SF Debris: The Coming of Shadows

[Nutso]

How will this end? In FIre.
Chuck uses this episode as an allegory for the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. JMS was way deeper a writer than I knew.

[Foxbat]

JMS is 'the MAN'. Too bad his pitch to take on a Star Trek series was turned down. Star Trek written by JMS... I get all tingly just thinking about it...

[Deepcrush]

JMS is 'the MAN'. Too bad his pitch to take on a Star Trek series was turned down. Star Trek written by JMS... I get all tingly just thinking about it...

Agreed, imagine if he were the one running Enterprise.

[Nutso]

JMS is 'the MAN'. Too bad his pitch to take on a Star Trek series was turned down. Star Trek written by JMS... I get all tingly just thinking about it...

I thought DS9 was his pitch?

Anyway, imagine Voyager in JMS' hands? Janeway might be a leader instead of a psychotic. Chakotay might have actually had a presence and been interesting. Harry Kim might have been respectable and not embarrassment. Neelix would have likability and substance, and usefulness and skill, and a sense of responsibility, and an understanding of personal space, etc. There would have been actual conflict between the Maquis and the Feds. No fucking goddamn avoidance of tension. Maybe there would have been breakout villains in the series and the Borg would not have been overused. Hell, even Extra Man would have an episode to himself. Even VIr had his moments on B5.

[Tholian_Avenger]

The man did a lot of planning in for the story that became Babylon 5, and there seem to be a few unique iterations of the story that Straczynski devised before filming. Straczynski's ST pitch, as I understand, was a reboot. Straczynski's original B5 pitch was to have a two part series but we wound up with Crusade instead. This is useless speculation, but Janeway might have been a Captain Gideon if Straczynski did make an ST show.

Straczynski was able to touch on quite a lot of interesting ideas and motivations, even drawing on Jungian Psychology. Straczynski also touched on religion quite heavily and I was interested in where a Sinclair (supposed descendant of Christ Jesus) centered story would have gone.

There are some inconsistencies in the show, and I think they can be attributed to the differing story iterations that existed right up the filming of the show; i.e. Delen's magic triangle forehead tatoo, and the season 1 Kosh-Morden confrontation. To my brain they were inconsistent, your mileage may vary.

[Graham Kennedy]

He did have to make changes along the way, mostly due to people not staying with the show. This was often minor - when Robert Foxworth did a Voyager two parter instead of B5, all they did was give another character his part and kill him offscreen. Then there was Talia, who left when Andrea Thompson got quit and was replaced by Lyta; all that "the Vorlons super-powered me" stuff was meant to be Talia's "gift" from Ironheart growing over time. Sinclair leaving was the obvious one, but Sheridan did much the same thing with the Jesus arc... he did die and become resurrected, did use what amounted to a personality cult to gather the big fleet, etc.

Whilst I have uber-respect for JMS, he isn't without his flaws. A LOT of B5s more minor one off parts had truly awful dialogue and characterisation. One that always stuck out for me was the bad guys in the ep where the President is assassinated. When Garibaldi challenges them they are spouting lines like "You don't know what you're messing with! This is too big for you!" Could you possibly be any more cliched?

[Deepcrush]

Whilst I have uber-respect for JMS, he isn't without his flaws. A LOT of B5s more minor one off parts had truly awful dialogue and characterisation. One that always stuck out for me was the bad guys in the ep where the President is assassinated. When Garibaldi challenges them they are spouting lines like "You don't know what you're messing with! This is too big for you!" Could you possibly be any more cliched?

B5 had a heavy grounding in reality, or at least the reality of how people would handle different situations. When the whole upper level of Earth Force is getting shaken... its not really a stretch to tell a local cop that he should stay out of it.

[Graham Kennedy]

Except none of that had happened yet, as I recall - there hadn't been any assassination yet. These were meant to be professionals of some sort - intelligence agents, something like that. And when challenged, they didn't do anything sensible - didn't stay quiet, didn't present any kind of cover story.

It's like you're on the way to shoot JFK and a cop pulls you over for speeding. You say "Yes officer, thank you officer." You don't say "Don't mess with me copper, I'm into something that's too damn big for you to handle!" unless you're a crazy person.

[Deepcrush]

Slightly different if that copper pulled you over because he knew about the plot and wanted to get involved.

[Reliant121]

I have to question whether it was ever implied that they were professionals of a sort...They didn't appear much more than the lurkers, simply providing supply and logistics support. If they were professionals, fair enough and I'll take that hit; if not, then they were hardly the height of brain power. Salf of the Earth people, I would say. Not too bright and with far too much testosterone driven posturing.

[Graham Kennedy]

Slightly different if that copper pulled you over because he knew about the plot and wanted to get involved.

At the time, he didn't.

[Graham Kennedy]

I have to question whether it was ever implied that they were professionals of a sort...They didn't appear much more than the lurkers, simply providing supply and logistics support. If they were professionals, fair enough and I'll take that hit; if not, then they were hardly the height of brain power. Salf of the Earth people, I would say. Not too bright and with far too much testosterone driven posturing.

Come on, you're planning to assassinate the President and you hire random guys off the street to lend a hand? If so then the whole plan was moronic from the start.

Besides, even petty criminals know better than to talk like that to a cop.

[Reliant121]

I have to question whether it was ever implied that they were professionals of a sort...They didn't appear much more than the lurkers, simply providing supply and logistics support. If they were professionals, fair enough and I'll take that hit; if not, then they were hardly the height of brain power. Salf of the Earth people, I would say. Not too bright and with far too much testosterone driven posturing.

Come on, you're planning to assassinate the President and you hire random guys off the street to lend a hand? If so then the whole plan was moronic from the start.

Besides, even petty criminals know better than to talk like that to a cop.

If your going to assassinate the president, obviously the leaders would be of high importance (I.E Clark and affiliates). That doesn't mean the lackeys have to be intelligent at all. In fact, it's probably a lot cheaper to hire bums to do the leg work, even if said bums have an idea whats going on.

On to the other point, have you seen some of the police programs around the UK? They most certainly do not know how to talk to a policeman.

[Mark]

I have to question whether it was ever implied that they were professionals of a sort...They didn't appear much more than the lurkers, simply providing supply and logistics support. If they were professionals, fair enough and I'll take that hit; if not, then they were hardly the height of brain power. Salf of the Earth people, I would say. Not too bright and with far too much testosterone driven posturing.

Come on, you're planning to assassinate the President and you hire random guys off the street to lend a hand? If so then the whole plan was moronic from the start.

Besides, even petty criminals know better than to talk like that to a cop.

Not to disagree with your point, but just in point of fact from experience, you would BELIEVE the dumb shit petty criminals tell the cops.