Amph For Justice, For Peace, For the Future- We Have Come Home: Babylon 5 (The Road Home animated film)

I think briefly, yeah- like Joe implied projects in the works that weren't, blamed JMS or something. They've patched things up though.

 

The Gathering was the pilot movie for the series- as such there were some things tweaked between it and Season 1, but if you're just getting into B5, it's not that necessary to watch, but if you intend to watch the entire series, it would be the first thing to watch, I suppose.

A Call to Arms is necessary for the setup to the short-lived spin-off series, Crusade, but like most of the other movies, can be viewed after Season 5.

Thirdspace is set in the middle of Season 4, but can be viewed at any point afterwards as it's a standalone side adventure.

In the Beginning can be viewed either after Season 4 (when it originally aired) or after Season 5 (where it's frame story is set). It can, alternatively, function as an alternate introduction to the series- but, while far superior in quality to The Gathering, this approach will spoil one of the major mysteries of the first season and a couple smaller things later in the series and, as such, I don't reccomend watching it until after S4 or S5.

 

Not sure if anyone's ever seen these before, but this site has some gorgeous custom B5 DVD case covers, as well as Crusade.

 

Though it came out a month or two ago, I've finally gotten around to reading the TV Movies volume of the B5 script books. The intros are not quite as in-depth (since much of the making-of material was covered in the other cript book intros), so it's done as a Q&A for each, but there're some good nugets in there, particularly concerning LOTR and TLT:

-The Hand are not related to the Thirdspace aliens (alas!).
-The Hand only said/think they're more powerful than the Shadows.
-The Hand are more interested in political inflence, money and personal power than control over developing races like the Shadows were.
-Rangers was one of two B5 pilot concepts he wrote for SFC, the other was called Polaris, which was "an interstellar take on a mob story".
-The haunting of the ship and it's past crew would lead to investigating Minbari politics and weeding out Hand traitors within it.
-The younger Rangers would eventually learn to use "dying for the one" as a last resort, not first.
-Rangers evolved directly out of SFC's attempts to continue Crusade after TNT cancelled it (SFC was foiled by TNT's asking price for the B5 rerun rights- intentionally asking for 2-3 times the price they paid WB for the rights, and more than any channel would pay for reruns- yet SFC still tried hard to work the books and get the money together, but came up short.

(as a side-note, who else would love to have THAT SFC back?)

-Quantumspace technology was acquired by Earth/ISS through colonies and outposts in known space left behind by the Vorlons, as have other races (some tried to adapt Vorlon technology and blew up their own planets). The Vorlon Homeworld is still off-limits.
-Vintari is 3rd in line to the throne, with Vir as second. The first is an unseen Prime Minister who meets "an ugly (but entirely well-deserved) fate" the same night Londo dies. "He's a lovely piece of work" but JMS doesn't think anyone will ever know or see that character.

The volume also includes a note fragment by JMS that he wrote down when trying to develop the B5 movie earlier this decade. "Wars of the Mind" would have finally told the Telepath War. The anti-Corps groups have moved to outright terrorism acts (it's compared to the Irish situations of recent history), so Earth has turned to Sheridan (having worked personally with members of both sides in the war) to try to negoiate a resolution between ambassadors of worlds supporting the groups and those supporting the corps, and the negotiation takes place aboard B5. Only members of both sides have faked tests and infiltrated many positions, including control of ships... and that's where the note ends.

TLT's script also has the excised 3rd story about Garabaldi on Mars. It involves Garabaldi being brought into a mining site on Mars where evidence of a Martian civilization has been found. However, the actions of a greedy security guard result in Garabaldi being trapped underground in the cavern that was disocvered. There he finds a Martian city in the walls of that massive cavern, and, after discovering the man he's been talking to on a link died when they fell down the vaern, encounters a Martian, which confirms most of the stories told about the Martians- that they crossed their SNA with humans a million years ago and helped us along the way and watched over us. When Garabaldi is about to be rescued, the city begins to disintegrate- when asked why, the Martian says that "the child cannot become the man... unless the parent lets go ... and walks away. But we are watching. We are with you, through all the slow ages, to the end off time. We are with you."

 

Some tidbits from JMS:

First, WB does not have anything going with B5 at the moment, and
would not DO anything with B5 without my direct involvement.
(Interestingly enough, I had a meeting just a few days ago with the
HEAD of WB Television, and they confirmed that there's nothing in the
pipeline, in or out of the studio, and won't be until and unless I
authorize it. They're being very nice these days, for a variety of
reasons that I'll address at some point in the future.)

and...

As for those who've asked when we might see the Crusade script
books...keep watching the skies...there's something moving up there.

 

http://www.cafepress.com/b5books

[image=http://www.babylon5scripts.com/crusade-behind-the-scenes-front-cover.jpg]

It's here. The entire behind-the-scenes story of Crusade as told by the actors and crew...while the show was actually filming.

From the first frame of film until the last, these cast and crew interviews occurred "as-it-happened" so they are free of any revisionism. Nothing is forgotten. No detail spared.

Even better, the interviews in this book contain 70% never-before-seen material...and the 30% that was seen was published in UK-based magazines back in 1999.

Uncut.
Uncensored.
Nothing held back.

There's a lonmg list of highlights at that link, but the juicier ones:

-A complete story description of an unknown episode called "The Walls of Hell." The would-be writer of this episode, Larry DiTillio, details point-by-point would have happened.

-Why the White House had to intervene when Peter Woodward was cast as Galen.

-The one reason JMS rejected virtually all the women that auditioned to play Dureena Nafeel.

-The total number of Apocalypse Boxes in the Babylon 5 universe (hint: it's a lot more than one.)

-Why Captain Gideon was gunned down in the unfilmed season finale.

-The ways in which many of the cast members found out about the production shut down and Crusade?s cancellation...and their reactions.

-Which Crusade character would have been possessed by the Apocalypse Box if the series had continued.

-What iconic TV personality?s voice does JMS liken to Daniel Dae Kim?s.

-What specifics the famed Jet Propulsion Lab contributed to the alien-specific aspects of Crusade.

-Why Crusade premiered in June when most television shows debut in September or January.

-Richard Biggs's candid thoughts about playing Dr. Franklin on Crusade, without the familiar trappings of Babylon 5.

-Why composer Evan H. Chen never listened to Christopher Franke's score from Babylon 5.

-How the Babylon 5 props were redesigned because Crusade was five years further into the future.


There's also this final note at the end which has some much-anticipated news on the Crusade scriptbooks:

CRUSADE: Behind the Scenes does NOT contain any of the show's scripts. It is a compilation of interviews and images. The Crusade scripts, including those that were never filmed, will appear in J. Michael Straczynski's forthcoming 3-volume series, "CRUSADE: What the Hell Happened?"




The B5 books usually had the equivilent of 6-7 scripts in them, which means the 13 filmed Crusade episodes should only fill 2 volumes, which means we probably will have an entire volume's worth of unfilmed scripts included (either in a single volume or spread across the 3). Which means we could be looking at up to 3 or 4 scripts that have never even been leaked onto the net before.

My guesses would be the Dureena-centric "Tried and True" by Fiona Avery, and maybe the first part of the trilogy that the Walls of Hell outline mentioned above was a part of, written by Richard Mueller. For the others, supposedly Mueller and DiTillo had penned a couple other, but I was never clear on if they had actually been written or if they were just lined up for them. I wouldn't be surprised if another one by JMS slips in there either.

 

Finally got around to ordering it- have only started to read it, but here are some initial answers and details:


-Why the White House had to intervene when Peter Woodward was cast as Galen.

Peter didn't have the right working papers, and they didn't find out until less than a week before A Call to Arms was to film (and if they couldn't, WB was going to make them recast). But it turns out the head of the Public Information Office at the White House was a fan of B5, so they called her up and she helped get the paperwork processed within a day.

-The one reason JMS rejected virtually all the women that auditioned to play Dureena Nafeel.

They kept trying to bring in tall, willowy actresses, whereas JMS wanted a streetfighter, a pug.

-The total number of Apocalypse Boxes in the Babylon 5 universe (hint: it's a lot more than one.)

There are 6, and the owners of the other 5 were all murdered and there is something living inside them. Gideon hides it from Galen because he know Galen would try to take it away from him. Galen finds out about it eventually and basically says "Are you nuts? Get rid of it- it's dangerous!" and Gideon says he knows it lies every now and then, but that he can handle it- he's playing the edges like a game of poker.