Babylon 5-The Scripts of J. Michael Straczynski Volume 7

SCRIPTS

• Ship of Tears
• Interludes and Examinations
• War Without End, Part 1
• War Without End, Part 2
• Walkabout
• Grey 17 Is Missing
• And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place

Let's start with the 63-page introduction and commentary, written exclusively for this volume. What will you find waiting for you this month?

• How about an intimate -- in more ways than one -- description of the year that the Babylon 5 cast and crew began to descend into a near-mad level of eccentricity? Learn all about the previously-classified Breast Bowl...and its shortly-thereafter-hatched companion contest, the Butt Bowl...the practical jokes that began to take place more and more frequently on-set, including the "What's In Lyta's Box?" lingerie story, the day everyone in the cast decided to convince Jason Carter that his character was going to die in "Grey 17 is Missing," and --
• -- AND...the story of the day Andreas and Peter decided to pull one of the worst practical jokes in the history of the form on none other than jms...a practical joke which, down the road, would lead to a retaliation of near-mythic proportions.
• The Draal Complication Explained. Fan-favorite two-parter "War Without End" was originally written to heavily feature Draal, but had to be extensively revised when the actor was not available. The commentary examines each of the changes to the script that came about as a result, and how the two- parter was completely restructured in editing. Step by step, readers are taken through the editing process as the episodes are thrown up in the air to come down in vastly different form: the teaser and parts of part two becoming the end of part one, big changes to Sinclair's character, Delenn...possibly the most detailed look yet at the complete restructuring of an episode, invaluable for budding film-makers and people eager to win arguments in bars.
• Secrets of the Starfury design, and the day that NASA called, asking if they could borrow it, and a rather embarrassing secret of the Book of G'Quan.
• How to Create Alien Designs for Fun and Profit Using Color and Little Bits of Cloth.
• Buckets of behind-the-scenes information on the production of some of the most pivotal, fan-favorite episodes, including what happened to the Kosh encounter suit the day that character was no longer needed. (Viewer discretion advised.)
• The secret methods by which "War" was linked with "Babylon Squared," paying off threads from two years earlier whose meanings had quietly changed behind the scenes.
• A deeply personal story from jms about how he came up with the story for "Walkabout" based on his time in a religious cult and a tragic experience he endured shortly after.
• It had to happen...and about time...jms apologizes for "Grey 17" and explains exactly why it all ended up going into the toilet in quite the way it did.

All of THAT...in addition to the scripts, many of which contain material deleted from the final episodes.

In fact, as a SPECIAL BONUS for B5 fans, this volume incorporates the ORIGINAL DRAFT of the script for the two-part episode, "War Without End," which includes over a half-dozen wholly different scenes omitted from later drafts or radically changed when Draal was not available.

PLUS...10 pages of JMS's personal behind-the-scenes photos.