Script Book #13 - SPOILERS

[JoeD80]

I wonder if the "Psi Corps" series was his original plan for "Babylon Prime." We'll get the definitive word in Volume 15, but I found this jms comment from just before the pilot aired intriguing:

jms 2/17/1994:

There's one possible spin-off that has always been feasible, but it would not be a B5 series, rather following one thread in a different direction. But that also has a definite end, after which there *can't* be any more followups, for reasons I can't now go into.

[FuryPilot]

I wonder if the "Psi Corps" series was his original plan for "Babylon Prime." We'll get the definitive word in Volume 15, but I found this jms comment from just before the pilot aired intriguing:

That's an interesting idea. Based on the definition of 'prime' I presumed that series would be based on the years immediately after the Battle of the Line, and around the Babylon Project.

But that's just a guess.

FP

[Garibaldi's Hair]

Marshall Teague rocks, one of the things that makes watching Armageddon an enjoyable experience ... pity he isn't in it for very long.

And, take a look at his IMDB Profile. He is looking more and more like President Sheridan.

[Jan]

There are definitely some fun things in this volume (Footnotes are back!! Yay!).

I've been having fun seeing what he'd write in each script to go with the establishing shots and he mentions how he sometimes gets wonky when he's tired.

Sometimes they're funny. From "Meditations on the Abyss":

EXT. Babylon 5 It's on TNT now. You may have read about it.

From "A Tragedy of Telepaths":

EXT. Babylon 5 Where else?

I can't find it now but one other place after the EXT. Babylon 5 he wrote something like "Five years, who'd'a thunk it?"

Sometimes it gives detailed information about the mood and setting. From "The Corps is Mother...":

EXT. Psi Corps Headquarters - Mars Somewhere in Dome One. Put it in the context of a city, not somehere isolated. The isolation here takes place inside.

When I first started reading the scripts my eyes tended to ignore establishing shots until I realized that there could be some cool stuff even in them.

As for JMS's musing about future stories, remember, we read it first in Volume 13. I wouldn't mind a bit seeing Ta'lon as the warrior/priest Narn in future stories. Psi Corps series? Hm...why do I think that it would be incredibly subversive?

Jan

[vacantlook]

I'm going to have to try to remember to take notice whenever I watched whichever episode it is again; I never noticed that Drazi jms references in one of the introductions/commentaries wearing both green and purple sashes.

Also, when jms says he hates the Drakh, is he referencing just the white, skeletal headed emissary type being that was in "Lines of Communication" or is he talking about all Drakh? His comment about them looking too much like Skeletor makes it sound like he's talking the LoC emissary ones, but why mention that here and not instead in the intro/commentary for LoC in whichever previous book it was in?

[JoeD80]

Sounds like he didn't like any of the Drakh:

Didn't like the design, didn't like the characters, didn't like anything about them

Bad idea. Top to bottom, front to back, side to side, end to end. Dumb.

The commentary in Volume 9 on "Lines of Communication" doesn't mention the side-plot involving the Minbari and the Drakh at all.

[JoeD80]

There's some neat stuff in this volume. One interesting thing I noticed in the photos: The customs area says "Forbidden on Babylon 5: Dust, Weapons, Fighting, Durians" -- I wonder why you can't bring that particular fruit on to B5? Maybe jms didn't like them

[glindros]

My books came in yesterday. I'm going to open them tonight.

Is there a particularly outstanding book I should hit first?

[JoeD80]

Ah, I see from the latest jms post it's actually No DurLans....

Actually, it's No Durlans, for all the comics fans...B5 had had enough
problems with shape-shifters over the years....

[Joe Nazzaro]

And for those of you that aren't comic book geeks (specifically the Legion of Super Heroes), Durlans are the shape-changing race of which Chameleon Boy is a member. I'll bet that helps you sleep tonight.

[Jan]

Is there a particularly outstanding book I should hit first?

Oh my...well, just from memory...

V3 is hilarious
V4 has a partial script for an unmade episode
V6 has JMS's tribute to Andreas Katsulas
V10 has an outline for an alternate season 5

But there's goodies in every single one.

Jan

[Jan]

And for those of you that aren't comic book geeks (specifically the Legion of Super Heroes), Durlans are the shape-changing race of which Chameleon Boy is a member. I'll bet that helps you sleep tonight.

Thanks, Joe. I had wondered but hadn't gotten around to trying to find out.

It's not hard to tell that B5's crew were major genre fans. Witness the 'THX 1138' I found engraved on the prop I bought a couple of weeks ago. Obviously they had fun at their jobs.

Jan

[JoeD80]

Here's some interesting notes on "Darkness Ascending":

Some of the introductory shots of the episode were shot for others:

1. Ext. Babylon 5

Use the dark B5 image from "And the Sky Full of Stars."

2. Int. Zocalo

Garibaldi, bloodied and battered, staggers through the back entrance by the transport tubes. Before him is a scene of mass destruction. Fill this out with unused shots from "Thirdspace" showing lots of dead bodies on the deck, carnage and fire.

There are a couple of interesting differences from script to screen in this episode:

The script has Londo and Vir's scene following Delenn and Lennier's, but the episode jumps to Lyta's scene with the Businessman after Delenn and Lennier, and then goes to Londo and Vir's scene. Lyta's scene in the script is in Act Two following the scene of Lise chewing out Garibaldi instead of in Act One as it appears in the final episode.

Lennier makes a long speech about "thinking like a Centauri thinks" in the script, mentioning that the Centauri withdrew from Narn because it was too expensive, but the episode jumps from his first sentence to his last sentence and skips all of his history knowledge.

In the script Garibaldi says that Dr. Franklin was at Sakai's engagement dinner. This was a continuity error that was fixed later before the episode aired

Interesting Garibaldi dialogue in the script at the end of the dinner that was changed in the final episode:

Script:

Can we just have a nice, quite, romantic dinner, go back to my place, rut like weasels and eat potato chips in bed until dawn?

Episode:

Now why don't you and I just have a romantic quiet evening, just the two of us, and then we'll go back to my quarters and we'll make up for all that time that we've been missing.

In the script, Garibaldi mentions that Ivanova took all her coffee plants from the station so that the coffee he gets at the restaurant isn't real.

In the script, Sheridan asks Montoya if Minbari fighters can land on planets, and Montoya says they are designed for zero-g non-atmoshperic operation and would crash and burn in the atmosphere.

Sheridan's dialogue at the beginning of Act Four about feeling guilty over Anna's death is missing from the final episode.

[JoeD80]

It's interesting to read the introduction to "The Corps Is Mother, The Corps Is Father" in light of 'Sense8', with the page-and-a-half there on Joe thinking about doing a series on telepaths and how they would exist in society. I wonder how much of his ideas from back then are going in to that new show now!

[Jan]

I wonder how much of his ideas from back then are going in to that new show now!

Good point. We did see from the way various ideas for episodes changed that JMS never lets an idea go until it's used.

Jan