Babylon 5 Movie Starts Filming in April 397
An anonymous reader writes "According to comingsoon.net, the first theatrical Babylon 5 movie, "The Memory of the Shadows" starts filming in April. The story was written by series creator J. Michael Straczynski."
excellent (Score:4, Insightful)
best...sci-fi...series...ever
Not sure if I'm going to see it (Score:3, Insightful)
Catch Up (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Question ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Which lead me to fear this film will be more Crusader than Babylon5, and I for one did not really find the whole Crusader spinn-off that great.
It became to much of a Star Trek clone.....(One ship travelling through space encountering weird aliens...)
Wheres the fun in that? B5 was all about grand campaign and universe-spanning alliances.
BTW. The First B5 movie is really great(The one dealing with Earth-Minbari War). The other two less so.
Re:must be a quiet day (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Question ... (Score:3, Insightful)
I hope he can pull off making this movie as badass as some of the best episodes in the series (severed dreams, into the fire, endgame, etc etc!!!)
Re:Not sure if I'm going to see it (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not sure if I'm going to see it (Score:4, Insightful)
Each time a season would come out, I'd loose two days to watching the entire thing. The final episode (Sleeping in Light) gets me every single time I watch it.
I strongly recommend B5 to anyone who likes Sci-fi. Start in season 1 and work your way forwards. It makes far more sense this way. Watch the movies (other than the pilot) AFTER you watch the series. Avoid the temptation of "In the Beginning". It is better that way, in my opinion.
Re:B5 Series vs Movies (Score:3, Insightful)
Me personally I enjoyed the series and I have enjoyed the movies. I expect this one to be no exception.
Re:pre-emptive mirror (Score:2, Insightful)
I like how galen means insane in swedish
Re:Question ... (Score:3, Insightful)
What you need is a stationary place for things to develop. DS9 was ok in this regard, but Babylon 5 was great. I mean, things developed. I want nothing more than to see an episode of Babylon where Lita (augmented telepath) returns, removes the mind block from Garibaldi, and watch as Garibaldi does something truly evil to Bester. I mean, at the end, you are just gagging for Bester to get it.
That said, Garibaldi and Bester were hilarious. Franklin was great, his drama acting really shows. Sheridan and Delenn were great in there own way. But every time Bester showed up, you knew there was going to be some back and forth.
Third Space (Babylon 5 movie) is where they come across a piece of Vorlon technology, which seems to open greater gateways than that of hyperspace. You find out that it does open to another dimension, but there's something evil waiting on the other end.
Re:Best Sci Fi Ever? Nah! That would be: Firefly! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not sure if I'm going to see it (Score:4, Insightful)
All five seasons of B5 were written before the shooting of the pilot episode. It allowed much deeper storylines and made B5 the most consistent sf serie ever, for it wasn't written to please advertisers or even modified to influence ratings. There lies the secret of a good series.
Re:torrents here!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
All 5 Seasons (Score:3, Insightful)
Not quite - what there was was a consistent, single story arc which had FAR more detail than a typical series. The episodes were written on a season-by-season basis. JMS wrote the entirety of season 3 himself, but had help for some of the episodes in other seasons.
I agree that this approach allowed a much richer story to develop, and made it the best SF TV series we've seen yet.
[ flamebait]That said, the 1st and 5th seasons were comparatively weak (only on the level of good Star Trek, say) [ / flamebait]
Sigh.... (Score:3, Insightful)
B5 was really good in some places, really not good in other places. Firefly had 12 episodes, four of which I saw which were not entertaining whatsoever and Farscape never seemed to catch my interest, even though I love Sci-Fi and the Muppets. Personally, I liked Lexx, as insane as it was, more than any other of the aforementioned series.
The best Sci-Fi series EVER, would have to be Dr. Who. Dr. Who was doing EVERYTHING before EVERYONE else and has the best villains ever. Heck, Dr. Who even invented "The Matrix" in 1978, thanks to Douglas Addams. Also, Dr. Who was voted the most popular Sci-Fi show EVER by T.V. guide readers a few years back and is (once it comes back on the air in 2005) the longest running sci-fi show ever.
Also, ever Buffyverse/Firefly worshipper NEEDS to get "Blakes 7" on dvd to show them how a show like Firefly should be done properly. Blakes 7 is next to Dr.Who as one of the best Sci-fi shows ever made. It's finale in 1982 still holds records for one of the most watched BBC programs ever.
Bomb (Score:3, Insightful)
Another thing: other posts analyze why the series peaked at season three. I always wondered about that. The answer, it appears, is that Straczinsky was screwed around by Warner Bros and could never be sure if the series would continue as planned or be axed early. Way to go, Warner, there's nothing quite like shitting on your own doorstep is there? How ironic that the very worst thing that can happen to TV, is TV executives.
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised since the very same dynamic operates in the movie industry. Just look at Highlander II (oops, sorry for reminding you...).
Re:Best Sci Fi Ever? Nah! That would be: Firefly! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Anyone else find the last episode really lame? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a common criticism of B5, and it shows an utter lack of understanding of the series, and life in general.
Life is about evolution and development, in the greater sense as well as a personal sense. One of the biggest steps any person makes is stepping out of the shadows of their parents (pun intended) and walking off that cliff to fly (or fall) on their own. This is a concept that every person should be able to relate to (of course, I'm telilng this to an audience of geeks, the very people who rarely leave their parents' house!).
B5 took this story and expanded it to galactic proportions, literally. If your mind is capable of thinking in larger terms, then you see the parallel and appreciate it.
The conclusion of the Shadow war would have been SO much worse if they HAD been able to defeat both the Shadows and Vorlons through the use of force. The Shadows were only ever defeated in the past because the Vorlons had helped, but fighting both is an impossible task (they probably could not have defeated the Shadows militarily alone frankly). It HAD to end in some other way, and, as JMS has stated, they had to think their way out of it. They had to understand.
This is the same thing that happens for real kids... They rebel, they want to get out on their own, but the real point of epiphany is usually some years later when they realize that their parents were trying to help them all along, not oppress them, but now they are on their own and have to rely on themselves. That's when the rebellious teenagers become good children again, but now as self-sufficient adults.
B5 took this a step further and asked the question, what if we had two sets of parents with diametrically opposed points of view on how to raise the kids? The kids get caught in the middle obviously, the kids have to fight for the freedom, so to speak, and he parents lose their way because it becomes more about proving their point is right over the other parents.
If you don't get this, think it through. That of course is the whole point! Suffice it to say though that the Shadow war couldn't have ended any other way without sucking and making the entire thing a shame. This is, contrary to what many people say, the one ending that doesn't do that, but you have to understand it to see that.
Re:What happened towards the end (SPOILERS) (Score:2, Insightful)
The looking into the future episodes, particularly those so far ahead that all my favourite characters are long-dead and the universe has moved on, always diminished the scale of the main series to me, rather than showing how worthwhile it had all been as I suspect JMS intended.
The whole point of that episode was to show that their influence was still extremely strong even one million years in the future. I don't understand how that could diminish the scale. But, I don't understand lots of things, so there you go. :-)
Telepath War or Crusade? (Score:1, Insightful)
TMoS may still be about the Telepath War, as well as a few other good threads...
-JackN