Merrick here...


The2ndQuest sent in this great write-up (thanks for this, by the way) about material revealed at this weekend's Ney York Comic Con. A bit more information about what we can expect, the new title sequence that was revealed at the Con, etc. Very cool!

Here's The2ndQuest's message...

B5: The Lost Tales News

-JMS reitterated that TLT came about after WB asked him if he wanted to do a theatrical B5 film, but JMS declined since enough time hasn't pasted since the death of Andreas Katsulas and Richard Biggs, and it's still hard for him to think about a B5 movie so long as Andreas and Richard "insist on staying dead", but that he'll be able to sit down and get a theatrical film made eventually, but can do these smaller stories in TLT in the interim.

-The Lost Tales Vol 1 is two stories set in the same 48 hour period- one with Sheridan going from Minbar to B5 for an event regarding the 10th anniversary of the Alliance, which the other is about Colonel Lochley on the station waiting and preparing for Sheridan to arrive, while dealing with the trouble that arises there.

-He showed 6-8 video blogs from TLT set (rough versions, at least, as some are still awaiting the FX shots to be finished so they can do comparisons), though it being Joe, most is him goofing off, but you get a look at some of the sets as they're being built, and there's a talk with Bruce, Tracy and Peter (Peter's hilarious, saying something to the effect of "and, for Bruce and Tracy and others, working with them, it's real chance for them to finally get it right!"). Another was of the actor playing Prince Regent Vintari, showing both some of his screentest and of an actual scene with him and Sheridan (Vintari: "Emperor Mollari said he would trust you with his life- then he took it back and said he would trust you with MY life, as he had plans for next week.")- he basicly talked about the screentest and how, despite never watching B5 beforehand (though became a fan of it after he looked it up), nailed the Centauri accent without knowing. And though it's not said directly in the movie itself, JMS confirmed that Vintari is Cartagia's son.

-It'll probably be another year/year and a half before TLT Volume 2 comes out, depending on sales. He also said that we might finally see more of the Telepath War in future installments

-They'll have a trailer to show at the San Diego Comic-Con.

-Release date for TLT is July 27th, i believe.

As a final treat, JMS showed rough cuts of the opening title sequence for The Lost Tales, including new music by Christpher Franke. It goes like this:

-Begins with the decommisioning of Babylon 5, with the ships moving away from the station as it explodes while the Sleeping in Light theme plays (he subsequently showed a cut lacking the music but containing an almost-finished version of this sequence- it looks gorgeous) and a chunk of B5 flies right into the camera.

-We start following debris of B5 through space as a date at the bottom of the screen clocks back from 2281 to 2271 until the debris reforms back into Babylon 5 and the camera goes into the main dcking bay doors ala the end of the Season 3 title sequence. Over the course of this sequence, as a tribute to Andreas, plays the following G'Kar lines:

"I believe that when we leave a place, part of it goes with us and part of us remains. Long after we are gone .. our voices will linger in these walls for as long as this place remains."

-Then kicks in a series of "faction portraits", for lack of a better term, similar in style to the B5 DVD menus, with a planet in the background, and near-fully body images of various characters representing that world/faction fading in dramaticly in teh foreground. Over all this plays music that's reminiscent of the Legend of the Rangers main theme, to a degree, before it segues into the main Season 5+ Babylon 5 theme. The portraits are:

-B5, with Sheridan, Garibaldi and, I think, Lochley.

-Centauri Prime, with Londo and Vir (and a shot of the palace off to the side)

-Minbar, with Delenn and Lennier

-Narn, with G'Kar

-Vorlon Homeworld (?! Might have been Z'ha'dum, but it went by fast I couldn't tell), with Kosh (not Ulkesh).

Burried within the ungodly quantity of e-mails I receive every day (every morning I wake up to about 1,000 e-mails...roughly 960 of them are spam...spam that seems to defeat every filter the AICN Tech Folk deploy) was a message sent late last week. The message was a heads up about some new material from the forthcoming direct-to-DVD continuation of BABYLON 5, which is due mid-Summerish if memory serves.

In short: here's the revamped title design & an FX shot from the show itself. The FX are created by Armosphere. You you can see Atmpshere's reel HERE; some of their work may seem familiar.

The images can be seen HERE, which appears to be something of a clearing house for usenet/internet posts made by J. Michael Straczynski (JMS).

I'm tremendously curious to see how this plays out. If these DVDs perform well (sales, rentals, etc.) there will almost certainly be further B5 productions. If this doesn't do well? There won't. I'm told the outcome of this is will, quite literally & almost exlusively, be determined by fans/viewers voting with their pocket books (I'm assuiming an ability to sell ithe project for broadcast will factor into the equation as well). Which is a long winded way of saying: if you want more B5, go buy this thing & try to interest those around you as well. Just like the good old days.

While I know the DVDs of the series & TV movies performed admirably, this will be the first true test of BABYLON 5's timelessness since franchise production haulted back in (what was it?) 1999; an interesting assessment of its market viability...and of the passion so many folks once shared for a series that, in many regards, was remarkable even by today's standards.

Personally, it's it's hard for me not to get a little goosebumpy when seeing shots from a new BABYLON 5. For a show that barely made it...who would've thought???

I apologize for not getting this to you sooner, I've never been very good at WHERE'S WALDO?

KNOW MORE???

[[[e-mail Merrick]]]