J. Michael Straczynski is the creator and executive producer of Babylon 5. He is known to many fans, through familiarity and his exceptional accessibility, as "Joe" or simply "JMS".
His sayings have been extensively archived on the Web (for example, see The Lurker's Guide), and so below you will find just a few selected quotes that are particularly revealing about JMS and/or his creation...
Questions about:
| writing 50 episodes |
| favorite SF movies |
| writers that have influenced him |
| carrying around ALL of those richly-drawn characters |
| symbolism of the Shadow War |
| television censorship |
| the final episode |
J. Michael Stracyznski, creator, writer
and executive producer of the Emmy Award winning television series Babylon 5, has boldly
taken his vision where no man dared go before. Straczynski has set a new precedent for
American Television by becoming the first person in the history of the medium to
singularly script 50 one-hour episodes in a row - representing over two full seasons of
the series. Additionally, he is writing and co-producing two feature length movies for
TNT, a prequel and sequel to Babylon 5's current storyline, due out in early 1998, and has
made his directorial debut with the final episode of season four.
Only Straczynski knows the entire multi-year story arc of his pioneering epic which chronicles the adventures of an eclectic group of humans and aliens aboard a five-mile long, self contained space station. "To tell a coherent, cohesive, and consistent story this large, with so much written by one person, has never before been attempted in American television," comments Straczynski. "And there's a reason for that. You have to be out of your mind to even try it!"
"It was nothing I ever wanted to do and wanted to avoid at all costs, but the difficulty of incorporating freelance stories into what is, essentially a novel for television, began to make that impossible, as much as we tried to make it work," adds Straczynski. "A number of critics point out that film or television cannot allow for writers to be auteurs, but I think we have disproved that notion. Television can be treated with the same literary approach and creative control as books or short stories. Babylon 5 has shown that it is possible to tell a single story, to create a true novel for television, that spans not just weeks, but multiple years - setting threads and clues that play out over the course of years, trusting to the patience and intelligence of the audience." In fact, Babylon 5 has been endorsed by Viewers for Quality Television for the past three years.
"I've been given this remarkable opportunity by Warner Bros. to just go and tell my story," continues Straczynski. "They have given us unrestrained freedom to address issues of controversy - from the death penalty to spirituality, gay issues, the role of religion vs. science, politics, even examining the media itself."
All this has come at something of a steep price to Straczynski. For the past four years, he has literally done nothing other than thinking about and writing the Babylon 5 epic and adhering to a rigorous daily regimen that concludes each morning between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m., 362 mornings per year. (This includes three to four hours a day interacting with fans on the InterNet.)
"It's a hideous strain," he confesses. "If I'd known what I was getting into, I might not have done it. But once I was on the horse, I had to hold on, no matter what! And I know in my heart, this opportunity will never come again."
A: For starters, I'd include
"Seconds" on your list, the only marginally SF film done by Rock Hudson which to
this day scares the hell out of me. John Frankenheimer was never better.
I'd also include "Fail Safe," "Dr. Strangelove," "Seven Days in May" and "The Manchurian Candidate" which (for my money) do have some SF aspects to them... if "Alas, Babylon" is SF, then "Fail Safe" and the others can be included in that. It's also a grouping that gives newer audiences a sense of where this country was at a very precarious point in its history.
Of films more definitely in the SF area... Forbidden Planet, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Rocky Horror Picture Show (stop staring at me like that, it's got aliens and... and space ships... and... and mad scientists and stuff like that, and it's got a beat and you can dance to it), Aliens, High Plains Drifter (fantasy), Terminator 2, The Road Warrior, The Princess Bride (fantasy), On the Beach, Night of the Living Dead, Brazil, Alien, The Haunting of Hill House, Blade Runner, First Men in the Moon, When Worlds Collide, Village of the Damned, Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers, Phantom of the Paradise and Day of the Triffids.
A: As a writer, the influences would
really tend to be early ones, so I'd cite Eric Frank Russell, HP Lovecraft, Bradbury,
Ellison, Tolkein, Clarke and "Doc" Smith as being at the top of the roster. In
terms of television, it'd be Serling, Matheson, Corwin, again Bradbury and Ellison, and
Charles Beaumont.
A: It feels like a chicken giving birth to
a tyrannosaurus rex.
A: Very early on, John Copeland asked me, "Okay,
bottom line it for me, what's the war about?" I said, "It's about killing
your parents." And his eyes went wide, and I explained, "No, not
literally... but at some point you have to step outside the control of your parents and
create your own life, your own destiny. That process is inevitable... and if there are
indeed older races, and they're interfering, that puts them smack in the middle of that
same process."
It's not about who has the biggest gun, because there's always somebody else with a bigger gun...it's about understanding your way out of a problem.
A: Most of what is violent on TV is movies
run on commercial networks, not so much regular TV programs. The majority of produced
programs are still sitcoms. So for me, the whole thing is based on a false premise. But
more than that, it seems outrageous for congress to on the one hand try and repeal the
assault weapon ban, then try and regulate TV violence. It's inconsistent.
They're not dealing with the problem, they're dealing with the picture of the problem. If we make the picture go away, the problem will go away. No it won't. It will be solved by sane gun laws (I'm not against owning, but registering seems a good idea), and dedicated assaults on poverty, unemployment, crime, drug use and the eradication of hope. It will be solved by parents and kids spending time together, rather than letting a chip determine what they watch on TV. It will be solved by education for the young, and firm punishment for the guilty.
But see, that takes nerve. And it isn't easily done. And may be unpopular in some sectors. So it's easier, and gets more coverage, to attack Hollywood when things get bad. It's fuzzy thinking, dead-catting and scapegoating, nothing less. When people were frightened by the Soviet Union during the 50s, and the US couldn't actually do anything about it...they turned on Hollywood and attacked all those commie sympathizers undermining morality and creating a commie-ready society via words and images. We can't fix violence, so now we turn again to the pictures of the problem as though they were the problem.
If every violent program in the nation were blipped off the air for 48 hours, and replaced by reruns of the Donna Reed Show, there would not be one less death in South Central LA, not one less drug overdose in Bed-Stuy in New York, not one less Freeman in Montana. (At most you'd have several more incidents of people shooting out their TVs.)
Here, for me, is the ultimate analogy. A few years ago here in town, there was an anti-gun group that came up with the idea of a protest march. They marched in front of a video store which had a big poster in the front of it in which there was a huge picture of a gun. They marched in front of the video store. Half a block down was a gun shop. Nobody marched in front of the gun shop.
A: In a way you're kind of asking the
wrong person, as I'm inside the fishbowl and can't see the show the way anyone outside can
see it. The only gauge I have is the reaction the script got around the stage when people
on the crew and cast read it. (With a note attached explaining the possibility of airing
it as 522 or 422, but that either way this would end up the story.)
Pretty much everybody cried. I came home to a message on my machine from Mira, who was almost unable to speak, and another from Claudia who said she was honored and proud to be a part of this, and the script had made her cry. Bruce, Richard, big beefy guys on the crew... all said the same thing. And there I have to concur; I lost it several times as I was writing it, due to the content; there's one scene in particular... you'll know it when you see it... that put me away for an hour when I finished writing it.
But here's the thing... every single person who cried at the script, ended it feeling that it was not a sad script in the end, or a down ending... that it left them feeling proud, and tall, and positive... that life goes on... that it was a reaffirmation of life itself, on its most primal level. They felt good about the ending. And that was a great relief for me, because I was trying something very difficult from a writing perspective, and at first blush it looks as if I've pulled it off. (Now I get to go in as director and totally screw it up.)
Only one fan has read the script... someone whose opinion I trust. Because I was curious about the reaction from that side of the screen. And the reaction was exactly the same.
So how do I think people will react?
I think a lot of people will cry.
But by the end of it, I think it will come around, and be all right... and mainly, that people will then look back at the whole story, through all these long years, and say, "It was a good story." And close the cover, and put it on the shelf with the other books that will be reread again down the years, and turn off the lights, and go to bed feeling that the time was well spent.
Which is the most any writer can ever ask for. To tell a tale worth telling. To make people cry. To make people laugh. And even, once in a while, make them think about things, and see the world just a little differently than when they began.
And then they can center punch me on the freeway, or throw a plane at me, and I won't even mind. Because everything I set out to prove, I proved. Everything I set out to say, I said.
I've carried this story like a hermit crab carries its shell for five long years, counting the pilot. It's been an awfully long and difficult road, and no one will ever really know just how hard this show was to make. Nor should they, because it isn't the difficulty that makes the story, the story makes the story. But one way or another, aired as 522 or 422, when it airs the burden is off at last. Then it no longer belongs to me. It belongs to you. As should be. And, in the end, I think you'll be pleased.
Last update: 04 August 2007
