Marcon 32 Convention Report Part 7 of 8 If you missed any parts, look for the complete set of reports at http://www.infinet.com/~surak/Babylon5/marcon32/marcon.html 11am Sunday, May 11, 1997 Q&A with JMS (J. Michael Straczynski) JMS started by announcing that this would be an informal question and answer session. "Don't ask about the plot, because I will lie to you." "For the first question - Season 5. We don't know." q: Do you intend to recycle Ed Wasser? a: "I would like to recycle Ed - just have the truck come by in the morning. Ed is a very, very, very, adequate actor." "Ed is very good, we would like to use him again." "He's gone, isn't he?" At this point, Ed ran in from a door at the back of the room, screaming, "Oh please, Joe!" JMS fled from the room, with Ed chasing after him screaming and begging. After a few moments, they wandered back in. Ed: "In casting, Joe is always willing to have fun. He's a funny guy." JMS: "It's like working with a trained chimp. Now get the fuck out of here. Take your jacket and get out." JMS tossed Ed's B5 jacket to him, which he had apparently forgotten. Ed made monkey noises and waved goodbye as he left again. After he was gone, JMS said, "He never knows when to make an exit." q: What are you going to do to him? a: "Oh, nothing. Being Ed Wasser is burden enough." q: In previous years, there was always a sense of optimism about renewal. Now you are pessimistic. What happened? a: "I am always pessimistic - I'm White Russian, it goes with the territory." [This next question was asked by my friend SirCrash, who happened to be sitting next to me at the time.] q: Did Londo do... things... to Morden before killing him? a: "You're a sick puppy! It's morning! There are children here! ...Yes, a few small things." JMS pointed at the person sitting next to SirCrash, which happened to be me. "Are you with him?" "Me? I just met him Friday!" [which was true] "Now she's denying you!" [I promptly tried to fade into the crowd, which was difficult since I was sitting down at the time.] q: What about the novels? a: The Cavelos and Drennan novels are good, both 100% cannon. The Sarrantino novel was not as good. q: When Lady Morella told Londo, "You must not kill the man who is already dead," was she referring to Morden or Sheridan? a: Sheridan q: [I missed the question] a: We're changing the way television is done. Babylon 5 requires being very anal-retentive. Fortunately, I qualify. q: [missed it] a: I'm very happy with the 2nd edition of the scriptwriting book. It's what I'd originally intended it to be. Most of the time, the actors don't know what's coming up next in the story. They have a caption contest from time to time, where they will put pictures up on the bulletin board for people to caption. A recent winner had Peter and Andreas looking off-screen, and as the caption, JMS saying, "I'm going to throw this ball, and whoever gets it lives to see season 5." q: How did you meet Harlan Ellison? a: "It was a blind date that went horribly wrong." I started selling stories at age 17. Around 18 or 19, I hit a slump. I was a big Harlan Ellison fan, and I saw his phone number in the introduction to one of his books. Well, I thought this can't possibly be for real, but I picked up the phone and called anyway. The phone rang, and a man answered, "Hello?" (You can just hear the way Harlan would answer.) I was very nervous. "Hello, Mr. Ellison?" "Yeah, what do you want?" So I ask why my work isn't selling. "Look, if your work's not selling, there's only one reason - it's crap. If you want to sell, stop writing crap." Well, it was the stupidest question I could have asked for advice on. "Th-thank you, Mr. Ellison." Years later, I asked Harlan if he remembered that. Harlan asked, "Were you offended?" "If you had been wrong, I would have been, but at the time, I had to work through some bad writing." [yeah, I know I've missed some details, but this story has been told before] q: Have you lost any work to computer games? a: No, but there is a deal for a Babylon 5 game pending. q: Morden never bumps into his Shadow companions, but he always knows where they are. a: Next question! q: Is there any progress on Crusade? Will it be using the original cast? Will there be new novels? a: "I can't say, I can't say, I can't say." We're working out the details on Crusade. Del-ray gets the novels in groups of 3. We haven't negotiated for the next set yet. q: Does Marcus ever get laid? a: "Does your mother know you talk like that? We do find him horizontal once. What condition he's in, who knows?" q: How do we send a message saying we'd like to see more shows done like Babylon 5? a: "Studios expect fans to write to support shows. They're immune. You should write to support a concept. You can't go after what you want until you know what it is." q: Are there any plans to release your "Hour 25" broadcasts on tape? [JMS was the host of "Hour 25", a Los Angeles science-fiction radio talk show, for several years.] a: No, but we are working on other things. q: What are some books that influenced you? a: I grew up as a massive science fiction fan. I first discovered Bradbury, which slammed my head against the wall. I started in children's literature, then moved to adult at age 12. I moved on to Clarke, Asimov, Eric Frank Russel. I fell into the Lensman series. Then Smith at an older age. Then the Lord of the Rings, and where do you go from there? I'm a big Lovecraft fan - you see that in my work every so often. I guess more than every so often. [no, the Shadows aren't reminiscent of Elder Gods, not at all - rmt] q: When will the movie come out? a: June 1998. q: Who won the Drazi war? Green or Purple? a: The side Ivanova was on. q: The Drakh were cool. a: Do you want the story on the Drakh? I worked with the designers, and the result sucked. It looked like a guy in a moster suit. It looked terrible. So we asked, how can we fix this in post? So they came up with a really cool effect. It was ABA - Art By Accident. q: Will the 5th season run parallel to the old episodes on TNT? a: Yes. q: Will Delenn go to Minbar again? a: Yes. q: When will you take a break? a: After finishing directing 422/522, I slept for 13 hours straight, I was so exhausted. I'll be doing the movies all summer, then the 5th season. I'm looking at 1999 for a break, but that's what I expected. q: Did you ever give up? a: I always believed I would sell this. I never doubted it. When agents told me to give up, I ignored them. I got angry and frustated. Aaron Spelling said, "This is a hotel in space? Where are the women in tight costumes?" And they had to tell me, "Joe, back off." No matter how long it takes, I always get what I want. I pitched this show to everyone. I knew there would be one person out there who would understand. Dick Robinson at Warners understood, I saw it in his eyes and said to Doug [Netter], "We have a chance." q: Why are episodes held over? a: For sweeps. q: Where can I get one of those great Babylon 5 jackets? a: These are crew jackets. This one I'm wearing is a one-off. When we were preparing to have them made, we ordered several samples in different materials, and I kept the samples after we decided on a design. So this jacket is one-of-a-kind. q: How does the crew feel about the Internet feedback? a: They like it. There is one entire wall of Internet postings on the set. Crew call is at 7am, with directors at 6:30am, so it's nice to walk in and see a nice comment from the audience. Television is very insular. You only see the cold ratings numbers. You never hear from people in Columbus, Ohio. But on the nets, people will tell you if the show sucks. And tell you in glorious detail. And horrendous detail. The network's opinion is that the sum total of all net readers is less than a tenth of a rating point, so they don't take it very seriously. q: What's happening with the comics? a: They will be released first in the UK. JMS wrote the first, and Peter David wrote the next 2. They will be released in the USA later by DC comics as graphic novels. q: What is the logic behind Warner Brother's actions? a: "One word doesn't belong there. Remove that word from the sentence." q: [a question about 422/522 and characters dying] a: The episode is set 20 years in the future. The title is "Sleeping in Light." Will anyone be dying by the end of season 4 or by the end of the last episode? Yes. q: Will you use CGI for the films? a: We will stay with CGI, since we can render at sufficient resolution. The prequel will be interesting. Before, we were only able to point to an icecube and imply an iceberg. Now we are going to show the iceberg. q: Are you still using Amigas? a: No, we run entirely on PC platforms now. q: Are there any more surprises? a: There are a flock of surprises coming. q: How does the disease develop? a: I could show you or tell you. I prefer to show you. q: What was the cast reaction to knowing how it ends? [422/522] a: I'm not concerned. There is a tradition in novels of showing the end, then going back and showing how you got there. We saw the end of Londo and G'Kar. They know me enough not to trust me because I will fuck with them. People were very wistful during the filming of the last episode, crying and so forth. q: How are the ratings? a: The show is in the top 20, which is very good. We have great ratings in the UK. Tape sales are in the top 5 - it beat "Schindler's List" when it came out. q: What happened to the possible future we saw of the station being destroyed? a: "War Without End" was about stopping that. That has been averted. q: What was "The eye that does not see"? a: G'Kar's eye q: What's going to happen on TNT? Follow the bouncing space station? a: TNT knows what they have. They are advertising to the hilt. We expect the audience to double next year. q: Why so much off-station? There have been about 4 episodes in a row now off-station. a: The campaign moves to Minbar, then Mars, then Earth. We have to deal with the situation there. q: How do you go about casting? a: We go through lots of pictures. Then we wait for an actor to walk through the door who is that character. Jerry, Andreas, Peter were all people we took a chance on. It was an accident. q: What about Ed? a: Will you stop with Ed! q: What about Bruce Boxleitner? How hard was he to cast? a: Bruce is a big science fiction fan. He reads a lot, and had worked with John [Copeland] and Doug [Netter] before. I knew everyone would see Mr. Smiley and assume the character had no depth, and fall into the trap I had set for them. The depth would be revealed over time. When Vir first appeared, I got email telling me to ditch Flounder. People in this room sent that email, and I know who you are! I told Bruce, "Be all smiles. I'll beat the crap out of you later." And the end of this season, he gets beaT up good. q: How did you end up casting Ed? a: Whatever he told you, he lied. I wasn't there, nobody saw me with her. He was a reader for us, and eventually we offered him a small part which he didn't go for, so I looked at him and wrote a part for him. I looked at him, and he resembles Rod Serling, slick, polished, with [?] inside. q: Has Sheridan bought into the Cult of Personality? a: No, he hasn't bought into it. But when you get notariety, the perceptions of you change, and you fal down the rabbit hole. q: Will Sheridan be popular on Earth? a: Not immediately, and not for many years, but eventually. q: Where will Crusade air? a: Probably syndication. q: What cast members surprised you? a: Vir's strength surprised me, that came from Stephen. Some other things. I have a relationship with the cast - I exploit them. In the last episode [Conflicts of Interest], we had Garibaldi crawling through air ducts. I found out at lunch one day that Jerry is terribly claustrophobic, so I put them in a small closed space because I knew I would get the performance I wanted. It also works with Mira talking about the civil war and getting driven out of her homeland. It shows behind her eyes. I exploit them shamelessly. audience: But they like you? JMS: They like me *mostly*. q: How did you deal with the command change? a: I had always planned to have Sinclair become Valen. I just moved things around to make them fit. q: What reaction had you hoped for from the fans? a: That they wouldn't be disappointed. Usually things are treated as the best thing since sliced bread. They get cluttered with robots and cute kids and holodecks and spatial anomalies. Jeri Taylor is a friend, but I'm stunned how bad Voyager is. I happened to catch an episode recently, and they had encountered a "spatial anomaly". I thought, "Oh no, not again." Science fiction is perceived as a medium for kids. It's not. It's for adults, and it's mature. And we can do that. q: How do you think the show will be remembered? a: I think it will be remembered, and it will be around for a long time. Long after the game is called on account of darkness for me, my afterlife is this show, and you. q: Orson Wells spoke of a glass ceiling, a limit to the amount of character development that can occur in a 2 hour movie. Babylon 5 has broken through that glass ceiling. You have had 80 hours to tell your story the way you want. It is beautiful. a: Thank you. My publicist recently asked how much Babylon 5 I had written. I added it up - 71 scripts to date, plus the movies. The word count comes out to 2 novels per year, or 37 full-length movies. A bad day can be when you won, but it didn't matter. A good day can be when you lost, but you did your best. I have a story from when I was returning from I-Con in New York a few weeks ago. I was in the car, being driven to the airport, when I heard a noise like a motorcycle. I looked around, and saw an airplane wheel come down over the top of the van. The plane was making an emergency landing on the freeway. And as I'm watching, the plane crashes into a house, and we're boxed in in traffic so there's nowhere to go, but I'm thinking, "I can die, because I've finished the last script." This show has provided an incredible freedom that will never come again. Thank you.