Babylon 5: The Lost Tales question

[Homer 120]

Just started to watch Babylon 5 from the beginning, heard they released ''The Lost Tales'' about 2 or so years ago. Then I read it was the first in a series of direct to DVD movies.

Have anymore been announced?

[Cold Fuzz]

Unfortunately, JMS has announced that there will be no more Lost Tales movies. After the success of "Voices in the Dark" he was hoping to get a bigger budget for the movies so he could have more than just the basic sets and personnel. Sadly, he was given only a little bit more money for the second Lost Tales movie.

Consequently, he decided not to create any more Lost Tales features because he wanted a higher standard for the stories, a standard that he wouldn't be able to get with a limited budget.

[nx01a]

If JMS wants a higher budget, I want a higher standard of story. Galen/Sheridan was fine, but Scoggins/The Devil just fell flat. Same thing with LotR. He isn't telling the stories that matter: finishing the Crusade plague story or the Telepath War. If he's dancing around them in the hope that a big budget movie'll come along wherein he can tell them, he'll never get there at this rate.

[maneth]

Unfortunately that's probably where things will remain for the foreseeable future.

[Republibot 3.0]

I think that's where things will stand forever, really. I think that stage of his life is pretty much over. He's a big mojo screenwriter now, an A-lister, and I don't think he wants to sit around thinking about a show he did fifteen years ago any more than most of us want to sit around thinking about highschool all the time. That's the sense I get from it.

[DigiFluid]

If JMS wants a higher budget, I want a higher standard of story. Galen/Sheridan was fine, but Scoggins/The Devil just fell flat. Same thing with LotR. He isn't telling the stories that matter: finishing the Crusade plague story or the Telepath War. If he's dancing around them in the hope that a big budget movie'll come along wherein he can tell them, he'll never get there at this rate.

My feelings exactly.

If you want a bigger budget, tell stories that are worth watching.

[DigiFluid]

I think that's where things will stand forever, really. I think that stage of his life is pretty much over. He's a big mojo screenwriter now, an A-lister,

When did that happen? I don't remember any blockbuster movies he's been behind. I know he's written a couple things for some big names, but that hardly makes him an A-List writer.

and I don't think he wants to sit around thinking about a show he did fifteen years ago any more than most of us want to sit around thinking about highschool all the time. That's the sense I get from it.

I don't think so, personally. Had Crusade gone on for the full 5 years, it would've ended in 2004. Had Legend of the Rangers been picked up as a series, it would've ended as recently as 2007, assuming it went on-air in 2002. And Lost Tales was a planned series of movies, the first of which came out just 3 years ago.

I think the truth of JMS is actually entirely the opposite of that. Yes--B5 was a brilliant piece of work. However, that's pretty much his only major success and he's spent all the time since then trying to ride on that success. Including bs accusations of plagiarism of other shows, just because he thinks he's the be-all, end-all of TV writers.

[xxxevilgrinxxx]

If JMS wants a higher budget, I want a higher standard of story. Galen/Sheridan was fine, but Scoggins/The Devil just fell flat. Same thing with LotR. He isn't telling the stories that matter: finishing the Crusade plague story or the Telepath War. If he's dancing around them in the hope that a big budget movie'll come along wherein he can tell them, he'll never get there at this rate.

yeah, I kept looking for that storyline to play out and poof, it just went nowhere. Everything seemed to just fizzle off, which is unfortunate

[Republibot 3.0]

I think the truth of JMS is actually entirely the opposite of that. Yes--B5 was a brilliant piece of work. However, that's pretty much his only major success and he's spent all the time since then trying to ride on that success. Including bs accusations of plagiarism of other shows, just because he thinks he's the be-all, end-all of TV writers.

Nah, it's his magnum opus, but hardly his only success. As you said, he's written some things for big names, he was up for an oscar, he's been a major comics writer for like a decade now. I don't think he's trying to milk it. He had one or two additional stories he wanted to tell, he couldn't fit them into B5, so he's tried 3x to tell 'em. He failed. I think he's done with it.

[Grumpy]

I don't look at things quite the way you guys do. I tend to look at this issue of a larger budget as something that is not really needed. What I mean by that is, a large budget is essential if it is your intent to have a lot of special effects. But special effects are not what make a movie great. It is the story itself that matters, the special effects are there to enhance an already good story. Special effects by themselves do not make a good story. You can have the greatest special effects of all time but if the story sucks, guess what? The movie will suck too. Additionally, a really good script with terrible actors/actresses will make a really bad movie too. But really good actors/actresses cannot make a rotten script look good.

I guess what I am trying to say is, if you want a really great movie, you need a really good story to tell, a well written script, very good actors/actresses and some super special effects to enhance the movie. Unfortunately, just because you have a large budget does not guarantee you will produce a super good movie.

[Cold Fuzz]

I don't look at things quite the way you guys do. I tend to look at this issue of a larger budget as something that is not really needed. What I mean by that is, a large budget is essential if it is your intent to have a lot of special effects. But special effects are not what make a movie great. It is the story itself that matters, the special effects are there to enhance an already good story. Special effects by themselves do not make a good story. You can have the greatest special effects of all time but if the story sucks, guess what? The movie will suck too. Additionally, a really good script with terrible actors/actresses will make a really bad movie too. But really good actors/actresses cannot make a rotten script look good.

I guess what I am trying to say is, if you want a really great movie, you need a really good story to tell, a well written script, very good actors/actresses and some super special effects to enhance the movie. Unfortunately, just because you have a large budget does not guarantee you will produce a super good movie.

You're preaching to the choir here. Anyone who has watched Babylon 5 from beginning to end knows fully well that the show wasn't about VFX shots at its core. It had solid writing and an incredibly rich universe for JMS or any other writer to play around in. So while I agree with you on principle that good VFX doesn't necessarily mean good writing or a good story (all you have to do is look at the Star Wars prequel trilogy to prove that), the issue with the Lost Tales budget was not CGI.

A larger budget was necessary to hire the actors and actresses he wanted. JMS had wanted to do a story with Garibaldi and possibly one other major character in the series but getting Jerry Doyle onboard was problematic with the budget he was given. They actually made up a large bulk of the production costs. The other big cost was set construction. With the B5 TV series, they already had sets constructed and filming a new episode was relatively cheap compared to other science fiction shows. For the Lost Tales though, they had no standing sets. Did you notice the extreme minimalism on the sets? Everything was already struck down from the B5 series and they had to create completely new sets for things like the corridors on the station, etc. Additionally there was the make-up for the Minbari, the costumes, and other production overhead that the fanbase generally never knows about. All of these costs add up very quickly.

VFX ended up being relatively cheap for B5 because it's become easier and easier to handle with advancing technology. So no, the issue with Lost Tales budget wasn't VFX. In fact the VFX was needed to fill in gaps in the story telling because they had no standing stage sets to use.

[maneth]

Indeed. And sadly it looks like they didn't even have the money to hire extras. The thing that bugged me most was how empty the sets, virtual or not, looked. You had the main actors but barely any passers-by. Compare that to how full the corridors and main public spaces looked on the show... Granted, the station wasn't the core of the Alliance anymore, not after they moved the Alliance government to Minbar, but still the empty corridors leave an unfinished feeling to the entire lost tale.

[Grumpy]

I am not sure how budgets get allocated for movies. It is my understanding that as a general rule, a studio doesn't care how much money a movie costs, they care about how much money a movie makes. So if a movie costs $100 million to make but it brings in $200 million in revenue, that is acceptable.

I have no idea how much money the actors were asking for to do the movies, nor do I know what sets they needed or what those sets cost. A lot of the cost would depend on what the story was about, whether a lot of scenes take place in space or on a planet, and it would depend on whether they could shoot parts of the movie on location in a National Park or something like that.

[Cold Fuzz]

I am not sure how budgets get allocated for movies. It is my understanding that as a general rule, a studio doesn't care how much money a movie costs, they care about how much money a movie makes. So if a movie costs $100 million to make but it brings in $200 million in revenue, that is acceptable.

The idea that a studio doesn't care about the cost of a project is incorrect. A studio definitely cares how much a project is going to cost. It matters because nobody is going to spend $100 million on a project when it can't rake in $1 million in revenue.

I have no idea how much money the actors were asking for to do the movies, nor do I know what sets they needed or what those sets cost. A lot of the cost would depend on what the story was about, whether a lot of scenes take place in space or on a planet, and it would depend on whether they could shoot parts of the movie on location in a National Park or something like that.

The medium, venue, and type of the project determines the initial budget. The Lost Tales were a direct to DVD project. Those types of projects will get nowhere near the kind of budget a TV series or a theatrical movie release will get. This is why, as maneth correctly stated, they had virtually no money for extras or even a good stage set.