Interesting JMS Facebook Posts & Tweets

[Jan]

In response to a nice note somebody posted reminding JMS to please take care of himself:

Thank you for the kind words. Yeah, I tend to push myself a lot, I don't have a lot of patience with weakness so I generally just muscle through whatever's in front of me. Good news is I'm on the other side of the problem now, and rebuilding my regular writing schedule. Thanks again....

Jan

[sftv]

This has me truly concerned about Joe. I am surprised that the doctor for the emergency room did not admit Joe to the hospital. Celluitis can quickly turn into sepsis, coma and death if not treated. The broad spectrum IV antibiotics typically used to treat celluitis, Vancomycin, Cafepime and Zocyn have to be monitored closely, since they can cause liver problems. The preferred oral antibiotic, Clindamycin, can also have nasty side effects.

Another Comics Creator, Mike Grell, is recovering from Celluitis as well. He was scheduled to be at a local convention, CopperCon, a week ago, but canceled due to health reasons. There wasn't much information at the time, but he recently posted about his experience, which did include a lengthy hospital stay.

http://mikegrell.com/news/?p=701

Lee Whiteside

[Jan]

Re-posted because I love "chronospatial nitwit"!

When I was a kid, days passed like weeks; now week pass like days. What chronospatial nitwit is in charge here?

Jan

[Jan]

This is embarrassing. I asked JMS a question and he answered it but I can't for the life of me remember exactly where the line he's talking about was used.

JMS, given how often your fans quote from your work, I got to wondering if you might have a quote or passage from your own work that you're particularly proud/fond of and what it is...whether we've seen it produced yet or not. Thanks.

The line about telling the world "no, you move."

I'm thinking it may not have been in his fiction? Anybody remember this?

ETA: A kind lurker (Hi, lurker! Thanks!) who saw this post reminded me that it was a conversation between Captain America and Spiderman during the Civil War storyline. JMS posted a link to this page: http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/...2758-page2.jpg

But it certainly bears typing out in full

Doesn't matter what the press says. Doesn't matter what the politicians or the mobs say. Doesn't matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right.

This nation was founded on one principle above all else: The requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences.

When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth and tell the whole world--"No, you move."

Jan
(slinking away to turn in her fangirl card for not remembering that scene...)

[Jan]

From Twitter:

Enough with memes proclaiming "you are awesome" just because you got up that day and are sucking down air. DO something to EARN it.

https://twitter.com/straczynski/status/372258320934920192

Jan

[Jan]

A fan posted and asked JMS why it looked like there was not chance of JMS getting the rights to B5 (as he'd mentioned being in negotiations for):

We've been negotiating and trying to make this happen for over two years. Went from a promising start to bogging down and I don't think it'll happen at this stage.

Jan

[JoeD80]

He also mentioned on twitter that the rights would cost more than kickstarter had ever raised before...

[Ubik]

He also mentioned on twitter that the rights would cost more than kickstarter had ever raised before...

IÆd be really curious to know what the cost would be. Even just a ballpark figure. IÆm betting it would be fairly astronomical. I suppose itÆs not really in WBÆs interest to relinquish the TV rights, unless as Looney pointed out in the #FreeBabylon5 thread, it really had completely disappeared into obscurity and ceased to make them any money.

The drive to get B5 back on TV would could renew interest, and would make WB more aware the show STILL has a big audience. You would have thought the DVD sales would have made that much clear to them!

The sad things is that I honestly think the time for new B5 has passed, unless it were something completely fresh and new. I think we often crave new content to keep the fires burning, and because we are so invested in what already exists. I sometimes think IÆm in the minority when I say IÆd rather see new material from JMS, which is why IÆm so stoked for Sense8.

[Ubik]

As an addendum to my previous post, something just struck me, and itÆs so simple that it hadnÆt occurred to me until now.

If JMS getting the TV rights back to B5 is off the table, then the only way he has of ever doing something B5 related again would be to bolster raise the profile of the show to such a level that WB have an interest again. Hence the tweets and FB rallying of the fans. I may be stating the obvious here, but it does make a LOT of sense.

[Jan]

From Twitter:

@straczynski 2h
Actually woke myself up this morning laughing at something a character said in a dream...a pissed-off, older mob guy in a retirement home...

@straczynski 2h
..."I'm just glad I'm wearing a robe so when I shit myself with happiness I won't make a mess I'll have to live with afterward."

Can't wait to see if this ends up written in something in the future!

Jan

[Jan]

JMS is an evil man! I do like that!

@straczynski 2h
There are few things in life as inherently funny as a cat sleeping on a cell phone when a call suddenly comes in. #clawsburiedintheceiling

@straczynski 2h
Parenthetically, I was the one who placed the call from my land line. This is known in humor parlance as a bank shot.

@straczynski 1h
It also helps, and adds considerably to the visuals, if you have selected this as your ringtone http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsTRxXvQY0s

@straczynski 1h
@_____ Alas, no. Had the cell phone been recording, it would only have recorded fur, a blur, and a 6'x9' crater.

Somebody asked if Buddy really jumped that high -> #clawsburiedintheceiling

@straczynski
@____ Kitty go BOOM!

Jan

[Jan]

Sounds like Buddy may have gotten his revenge?

@straczynski 7h
Life Rule #27. Never lean nude over a cat unless you have resolved in your own mind what the cat might consider a threat.

Jan

[Jan]

Most folks here are probably aware of the B5 Scrolls site which has some wonderful interviews with a lot of the behind-the-scenes folks. It's no secret that Triple-F and I have exchanged views over what I consider an unfortunate tone to many of his interview questions or posts but until now, JMS has remained silent as far as I've been aware. Until tonight, that is, when he corrected some bad information that was out there and comments on some of the quotes. In some cases it looks like JMS is unearthing really old thread (and he may be) but there's also an oddness about the way things show up on the B5 Scrolls Facebook page where posts don't always show up under current dates (at least I've had trouble finding some things when I've gone looking after the fact).

In response to this particular paragraph in this post:

Lets put it this way. Once Warner Brothers and Babylonian Productions - owned by Rattlesnake (Doug Netter) and Synthetic Worlds (J. Michael Straczynski) - took their cuts via various accounting methods, the artists who designed things like the Starfury, Omega and Shadow vessels NEVER made a penny on all that merchandising that was created. Still don’t, but that’s sadly not that unusual.

Y'know, if you're going to take a shot at somebody, you should a) do it to their face and b) be accurate. This was neither.

You talk about the producers (meaning me) taking their "cut" of merchandising, and about owning a production company. Babylonian Productions was what's called a pass-through company; it exists only to receive the budget from the studio, and use those funds to pay for production costs. At the end of the shoot, the company is folded up or transferred back to the studio. It's not like owning DreamWorks. It was a tube through which money funneled to the cast and crew, and when the show was done, the company was done. Total assets we own of that: zero, effective as soon as the shows (B5 and Crusade) were done.

To the matter of merchandising, I don't know what figures you've made up in your own mind about that, but I can pretty much guarantee you that they do not touch reality at any two contiguous points. By contract, I had a very small piece of merchandising which WB got to determine...meaning very close to zero. The only direct merchandising that Foundation *could* have gotten would have been the model ships, and I think my total check on that merchandise came to about a couple hundred dollars. Literally. Leaving aside their fun little computations...show me the merchandising that made millions. Hell, show me the merchandising related to Foundation that made maybe a hundred grand.

Except for my writer's guild residuals on the episodes themselves, which don't exist while the show is off the air in the US (international is nearly nothing), I've never received a dime in royalties or profits on the show to this date. I'm happy to share with anyone who wants to see it the next royalty statement that comes in from WB. According to the last one, we are still (by their accounting) about 15M in the red. Nor have I ever received anything beyond WGA residuals on the DVDs.

Did the show make money? Hell yes. Where did it go? To the studio. So ifi you're going to start taking shots at me, you'd damn well better get your facts straight before doing so. What resentments you may have toward Doug -- and some of them are well-founded, something I did not know at the time but discovered later -- do not give you the right to simply make shit up because you're pissed off.

By now pretty much everybody knows that if you want to discuss any/all of these, please take the discussion to a new thread. Thanks.

Jan
(splitting these into separate posts because vBulletin keeps losing big chunks of posts. DougO's looking into it.)

[Jan]

JMS replied to a couple of things in this thread:

A poster named Aris asked if JMS didn't simply write 'space battle' in his scripts without any description and then the effects crew stepped in and created them. Daniel Taylor (from the effects people?) confirmed that.

Show me those scripts. I've never seen them or written them. In some scenes, after setting the stage and the logistics, I would say we would need a Ron Thornton special, but never just wrote "space battle." Sorry. If you want to back up your story, since you must have seen this to quote it, please, do so. Otherwise back off this shit.

JMS quotes the part he's replying to in this one:

"In case you haven’t guessed it yet, one of the things that come out of the interviews on B5Scrolls was that Joe Straczynski was far from being the only person who had creative input into most aspects of Babylon 5. It was a very collaborative process involving dozens of artists."

And I've never said anything to the contrary. I've gone to considerable length, at every possible opportunity, to express my appreciation for the crew and efx guys, which I manifested by giving them as much creative room to play as possible.

What I will say for my part is this: it doesn't make any difference how good your EFX team is IF THE SHOWRUNNER DOESN'T LET THEM DO THEIR JOB. You need someone at the helm who gets it, and encourages them to be as creative as possible. I don't care how good the Starfury designs are, if I'm the showrunner and I want something that looks like it came out of Fireball XL5, that's what you're going to spend the season making. Which is why a lot of SF shows suck and suffer from a lack of ingenuity.

I honestly don't know what your problem is, but you guys seriously need to get over your case of the bitters. You don't prop yourself up by trying to step on the other guy's throat. It's unseemly and unprofessional and most of all it's inherently false. As Copeland said, and as all of us have said from the git-go, this was a partnership and a collaboration between all of the departments. The CGI wouldn't register as well as it does without the sound effects; the sound needs music to create the emotional moments...the cast needs to perform and the scripts need to make sense. It's all or nothing, and this kind of bitching-and-moaning after the fact, that somehow of those elements *you* didn't get your due when we all participated, and none of us probably got what we should have gotten, and all of us participated in every facet of this show. You need to get over your case of the bitters.

Jan

[Jan]

Next, in this post JMS quotes what he's replying to:

J. MIchael Straczynski "...the B5 producers who now owned the FX." I never owned the FX. Those were all properties of Warner Bros. And BTW, attempts to keep those files from the studio, which owned the assets, would have been breach of contract.

As to the quote above from Copeland...sorry, folks, but that's the reality of every shot, every script, every performance. You do it the best you can but at some point you have to let it go. Art is never finished, only abandoned. That some animators might "grumble" about it is not salutary to them. It's childishness. Should a shot not come in in time for broadcast because the animator is still twiddling with it? So we should scuttle the whole episode? Nonsense. I have script deadlines; directors have deadlines for cuts; music editors have to deliver their files in time for the audio mix; and animators have to deliver their shots in time for broadcast. Is it perfect? No. Nothing is. Perfect doesn't exist. There's not a single episode of B5 where I wouldn't want to go back and tweak a line of dialogue or an edit here and there.

It's the reaction to the quote that is telling, not the quote itself. It shows a serious lack of maturity on the part of those involved...as it does the person who recites it here thinking somehow that it constitutes an indictment.

Jan