Babylon 5: The Scripts of J. Michael Straczynski, Volume 3

Publication Date: January 2, 2006
Retire Date: June 30, 2008
Pages: 453
Format: Softcover

SCRIPTS

• Points of Departure
• Revelations
• The Geometry of Shadows
• A Race Through Dark Places
• The Coming of Shadows
• All Alone in the Night
• Acts of Sacrifice

FEATURING

• A brand new 60 page introduction and commentary. The longest one yet. More than 19,500 words, many of them pronouns, some nouns, a handful of adverbs and far more adjectives than would be appropriate for polite company.
• 27 pages of memos written during production of the second season, detailing the process of developing stories, scripts and episodes, some of which have never been seen or discussed before. See how premises are suggested, developed, changed, combined, dropped or re-edited into whole new stories as the season two arc is created in front of your very eyes.

The funniest, most personal, and most revealing volume yet...the book that was so big we had to push the photos to volume 4 just to fit everything in!

• A lengthy discussion of the change-over from Sinclair to Sheridan, including the process by which Bruce Boxleitner was finally selected as the new commanding officer of Babylon 5, what the character's name was originally, and how Sheridan's name was finally chosen.
• For the first time, we reveal the other actors who were considered for the part, and the famous British actor who came within an inch of being hired, what happened, and why.
• A PG13-Rated retelling of what happened the afternoon JMS stepped onto stage B to ask Claudia and Talia about whether or not they'd be willing to play intimate scenes.
• Descriptions of two recurring characters who had been planned to appear in year two but had to be cut.
• JMS's calm, level-headed, scholarly discussion of the decision by PTEN to delay the final episodes of each season until the start of the subsequent season. (One excerpt: "I mean, there's actually a kind of awe that sets in when you begin to really understand the extent of the stupidity involved...the same kind of stunned, silent reverence that comes when you finally see the Mona Lisa up close, or the first time you hear Ode to Joy performed by a live orchestra. The sheer majestic perfection of it sends you to your knees with the realization that this is not just common stupidity, it's a Mount Everest rising into the clouds... a level of stupidity so monumental that it actually acquires horizontal perspective, like a train disappearing into the distance.")
• Read how the techno-mages were created, and why.
• A point-by-point analysis of the nearly-supernatural Babylon 5 synchronicities that began to haunt production and may have resulted in real-life broken bones and arms among the cast.
• Learn for the first time which scenes in "Points of Departure" had to be re-shot, something almost never done in the course of the series, because JMS screwed up.
• Discover the reason Warren Keffer's character was created, what that character was originally supposed to be, and why JMS was determined to kill the character off at the very first opportunity.
• Production secrets about how the Centauri homeworld was created and visualized, and the production of Babylon 5's first Hugo-winning episode, "The Coming of Shadows."
• Never before revealed secrets concerning the relationship between Garibaldi and Sheridan, when and how and why the O'Hare cameo was shot, and how the arc of the season was constructed.
• At last, a complete, shot-for-shot explanation of Sheridan's famous prophetic dream in "All Alone in the Night," most of it never revealed before. Who was the man in the middle, REALLY? It's not who you think.
• The development process that culminated in the Shadow-doctrine of evolution through war.
• Funny convention stories, Drazi wars, and the day the JMS generic protest chant led to the police being summoned.

Index