B5 Story Arc

 Posted on 5/28/1996 by J. Michael Straczynski <71016.1644@compuserve.com> to CIS


Alan Kaiser <76003.1050@compuserve.com> asks:
> 1) When will we learn who Delenn saw in her flashfoward/flashback
> (which?) when the door opens? 2) The reception here was not that
> good...did the two vorlons we saw have Minbari faces? Are they
> related? 3) When will we ever learn who built the Great Machine on
> Epsilon? Has it a greater role to play in the story?
> 4) If WWE could have been 3 episodes, would you have done it?
> Will you be fleshing out many of those fragments down the road or
> leave most of it "as it stands"?

There's not much point to asking me "when are we going to learn
who Delenn saw in her flashforward." Or similar questions. I will not
throw away the impact of something happening in an episode by blowing
it out in a message. There have to be surprises along the way. You'll
see it when it happens.

No, WWE couldn't have been 3 episodes. Yes, it had enough
story for it, and then some, but you can't take one storyline and
stretch it out that far. I wouldn't have done it even if I could.
I'd've had to introduce a B story just to break it up a little, because
3 hours of just a straight line one-story plot is murder. And that
defeats the purpose of expanding it.

jms