Faith Manages

LANCE: ...time for a Babylon 5 question. Question 6. If Wikipedia's to be believed, B5 aired its finale on November 25, 1998, over 10 years ago. It's hard to believe. How do you see B5 now, after all this time's passed? ... I guess my question is where does the B5 story sit in your mind? Is it over? Or are there still tales to tell?

JMS: When I set out to write and create Babylon 5, it was with the intention of doing a five-year story and then you get out clean. We did that. Everything we set out to do, we did. My error was in falling so much in love with that universe, and the cast and crew, that I was tempted -- and succumbed to that temptation -- to keep it going. Some of the first TV movies were worth doing, such as In the Beginning. Others less so. Some of it added to the B5 legacy, some of did not, mainly because we were always fighting budgetary concerns that substantially limited where the story could go. But when you're in love, you don't see those things until later, in retrospect.

The first rule of subsequent storytelling is Do no harm to the original. So in terms of the future, the only thing that would compel me to return to the B5 universe would be if WB came around and said "Here's enough money to make a Really Big Movie, go and write whatever you want." I don't think the fans are owed more B5 sui generis, but I do think the fans might be owed more good B5. Ironically, WB never seemed interested in doing a big B5 movie just on its own terms, in recognition for what it is and was. But now that I'm suddenly doing all this movie work, they've started calling and saying, "So, how big a movie would it have to be for you to come back and make a B5 movie for us?" So we'll see.

--From Mediumatlarge.net

The Complete Book of Scriptwriting

J. Michael Straczynski

One can hope. And pray, and beg and cajole and even invite the gods for dinner if it will help.  Having recently managed to collect and watch the entirety of the main series, and being at this very moment nose-to-page with The Complete Book of Scriptwriting, the idea of a B5 feature makes me drool.

I know J.M.S. is imperfect.  I don't hold him up as holy.  I am not a worshipper.  But I certainly do respect the man for his skill, experience, ethics and raw emotive power. He is undoubtedly in my top ten, and lemme tell you, I'm just as excited about this as I am Watchmen.

Let us keep our fingers crossed and the better angels of our natures ascensive.