Questions for Christy Marx:
Firstly, thank you very much for taking the time to answers these questions from your fans. On behalf of the members of Beast Wars International, I would like to express our deepest gratitude for the opportunity. Below are some of the questions posed to you from several members of the website's forums:
Alak: Was Rampage's role in this episode meant to garner sympathy from the audience because viewers thought he was too violent or because this side of the character was intended since his conception?
Christy: I wrote the character according to the guidelines provided by the story editor and the series bible. It was mostly guided by what was needed to make this particular story work.
Wonko the Sane: I notice that you are the writer of the Beast Wars Episode ‘Dark Glass’, which was rejected by Hasbro for being ‘too dark’. Yet, comparing Episodes to ‘Code of Hero’ and ‘Transmutate’, and all of the Beast Machines Series, all of these were very deep and dark for a children’s program.
I have to ask if there is anything else behind Hasbro’s rejection of the ‘Dark Glass’ script, even to the point where the copies of your original script have to be destroyed?
Christy: I have no way of knowing what was really behind having the episode killed. It was never as drastic as having to destroy copies of scripts!!! I don’t know where that idea came from. It could be one of those cases – as often happens when doing a series – that a script simply didn’t work for one reason or another, or took a character in a direction that somebody decided they didn’t want to go. There could be any number of reasons. Being “too dark” was the only reason I ever heard.
Joshin Yasha: Since this was your chance to really let Rampage shine as the star of this episode, was there anything that you wanted to put into the show concerning him that you might not have thought of before the episode aired?
Christy: I had minimal knowledge of these characters before I started working on the show, so I can’t say that I had any preconceived ideas for Rampage.
SilverfromOZ (a big Babylon 5 fan):
The B5 Episode "Grail", written by Christy, and the "Transmutate" episode in BW are both quite tangential to the over-arcing plot. Transmutate was not a key player in the series, however was responsible for bringing such great development for other characters (namely Silverbolt and Rampage). Grail, introduced the Seekers into the B5 universe and Aldous' character gives development and reflection for some major characters as well. Were these characters created with this express purpose, or would you have liked to have seen more development into the main story arc?
Christy: Let’s take B5 first. In that case, JMS (J. Michael Straczynski, the creator of Babylon 5) handed me a single paragraph concept of what he wanted the episode to be about. Basically, it said that someone comes to the station looking for the Holy Grail. He handed me that particular concept because I had designed and written a computer adventure game, Conquests of Camelot: King Arthur and the Search for the Grail, and I knew a lot of Grail lore.
In order to carry out that concept, I had to create a secondary, one-off character who is the one searching for the Grail. He was never meant to be anything more than that. The “True Seekers” was something I came up with to enhance his interaction with Delenn, never thinking it would have additional meaning beyond that one show. However, you NEVER want a one-off, secondary character to outshine or sideline your main characters. Your show is about the main characters, not the visitor. That makes it important to have the secondary characters (actually two of them once you include Jinxo) to interact as much as possible with the main characters. This is scriptwriting 101. Keep the focus on your main characters.
With TRANSMUTATE, I was looking for a work-around in order to pitch an idea that violated one of the directives I was given: you couldn’t create new characters, you could only use the existing characters. Knowing how 3D modeling of characters works, I went ahead and pitched this idea thinking that the modelers could take existing character components and mash them together to create the “Frankenstein” effect. Larry DiTillio (the story editor) almost rejected the pitch on the spot, but happily he didn’t and I was able to write it. All I was thinking about at the time was writing an interesting episode, nothing beyond that. As it turned out, the producers liked the Transmutate character enough to create a new model for her.
In relation to the above question, what sort of development was undertaken to write these characters? e.g. Did you start from the end and work backwards?
Christy: That’s rather a huge question and I don’t quite understand what you mean by the second part of it. What you’re asking is “how do you create characters?” People write entire books on that subject. For the B5 characters (Aldous and Jinxo), I thought about what I needed from the characters in order to drive the story threads and wrote background biographies that allowed them to serve that purpose and feel like real people. I couldn’t do that sort of in-depth thinking about Transmutate because she represented a blank slate, something new, inexperienced and innocent. She was essentially a catalyst for the two sides, so once again she was written to suit the needs of the story.
B5 is a vast universal space opera with a multitude of races and planets involved in the overall story, whereas BW is a focus on two tight-knit groups on opposing sides. How did these points affect the development of characters and plot?
Christy: You write to your characters strengths and weaknesses, regardless of the size of the stage. It’s your characters who should drive the story. The setting plays its part, of course, but storytelling is about conflict and it’s hard to have conflict (whether physical, emotional, psychological, etc.) without compelling characters. They can be trapped in an elevator together (as JMS did with G’Kar and Lando in one episode of B5) or fighting a Death Star, but if you don’t care about what the characters are doing, what is at stake for them and what the consequences are, then everything else becomes meaningless.
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Sapphire's Questions:
Rampage has often been compared to Hannibal Lecter. Was Hannibal an influence on the writing of the character?
Christy: No. Never saw the movie, never read the book.
Your episode really develops Rampage as more than just a psychopathic killing machine: was it your idea to give him a sensitive side? How would you describe his relationship with Transmutate? What was so fascinating to him about her?
Christy: This will be a disappointing answer, but the reality is that it’s been a LOT of years since I wrote that script. I don’t remember much about my decision-making at the time. I would have taken whatever I knew about the character and written him with as much depth and nuance as the material allowed, because that’s how I like to write. Everything else, you would have to derive from the script itself.
And I’d like to point out that Larry DiTillio, the story editor, did rewrites on these scripts. Besides being a terrific writer, Larry is a fantastic story editor and managed to improve anything he touched, so there may be aspects of the story that are also due to his influence.
We get to see Silverbolt's nobility in this episode. What was it like writing these two radically different characters into scenes together?
Christy: Great fun! It’s clashes like that that give you the juicy stuff to play with.
The episode explores deeply ethical issues and is quite complex for its intended audience (older children). How much freedom were you given in the writing of this (kind of) episode?
Christy: Quite a lot of freedom, but that’s also because I know what the boundaries are. I have the experience to know how far I can go and what will or won’t be acceptable.
The episode was placed right after the tragic 'Code of Hero'. Whose decision was it to put these two heavy episodes back-to-back? (It was quite an emotional time for fans!)
Christy: I have no idea. I knew nothing about other scripts being written or what sequence they’d be shown in.
How did you get involved in writing for the Beast Wars show, and what appealed to you about it?
Christy: I knew the people involved in running the show and they knew me. We’d worked on other shows together, so the personal and professional connections were already there. The show appealed to me because I love writing action/sf/fantasy and because, frankly, it was paid work and a good credit.
Are you aware of the huge fan following for Rampage, and what a big impact your episode made on fan-made fiction of his character?
Christy: No, that’s news to me!
If Beast Wars were made into a movie, would you be interested in contributing to the script?
Christy: Are you kidding? Of course!
Who was your favourite character of the show, either to watch or to write?
Christy: Hmmm…I guess I’d have to say Rattrap. Rattrap is such a smartass. How can you not have fun writing him? I’m rather a smartass myself, so it’s a natural fit. LOL!
Lastly, a personal note: I want to thank you for the episode you wrote. It moved me so deeply that I was inspired to write a novel-length fan fiction series, dedicated to exploring the deeper sides to Rampage's character that you revealed. The series developed me as a writer, and I am now doing a degree in creative writing as a result. You are a childhood hero of mine, and I want you to know your work has made a big impression on me and many others. Thank you for that, and thank you for answering these questions.
You’re very welcome.
