Babylon 5 Season 3 on DVD!

[Brian G Turner]

I saw it in the shop yesterday - only £42 for the entire season.

For those who don't know - Babylon 5 Season 3 is the best sci-fi to *ever* hit our TV screens. Some of the best scriptwriting around, and very strong and superb characters as well.

All the more terrible that Babylon 5 afterwards petered out to an ignoble finish. Quite remarkable that the same concept could hit such immense highs - and then go on to become such a poorly developed and scripted self-parody of itself - despite that it was the same creative team.

Btw - anyone here who disagrees with me I recommend goes out and rents Bab 5 Season 3, grabs a big bucket of pop corn, and then watch through Series 3. You don't need to know much else. It will be mostly self-explanatory.

 

[dwndrgn]

Well, I don't disagree but I've never seen it so I'll withhold my opinions until I see it.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Heh, it's worth seeing.

Once I buy it I don't plan on loaning it out, either. I'm going to be possessive like that.

 

[dwndrgn]

Well sheesh! I suppose I won't be asking to borrow it then...of course It's not like I can just run down the street to your place to pick it up...

 

[littlemissattitude]

It's a funny thing...I never could get into Babylon 5. I don't know why. I've only seen it a couple of times, and I didn't dislike it but I was never moved to make sure I saw it more.

I did hear the creator of the series, what's his name, J. Michael Strazynski (I'm sure I didn't spell that right), speak one year at LosCon. Apparently he was a fan and a regular at the convention before he ever created the show; anyway the long-timers at the con treated him like family. Interesting speaker. Had some interesting perspectives on getting a show produced.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Yes, I'd watched a couple of episodes, but had never got into it, as well. Then one day I happened to sit down with friends and watched the Season 3 episode where Earth launched a battlefleet attack on the Babylon 5 station itself. I couldn't turn back after that.

I had a friend who had most of seaon 2 recorded to video from TV and watched those, too, and it was nice seeing how everything developed.

Babylon 5 was never about individual episodes - in that respect it was a weakness that turned away the casual viewer - but there was a constant underlying storyline playing it's own tensions across the entire concept, and that carried immense strength when seen played out.

Season 1 was very slow - too slow for many viewers. Season 2 is where the pace began to up, and the characters established before are visibly placed on a bigger stage as a wider plot slowly unfurls - not least with certain peaks of drama (such as when one of the main characters helps his own civilisation conquer the race of another of the main characters - superb tension).

Season 3 is where everything really starts to come to a head, and generally you can get the picture fairly quickly with just a couple of concurrent episodes. The Star Trek people took the model for themselves and shaped DS9 around the same concept. Although Bab 5 had its soap opera episodes, Season 3 is where the real story broke out.

Season 4 is where the limitations start to show, and the story generally just sank away. People say that J Michael Straczynski was forced by the backers to close Bab 5 a season early (the story was plotted over 5 seasons - he was told to finish everything at 4). In creative terms, though, he'd already written himself into a corner and couldn't deliver on the climax that the entire concept demanded. Of course, everything was rushed and spoiled.

Then he apparently got a commission to write another season - but that didn't make sense as he had effectively finished the story at Season 4. So he tried to reprise the entire concept, but to a smaller degree. It didn't really work. How can you add to a story that you have already finished?

There have been a couple of spin-offs "movies". Got one here - forgettable title - but suffice that's it's lame and empty.

Babylon 5 Season 3 represents one of the highs of sci-fi on TV - but, unfortunately, the franchise is also marked by considerable lows in the later productions.


(Hm...that sounds like a review, doesn't it?)

 

[Incognito]

Well, I should have bought a mobile phone for my new online business. But it was Christmas money after all. And I really *need* something to get the creativity going - been in a drought since Autumn. And the writing is more important.

So I finally took the plunge and bought Babylon Season 3 on DVD.

Sod it, I need to treat myself.

 

[littlemissattitude]

And that, Brian, was exactly the sort of thing (executives not being able to make up their minds) that he spoke about. Made me wonder whether it would ever be worth it to try to work in television or films. But it's such an expansive (even if expensive as well)medium that it's hard not to be tempted.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Funnily enough, I once toyed with the idea of writing for film - but figured that writing and publishing a novel would be a lot easier!!

Besides, at least when you write a novel, you expect it to remain fairly loyal to the original idea that you script. With film, you need to expect and accept that it almost certainly will be rewritten by the producers, director(s), actors, and even other writers hired just for the job. Moer than once a story has entered film production, only to come out the other end utterly unrelated to the original content ("The Fog" - supposedly an adaption of the novel by James Herbert, could possibily be a particular example of this - the novel: cloud of gaseous agent escapes from a UK military base, turning all those it drifts over psychotic - - - the film: ghost pirates seek revenge on a sleepy American fishing village - - - - - - Huh??).

Btw - the quality of the film on the DVD doesn't look too great. The cover blurb says "digitally remastered". Maybe it's just the quality of the original US filming? You seem to generally use a lesser quality of picture on US network TV, than here in Europe (fewer lins, for example).

 

[littlemissattitude]

I have written one screenplay, but I've never actually submitted it anywhere. I wrote it for a class, and even though my instructor loved it, it needs quite a bit of polishing before it would be ready for anyone professional to see it.

I never have had any illusions about how Hollywood treats screenplays. It's a business, after all. But I think it would be cool to have something produced sometime, on the understanding that it wouldn't come out the same on the other end of the process. I've talked to one screewriter about this (one of the writers of the Harrison Ford film "Witness", who in fact won an Academy Award for it), and he seemed to find the process rewarding as long as he kept that reality in mind.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Wouldn't it be great to see any of our own work on the screen? Presuming they kept some semblance of resemblance to the original story?

 

[SDNess]

I need to buy those DVDs.


Anyway, how are screenplays written. What's the actually writing look like...its the description of the scence in present tense instead of past like a novel?

...basically like a play?

 

[Brian G Turner]

Darn it - Foxbat asked about this on the writer's board, and I forgot to look...I'll go ask now.

 

[littlemissattitude]

Screenplays generally consist mostly of the dialogue, plus a bit of setting for each scene and sometimes a bit of "stage direction". However, last time I looked at a stylebook for screenplays, the recommendation was to write as little direction as possible as most directors prefer to decide that on their own. However, it has been a few years since I checked, so the standard may have changed since then.

 

[ithuriel]

purchased the first four seasons on dvd in a sale at w.h.smiths £21.99 each

 

[Whitestar]

Funnily enough, I once toyed with the idea of writing for film - but figured that writing and publishing a novel would be a lot easier!!

Besides, at least when you write a novel, you expect it to remain fairly loyal to the original idea that you script. With film, you need to expect and accept that it almost certainly will be rewritten by the producers, director(s), actors, and even other writers hired just for the job. Moer than once a story has entered film production, only to come out the other end utterly unrelated to the original content ("The Fog" - supposedly an adaption of the novel by James Herbert, could possibily be a particular example of this - the novel: cloud of gaseous agent escapes from a UK military base, turning all those it drifts over psychotic - - - the film: ghost pirates seek revenge on a sleepy American fishing village - - - - - - Huh??).

Well, the way I see it, you have a few options. The first option, you could write it as a novel and if it becomes a bestseller, you and your fans will have the power to insist to the Big Suits to keep it true to the original, just like the classic book by John Steinbeck, "Of Mice and Men". The second option, get involved with people who love your novel and can get it financed within a reasonable budget. This in turn, will allow you to have total creative control. Or the third option, you could do what Straczynski did for Babylon 5, climb all the way to the top and become executive producer so no one will mess with your scripts.