For those B5 fanatics out there, click here, then "Main Menu", followed by "The Lost Tales Movie," and you'll be treated to a short trailer for the July 31st release.
Certainly the visceral experience of hearing that music again is worth the $20 for the DVD alone! B5 definitely had some of the best music ever for a TV show, in terms of perfectly complementing the excitement that was going on in the story. This clip delivers some of that, so cue the nostalgia!
I found the trailer intriguing, but I've long since given up getting my hopes up too high where B5 movies are concerned. Of the roughly half-dozen there've been, about half were really excellent, and the other half were just so-so. I suppose the biggest difference this time around is that it's been years and years since we've had any new stories set in this universe, so it's possible that even a "meh" offering would be welcomed anyway. The single greatest asset of the TV series, for me at any rate, was the huge arc of the storyline, and the fact that virtually everything fed into it. (Explains a lot about why I also love Lost so much, eh!) Where B5 TV-films like Thirdspace and River of Souls disappointed me were in their inability to really add anything significant to that canvas. If you find the characters, politics and races of B5 fascinating on their own, then I guess any story told against that backdrop is going to be a winner for you. For me, it's only impressive if it introduces a new piece to the puzzle, or reveals a new dimension to something we already thought we knew. And that's probably how I'll be evaluating The Lost Tales when it arrives in my hot little hands, in early August.
And finally, on this topic: does anyone remember if this is the only such direct-to-DVD B5 movie committed to, or are more expected? Or is everything dependent on how well the first one sells?
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Here are various clips from June through October '06 on the topic. The nutshell: JMS calls this "the first DVD" and mentions subsequent ones being dependent on sales for the first.
JMS at SDCC '06 via Sandra Bruckner:
WB [...] asked if he wanted to do a feature film but JMS declined mainly because he can't yet picture structuring a B5 movie "as long as Andreas and Rick insist on staying dead." [...] What JMS suggested was a bunch of short films---little mini-movies, an anthology show set in the Babylon 5 universe. They said, "Okay." There's a network already interested in carrying them but they're also planned for direct to DVD. This will be "Babylon 5 -- The Lost Tales", a lot of small stories that never made it into the series that he's rediscovered notes for. And JMS wants no interference, complete creative support --- in writing. They said, "Okay." And JMS wants to direct them. They said, "Okay." The first will be three individual stories about three of the main characters (to be determined). The plan is to shoot in September, post-production Oct.-Dec. and they'll probably come out the second quarter of
2007.
JMS directly in followup:
[...] we're looking at 3 half-hour episodes/stories for the first DVD, with additional features and the like in the other half hour. Each story will be worked around a given established character, the specifics of which are still TBD contingent upon availabilities and other issues.
We have a budget, we're greenlit, we're going.
JMS in October '06:
The first three-segment DVD is called "Voices in the Dark." [...] The three scripts have been completed, and are now being storyboarded.
And later in October:
[...] the initial goal was to try and do three big stories in one DVD. So I wrote three scripts, featuring Sheridan, Lochley, Galen and Garibaldi. (I wanted to focus on the human characters initially so we'd have more time for prosthetics R&D for the next one.) The stories, as noted previously, were huge...all over the map, from Minbar, to Earth, Mars, the future, the distant past, as well as B5 itself obviously. We're also going to be trying some new production technologies, again trying to stay ahead of the tech curve, the way B5 has always stayed ahead on these things.
And over the last few days, as we began to bring on crew and lay out the production, looking at just how complicated these mini-movies were going to be, the idea of making three of these monsters began to become a bit much for us to pull off on out first time out the gate, especially since I'm still kind of new as a director. So we decided to postpone one of the three to the next DVD, and lengthen the other two to make up the difference. GIven that the Garibaldi story was the most complicated visually and technically, also the most difficult from a CGi perspective, that's the one that got pushed until, potentially, next time.
And if the sales are anywhere near what WB expects, and I think they will be, there's no question that there will be more of these down the road. So we're gong to focus in on those two stories and knock them out of the park. Same length, same running time, and now even bigger than at first anticipated since the budget on number three will now be
applied to the other two.
Great synopsis, Peter! Thanks for bringing it all together like that!
I thought I'd heard that it was supposed to be a series, but the reference to "The Lost Tales Movie" on the WB website that I linked to seemed to imply there was only one. I got worried that maybe someone had already pulled the plug on any future editions. Just as I said with the Buffy Season Eight comic book, I can't imagine there'd be many B5 fans who wouldn't happily pay $$$ to see further in-continuity stories set in this universe. Hopefully they'll sell a few million copies of the DVD (rather than a few thousand, with a thousand illegal copies of each!) and we'll be blessed with more in the future.
Assuming this is good, of course...
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