Babylon 5: Book Three: Point Of No ReturnThis includes a great section on Special Effects as well as an overview of Babylon 5, Season Three.
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Special Effects: For quite some time I had noted the radiant color in the show's production. When I had finally gotten around to reading the companion to Season Three it was evident that it was no accident. The use of explosive color was very much by design coupled with its gritty look as discussed by computer graphics artist Ron Thornton:
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Whatever else the effects might attempt to do, they have to make a dramatic imapct. One of the ways that is achieved is by using color. "We wanted to make Babylon 5 colorful," says Ron. "We wanted to use color to brighten it up. There had been so many movies with grey spaceship after grey spaceship, and of course, I get my inspiration from things like Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet, when there was loads of color."
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It was also noted the Shadows vessels which many refer to as spider-like, not unlike myself, was also quite intentional and based upon the black widow spider combined with the nose of a dog. It definitely has that textured look. Further, the Minbari cruisers were a cross between a butterfly and an angelfish. I always saw the fish design in those ships but still can't quite make out the butterfly effect.
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Messages From Earth: There's a great point made about this episode in this chapter. It would appear it riffed on the comic book series released by DC Comics. There are moments here that reference events taken from issues 5 through eight of those comics. The comic series was apparently written during Season Two and J. Michael Straczynski borrows from those very books for this episode which I found interesting.
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Point Of No Return: In another interesting twist from this particular book regarding the episode from which the entirety of Season Three took its name we learn Majel Barrett, the wife of Star Trek's Gene Roddenberry, was supportive of the series in its infancy. Straczynski notes, "We heard she was nice-mouthing the show at various places, speaking well of it." He adds, "She felt that the feud between a certain party of Trek fans and B5 fans was pointless and silly, and she wanted to put her money where he mouth was, as it were, and come on the show and say, 'If I can do this, why can't you at least watch the show?" Straczynski was pretty moved and wrote what I think is one of the finer guest performances throughout the series as Majel played Centauri seer Lady Morella. Peter Jurasik goes on to talk about her presence and how awe-some her position was as wife to Roddenberry, overcoming that and becoming a fine actress as well. She has been a remarkable lady in many respects and remains the first lady of Star Trek.
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Severed Dreams: This segment touches on the whole Robert Foxworthy debacle and apparently a real funny outtake exists where Sheridan asks Major Ryan, "Where's General hague?" and Ryan replies, "He's on Deep Space Nine!" That's pretty good considering everyone here offered alot of insight into that whole DSN vs babylon 5 rivalry. Also, there's quite a bit on Jeff Doyle's broken arm incident that everyone offered alot insight on earlier. He was injured badly and moreso than I had imagined.
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Interludes And Examinations: There's a paragraph that struck me and it's never obvious or made clear throughout the series. As you know, I'm a huge proponent of acknowledging actors, directors and so on. On several ocassions I have mentioned my affection for Ambassador Kosh and even praised Ardwight Chamberlain for his performance. It is here in this chapter that it points out Chamberlain actually provides the voice only and that the physical work of playing inside the costume was provided by Jeffery Willerth. Now, not once did I see Willerth's name mentioned alongside Chamberlain's in the end credits of each episode. What is up with that? I know there's an autograph card out there provided by Willerth and that always confused me until I read this chapter because no where up through Season Three does it even mention Willerth's contribution. That's unfortunate because I feel he was instrumental in bringing the key scene between Sheridan and Kosh to life in this particular episode. Tip of the cap to Bruce Boxleitner who really credits Willerth in this entry for making the episode a classic. Interesting.
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War Without End Part Two: What can you say about this episode? Holy smokes! It nearly makes your head explode. There were some key points made here worth mentioning. When I wrote about this episode and mentioned the scene when Sheridan and Delenn kissed I talked about how it was so obscured by shadows it was kind of disappointing. Mira Furlan discusses that scene here and essentially feels the same way. She would have preferred more lighting. A fellow Babylon 5 fan, M, once mentioned it was for the shippers and she's right, granted Straczynski definitely tried to mess up the moment by making it "desperate" and hurried. He refused to give the shippers exactly what they wanted. Further, many of Lady Morella's prophecies are foretold here when Londo frees [and doesn't kill] the man who is already dead. The reference is to Sheridan because of his sacrifice in Z'Ha'Dum. The other prophecy is Londo giving into his greatest fear by releasing his power and giving his life over to G'Kar. This is fascinating and I didn't fully appreciate or make those connections at the time despite Harvemunken mentioning it in the comments of my blog entry. Still, I did feel I made the proper observation of the strangling sequence by G'Kar of Londo not as one of rivalry but more as 'knowing sacrifice' or understanding. It was interesting to see the reactions to this episode in this entry by the likes of Andreas Katsulas and Director Mike Vejar who found the proceedings so densely woven that it even confused them. The final point that is made was alluded to by M in the comments way back when I wrote about this installment after viewing it. After she mentioned it I definitelly got her point and here it really spells it out. It explains why it is a "war without end," as the present war could be won only with a victory in the previous war. It is a loop of time that is turned by Sinclair. Valen creates the Minbari Grey Council; his soul then passes to the Human Sinclair, who then goes back in time to become Valen and repeat the process on and on forever. Yeah, that's it, and as Boxleitner comments regarding O'Hare's exit. "He goes away being God!" That was a pretty potent piece of science fiction writing. At least Sinclair/ O'Hare goes out immortalized.
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Grey 17 Is Missing: I remember being pretty down on this episode. Interestingly, Straczynski wasn't a huge fan of how it played out either. He points out the big problem. Jeremiah was forced to articulate what Straczynski was trying to say solely through dialogue. As he puts it, "those ideas to do come alive on camera." He adds "Jeremiah tells Garibaldi, rather than shows him, about his philosophy." When Garibaldi is disinterested in his little speech as he looks for a way out, we're disinterested right along with him. I'm glad he points this out. It was lost on me too.
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Z'Ha'Dum: There is a great piece here where Sheridan discusses how he felt about the moment when The Shadow creature enters the room. Not unlike many of us who would have liked to have seen a bit of the hand-to-hand action, they discuss the edit and cut to the moment Sheridan's bloodied and attempting to escape. "I wish we'd been able to see a shot of what had just happened," decried Boxleitner. "I thought, for myself, it was an abrupt cut." I think that's fair and according to Boxleitner a scene was scrapped that dealt with that very aftermath for a number of reasons including budgetary. It's too bad. I would have liked a little more on that in the series, but it was still solid as played out.
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That's all for now, just a few thoughts from the book that is essentially like the Straczynski bible.
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