Tim Skirvin ([info]tskirvin) wrote,
@ 2008-04-30 21:59:00
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Babylon 5

The original 5-year arc bears remarkably little similarity to what eventually aired. And I like what eventually aired better.

Huh.


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[info]szasz
2008-05-01 01:07 pm UTC (link)
There was one? I assumed they sort of made it up as they went along, from season to season, like a soap opera.

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[info]tskirvin
2008-05-01 02:57 pm UTC (link)
Indeed, there was. I had always assumed that *something* existed; but I hadn't realized just how much it had deviated. The story of B5 was really the story of Sinclair, in the Official Arc; it ended up being half as long and much more focused.

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[info]szasz
2008-05-01 07:45 pm UTC (link)
See, that's what I would have figured, that they couldn't really hope to succeed with a long story arc because there's no way to predict the characters and/or actors would be around for the whole period of the show. I was thinking specifically of the Michael O'Hare -> Bruce Boxleitner replacement, which, yeah, would certainly affect a story arc that was intended to be mostly about Sinclair.

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[info]tskirvin
2008-05-01 10:17 pm UTC (link)
I guess what's interesting is that the arc that was presented was, really, *more* ambitious than what the original arc said. This confuses me; I was always looking deeper, for what was supposed to happen that all the foreshadowing was about (more Valen stuff, in essence); but instead we got something cooler, that held together better, and only missed out on a few cool bits.

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[info]sir_razorback
2008-05-01 02:48 pm UTC (link)
Where did you run across the original outline for the 5-year plan? I'd like to read it myself.

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[info]tskirvin
2008-05-01 03:00 pm UTC (link)
JMS has been publishing script books through cafepress for a while; and there was a deal around them: "buy all 14, get the 15th free, oh and you can't get Volume 15 *without* buying the other 14 and it's only for a limited time and that's where all the cool stuff is going to be too".

So, in this volume: the original arc; the writer's bible (already had this); some cut versions of old scripts, including the joke script where G'Kar changed genders; and a complete list of differences between the scripts and the DVDs, which I expect will be insanely useful the next time I watch through the whole thing.

I'm sure that somebody will scan the whole thing and put it up; but I don't approve. I'll just have people come visit me to see the script books. *grin*

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[info]jlindquist
2008-05-01 06:23 pm UTC (link)
Indeed. The original arc struck me as less hopeful than the filmed one, and had the protagonists accomplishing less. Still, it was remarkable for 1987. (Although, the original arc lacked the telegoths, which in retrospect, I could've lived without.)

The perspective the timeline gives is staggering. I was in 7th grade when all this started. And Joe was just a bit younger than I am now.

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[info]tskirvin
2008-05-01 06:27 pm UTC (link)
1987.

Wow.

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