Thorsten Froehlich wrote:

> In article <37973BD3.B34F071D@geocities.com> , "Jon A. Cruz"
> <jon### [at] geocitiescom> wrote:
>
> > The thing the series had over the current ST at the time was in the stories
> > and in the non-perfect people. ST took a lot of this for Deep Space 9 (but
> > with lawyers and such lurking about we won't say 'stole'). Bottom line is
> > that for the most part, I feel the graphics were sufficient to help the
> > stories move along, but were not quite as good as a different TV might make
> > them seem.
>
> Didn't DS9 and B5 both start in 1993?   With a usual year or more
> pre-production how could anyone reuse the ideas from someone else?
>
>     Thorsten

Aha. He took the bait  ;-)

Well, B5 had been in production since 1987. In June/July of 1989 JMS pitched the
series to Paramount.

From the horse's mouth:

>      What was given to Paramount: the B5 bible, artwork, 20+ sample
> stories, the pilot screenplay and other material.
>
>                                                            jms
>

DS9 premiered 1/3/93, B5 2/22/93.

And then a tiny tidbit more:

> Subj:  B5 vs. ST                        Section: Star Trek
>   To:  Saturday, June 10, 1995 12:50:09 AM
> From:  J. Michael Straczynski, 71016,1644#236204
>
>      What I've said, repeatedly, is that I don't believe for a
> second that either of the creators behind DS9 would deliberately borrow
> *anything* from anybody.  What I *don't* know is the extent to which
> the development people at Paramount, who did have the B5
> material, may have influenced that development without them necessarily
> knowing the origin of the notes.
>
>      But frankly...it's old news.  There were striking similiarities
> between the DS9 pilot and ours; however, since then their show has
> gone on into very different areas, and the similarity has diminished
> further and further until there's almost no remaining comparison.
> So for me, that aspect is really not a major factor anymore.
> We move on.
>
>                                                              jms
>
>
>
Oh, and also one extra tech tidbit: B5 was shot in 16:9 so that once HDTV is
out, it can be remastered. It also has surround-sound.


--
"My new computer's got the clocks, it rocks
But it was obsolete before I opened the box" - W.A.Y.

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