“We have an obligation to one another, responsibilities and trusts. That does not mean we must be pigeons, that we must be exploited. But it does mean that we should look out for one another when and as much as we can; and that we have a personal responsibility for our behavior; and that our behavior has consequences of a very real and profound nature. We are not powerless. We have tremendous potential for good or ill. How we choose to use that power is up to us; but first we must choose to use it. We’re told every day, ‘You can’t change the world.’ But the world is changing every day. Only question is…who’s doing it? You or somebody else?”
— J. Michael Straczynski
(Source: alphahelicalhair, via avelera)
(Source: rennma, via fuckyeahdelenn)
JMS Speaks "Mind War"
I’m entirely aware that I’ve posted this before.
But it’s still funny.
From The Lost Tales DVD
From 2X14 There All the Honor Lies
——
‘Here’s the story of the bear.
I hate cute. Everybody knows me, knows that. So after buying Peter David’s script #2, Peter sends me a gift. A bear. A teddy bear. With my initials JS in front, and Bear-ba-lon 5 in the back. I call Peter back. I say that I must now get him for this. He asks what I had in mind. I said wait and see.
So I wrote the entire bear thing at the end of the show, and inserted it into his script.
Never send me something cute.
Best part was during filming, we shot the bear against blue-screen to be composited into the CGI. And there’s our EFX supervisor, standing there on film, against blue-screen, with this long rod up the teddy bear’s ass, spinning it round and round and round….’
-JMS
The most epic shit happens when Joe wants to get revenge.
(via nerdcrophilia)
Sheridan’s fall was like Gandalf’s in “The Lord of the Rings,” or like the descent into the underworld in Dante’s “Inferno.”
‘I’ve mentioned elsewhere that I was going more for the roots of this. Though the Dante thread you mention is closest in many ways (again, you dig into archetypes you end up with similar structures, that’s the nature of the beast), it was Orpheus going into the underworld for his wife, and losing her, that was in the back of my head when I was blocking out that part of the story. (You can also toss in Christ’s temptation by the devil, and descent into the wilderness, if you want.)
This will probably get me in trouble, but…on the one hand, I am always delighted and impressed with the breadth and depth of analyses and thought of the larger group of SF fans, and the insightfulness with which they apply those perceptions.
On the flip side of this discussion…for a certain percentage of them, that breadth and depth is only or primarily within SF and mainstream fantasy. The wellspring of material from which to draw when making comparisons is not often as broad as it should be in classical literature, mythology, medieval studies, and so on. They see a drop into a chasm, they think “Oh, Gandalf.” Not understanding that the root of this goes back way, way, way further…to Orpheus and his kindred spirits.
I was copied a note from someone on another newsgroup who insisted that everything in the show had an elvish/Tolkein base, including and *especially* the names of everyone, citing the Agamemnon as meaning something or other in LoTR elvish. The symbol is RIGHT THERE, in the name, Agamemnon, and the whole unfortunate history of that character and his wife, and the Cassandra character (which is at the center of G’Kar’s character)…and yet she says, “No, no, it’s all a clue, it means this thing over here.”
My background is as an SF fan myself, so I offer the above without stereotype or pejorative intent. But as well as reading SF, I spent most of my early adult life reading from classical sources. Goethe’s FAUST informs Londo in many ways, as well as the history of early Rome, and Hegelian notions on the role of conflict, and the divine role of the emperor. You’re talking to someone who read Plotinus’ The Aenneads just for kicks, and whose favorite character was Zeno and his paradoxes. You want to talk Plato’s perfect forms? The Socratic method of teaching? Greek tragic structure as embodied in Oedipus? The overall work of Sophocles? The Bible? I’ve read that one cover to cover twice…anyone else in the room who’s done that, raise your hands and tell me you didn’t fall asleep halfway through Numbers and Deuteronomy, the two most boring books in the whole darned thing.
There was a period in my life — from around 1976 through 1981 — when I devoured everything I could in these areas. Mythology. Existentialism. Zen. 18th century literature. I took part time jobs in libraries so I could get access to the widest possible range of books, especially new ones in areas that interested me. A lot of the details have washed away over the years, but the cumulative *sense* of that remains. I can still remember how excited I was when a brand new translation of the Inferno, the Purgatario and the Paradisio came out (from Penguin, I think), putting it all back into the proper lyric form, and I devoured them, one day each, then read them all again using the footnotes and marginalia.
All that time, I never knew I was preparing myself to write this show, because it could *only* be done with a generalist background, knowing a little about a lot of areas…just enough to get into trouble, ususally, but still the grounding is there.
Funny thing…about two, three weeks ago, I got an email from a woman who is a professor of medieval studies at a major university, who said she’d been nudged into watching the show by her graduate students, and is now a big fan of the show. She said that as she watched, she “clicked” constantly on the sources from medieval and classical literature, mythology, and other deep well sources, and was pleased to see them being used in a contermporary or futuristic venue.
Anyway, it’s what I’ve always said about this show…you see the paradigm with which you are most familiar. Sometimes that’s great, and sometimes it’s a curse.’
-JMS
Source: (The Lurker’s Guide To Babylon 5)
(via neroon)
YOU SIR ARE A LIFE RUINER
PASSIONATE AND UNDYING LOVE FOR MATT AND GILLIAN
JOE STRACZYNSKI IS THE PINNACLE OF HUMAN EVOLUTION DID YOU EVER KNOW THAT YOU’RE MY HEROOOOO AND EVERYTHING I WOULD LIKE TO BEEEEEEEEEEE
I love this man.
