Not until you actually buy a season DVD! :lol:

The ides of May have come and gone, and still no definative word. Since The WB has announced their schedule for next seaon, the TV series on the WB has to be discarded. It now seems all but certain that this is a feature.

Still no definative word, and the tension is getting pretty high on the fan boards! :(

I've read a few snipets over the last month. Most of it, we've all heard is allbefore; 'not giving up on B5', 'working frantically', 'lots of writing', 'something big on the horizon', 'don't want to jinx' anything' and the likes.

It's good news, but I'm not getting excited until I read something official.

I guess we'll know more in a few weeks. :?

Maybe I should of been more verbose =)

http://sadgeezer.com/html/displayarticle134.html

Wrote a lil article on it a week or so ago and a link to JMS site where he said it. Janurary 17th I believe is the date of the announcement, and it DEFINITELY concerns B5 not a spinoff, which is *really* interesting. If you listened to the BackTracks on the B5 DVDs each actor expressed huge interest in reviving the series, and a few claimed "I don't even know why they stopped it when they did." So perhaps that was a bit of catalyst. We'll find out on the 17th =)

Hmm the day after my birthday- fingers crossed for good news

Wow!

How embarrassing. I should have checked my own bloody website!

It's hard sometimes, to realise that this website is kept so up-to-date by such a large sci-fi-community and peeps like yerself!

It also seems amazing that although the JMS News site have details, there weren't any articles in the babylon5 moderated newsgroup (for so long, the only real info site for babylon5!!)

Ok, so I'll wait for the mid-to-late January announcement with baited breath. And yes, the details of more Babylon 5 stuff (as opposed to spin off series stuff intrigues me too! :)

Yeah, I've had that problem in the past. From what the techies tell me that although the posts are universal, news servers aren't and have diff filters which cause legit posts to be removed, or never posted at all. =/

Frankly some of the better news on the Sci-Fi front in a long time, could it be possible that we could see a new BSG series AND a new B5 series? Along with a resolution to the Farscape saga.

Just when we thought Sci-Fi was dead....

This is from the aformentioned website on November 30, 2003:

Yes Please!!!

OOWER!

fluffybunny, I'm really sorry but I inadvertantly deleted your post!!!!

Please could you repost! I'm really sorry (had too much red wine! :( )

Yeah. Then all we'd need is a reunion movie/miniseries on the scale of BSG to wrap up Space: Above and Beyond. Then I'd truly be a happy man. :)

Lol- I can't even remember what I wrote. Ah well, another post lost to Saddy's hangover :D

Oh I remember bits of it- hope the announcement's delayed for another year if they've only just started the writing phase- there was a year gap between The Gathering and S1, and as a result the show just became stronger- beyond the level of 'adequate' to very good, leading to awesome in S2 and 3.

going to start writing synopses, but I'm a bit tied up at the mo.

Following site should do for now:
http://www.visi.com/~wildfoto/synopses.html

I haven't got all the links I collected about this topic on this machine, but from what I understand JMS to be saying, the new project is:

1. Babylon 5, not a spinoff

2. Not a series

3. Not print media

Now, that seems to me to mean that it is either a TV miniseries or a feature flick. Given the money involved in the latter, and the fact that the series it is being derived from is neither Trek nor a 1960s TV series that you can recast, i am betting for the former.

If I had to guess a subject, I would say its finally the Teep Wars. I know JMS has been keeping this back as the topic of a feature film 9which is why the series and books just skip right over it) but even if it is a TV miniseries I think he has to realize that he won't be able to have his stars around forever, and the only subject that seems worthy of all the hoopla would be the Teep wars.

Anything as bland as the bulk of the TV movies or The Legend of the Rangers would kill the franchise dead. JMS needs to hit a home run with this one, and his best-developed idea HAS to be the Teep Wars.

Comments?

it would be great to see a return to the B5 universe, and the telepath war would be an ideal storyline in which our favourite characters can be seen again- Sheridan, Delenn and co. would such a story deal with what ultimately happens to Lyta Alexander? Bester? i would love to see what the future of a character such as he would be like.
i have often thought that some kind of (mini?)series or movie dealing with the events of the first Shadow War would be a good idea, though how such a story would work without the obvious major involement of the human race i don't know. would people accept a sci-fi story where humans weren't the saviours of the universe? (at this point, i'm not exactly sure if Valenn would count...)

A Teep wars series would be so awesome, but I too was of the impression that JMS was saving that for a feature film (which would be the better option, IMO, but never mind)- however, that said, the main characters in a teep war film would probably be Lyta, Bester and Garibaldi- and, if memory serves correctly, no one, not even a fan, has been as enthusiastic about a B5 revival as Jerry Doyle has been. A series set during the 1260 shadow war? It'd be good to see how the war turned out, with Valen forming the grey council etc. and how G'Quan was involved, but that's more TV movie, IMO.

I don't mean to be critical of anyones' posts here, but I think we're doing that speculation thing that he asked us not to do. I'm not sure where it says that its a pure B5 thing, or even what kinds of media it isn't. Maybe someone can help me out with that. Personally, I'm just going to sit patiently till the end of January. But I would like to see the TP War movie or a continuation of Crusade. :D 8)

In what would have been episode 14 of Crusade, we learn that Bester is a war criminal on the run. He takes refuge on a tiny colony, and basically screws with the locals' heads to keep himself safe and unfound. Until the Excalibur gets there at least....

Mainstream audiences typically reject stories where humans are not in control, or are not the main characters. Titan AE, and Battlefield Earth are two examples. While many people claim that BE wasn't that good, most audiences didn't want to see a future where man was relegated to pack animal duties, or in Titan AE's case, the earth blew up in the first two minutes.

If I am reading the tea leaves right, JMS was always saving the Teep Wars for a feature. However, the stock of B5-realted materials has taken a huge hit since he mapped out his strategy, with two failures in a row (though the books have done nicely, that's only "nicely" compared to other small-niche-market books.

So, I don't really think the money would be there for a theatrical flick, much as I would love to believe otherwise. In a way, that's good, because from script completion to theatrical release would be years.

Even if it is only a TV miniseries, I think JMS needs to bring out his best concepts to the next B5 product, and the Teep Wars are almost certainly that. Plus, he could get the series actors to play the roles now, when their chronological age is correct for the role, not five years from now when things would be more difficult.

True, but Doyle has been talking about just a continuation of the series. Straczinski has already said he has zero interest in writing for such a project, and Katsulas and Jurasik have already also said that they will not return to a series unless it is at least partially written by JMS. So, I think Doyle's effort is doomed to fail, but at least Jerry has kept the name of the franchise in play.

All we can do is keep doing our part to make sure the DVD sales are strong, and hope for the best. And I think the Teep Wars would be "the best" even if only in a miniseries format.

The fate of Lyta has, indeed, been kept under wraps. The Fate of Bester is, in fact, the title of the third book in the Psi Corps trilogy, so if you canot wait, get the book and find out! :wink:

Note that the trilogy deals not at all with the Teep wars - it only covers the prequel and sequel to the war. That's probably my Exhibit A in the "JMS is keeping the Teep Wars for a feature film" theory.

Hi!

I'm new here, but a big B5 fan. I don't know if this has been posted before, or even if it's relevant but this is the word from JMS himself:

"To the many questions that have arisen here of late...yes, as I mentioned
before, there is the possibility of something Babylon 5 related on the horizon,
but again I don't want anyone getting excited until we know if either one of
these two projects is going to actually come to fruition. We should know where
this lands in the next few weeks. The only thing I will say is that they're
not print projects, so if you were to assume it's for TV or film you wouldn't
be too far off...but that neither of them are series. And that's all I'm going
to say about them for now."

http://www.jmsnews.com - message 17017

So there you go

bambooshoot :D

Cool, thank-you. Althoug I guess this means we won't see a continuation of Crusade, or another weekly fix of B5. :(

When JMS askes us not to speculate, he is referring to speculating on the usenet site where he himself appears (I think he is concerned about the "silence implies consent" issue) not the fan boards. I am sure he understands perfectly well that his announcement will lead to speculation on boards like this - and in fact that almost surely is why he reveals these kinds of things. It keeps the juices flowing and the franchise alive.

There has been a slight delay, as noted by JMS on January 29th:

"It's taken longer than hoped for to be able to talk about this, because it's taken longer than hoped for to go through all the machinations of the deal. Depending on the nature of a given deal, it can take a few weeks to a couple, three months to actually cut the deal and finalize the language in terms everybody can agree with. We only literally finished the deal last week.

Writing on B5:TMoS is complete, and as soon as the powers that be sign off on everything, it can be turned in and we can start moving. At that point, I can say more about this.

Figure another couple of weeks.

jms"

Naturally, speculation has been rampant as to the meaning of "TMoS" and JMS noted on the 30th (after a lot of guesses):

"Just to honk you off even further about all th is...in the speculation of titles...one of you was correct.

jms"

According to one of the posters on the google group, these are the suggestions that had actually been made by the time JMS announced one was correct:

Babylon 5: The Meanng of Spoo
Theatrical Movie, original Story
The mother of Sheridan
The Minbari of Steel
The Mollari of Spoo
Triluminary-Modified operating System
The Man of Steel
Too Many odd Suggestions
B5:TMoS - Theatrical Movie of Sorts
B5:TMoS - Telepaths Move on Saturday
B5:TMoS - Terribly Mean of Straczynski
Babylon5: The MIND of Straczynski
The Meatballs of Swedes
The Marriages of Sheridan
The Mutation of Sinclair
The Men of Space
The Mammaries of Susan
The Meaninglessness of Speculation.
The Minstrations of Sugar
Telepath Monopoly of Space
Trans Morphing Optical Stuff
The Meaning of Sh*t
The Mighty Obvious Script
The Mound of Scripts
The Movie of Surprises
Time Makes Our Society
Twenty Minbari Order Sandwiches
The Movie Script
The Memory of Shadows
The Movement of Shadows
The Mark of Shadows
The Memory of Sheridan
The Murder of Shiv'kala
The Martyrdom of Sinclair
The Mystery of Souls
Telepath Minds on Speed
Babylon 5: The Music of Sondheim
Babylon 5: The Making of the Series
B5: The Misdirection of Speculation
Telepathic Mindwipe of Sheridan.
Terrific Marvels of Space (a documentary)
Babylon Five : Total Marmallisation of Spacestation
That Mean Ol' Straczynski (from B5_Obsessed at b5tv.com)
The Movement of Starlight
Two Marsupials on Speed
Talia, Marcus, or Susan
Terribly Mean of Straczynski
Babylon 5: The Myth of Souls
Babylon 5: The Myth of Shadows
Babylon 5: The Mystery of Sheridan
Techno-Mages of Silliness
Techno-Mages of Song
Techno-Mages on Strike
The Movie on Sunday
The Movie opposite SuperBowl
Telepaths: Meet our Sponsor
Throw Morden off Station
The Mouth of Sheridan

Not many seem like likely candidates, eh?

He eggs on the speculation if you read the Usenets, so I'm not so sure that we need to obey his every command. He wouldn't of said anything at all if he wanted to keep it quiet.

I'd guess he's more worried about *negative* reaction to pre-production hype which could cost him funding.

Not all of his productions were originally labeled B5: Many of the early LotR commercials including one I got on a Lexx tape never even mentions the word B5.

He pretty much told us it had to do with Babylon5 the day he said it was a B5 project. Even though it's the word for the greater universe of his stories, he doesn't always use it so prominently in his postings.

As for guesses after reading that Usenet thread I think

The Myth of Sheridan
The Myth of Shadows
The Mystery of Shadows

seem likely candidates based off the 5th season and movies like Thirdspace where Lyta alludes to the fact there is a LOT of bad technology floating around out there from the Vorlons and Shadows.

The Myth of Sheridan seems to egocentric, but I could see it being a title if it was a B5 series told from the distant future where Sheridan is seen as a legend/myth.

Can't wait to hear more from JMS, he really teased us when he told us someone got it right!

Lexx,

None of the three titles you propose (great though they are) had been posted by the time JMS said that the real one had been posted! :(

I think most of the speculators are focussing on
The Memory of Shadows, and
The Movement of Shadows
with the former being overwhelmingly more popular, as far as I can see.

But you are correct that the speculation based on those favorite titles all seem to be based on the concept of leftover Shadow tech. Clearly, it is a direction JMS has wanted to explore based on the planned future of Crusade (in which the Excalibur's mission was going to turn out to really be the saving of Earth from secret organizations inside Earthforce who were going to use Shadow tech to take over the planet... and maybe the galaxy).

Is there anymore news on this?

I hate to sound impatient but I am!!!!!!!

Bambooshoot :wink: :lol:

Ask and ye shall receive

A report filed on B5TV.com by one of the fans today:

While it would be fun to think JMS is going to give us something in this movie about both the Crusade and Technomage arcs, it is unfortunately just like JMS to pull our legs in matters like this.

Only a week or so until we know (the "Ides of May").

B.B. aka J. Sheridan let something slip on the Season 5 backtrack. They were talking about something having to do with the episode, and someone made fun of Sheridans beard. B.B indicated that he doesn't like beards but then said

Here's as verbatim as I can get it.

B.B: "They made me grow the beard back"

Someone: "Shhh"

B.B.: "Okay, okay"

So I'm about 99% certain he's in it, whatever it is. And based on other backtracks like Michael Doyle saying how hard and frustrating it is dealing with Warner Bros. and how he might not see them again. Why would he say that? The context was the present, not the past.

Anyways a few more for the rumor mill =)

Oooh it's all so exciting!

I've just finished watching my season 4 boxset (Thanks Sadgeezer!) and I want MORE!

Does that make me a junkie?

Bambooshoot :lol:

Well, JMS posted a few more tidbits today. You can find the whole post (including some info on the Biggs memorial service) here but the two key points for fans are:
1. that the title is, indeed, The Memory of Shadows and
2. that Richard Biggs was to be in it (and by inference the movie features the original cast).