spit in our face.
I think the main problem is that Joe is invasting in so many things and all at once.
Babylon 5 is the only series that made me laugh my a** off and made me cry like a girl (and im proud to admit that to my friends)!

In short: Babylon 5 must go on!!!

[b1ade_Runner]

Jerry Doyle is that you?

[Ranger1]

hehehe

[Zatrass]

I'am a french fan of B5 series !

I hope that the hopes given by Jms on the forum go confirmed and that a Telefilm or a film will vera the day very soon.

For me it is the only Sf series which has such a major history Where the characters have true a psychology. The history written by Jms is an extreme richness.

B5 Must Go On !!

[ranger_zen]

only if it is good

I would love to see B5 go on. But not if it is detrmential to what has already happened.

When i go back and watch B5, what amazes me is the fact that over th 5 years of the series, the charicters grew and changed. Everything changed over that 5 years, and the series become more then just another TV show, but a importent event for the people who watched it.

Over those 5 years everyone who watched the show also grew and changed and become diffrent people. We could also see the effects of time and events on these charicters that we knew and loved.

That, to me, is what made B5 such a special event.

More b5 would be great, and i would love to spend more time in that universe. But i think it would be hard for any new b5 to truly be that special, and have such a impact.

Sure JMS could write something, and they might even be able to have better sets and better actors and directors. But i'm not sure you will be able to recreate something like the original B5

[Radhil]

Pretty much what Zen said... There's a reason why the only thing that came out of "more B5" was spinoffs. Joe knows (or I imagine he does) that if he goes back to the original well, he risks spoiling it.

Or, to quote you straight out...

There is a demand for Star Trek,so you get Star Trek.
There was a demand for Star Wars,you get Star Wars.

Yeah, and look what's happened to both of those.

It's a pity Rangers became a victim of circumstance. It had promise. Still, leave the original series be. It's a beautiful thing as it is, flaws and all. If you can revive interest in Rangers, that I'd support.

[Kosh]

I didn't really watch B5 reruns when they were on, so rewatching the series recently on DVD really reminded me how much I liked this show. TV SF has really gone to the dogs since.

The world needs another JMS space opera...

[tlsmith1963]

JMS said recently that something new could happen in the B5 universe, but it's not a series. I think it might be a mini-series or another movie. I'm hoping for the Telepath War. It's the one big thing that he has been holding back.

Tammy

[Sil]

I have to agree as well. Starting the old series up again will hopefully never happen. It had a five year arc, and that has been completed. But the world JMS created is still great, and got room for a lot more stories. Of the ones we know about, I would love to see the Telepath war (as mentioned) and also the story of the previous shadow war. I doubt we will ever see the latter, but I guess at least one of the projects being discussed by JMS, Doyle and whoever else is involved, is the telepath war.

And if one or both of the projects JMS has hinted about is made and becomes a success, who knows what will happen?

[blacknite]

i too hope that there is new babylon 5 tv/movies coming because...

the problem with babylon 5 is that:

1) it is addictive, my brain is starving.
2) all sci-fi does not does not measure up.

i am a huge fan of star trek, but not after watching all 4 dvd sets that have come out star trek stories seem to simple and singular. i really enjoy star trek the gene rodenberry still alive--but still his work, as far as story complexity, does not compare!

thank you, jms, for you visionary masterpeice... all the sweat, boold and tears that when in to making this were worth it!!!


stephen.

[Andrew_Swallow]

The Babylon 5 story is now finished. However the characters have 20 years to live before "Sleeping in Light". They have plenty of stories to tell. For instance the "River of Souls" suggests that Garibaldi has the life of both a businessman and an adventure ahead of him.

[Ranger1]

A spin-off with the original series is not necessary .... just think,making the background story about the first ones/the shadows/the vorlons,up until the conflict between the shadows and the Minbari (yes with Babylon 4 and all),and we could see some old characters (sinclair,zathras)...Babylon 5 universe is so large,i mean it has to do something with the shadows,look at the original series-they all build up until it finally exploded with the shadows war,after that (season 5) it kinda went slow,the Telepath crisis and all was a nice idea but didn't turned up very well IMO.
We even have enough stories for the next million years after the original series LOL.

Come on Joe!! we are HUNGRY.

[frulad]

I have to admit that I'm of two minds on this.

Sure I'd love for Joe to reveal more of his fascinating universe to us. I'll be at the front of the line for "The Telepath War", a finish to "Crusade" or anything else JMS wishes to give us.

However, as another poster above said, there is the risk of spoiling what has gone before if JMS (perish the thought) is not quite able to capture the zeitgeist that made the original B5 so special. Star Wars has pointed as an example. I think the Dune series is another. The first three books are great. But when Herbert went back and did God Emperor of Dune he ranked out one of the most turgid and plodding things I have ever tried to force myself through. I'm also a big fan of Isaac Asimov's writing, but those more recent Foundation novels ([i]Prelude To[/] and Forward The) were not that great either.

So long as JMS is sure that any new project wouldn't reflect badly on what has gone before than I guess I'm all for it. But it's a tricky tightrope to walk.

[Joseph DeMartino]

There is a demand for Star Trek,so you get Star Trek. There was a demand for Star Wars,so you get Star Wars.

There is a demand for using the space-bar, but look where that gets you.

In any event, the first of the above statements is flat-out wrong. Paramount did not put Star Trek back into production because of any perceived demand or because fans wrote letters or because a few thousand people showed up at conventions. That's fan mythology born of whishful thinking.

Paramount got interested in reviving Star Trek for two reasons (1) they were contemplating creating what in those days would have been the fourth TV network and Trek was one of several shows they owned that were candidates for revivals and (2) - most importantly - because the first Star Wars film became such a phenomenal hit that it made "science fiction" - previously a dead genre - into a hot commodity. Every studio in Hollywood immediately started going through its script files and backlog of old properties to see what kind of SF projects it could slap together to ride the Star Wars wave. Someone at Paramount films said, "Don't we own something like that?" and remembered Trek. Since the 4th network plans were going into the toilet anyway, Paramount decided to try to recoup some of the money it had already spent on Star Trek II by using its sets and a couple of stitched together episode scripts to turn out Star Trek: The Motion Picture. It was purely a business decision, an attempt to cash in on the Fox film's popularity and to limit the losses they'd incur by scrapping Star Trek II. What the fans wanted had exactly zero to do with what followed.

Because the first film returned a modest profit, and because the second film was able to return a big one by reusing all the sets and much of the footage from the first, Trek finally became the "franchise" that it had never been until that time.

At the same time a market was opening up for first-run syndicated series, a much larger market than had ever existed before, and Paramount once again made a business decision to see if the Trek name could draw people to a new show starring unknown (and much cheaper) actors. The result was ST: TNG and the rest, as they say, is history. (Since Paramount finally did get that network Voyager held on for 7 seasons despite tepid ratings that would have gotten it cancelled on any other network, and Enterprise will probably do the same. It would just be too embarassing for Paramount to have to cancel its "flagship" franchise.)

We got more Star Wars (and hasn't that been a mixed blessing) because George Lucas decided to do it. This is another case where fan interest had absolutely nothing to do with anything. Had interest been the deciding factor, the prequel trilogy would have gone into production immediately after Jedi, and we'd have seen the last of the concluding sequel trilogy that was once planned by now. Fox would have loved to do that, just as they would love to have released the first three movies on DVD by now. Unfortunately for them, Lucas controls the films and does things according to his own whim, not according to what Fox, the fans, or anybody else wants. (If he'd had any respect for fan opinion the opening shot of Attack of the Clones would have been a long zoom in past Jar-Jar's severed head in orbit around some planet. )

Two other points:

1) JMS don't control anything, so bugging him is silly. Warner Bros. has to want a new project and that new project either has to be one it distributes itself (e.g., a theatrical film) or it has to interest a partner (a cable channel or broadcast network) to get the project in front of viewers.

2) I don't understand this theory that inferior later work somehow "screws up" good early work. That's like saying a bad movie adaptation "ruins" a book. (When told precisely that, author James M. Cain simply pointed to a bookshelf with various editions of his novels. "No," he said. "There they are. They're still fine.") Did the later Dune novels suck? Absolutely. Does that somehow reduce the quality of the first two books? Not at all. They are just as good today as they were on the day they were published. The trick is not to read the others. Although I did not think that To Live and Die in Starlight was a very good TV movie (although it was a perfectly adequate series pilot) I don't see why that should retroactively affect my experience of B5. So it doesn't.

Regards,

Joe

[KoshN]

Originally posted by Joseph DeMartino

Although I did not think that To Live and Die in Starlight was a very good TV movie (although it was a perfectly adequate series pilot) I don't see why that should retroactively affect my experience of B5. So it doesn't.
[/B]

To Live and Die in Starlight never happened.