Straczynski Says No More Direct To DVD Babylon 5
Slice of Sci-Fi are reporting that J Michael Straczynski is saying he has no interest in doing more Babylon 5 projects unless its a full scale feature film. In short that means don’t expect to see any more projects like Babylon 5: The Lost Tales.
Overall I’m inclined to agree with him. I’m a huge fan of the Babylon 5 series but most of the spin-offs have been lackluster at best. Crusade had its moments, but Legend of the Rangers and The Lost Tales just weren’t very good. But I’m really not sure that a giant budget and a 90-120 minute movie would help Babylon 5 that much.
Image via Wikipedia
The problem is that a lot of what I (and perhaps others?) liked about Babylon 5 stem from its finite 5 year arc. Being able to build up characters and plots over so many episodes allowed a depth that has bee missing from all the sequels and spin-offs. I don’t think it would be there in a feature film either.
The Babylon 5 story is essentially complete and re-visiting those characters has diminishing returns. The Babylon 5 universe is quite rich and it’s certainly possible that other stories could be told there. But if you do stand alone space stories, you take away what made B5 special in the first place.
Related articles by Zemanta
One Comment, Comment or Ping
John Howell
Now for a movie I’d love to see To Dream in the City of Sorrows, and I was hoping that one might have made it as a TV movie or direct to DVD, Or even the whole psi-wars issue, the civil war on Earth, the rise and fall of Centauri Prime, Narn under Centauri occupation, maybe with rangers or earthforce there as peace keepers, would be a great way to explore interesting issues.
B5 with Galactica’s budget! That would have been nice
John Howells last blog post..Making the Shiny Side Shiny Again
Jul 19th, 2008
Reply to “Straczynski Says No More Direct To DVD Babylon 5”