Mostly, though, I think it gave us hope ... that there can always be new beginnings ... even for peo

[dolari]

I've been ploughing through these DVDs since Christmas. A roller coaster of 110 some hours over three months, instead of 110 hours over 5 years. I figured I would be a wreck from the slaloming, but I've managed to keep it all together...

...at least It hought so.

I'm watching Objects at Rest, and I nearly lost it when Lochley (and everyone else) saluted Sheridan as he left Babylon 5 for the last time. And that's not even the Big Goodbye.

I can only hope I'm a quarter of the writer JMS is, and my characters are a quarter of B5's characters.

I'm about to watch Sleeping in Light for the first time since I saw it 1998, off the air. I've got Kleenex sitting here...I hope there's enough. Cause I'm about to become a wreck.

In a good way. :)

Comments

[salamanders.livejournal.com]

Next time I see you I need to lend you the Spiderman graphic novel I have with JMS writing! Its amazing, it has the 9/11 issue he did which was just amazing and so well done!

[laura-seabrook.livejournal.com]

The 9/11 issue was really good.
I read the DC and other collections around that event, but JMS caught the angst, despair, and anger over it.

[laura-seabrook.livejournal.com]

I met JMS briefly at Aussiecon III in 1999 where he was a GOH.

He gave a guest speech which featured a gag he'd played on the actor who played G'Kar. He left a bogus script lying around which suggested that G'Kar would change sex for the rest of the series. Initially Andreas Katsulas was quite perturbed by the idea, then he took it seriously and was prepared to rise to the challenge. Some of the crew would come up to JMS and say "Hey, we have friends who've done this - we're just glad that some one's writing about it". A few days before they were due to shoot the script, he revealed the hoax to the actor and crew.

Ho ho, very funny. I walked down after the talk and waited, and then quietly suggested that he should have written a script like that, and promptly walked away. He may write well, but his humour sucks.


Actually, that was the con that I finally met organised queer fandom as well. But it was too late, and that was the last SF con I ever went to.

[jenndolari.livejournal.com]

If you had stayed you would have heard the story about what Delenn was supposed to be.

Watch The Gathering. Look closely at Delenn. Look at her features, the bone crest. Notice that anytime anyone says "her" their mouths are not visible. Notice the last Minbari who says "There's a hole in your mind" to Sinclair.

In the original plan for B5, Delenn was a man. In the pilot, Delenn was filmed to be a male played by a Mira Furlan. When the Gathering was finished, they attempted to deepen her voice with what they had at the time, but it sounded mechanical and processed. "There is a hole in your mind" is the only line that survived. BEcause they voice was totally unconvincing, and because Mira was worried about being so covered up and even digitally altered, they decided to make her female in the series.

In the original plot for B5, Delenn would have been male for the full first season. Going into the cocoon, SHE would have emerged as a female, and become Sinclair (or Sheridan's, thanks to another cast change) mate and eventually wife.

So maybe you should have stuck around, and listened to hear how he was going to have a gender swap in B5 and how he probably would have done it with much much more respect than a prank.

[jenndolari.livejournal.com]

I did see the 9/11 issue. That was amazing.

[laura-seabrook.livejournal.com]

It was pretty hard just to get 30 seconds of his time after the 90 minute speech. And it seems odd that he never mentioned that to frame the anecdote either.

It might have been my frame of mind as well. When I transitioned in '94 I found that fandom in Western Australia was mostly filled with narrow minded middle class folk who would much rather that I just stayed away from the stuff they were interested in. In fact, I discovered the big difference between 'associate' and 'friend' - friends will stick with you (maybe) while you remain active in their area of interest (sports, fandom, hobbies) whereas friends (if they stick with you) do so because they like you. I found 99% of local fandom to be associates.

In '96, after a 'geographical' in Sydney, I prematurely returned to Perth to attend the local con. That was a big disaster (details at my web site (http://hunter.apana.org.au/~gallae/QueerStuff/emotions/suswancon.htm)) and I stayed away until '99, but I'd already paid for that con and was committed to go. Five years later, I'd more or less moved on, though I still had rather bitter/sweet feelings about fandom, so maybe that flavoured my reactions.