Babylon 5 Reboot

Auf Face­book hat sich J. Micha­el Strac­zyn­ski aus­führ­lich zum BABYLON 5‑Reboot auf The CW geäu­ßert. Da nicht jeder auf Face­book ist oder der Platt­form traut, möch­te ich das State­ment hier wie­der­ge­ben.

 

To ans­wer all the ques­ti­ons, yes, it’s true, Baby­lon 5 is now in acti­ve deve­lo­p­ment as a series for the CW. We have some serious fans over at the net­work, and they’re eager to see this show hap­pen. I’m hip deep into wri­ting the pilot now, and will be run­ning the series upon pick­up. The net­work under­stands the uni­que­ness of Baby­lon 5 and is giving me a gre­at deal of lati­tu­de with the sto­rytel­ling.

As noted in the announce­ment, this is a reboot from the ground up rather than a con­ti­nua­tion, for seve­ral reasons. Hera­cli­tus wro­te, »You can­not step in the same river twice, for the river has chan­ged, and you have chan­ged.« In the years sin­ce B5, I’ve done a ton of other TV shows and movies, adding an equal num­ber of tools to my tool­box, all of which I can bring to bear on the ques­ti­on: if I were crea­ting Baby­lon 5 today, for the first time, kno­wing what I now know as a wri­ter, what would it look like? How would it use all the sto­rytel­ling tools and tech­no­lo­gi­cal resour­ces available in 2021 that were not on hand then? How can it be used to reflect the world in which we live, and the ques­ti­ons we are asking and con­fron­ting every day? Fans regu­lar­ly point out how pre­sci­ent the show was and is of our cur­rent world; it would be fun to take a shot at loo­king fur­ther down the road.

So we will not be retel­ling the same sto­ry in the same way becau­se of what Hera­cli­tus said about the river. The­re would be no fun and no sur­pri­ses. Bet­ter to go the way of West­world or Batt­le­star Galac­ti­ca whe­re you take the ori­gi­nal ele­ments that are ever­greens and put them in a blen­der with a ton of new, chal­len­ging ide­as, to crea­te some­thing both fresh and fami­li­ar.

To tho­se who have asked why we’re not just doing a continuation…for a net­work series like this, it can’t be done becau­se over half our cast are still stub­born­ly on the other side of the Rim. How do you tel­ling con­ti­nuing sto­ry of our ori­gi­nal Lon­do wit­hout the ori­gi­nal Vir? Or G’Kar? How do you tell Sheridan’s sto­ry wit­hout Delenn? Or the sto­ry of B5 wit­hout Frank­lin? Gari­bal­di? Zack?

The ori­gi­nal Baby­lon 5 was ridi­cu­lous­ly inno­va­ti­ve: the first to use CGI to crea­te ships and cha­rac­ters, and among the very first to shoot wide­screen with a vigo­rous 5.1 mix. Most of all, for the first time, Baby­lon 5 intro­du­ced view­ers accus­to­med to epi­so­dic tele­vi­si­on to the con­cept of a five-year arc with a pre-plan­ned begin­ning, midd­le and end…creating a brand new para­digm for tele­vi­si­on sto­rytel­ling that has sub­se­quent­ly beco­me the norm. That tra­di­ti­on for inno­va­ti­on will con­ti­nue in this new ite­ra­ti­on, and I hope to crea­te addi­tio­nal new forms of sto­rytel­ling that will fur­ther push the tele­vi­si­on medi­um to the edge of what’s pos­si­ble.

Let me con­clude by just say­ing how sup­port­i­ve and enthu­si­a­stic ever­yo­ne at the CW has been and is being with this pro­ject. They under­stand the uni­que posi­ti­on Baby­lon 5 occu­p­ies both in tele­vi­si­on and with its legi­ons of fans, and are doing ever­y­thing they can to ensu­re the maxi­mum in crea­ti­ve free­dom, a new sto­ry that will bring in new view­ers while hono­ring all that has come befo­re.

Der Kern der Aus­sa­ge ist deut­lich:

So we will not be retel­ling the same sto­ry in the same way becau­se of what Hera­cli­tus said about the river. The­re would be no fun and no sur­pri­ses.

Es wird also eine Neu­er­zäh­lung im Stil von BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, kei­ne direk­te Kopie der ers­ten Serie. Und er erläu­tert auch, war­um es kei­ne Fort­füh­rung der Ur-Serie wird: Weil lei­der viel zu vie­le der Beset­zung schon »bey­ond the rim« sind und er die Geschich­te ohne sie nicht wei­ter erzäh­len möch­te. Was ich für nach­voll­zieh­bar hal­te.

War­ner dürf­te auf der Suche nach einem Sci­ence Fic­tion-Fran­chise mit eini­ger Popu­la­ri­tät sein, denn sie haben keins mit dem sie gegen Dis­neys STAR WARS und Paramount/​CBS´ STAR TREK anstin­ken kön­nen. Soll­te der BABYLON 5‑Reboot erfolg­reich sein, könn­te dar­aus ein wei­ter rei­chen­des Fran­chise wer­den. War­ner Bros. hat­te ja damals Fort­set­zun­gen von BABYLON 5 sehr halb­her­zig umge­setzt, wes­we­gen die nie so rich­tig in Fahrt kamen. Mit dem Reboot könn­te das anders wer­den. Zumin­dest falls sich die Alt­fans über­zeu­gen las­sen. Auf der ande­ren Sei­te besteht die Welt 25 Jah­re spä­ter auch nicht nur aus Alt­fans …

Bild JMS von JMS, gemein­frei