Welcome to Show #221!
A few weeks back on Twitter via @babylonpodcast, Summer expressed her disappointment at finding dead space where the b5crusade.com website used to be. This happened after 2am, and she happened to notice a tweet from Bear McCreary from earlier that evening expressing his excitement about his Human Target compositions… which led Summer to wonder aloud how cool it could be to have Bear score whatever new B5 project Warner Bros has been having secret talks with JMS about. Ah, to dream a little dream…
If you are a die-hard B5 fan, and for some reasons you haven’t purchased any previous B5 Script Books, get your hands on “Artifacts from Beyond the Rim”. It will be available from B5 Books until January 20, 2011
Feedbackapalooza: The voicemail is strong with this one.
Arkle relates his alternate take on the emotional impact of the Talia/Susan relationship; the “peanut” look of Ivanova’s severe ponytail; Gary relays another tidbit on JMS’ on-screen role in the upcoming Thor feature; Arkle nitpicks over legal parlance regarding “The Gathering”; Jason lists his own Top 5 episodes, which leads into a tangent all about casting; more supposition about the Triluminary and it’s imaginary alternative components; Gary lends his insight on the contracts signed by actors, and Summer hints at the story she’d want to oversee getting made; Neil from Bowie associates Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out For a Hero” with the fan made B5 music videos that made the rounds on convention circuits back in the day; Troy from Marana wonders if the Narn pistols really looked a lot like the weapons from Space: 1999, and also wonders what it would take to get us to record our own custom episode commentary on 10 or so top B5 episodes.
We’re still figuring out what the winter holiday schedule will be, so never fear… there will be content of some kind! Will we have holiday gifts from our favorite parody bands like Luke Ski and Sci-Fried? Or will Gary and Edmund come up with something new for us?
Lurker’s Guide 2.0: Summer is expanding the documentation to be covered at Lurker’s Guide 2.0, the major change being converting the episode guide into a full Wiki with cross-referenced topics, tidbits and everything you’d want in a Wiki. She’s still searching for pictures of rare collectibles, photos of magazine covers and toys, and all sorts of other B5 goodies that didn’t get included in the original guide during the years after Crusade. Let her know if you want to lend a hand.
More Parody/Filk Songs Wanted: If you know of any more B5-related fan songs out there, definitely let us know, so we can let other B5 fans know where to buy them! And if those CDs are out of print, let’s brainstorm on ways to get those songs back out there for fans!
Babylon Podcast Social Communities:
Twitter: @babylonpodcast
Babylon 5 Information Gathering: If you know of a dead or abandoned B5 related website that may be in need of a new home, let Summer know! Maybe we can mirror it here or house it on a sister site.
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Hello B5Podcast-Team,
first of all thanks for all your hard work from a devoted listener in Germany. I’ve skipped the Crusade eps so far as I haven’t watched the series itself yet, but the not about the score for the new b5 project did catsch my attention on the RSS feed.
I think nobody but Chris Franke should be contracted to compose, produce and edit the score. His fabulous soundtrack for the 5 seasons provide at least 50% of the enjoyment for me when re-watching old episodes 😉
All the best from Germany,
Uwe
> I think nobody but Chris Franke should be contracted …
Uwe, if you can get him or his agent to reply, maybe. So far, I have had no luck in getting anyone on his team interested in printed music. I don’t remember if JMS has made a statement about future work with him, either pro or con.
If the Harry Potter fans can put out commentaries for the movies — WB would not include commentaries on the first DVDs — then certainly the B5 crew could as well. You know more about B5 than anyone and you could do a few commentaries on episodes for which JMS and friends did not provide anything. If you had a guest, say Pat Tallman, even better. It’s just like a regular podcast but with more attention given to pacing and time keeping. Y’all could do a great job and Mike would make it sound terrific.
Cheers!
Michael
Tim,
Regarding Delan’s naive nature, I agree and disagree with your assertions. In a practical setting, a military strategist’s goal is to obtain the most efficient means to an end, ie minimizing losses while maximizing gains.
I’m not sure if JMS meant to make this moment in the show a debatable point or not. Maybe it’s part of his own internal philosophy or maybe it’s just the nature of the characters (as you indicated). However from an ethical standpoint – which Delan must uphold – it’s easy to see the snowball in any strategist thinking “like the enemy.” At first it may be simply identifying patterns present in the enemy’s movements? But somewhere down the line the danger becomes more critical as his thinking switches over to implement similar tactics to that of his enemy.
More appropriately, it should be noted that Delan’s statement was a half truth. While you shouldn’t think like your enemy, you should know how your enemy thinks. That’s the underlying lesson throughout the Art of War and one of the primary reasons for the success and failure of most US military operations.
Keep up the great work guys!
Sorry – Tim – I meant Brett!
Hey Michael, jms is on record as saying that Chen did not evoke the feeling he was really looking for.
In retrospect, I wonder if it was one of the ways jms tried to distinguish Crusade from B5.
jms has stated that Franke is integral to B5 and he couldn’t imagine it without him.
Yeah, I’ve re-watched a few episodes recently, and I really could do without that music. My grandmother, who was a B5 fan before I even knew what it was, told me upfront one of the reasons she quit watching Crusade mid-way through it’s TNT run was because she couldn’t stand the music, and I can see her point.
> jms has stated that Franke is integral to B5 and he couldn’t imagine it without him.
Right, Gary. My question was whether he has made a statement about using the elusive Mr Franke to score his upcoming projects. Right now, so-called digital scoring has torn apart years of symphonic scoring — as though the other costs such as residuals hadn’t already moved most orchestral recording to the former Soviet countries. You may recall that B5 used real instruments as part of the sound score and the real talent of Franke IMHO was that he could do that when he did it.
I’ll hold off until the podcast on Crusade music, but I saw a lot of imagination in Chen’s music. If Franke’s B5 music recalled the past through its sounds and harmonies (think Holst and Mars), Chen’s pushed things to the far future, at least for me. I hope he’ll sit for an interview.
Cheers!
Michael
http://www.farpointforums.com/showthread.php?tid=4351
Just posted this in the forum with a full page ad from 1902 for the music of F W Franke. One of the questions I wanted to ask Christopher Franke, should he ever reply, is whether he is related to Prof Franke of Cologne, the great organist and composer. Quick link is above.
Speaking of a holiday gift from Sci-Fried..LOL here is one… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNU16HHOPxA this is our video for Star Wars Christmas.. a new original song featuring Marc with a C and available for free download at our website: http://www.sci-friedband.com Happy Holidays everyone! And if you haven’t heard, our new album Future Tense will be out in early 2011!!
Heh… you jumped the gun on me, Jim! You are getting your own dedicated post! Seeing that Star Wars pinball machine made me wish I still had my Star Wars upright arcade game.
After prodding from Summer about the soundtrack, I bought it, and have tried to keep an open mind as I’ve listened to it, and while I appreciate it’s avant garde-ness, it just doesn’t put much emotional impact into any of the scenes for me. Even electro-synth music from 80’s era sci-fi impacted me more.
I liked Batman & Robin’s soundtrack more. And we all know how I feel about THAT movie.
Oh wait, you probably don’t. I don’t bring it up that much. Just watch the Nostalgia Critic’s review of it though, he sums my feelings up nicely. 😉
The fact that you could zone out of that travesty of a film and actually pay attention to the soundtrack either makes you a Zen Master, or completely, irretrievably insane.
That said, I do own a number of soundtracks that others might find odd 🙂
Summer: Had I not zoned out to focus on the soundtrack I very likely would’ve murdered everyone in the house I was watching it in (I didn’t see it in theaters, my Dad rented it).
And yet it was still better than Highlander The Source. 😉
Arkle there was only ONE Highlander movie.