Text 14343, 91 rader
Skriven 2007-05-10 04:21:55 av Richard Barrett (713.babylon5)
     Kommentar till en text av rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Ärende: Re: Babylon 5 - The Lost Tales
======================================
Now trying to post this for the *third* time...

Attempting to post this again, since somehow it got lost on its way to
moderation...

Jan wrote:

> Breach of protocol, no. Breach of courtesy...well, it certainly seemed like
it
> to me.  Your post, perhaps inadvertantly, came over in a style that I could
only
> perceive as snarky in the extreme.

Then you're getting something out of it I didn't intend. Apologies for
however you took it, but I was trying to pick words that *wouldn't*
come across as "snarky in the extreme."

> You pointed to three cast departures and said (paraphrasing my perception of
> what you were saying) 'Oh look, JMS won't say anything at all about these two
> instances and that's because he didn't want to damage their careers but just
> look how he just handled this third situation differently.  Must be because
he
> doesn't care about any damage to hers.'

You've got it a bit inside out, actually; the two instances which are
being compared are the Christan and O'Hare departures, and Sekka's is
being looked to for possible insight as to why there's such a massive
contrast. As far as me thinking JMS has any active hostility towards
Christian ten years later, that would be presuming knowledge I don't
have (and while I've listened to Ford Thaxton a time or two on the
radio, I'm not he). However, I don't think it's overreaching, based on
the content of vol. 11 of the script books, to surmise that he
definitely believes that she dug her own grave in this matter.

> Didn't you find any other cast departures fascinating?  For instance, Julie
> Caitlyn Brown's or Andrea Thompson's which JMS covered in a fair amount of
> detail?

In the words of the honorable Joseph DeMartino, "apples and oranges."
The departures of those actors did not have anywhere near the impact
on the story (or, if you like, the impact on how the story was told,
if that keeps us from going down of the rabbit hole of how much the
Sinclair-to-Sheridan shift actually changed the story) that Christian
and O'Hare's departures did.

I will also note that I'm afraid I don't see how commenting on this by
definition assumes an adversarial position, since as far as I know, I
don't have one. I'm not accusing anybody of being a liar, and I'm not
criticising anybody involved.

> As for why he talked about it all again (ignoring for the moment that the
script
> books have evolved into a history of the making of they show),

Well, no, we can't ignore that, because that's the point. This has
turned into Monumentae Babyloniae Pente, the primary source document
that's going to be cited in dissertations and sitting on reference
shelves. Given that, and given that in the cases of Christian and
O'Hare this was specifically advertised as "the last word", it hardly
seems to me inappropriate to comment on the fact that in one case, he
writes a couple of paragraphs and then explicitly says "There are
elements of this you will *never* know and that's how we want it", and
in the other, the charts and timelines come out for several pages. In
one case, he is making it plain that, for whatever reasons (and I am
not speculating on what those reasons might or might not be, much less
subsequently attempting to make conclusions about his character, only
suggesting that the case of Johnny Sekka *may* provide some insight as
to the context), there are most definitely things he is *not* telling
us and has no intention of ever telling us; in the other, he is making
it plain that he is letting it all hang out in terms of what happened
from his perspective. If there ever comes a day when textual scholars
become interested in these books (assuming that hasn't already
happened), that's going to be a hard thing for them to miss, and I
hardly think it out of line to point that out.

 JMS covers that
> in the book, too:
>
> "Or that more than money, more than credits, more than anything else in the
> world, the single most important thing to me has always been my reputation
for
> being honest with the fans and others in the entertainment community?"

Pointing out this contrast does not mean I'm not disputing that; not
in the least.

Sheesh. You'd think I suggested a story idea or something.

Richard
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