B5 coming to Amazon Prime in June!

[Looney]

OUCH!!!!!

Only 13 people have signed the petition since I signed it yesterday. That is sad.

And like I said whether it is a reality or not, the more people who signed that petition the more likely WB might have taken notice that there are still active fans out here. Unfortunately we apparently don't have those kinds of numbers.

[Jan]

Given the doubt that those negatives exist, there's not much sense in the petition, though. Wish we could just see it in the original format so the CGI would look like it did originally, though.

[sense8ional]

The Vudu copies are exactly that.

[Looney]

Are you saying the Vudu Digital Copies are 4:3, Sense8ional?

[Ubik]

Offhand I'd say he may have wanted fans to get a decent looking cut of the show?

Yes, for sure, and I support that. But would it not have been a good idea to have his facts straight first? Not that we know exactly what the exact 'facts' of the matter are. But there seems to be plenty of evidence pointing towards those negatives not existing. It just looks a tad foolish.

[sense8ional]

Are you saying the Vudu Digital Copies are 4:3, Sense8ional?

Yes. And the VFX look way better than the badly mastered DVDs.

So what JMS proposes already exists in SD resolution. Amazon should just make use of that.

[Jan]

Yes, for sure, and I support that. But would it not have been a good idea to have his facts straight first?

He's human. Whether he was going by memory or he had a copy of a memo from WB requiring something that couldn't be done, who knows. At the end of the day, why would anybody expect him to be infallible? 'Great Maker' is just a nickname, after all!

[Triple F]

OUCH!!!!!

Only 13 people have signed the petition since I signed it yesterday. That is sad.

And like I said whether it is a reality or not, the more people who signed that petition the more likely WB might have taken notice that there are still active fans out here. Unfortunately we apparently don't have those kinds of numbers.

It’s a tricky one to assess, worldwide the viewership was obviously in the millions. The B5 facegroup quite quickly went to 30,000+ members (and is still growing). I guess it’s down to how you define “active”, and what form that activity takes. I’ve long taken the view that the fan base is quite large, but for various reasons it’s in a sort of hibernation or holding pattern waiting to see if anything new might be created..

The other thing is, and while it might seem like a small distinction I suspect it’s actually quite an important one. The fan base could be viewed as being made up of three broad groups (with a little overlap between them occasionally). Folks who might not normally describe or view themselves as sci-fi fans but like B5 because it’s just a good story, then there’s the sci-fi fans who like it because it’s good sci-fi and a good story, then there’s the jms fans who like it because he wrote most of it and it’s, well, a good story. . . . and over the years, it’s been the jms fans who have tended to be the most active – like Jan for example (and thank god she is).

But, and I don’t mean this as anything other than an observation. It’s jms fans who help with B5 books which is the closest thing to any new official material in the last 10 years (what is it, 50 or so publications now), which is great but because of that there’s perhaps a little too much focus on topics which tend to interest them and as such, over time, the material being produced has a more limited appeal to the folks in the other two (and most likely much larger) groups. So they are more inclined to wander off and go into the holding pattern - still there, but not what you might call active.

B5 also has a serious lack of the sort of little things which help keep interest raised. There’s no fan made movies, web series, even animated comic strips and all the sort of stuff which can introduce new stories or extend the 'verse – largely due to jms being dead set against stuff like that (remember the Novo Babylonia audio drama), and he’s none too fond of even fan fiction. There’s no dedicated technical manuals, because what little there was jms wrote off as not being any kind of canon so many now dismiss them (iif anyone quotes them, there's a good chance a jms fan will tell them off for doing it). There’s no books on things like costumes, props, the FX or sets – all areas which interest dedicated groups of active nerds but B5books has more or less stayed away from those sort of areas other than to occasionally touch on them.

The way things have developed, the jms fans are well catered for, but the others not so much, and I suspect that’s helped to slowly kill off (active) interest within different interest groups throughout the internet - maybe kill off is too strong, but it certainly has did little to encourgae it.

edit
I’ll share a story with you. A few years back someone made a couple of little crochet dolls of G’Kar and Londo. I posted about it on the Behind the scenes page, and folks loved them, unsurprisingly. But the women who made then posted and mentioned how she was a little concerned about the attention this was bringing and how she might get into trouble for making them. But luckily jms liked them, posted about them himself and all was good. . . . . But that sense of fear, uncertainty, apprehensiveness or however you want to call it is very much a thing within the fandom. Many folks worry about potentially stepping on jms’s toes . . . . . I’m not one of them, obviously. : )

[Hypatia]

He's human. Whether he was going by memory or he had a copy of a memo from WB requiring something that couldn't be done, who knows. At the end of the day, why would anybody expect him to be infallible? 'Great Maker' is just a nickname, after all!

Technically, 'Great Maker' doesn't even imply infallibility.

Not that this helps the debate. Just thought I'd be unhelpful.

[Ubik]

He's human. Whether he was going by memory or he had a copy of a memo from WB requiring something that couldn't be done, who knows. At the end of the day, why would anybody expect him to be infallible? 'Great Maker' is just a nickname, after all!

I don't expect him to be infallible, far from it. I understand that he's excited by the Amazon deal and sees the opportunity to perhaps leverage a better looking transfer of the show for us fans. But, if you're sharing with millions of fans and appealing to a multinational company, wouldn't you want to be fairly sure what you were suggesting was actually technically viable?

It's like announcing the B5 Movie with such certainly many moons ago. It's exciting, but sometimes far from realistic and just end in disappointment to the point where I wish he'd just not told us. I know he's far more cautious making big announcements these days... and I know film making and TV is a fickle world. Nothing is ever certain. It's a hard one. His heart was in the right place, and I get what he's going for.

The upshot is, this is good news for B5 as a whole and it might help our cause for getting a better version or, in my wildest dreams, some kind of new material.

[Jan]

edit
I’ll share a story with you. A few years back someone made a couple of little crochet dolls of G’Kar and Londo. I posted about it on the Behind the scenes page, and folks loved them, unsurprisingly. But the women who made then posted and mentioned how she was a little concerned about the attention this was bringing and how she might get into trouble for making them. But luckily jms liked them, posted about them himself and all was good. . . . . But that sense of fear, uncertainty, apprehensiveness or however you want to call it is very much a thing within the fandom. Many folks worry about potentially stepping on jms’s toes . . . . . I’m not one of them, obviously. : )

I'd have to find it and I won't but my memory is that she never said a word about being apprehensive about JMS, only about WB being upset at the potential infringement. In fact, if I'm recalling correctly, she said from the very start that she wouldn't make any for others for exactly that reason. And everybody knows JMS couldn't send a C&D letter, right?

[Looney]

And everybody knows JMS couldn't send a C&D letter, right?

Now that would be a collector's item. It would be proof I could show people that JMS knows my name. LOL

And honestly I feel I have to put it out there that I feel I am more of a Babylon 5 fan than a JMS fan. Don't get me wrong, I love most of his work, but not everything he has done has been something I treasure. I'm just saying this to clarify that I think Triple F's assessment of B5 fan categories is a somewhat accurate breakdown with varying degrees within the categories. But we all know the truth of the matter is that it is hard to keep fandom for something active when the focus of that fandom isn't active. It is easier to be a "JMS" fan because he has other projects going on all the time.

[Jan]

It is easier to be a "JMS" fan because he has other projects going on all the time.

It was a LOT easier when he had comics coming out all the time!

[Looney]

It was a LOT easier when he had comics coming out all the time!

AND the fact that they were all pretty darn good didn't hurt. I am actually surprised they didn't generate more discussion here, but not everyone is going to buy comic books no matter how good they are.

[Ubik]

AND the fact that they were all pretty darn good didn't hurt. I am actually surprised they didn't generate more discussion here, but not everyone is going to buy comic books no matter how good they are.

A lot of his recent comics work (the Studio JMS / rebooted Joe's comics stuff) did very little for me. I enjoyed Midnight Nation and Rising Stars many moons ago; but am a bit unsure if I'd be as into them now. Some of his Spiderman run was very good but it wasn't consistently great (note I am not talking about the concluding arc that was forced on him). I also enjoyed Supreme Power a lot, but wish it had an ending. Beyond that... I'm a bit meh. His Superman Earth One run felt very phoned in and a bit flat to me. The only creator that really made me LOVE superman was Grant Morrison. I found JMS' run really strangely stilted and unadventurous given it's his favourite character and he had scope to do what he wanted under the Earth One banner. Perhaps it just wasn't the kind of Superman comic I was after.

I still need to check out his run on Thor and must read 'The Twelve' which got excellent reviews.

On the whole, I think there are just better comics out there these days, but it's all down to personal taste.

Coming back to Triple F's rather finely thought out analogy - I think I'm more of a B5 fan than a JMS fan, as I've found a lot of his work post-B5 doesn't hold up for me. B5 really was the sum of many great parts, cast, crew, directors, VFX people, and of course JMS.

Even Sense8 - I enjoyed it, but I wanted to be totally wowed by it, but never was. I wanted that epic scope and long form storytelling, but I never got the feeling that's where we were going with it. I guess it's why I keep coming back to B5... nothing has yet come close in terms of SF on TV.