Post

More from @straczynski

J. Michael Straczynski

Apr 21

If I may whisper a word or two into your shell-like ears for a moment…because I’ve been thinking about all this day and my options are to keep chewing on it indefinitely or get it out, so this is me getting it out.

The other day I heard a comment I’ve noted with increasing --

-- frequency, spoken by people to creative folks, “You have to get out of your comfort zone.” It’s become so ubiquitous that it borders on cliché. And yes, I understand the validity of the statement, I’m not here to dispute it or discredit the notion; it has value and purpose --

-- But what bugs me is that you almost never hear people talking about the flipside to that equation, and I think it needs to be addressed.

Because the thing about creative people is that they’re always being pushed out of their comfort zone – telling stories, making music --

Read 11 tweets

J. Michael Straczynski

@straczynski

Mar 29

https://twitter.com/InterstellrNews/status/1773233227571810611

The job of the writer is to avoid falling into the trap of accepted cliche, one of which is the idea that humans are monolithic and everything changes once and never goes back or alternates from that point. We have streaming audio but also a huge industry for vinyl; by your --

https://twitter.com/InterstellrNews/status/1773233227571810611

-- that should simply not exist. Digital music is great, but we're seeing a rise in digital-to-audio tech because it sounds better. There's the cliche of "computers mean the end of paper!" when more paper than ever moves through my office. A writer's job is to step outside --

-- the cliche of what you're suggesting. Yes, you can get information via screens on B5, but why *not* have a little place where you can also get a printout? I invariably print up articles and other material to review even though I can read it on a screen. Even if it's just --

Read 7 tweets

J. Michael Straczynski

@straczynski

Feb 14

Here's what folks need to bear in mind about the reimagining. 1) We have this in process, we don't need to go out and try to drum up interest in something nobody's heard about before. 2) The B5 story was a "documentary" covering 5 years of history, like a real-world doc --

-- covering the 5 years in Germany before WW2. Yes, WW1 happened before, with consequences, and we see the seeds of WW2, *but WW2 is not what the story is about. So things happen that we refer to before and after the 5 year history of B5, but there was never any --

-- intention to tell those stories, they're *background* to the that very specific slice of history. Finally 3) When Warners asked what story I wanted to tell, this was/is the story I want to tell, same as I wanted to tell the original story. Fans seem to like that I fought --

Read 4 tweets

J. Michael Straczynski

@straczynski

Dec 21, 2023

Part of what is problematic to so many writers about the term "filler episodes" is that for some viewers, stories only count when they're sprinting breathless through the events of the story arc, if things aren't directly moving ahead or blowing up, which ignores the reality --

-- that those events have to have meaning to the characters, have to change them and react to them, and we can't see those changes, or understand those reactions, unless we understand the characters. This is the crucial difference between incident and story. Incident is --

-- "the king died, then the queen died." Story is, "the king died, then the queen died of grief." There's emotional connectivity that has to be built into the story. Yeah, you can jump into sex and just do all the things without emotion or foreplay or having any idea of --

Read 14 tweets

J. Michael Straczynski

@straczynski

Aug 15, 2023

Happy B5 Release Day! Let me say again how amazing it's been to see the reactions from those who got The Road Home early. For those of us who worked so hard on this, that's pretty much everything. To which point, I want to especially single out two people who aren't getting --

-- nearly enough accolades for their work: Director Matt Peters, and producer Rick Morales. From the git-go they signed onto what B5 was, and could be again, and were so careful and respectful and determined to get everything right for the fans. If anyone else had been --

-- given the task, I don't know if the results would have been the same. So full props and appreciation to both of them. When we first announced a coming B5 movie there were so many folks did strafing runs all over the internet about it...the story was going to suck, the --

Read 4 tweets

J. Michael Straczynski

@straczynski

Jul 30, 2023

Haven't had a chance to give a report on my appearance at SDCC , so in brief: it was pretty amazing. Great responses to the Dark Horse announcement, the Captain America unveiling, and in particular, the screening of The Road Home. The only complication to the latter was that--

-- so many events/screenings had to be canceled due to the SAG strike that a lot of people assumed TRH was also canceled. (There were many tweets to that effect right here in the days leading up to SDCC that further added to the confusion.) Despite this, however, there --

-- was still an audience of well over a thousand fans by the end (more kept coming as they realized it was still on). Heard the next day from *so* many who were upset when they learned the Saturday premiere had happened and couldn't make the Sunday screening. For those who--

Read 4 tweets

Share this page!

Enter URL or ID to Unroll

J. Michael Straczynski

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

More from @straczynski

J. Michael Straczynski

J. Michael Straczynski

J. Michael Straczynski

J. Michael Straczynski

J. Michael Straczynski

J. Michael Straczynski

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Send Email!