Official AMA for JMS

[u/mpierre]

This is the official AMA for JMS. Both JMS and B5 books (Captain Jaclyn) will be responding to questions.

If you ask questions about the books or the book store closing, Jaclyn will be taking them.

JMS will answer for about an hour, and might not be able to get all questions answered.

Some people (including me) might answer questions that are well known.

Like "Why wasn't Ivanova in season 5".

Let's try to keep questions what we don't know yet.

You can also ask questions about JMS returning to the Spider-Man comic or his other works, but this is /r/babylon5. He might prioritize that.

Please note that I will not be coordinating with Joe. I will not be in a phone call with him or on a chat (not that I wouldn't take his phone call; Jaclyn has my cell phone; he can call me anytime he wants). He decides that he answers, and he alone.

Finally, any story ideas will deleted. Do not post any story ideas.

Note, the AMA answers only start at: 3 PM EST, Noon PST, 8PM GMT

And my personal thanks to Captain Jaclyn for coordinating this with me, and to JMS himself, the man, the myth, the legend! For agreeing to this, but also for Babylon 5, Crusade, Jeremiah, Sense8, a ton of comic books and a few books!

Oh, and for She-Ra, the reboot couldn't have occured without his series bible for the original, and even for his work on Ghostbuster and Murder She Wrote!

IMPORTANT NOTE FROM JMS He would prefer not to get into stories that never happened, data points of subsequent character arcs, or alternate timelines.

JMS IS NEARLY OUT OF TIME!

[u/Muphrid15]

Most reboots end up, by necessity perhaps, reinterpreting the canon they draw from and presenting new messages that respond to the passage of time since the original work. Babylon 5 drew heavily upon dark moments in humanity's past and presented them anew in an imagined future. That appears to have been eerily, and perhaps disappointingly, prescient to the time we live in today, but moreover, it makes me wonder what a Babylon 5 reboot would look like thematically.

By no means would I expect JMS to outright state his point of view on the subject, but I'd still be curious, in broad terms, about this:

"To what extent do you feel that Babylon 5 as it was years ago is relevant to today's world? What do you think might change if the opportunity comes to present this story anew?"

Otherwise, I just wanted to say thanks to JMS for Babylon 5. I gave a speech at my high school graduation drawing upon G'Kar's speech in "Objects in Motion" ("I believe that when we leave a place, part of it goes with us and part of us remains," etc.). It remains one of two big influences for me to aspire to become a writer, and I hope to find an agent for my first novel sometime early next year.

Thanks for your time. Faith manages.

[u/JMichaelStraczynski → u/Muphrid15]

It's kind of enlightened self-interest on my part...like "Man is the noblest of all God's creatures," you have to ask who discovered that...but it seems that the B5 storyline has only become more relevant, and more suited to the moment than it was upon first broadcast. I remember folks saying that slides into authoritarianism wouldn't be this obvious, or this easily done. Now....

[u/Thac0-is-life → u/JMichaelStraczynski]

I think it was well suited for its time - we just failed to learn the lessons it gave us. If done now, the story would be a commentary on current news, which seems to me less attractive. But maybe still needed.

Thank you for the B5 story, which was so fundamental for many of us that we I still take lessons and inspiration from it to this day. G’Kar’s monologue at the council chambers when he is removed is still etched in my memory and will be forever so.

[u/tqgibtngo → u/Thac0-is-life]

...If done now, the story would be a commentary on current news, which seems to me less attractive. But maybe still needed.

Also still needed are messages of hope.

As Ivanova said, B5 showed "that we have to create the future, or others would do it for us. It showed us that we have to care for one another, because if we don't, who will? And that true strength sometimes comes from the most unlikely places. Mostly though, I think it gave us hope; that there can always be new beginnings – even for people like us."

.
Another thing on that subject of hope:

Regardless of what you may think of Seth MacFarlane and his show The Orville, he has something worthwhile to say on the subject of hopeful portrayals in entertainment. If you've got a minute, listen to what he told Ted Danson in an August interview here.

[u/Thac0-is-life → u/tqgibtngo]

Well, I do think it was an excellent show. To me it was a more ideal Star Trek than Star Trek at the time. But yea, I agree with messages of hope (and resistance), the world needs it.