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David Bassom

Autor/a de The A to Z Guide of Babylon 5

14 obres 606 Membres 5 Ressenyes

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Inclou aquests noms: David Bassom, David Bassom

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Bassom, David
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male
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editor
manager

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Ressenyes

A typical souvenir type book made to accompany the series (published in 1996 it actually only covers seasons 1-3), with a mxture of mostly black and white images, with just over 1/3 in full colour.
J. Michael Straczynski and Harlan Ellison's conceptual vision, John Lacovelli's production design, Anne Bruice's costumes, Greg Funk / Optic Nerve's creature make-up are all mentioned in the text, with one or two behind the scenes photographs; but, this is not a true 'making of' book, so don't expect too much. The book is more concerned with providing fans with character profiles and a chronology of who did what on the show and when people where hired; which makes interesting enough reading.

Although the book itself talks about seasons 1-3, it was published before season 3 was fully aired and so only includes short cast / production credits and synopsis for the:

Feature-length pilot: The Gathering

Season 1 episodes:

Midnight on the Firing Line
Soul Hunter
Born to the Purple
Infection
The Parliament of Dreams
Mind War
The War Prayer
And The Sky Full Of Stars
Deathwalker
Believers
Survivors
By Any Means Necessary
Signs and Portents
TKO
Grail
Eyes
Legacies
A Voice in the Wilderness part 1
A Voice in the Wilderness part 2
Babylon Squared
The Quality of Mercy
Chrysalis

Season Two episodes:

The Coming Of Shadows
Points of Departure
Revelations
The Geometry of Shadows
A Distant Star
The Long Dark
A Spider in the Web
A Race Through Dark Places
Soul Mates
The Coming of Shadows
GROPOS
All Alone in the Night
Acts of Sacrifice
Hunter, Prey
There All the Honor Lies
And Now For a Word
Knives
In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum
Confessions and Lamentations
Divided Loyalties
The Long, Twilight Struggle
Comes the Inquisitor
The Fall of Night

Review of the Channel Four book by Boxtree, published in 1996 ISBN 0752208411
… (més)
 
Marcat
Sylak | Hi ha 2 ressenyes més | Oct 6, 2018 |
First impressions: Battlestar fans deserved more.

My feelings about this book in TAGS: excited, disappointed, cheated, philosophical, annoyed,

I am excited by the subject matter, but disappointed by the books low production value - and what's with this weird size (bigger than a pocket book, but not quite shelf sized either). If they wanted to do something special then the obvious thing to do would have been clipping the corners off! Actually, that attention to detail would have gone a long way to appeasing the fans. In fact, I'm going to deduct 1 star for that fraking reason alone!
The choice to use black and white photograph seems obviously to do with keeping costs down rather than anything to do with artistic choice. Then the 16 beautifully produced quality colour plates towards the back are thrown in to try and cover the fact that the rest of the book was skimped on. Now factor in the cover price of £14.99 (in 2005) and it becomes clear that once again the publishers Titan/Universal Studios are just interested in bleeding fans of their money while giving them only the bare minimum back. Greed, greed, greed!

Now, I get why the four companion books were bought out over a period of four years - so that fans wouldn't have to wait for the entire series to end before they could enjoy the companion guides, but at the end of the run it would have also made sense to combine all four into one lavishly produced mock-leatherbound tome, with cut corners (keeping with the shows visual style) and perhaps a couple of artefacts thrown into a pocket in the back - to help justify the cost or give those who already own the original books the reason why they had to own this one too (sometimes we fans short of space or spare cash need a reason even if it's not a good one). A good example is what they did with Firefly. After all Battlestar actually made it without getting cancelled!
I'd also have expected to see a bit more production visuals, concept art, prop close-ups, and behind the scenes photographs.

I still bought the books, knowing their limitations; but not because I was totally happy with them, rather that I had little choice.
It is probably too late (now almost ten years after the series has ended) to expect a luxury omnibus, collectors book to be produced. Not that I wouldn't flip open my wallet if it did materialise.
In the mean time my thoughts are still that this was a missed opportunity for the show and a loss for the fans.

The book itself is split fairly evenly down the middle:

Following the chapter Battle Plan (about how this series came to be made), the first half of the book consists of a 4 page synopsis of the two part miniseries, as well as each of the 13 episodes of season one:

33
Water
Bastille Day
Act of Contrition
You Can't Go Home Again
Litmus
Six Degrees of Separation
Flesh and Bone
Tigh me up, Tigh me down
The Hand of God
Colonial Day
Kobol's Last Gleaming (Part 1 & 2)

...followed by individual character profiles for the 7 main characters + supporting characters. Behind The Scenes chapters on:
Production Design
Visual Effects
Music
… (més)
 
Marcat
Sylak | Hi ha 1 ressenya més | Sep 27, 2018 |
Even though this book was created during the early stages of Season 3, it is still filled with enough goodies and cast/crew interactions/ dialogues to keep me entertained.

Although there were only a few minor things I was not already aware of, reading through this book was an absolute joy as I reveled in the memories of the series as a whole and individual episodes as they came up.

It really put me in the mood to get all the disks out of my DVD tower and back into rotation!
1 vota
Marcat
savageknight | Hi ha 2 ressenyes més | Jul 13, 2010 |
Covers through season 4 with episode list and story of series creation. Nothing especially earth shattering covered here. Just an episode listing. It was nice to have the list and synopses in one place though.
 
Marcat
sprowett | Hi ha 2 ressenyes més | May 17, 2008 |

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Obres
14
Membres
606
Popularitat
#41,484
Valoració
3.2
Ressenyes
5
ISBN
19
Llengües
2

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