New 'Babylon 5' Reboot Being Developed By Original Creator J. Michael Straczynski (variety.com) 191
Back in 2014 Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski answered questions from Slashdot's readers.
And now this week, long-time Slashdot reader Jaegs writes: According to many sources and the Babylon 5 creator/writer/director/producer himself, J. Michael Straczynski (JMS), the CW — partly owned by the original Babylon 5 producer and rights holder, WarnerMedia — will be rebooting the popular franchise. JMS will be writing and executive producing the series.
Per JMS:
"[W]e will not be retelling the same story in the same way... There would be no fun and no surprises. Better to go the way of Westworld or Battlestar Galactica where you take the original elements that are evergreens and put them in a blender with a ton of new, challenging ideas, to create something fresh yet familiar. To those asking why not just do a continuation, for a network series like this, it can't be done because over half our cast are still stubbornly on the other side of the Rim.
The last part refers to the recent passing of Mira Furlan (Delenn), as well as the untimely deaths of other primary cast members after the conclusion of the original run of the series: Richard Biggs (Dr. Franklin), Michael O'Hare (Jeffrey Sinclair), Jerry Doyle (Michael Garibaldi), Stephen Furst (Vir Cotto), Jeff Conway (Zack Allan), and Andreas Katsulas (G'Kar).
Straczynski points out on Twitter that "The original Babylon 5 was ridiculously innovative: the first to use CGI to create ships and characters, and among the very first to shoot widescreen with a vigorous 5.1 mix." But his tweets also seem excited about the questions that this new reboot will answer. "if I were creating Babylon 5 today, for the first time, knowing what I now know as a writer, what would it look like? How would it use all the storytelling tools and technological resources available in 2021 that were not on hand then?
"How can it be used to reflect the world in which we live, and the questions we are asking and confronting every day? Fans regularly point out how prescient the show was and is of our current world; it would be fun to take a shot at looking further down the road..."
And now this week, long-time Slashdot reader Jaegs writes: According to many sources and the Babylon 5 creator/writer/director/producer himself, J. Michael Straczynski (JMS), the CW — partly owned by the original Babylon 5 producer and rights holder, WarnerMedia — will be rebooting the popular franchise. JMS will be writing and executive producing the series.
Per JMS:
"[W]e will not be retelling the same story in the same way... There would be no fun and no surprises. Better to go the way of Westworld or Battlestar Galactica where you take the original elements that are evergreens and put them in a blender with a ton of new, challenging ideas, to create something fresh yet familiar. To those asking why not just do a continuation, for a network series like this, it can't be done because over half our cast are still stubbornly on the other side of the Rim.
The last part refers to the recent passing of Mira Furlan (Delenn), as well as the untimely deaths of other primary cast members after the conclusion of the original run of the series: Richard Biggs (Dr. Franklin), Michael O'Hare (Jeffrey Sinclair), Jerry Doyle (Michael Garibaldi), Stephen Furst (Vir Cotto), Jeff Conway (Zack Allan), and Andreas Katsulas (G'Kar).
Straczynski points out on Twitter that "The original Babylon 5 was ridiculously innovative: the first to use CGI to create ships and characters, and among the very first to shoot widescreen with a vigorous 5.1 mix." But his tweets also seem excited about the questions that this new reboot will answer. "if I were creating Babylon 5 today, for the first time, knowing what I now know as a writer, what would it look like? How would it use all the storytelling tools and technological resources available in 2021 that were not on hand then?
"How can it be used to reflect the world in which we live, and the questions we are asking and confronting every day? Fans regularly point out how prescient the show was and is of our current world; it would be fun to take a shot at looking further down the road..."
I don't think we need this, good luck anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: I don't think we need this, good luck anyway (Score:3)
I personally love Caprice a lot more than Battlestar. I think despite technological difference, the writing is so much better which is why it's designed ore effectively as a sequel. I haven't looked for inconsistencies because I never completed the original Battlestar series but I wouldn't be surprised if the set of 3 series is relatively consistent with the timeline. That's Whitaker good writers and probably is quite unique for that series compared to many of sci-fi Series.
Re: I don't think we need this, good luck anyway (Score:2)
auto correct. I love Caprica
Re:I don't think we need this, good luck anyway (Score:4, Interesting)
>I really did like the Battlestar Galactica remake ... Also, the new one had a much better plot
The basic series plot was the same, but the episode plots of the original were often a lot dumber (though some good enough they were remade in the newer show).
However, the original made a huge mistake telling viewers Cylons have wiped out all of humanity except for those who escaped on a 'rag tag fleet' or are part of the mysterious missing colony of Earth... and then doing episodes-of-the-week where they visit planets populated by humans. Very bad writing, even for the 70s.
Good start, poor follow-through, occasional charm and cool moments saved it. At least until the sequel series which was just bad no matter how much you were invested in it not being bad.
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The very first episodeS were the movie. They cut the movie in half, cut a few more scenes to squeeze it into the time slot and called it a pilot.
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Well, you can argue that no one "needs" anything from Hollywood, so that's a weird way to put it. But I think it's a great time for a reboot of B5.
I belatedly became a fan of the original after I borrowed a friend's DVDs and powered through all five seasons. The use of CG was innovative and let them tell an amazing story on a small-ish budget, but the technology just wasn't mature enough back then to really make it work. No problem with that these days. Even TV shows with modest budgets can feature brea
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But I think it's a great time for a reboot of B5.
Then I think you haven't been following the modern reboot/sequel/reimagining of every SciFi franchise ever in the last few years. It's a terrible time.
here's hoping it still retains the core that made the show so enjoyable.
All evidence, from every other franchise, points to the exact opposite. :(
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There's always a danger that the reboot won't live up to the original. But I'm curious how many of those failed reboots you reference have had the direct involvement of the original creator? I think that fact alone gives at least a modicum of hope that this won't simply be a cash-grab shitshow that uses the name and high concept, but little else from the original. I could be wrong, of course, but it's not like it's going to cost me anything to hope otherwise. We'll just have to see.
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The original Battlestar Galactica started out as a pilot episode with no plot beyond that point, and it was a huge hit. The producers basically dumped buckets of money on the table and said "I want new episodes by Friday." The writers were scrambling like mad to come up with plots and an overarching plot that was any good while the show was filming. There were days when the actors were handed their scripts literal minutes before shooting. In one episode they were all sitting around a table presumably in
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The reboot did have a better story than the original because it removed the Disney-fication in the original. That said, BSG and The Bionic Woman reboots were made after the 9-11 WTC attack and it shows: They're full of the traitor-among-us tropes that make the show enjoyably edgy but also exhausting to watch. The tropes were eventually spun into a new version of cop dramas such as Person of Interest.
Re: I don't think we need this, good luck anyway (Score:2)
> Disneyfication
The tone of the original was patterned on Star Wars. It doesnâ(TM)t really fit, given the genocide storyline, but as a kid I didn't mind.
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Re:I don't think we need this, good luck anyway (Score:5, Interesting)
First of all, it was made in the Clinton era. Just FYI. And it was far better than Star Trek, because not only did it not have "no scarcity" nonsense as a pre-requisite for the setting, but it didn't even have humans as a meaningful race at the start. We were the losers of a war of extermination by the aliens. And the only reason the Babylon 5 station exists is because just as those aliens were to finish totally exterminating humanity, they suddenly just stopped, pulled back and made peace, where humanity was allowed to not just survive, but trade with others. Even if it was from a position of weakness. And then offered an opportunity to put a space station into what was essentially alien sponsored realm to function as a politically neutral beacon in a universe of extreme political divisions and extreme scarcity for most species, where total genocide over scarce resources is more of a norm than peaceful existence. Just like it is on this planet throughout its history. And we don't even find why humanity was allowed to continue to exist at all until a few seasons in.
It's why it wasn't as popular as Star Trek. It didn't offer a Disney Musical in Space-experience, where a child got a nice, cushioned and very safely PG-13 talk about utopian situation of near total lack of scarcity in finite universe, so everyone who wanted could become whatever they wanted if they put the work in. Instead you got an adult version of space drama, where everyone is at everyone else's throat all the time because everything that matters is scarce, and it asked questions that were very much impactful at the time. Such as for example, "do you allow the race formerly enslaved by another race to enslave, exterminate and nearly totally genocide their former slavers?"
And the way they played that one was exceptionally well executed. You genuinely saw both as victimized people, and the enslavers and murderers. It was a message of racial reconciliation that was popular in the 90s, before the Critical Theory got entrenched into the Anglo cultures and fired up the racial tensions again. It was a message of a 90s US Democrat.
Which is why modern far leftists hate it as "republican".
The entire point of the show that was that rather than a dominant "we want for nothing, so let's wax philosophy from that utopian perspective" space supremacism of watching the inferiour races and not interfering with their plight because of the Prime Directive, Babylon 5 offered an actual insight into what the underdog race that barely climbed out of the home star system into a hungry universe that almost devours it right at the start has to do to survive. That's why a lot of Trekkies despise B5 as you do. It shows the horror show "Prime Directive'd race" would have to face, not in pretty idealistic speeches and universe that had artificial lack of scarcity, but in reality where resources are indeed scarce. It simply destroys the fundamental presupposition that makes one of the philosophical underpinnings of Star Trek.
It was "republican" in that it was indeed realistic. World isn't nice nor utopian, and scarcity is the prime motivator for everything. Because in space, matter is scarce and useful matter is far more scarce. There's no button to push to make almost anything. If you can't contribute meaningful expertise on a space station, where every bit of water and food is rationed because shipping it in costs a fortune, and you can't pay for a ticket off the station which is far away from everything specifically so it can be politically neutral for everyone, you're not going to have a nice life on that station. Not because humans and aliens are awful to the poor, even though they are. It's because there aren't resources to go around, and the station is literally made out of hopes and dreams of species that barely survived a near total genocide by their current alien sponsors and is desperately trying to climb out of that hole while making sure that maybe, just maybe should their alien sponsors change their mind, they be able to actually do so
Re: I don't think we need this, good luck anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: I don't think we need this, good luck anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait, warning about fascism is a right wing agenda now?
Did they change the polarity of the political spectrum again without informing me?
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That makes no sense. It came out during the 90s and it was the story Paramount ripped off to make DS9 in the first place.
Re:I don't think we need this, good luck anyway (Score:4, Insightful)
Erh... care to point out the right wing agenda in B5? Was it that Nightwatch, a program designed to work as snitches for the increasingly militaristic and dictatorship-like government, was ultimately shown to be the bad guys? Was it that xenophobes were showcased to be wrong time and again and that the protagonists were basically a mix of vastly different aliens? Was it that the ultimate weapon was even delivered by aliens because these aliens were technologically vastly superior to humans? Was it that the Centauri, an ultra-conervative, militaristic and expansionistic civilization, were shown to be wrong and only redeemed when they became less of all of that? Or maybe that one episode that famously had Ivanova have "sex" with the alien showed that alien first praising B5 for making profit out of even the useless members of society and causing Ivanova, and the rest of the crew, being appalled by that interpretation?
Re:I don't think we need this, good luck anyway (Score:4, Informative)
Babylon 5 was Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, but for Republicans.
It was still watchable, because it was made during the W. era of the Republican Party, so it was more "aww shucks, sry about the unavoidable social problems on our corporate space station." But now it could be a lot more popular, because conservatives want to cancel all the mainstream entertainment. They need their own media choices.
The real challenge is, how do you create stories that appeal to these viewers that aren't completely toxic to mainstream advertising?
This has got to be a troll post. Next you'll say it was written for Catholics since it wasn't hateful to them.
JMS is an extremely strong liberal and atheist. What you are not used to is someone writing a story that doesn't assume the "other side" is evil and stupid. Heck, the original plan for Delin was for her to start off a male and transition to female after leaving the Crystalis. That is why she had such a different voice between the pilot and series. The reason that idea was scrapped (thankfully) was because they couldn't get her voice to sound convincingly male.
I actually found DS9 more conservative than B5.
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This is slashdot. Nobody is going to click a link to youtube from here. I know you're new, but you should know that much by now.
If you want to make a point using some scene, quote what was said and explain the context.
But consider: I've seen 100% of the episodes of that show. And I have this opinion about the demographics of the writers/producers and the superfans.
It was a decent show. I didn't regret watching it. I would have watched more. But it was also flawed, in obvious and consistent ways.
Re:I don't think we need this, good luck anyway (Score:4)
You were the friend who was told B5 is awesome, watched a handful of episodes, couldn't figure out what the fuck was going on and didn't understand why anyone would want to watch that incoherent mess.
Right?
Trekie Perspective (Score:2)
I was never big into B5. I don't remember the order exactly but I remember think this is just a DS9 ripoff. I had a friend who was a diehard fan and if I recall right Babylon 5 was first.
Either way it grew on me though the core store kind of seems like a classic epic tale. I think in particular the Minbari narratives were the most interesting and besides the light vs dark aspect, I think it's what really grabbed.
Nonetheless, star trek just seems so more fleshed out and as a universe not so much a pure epic
Re:Trekie Perspective (Score:5, Informative)
JMS had pitched Babylon 5 to Paramount, and ended up suing them saying they stole his ideas for DS9. They settled, and apparently he received some money out of it. Really, though, the stories and feel of the shows were very different.
Re:Trekie Perspective (Score:5, Funny)
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I laughed. Sounds reasonable.
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Paramount's problem was that they...
Made a successful show that made them a lot of money? I don't think it is a "problem" they regret.
Actual "Star Trek Fans" (they were actually called trekkies) loved the show. And almost everybody else loved it too. It is the memories of hipsters that hate it, but there is no money in that.
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DS9 got very good in the later seasons, especially once they started to give RDM a free hand during the war arc. But the GP has a good point wrt/ the seasons before they introduced the defiant and gave Sisko a beard. If you take off the rose-colored glasses and re-watch them, seasons 1 and 2 and about half of 3 are really cringeworthy.
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A lot of people simply forget that the special effects technology underwent a lot of advancement during that same time period.
And they forget what else was on TV. And they forget that tehy set a timer so they didn't miss the start of the show, even during the time period where they claim it wasn't very good.
When they were watching it, they loved it. Then later when it got better, when the show runners could take on more awesome, because they finally had the tech to pull it off, they thought, "Oh, this is so
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Seasons 1-2 of TNG sucked, 3 was ok, 4 was when it got good. Voyager was similar. My suspicion is Enterprise would be well-remembered if they'd been allowed to go 7 full seasons.
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Most of the TNG fans I knew complained about DS9's formula throughout the entire run of the show. It was obvious that being on a space station all day wasn't cutting it, so Paramount kept asking the writers to do cheesy things to spice up the show. Like give them the Defiant, bring Q onto the show, add Worf, and other gimmicks.
The first season of the show was regarded as its weakest. Even the intro music was panned as "the sleepy time intro".
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Sisko: Engage
Dax: Yes sir.
(pause)
Sisko: Why isn't anything happening?
Dax: Sir, you know that this is a space station and we only have auxiliary maneuver thrusters for station keeping, right?
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The shows are very different with some central commonalities in terms of the setting and the main arc. However, since Star Trek is very episodic (with DS9 perhaps being the least like this), the tangents that are built up into other story arcs are very different. I think the antagonists are radically different both in terms of individuals and groups.
Probably still enough similarities for the lawsuit to be fair, especially consider the circumstances.
There was no lawsuit (Score:2)
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The truth is, Joe [JMS] had gone to Paramount with the bible for Babylon 5, pitched it to the Star Trek producers, left it for a year. They finally returned it back to him saying nah, we're not going to do it. Meanwhile they make Deep Space 9. So there was a lawsuit, they settled out of court. So yeah, they did, they ripped off the script and the idea. They had a character named Lyta, they didn't even change it, I mean, there's just some things, you know, the arrogance, is just kind of, are you kidding me. But it worked out, they settled it, uh, and that really did seem to be the end of it, and nobody cared after that, so. And I was very aware of what had happened when DS9 premiered a month before Deep Space 9 premiered, and it really was terrible for Joe and the team, because it would look like Babylon 5 was the, uh afterthought, or however you want to put that, and um that they wouldn't get then, because of course Paramount has this enormous platform and Babylon 5 had nothing, you know, so, the fact that it succeeeded, and obviously it was such a different show in the end. I'm glad they were able to sort it all out in the end. But it was tense, it was weird.
If I had to guess lawyers sorted it out before it saw the courtroom, but something happened.
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Re: There was no lawsuit (Score:2)
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Something i noticed in the opening sequences is that star trek was as expected. But the B5 opening sequence showed life: cargo ships, welders, stuff happening that was more vibrant, and believable for a point of commerce and transit. Then after season 1 or 2 Star trek changed their introduction sequence, to mimic the more bustling, active, believable version of the space station, clearly playing catch-up, to not seem so dated.
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The producers of post-Roddenberry Trek shows made them about the special effects. B5 couldn't compete on that budget so made the show about people; and with that mindset, of course they would include things about people in the set up every week (so many post credits scenes were at the immigration line ups). Trek shows had to play catch up because like all major studios, Paramount only understands the "it blowed up real good" or "if it looks cool, who cares about stories". Stories were so unimportant they wo
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This is a fair point too. Though I will say the very first DS9 episode makes a point that the social aspect is important with how Sisko interacts with Quark. This being said, Babylon 5 does make the station life more a vibrant part of the story which is pretty much incomparable to anything else of the time. This is one of the unique aspects to DS9 in the star trek universe but it doesn't seem as central in most of the episodes.
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This rings a bell. I know there was something off about my original understanding and that Babylon 5 was essentially the trend setter. The second point makes sense too, like DS9 has some idea how they want to develop Sisko but it's rather vague until the following seasons. I really like Sisko though and he is my second favorite ST captain though he has unique advantages over Picard (I feel like another Trekie will come in and rip me apart for saying this).
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Right. This is perhaps one of the big differences in DS9 vs Babylon 5 -- the former seems to focus much more on different approaches to religion with the main arc related to a "religious figure" (though I may be wrong about the total scope of religion in Babylon 5; I do remember there being an aspect to the Narns).
I think you are also right about the Starfleet interaction, because Sisko plays a kind of "anti" "religious figure" in the sense that he doesn't always want to take on this role and it takes him a
Re: Trekie Perspective (Score:3)
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Yeah to my recollection this has to be one of the first genuine long-story-arc shows attempted. They're a common format now, but back then it wasn't done that way.
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I guess that's why I really enjoyed TNG. I got into TV watching more sporadically, so I would commonly catch things out of sequence. There were long-story arcs but they were more subtle and "extra" to the everyday aspects. This was I think more profound in Enterprise and DS9. DS9 at the end I think spends a lot of time wrapping up these.
This is a very good point though and probably why I enjoyed it more later in my life when I can download or stream it. Likewise, I agree it clicks a lot more after season 1.
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Original Trekker perspective:
I liked Babylon 5 even while at the same time I have to admit that the Babylon 5 actors, with few exceptions like Andreas Katsulas and Mira Furlan, were as stiff as cardboard (and often written that way). But its saving grace was that the stories were almost always about the people, not pumping up make believe technology into major plot devices a la Star Trek TNG et al. And that's even with the early use of CGI. It's why I could rewatch the first four seasons of it recently, whe
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Actually, DS9 ended up ripping off B5. The whole "story arc" thing that permeated the later DS9 episodes (especially the season-spanning Dominion War) only became a thing once they noticed that viewers like that kind of arc instead of their usual monster/problem of the week episodes when they lost viewers to B5.
The story arc was the best part IMO (Score:5, Insightful)
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He had so much of the main story arc planned out before filming of the first episode of season 1. This created some incredible payouts in later seasons, and a level of story-cohesion you almost never see in a TV series. It's common to see strong cohesion within a season, but then they sort of "reboot" the series in the next season, with a new story arc. B5 had a few sub-arcs, but the real story arc was played out through the entire series.
Time travel that links together episodes that aren't even in the s
Re:The story arc was the best part IMO (Score:4, Insightful)
To be fair B5 has it story ending written by the Author before production, while GOT ran past what the Author had written and was "winging it" for an ending by the shows writers.
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GRRM was *supposed* to be part of the team right to the end of GoT, and yet we still got the drivel that we ended up with - and GRRM still hasn't committed to the release of his next actual book in the series.
After a lot of thought on this, I'm actually of the opinion that a lot of the blame lies with GRRM here and not the show writers - I think he lost interest and the book series won't ever get finished, and for the same reason the latter seasons of the show were similarly unfleshed out.
Re:The story arc was the best part IMO (Score:5, Informative)
IMHO, the best parts were all related to Vir. Initially played as a bit of a fool, he's the only one that actually got precisely what he wanted from Mr Morden. [youtu.be]
B5. (Score:3)
Video Toaster, lightwave. Amiga.
I was at university downloading B5 backgrounds and shit from Usenet when the show first aired.
Half of the cast are dead ?
I feel old.
The writing was pretty shit, and quite a few of the actors were shit (read "cheap") , but the FX was amazing for the time.
Not sure if MS has the chops for a reboot though. Needs some grittier writing. Like BSG (new) on steroids. I think MS is too old.
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He goes by "Joe", and when referenced by initials, it's "JMS".
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There's "respecting their acronyms" and then there's "using a different acronym that literally nobody will recognize because who takes the initials for the middle and last name and leaves out the first one?"
Microsoft isn't making Babylon 5.
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Half of the cast are dead ?
I feel old.
The writing was pretty shit, and quite a few of the actors were shit (read "cheap") , but the FX was amazing for the time.
Not sure if MS has the chops for a reboot though. Needs some grittier writing. Like BSG (new) on steroids.
I think MS is too old.
To be fair, a lot of the cast died not very old relatively speaking these days. And yeah, many of the actors were stiff as cardboard with the exception of Katsulas, Furlan, and Bill Mumy. And actually the original commander played by Michael O'Hare. Maybe his mental issues made him a better actor in the role as it made him completely incapable of being stiff. But for sure, the rest were pretty lame, especially the doctor. I like the show quite a bit, but he made me cringe in anything he was in. But I think
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Oh ya, those three were amazing, but I also loved Peter Jurasik. Over the top was the character concept but he could do the subtle bits too. Scenes with both Peter Jurasik and Andreas Katsulas were amazing!
Stephen Furst was great too. Something of comic relief early (he was best known prior for being Flounder in Animal House) but the role got more serious and he pulled it off very well.
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Stephen Furst will be missed in quite a few ways - he directed several episodes and was involved in the production team as well, he was more than a cast member :(
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Gotta disagree about the writing. The intricacy of the plot, the fun of having a line explain a mystery from years earlier, and the dialog that other authors have copied (David Weber had a character say "They are behind me. You are in front of me. If you want to survive, be somewhere else.") all point in the direction of good writing.
Deconstruction of Falling Stars had the scope and sense of wonder of the best of the Golden Age.
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A couple friends of a friend (who I briefly worked with) worked one some early Amiga ray tracing, which got used in the B5 pilot at least. And my friend was all excited about it and said "so-and-so's elbow can be seen in one scene!"
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He will probably have writers helping him. But he HAS to be the guy running the show because otherwise I'd be worried that whoever got to it would misunderstand what made the show good. You don't want someone swooping in and deciding that nerds loved the show because the space battles were so cool. They were, but they were just a piece in a bigger puzzle.
I read a few of the Thor comics that JMS wrote, and he has a real flair for telling a story, getting to the core of characters, trying to make you think ab
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The acting got a lot better by season 3. They got off the video toasters eventually, too.
I never watched it. (Score:3)
Maybe it is time to go experience this classic! I'll queue it up!
ok.. what odds will you give me.. (Score:2)
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Bad audio mix (Score:3)
I didn't watch it when it came out and picked up a pirated version.
The audio mix on it was horrible, with the special effects/space having very high volume and the dialogue low volume, making it hard to pay attention without getting my ears blown out when the special effects scenes started up.
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So, are they using Amigas on this one as well? (Score:2)
The original babylon 5 is quite a very neat Video Toaster demo besides being a good show.
Unfortunately... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Unfortunately... (Score:5, Informative)
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Naw, those shows mostly lot my interest because they were all vehicles for a cast of twenty somethings... Boring. As far as woke, there's the anti-woke crap where all alien civilizations must be like conservative Earth because God created everything everywhere with only two sexes, which isn't even true on Earth. Star Trek did it that way because it cost too much to do more than a bit of latex on the forehead and nose, not because they wanted to push a 60s square agenda.
Gays and lesbians exist, deal with
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If JMS allows his show to become a platform for someone else's sociopolitical crusade, then yes. It will be bad on that basis alone. The original show did have some lesbians in it and also interspecial hanky-panky, but it wasn't a crusader for the gay rights movement of the time. It's really up to whether JMS can resist the temptation to push someone else's agenda. And that includes the anti-LGBTQ+ agenda as well. Trying assiduously NOT to be "woke" can just be bad as being "woke".
The story should do i
will be hard to watch (Score:5, Interesting)
with the exception of the final season, B5 was one of the greatest scifi shows ever. The final season was too rushed and lost its appeal. I usually don't care for story arcs over episodes but the way this one was done over seasons is what made the show great, and thought provoking. In addition, the actors who played the different characters were perfect for their parts. I doubt I could picture or accept any other actor playing those characters. That is not to say I will not give it a try and follow the development of the show.
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The final season was the opposite from rushed. The goddamn telepath war thing has been dragging on and on and on and on and on. Fuck Byron.
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Television station that I watched it on canceled season 4 halfway through, because season 5 wasn't going to be on their network. That was a weird move and it meant a panicked scramble to try and pick up that week's episode in snowy form from a a city two hours drive away. Multiple stations would just change the time slot with little warning, pre-Tivo days, so I would find some days that it didn't actually get recorded and I'd stay up late to catch it on a different station late night. Watching it all at the
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Season 5 *was* rushed, because it wasn't green-lit until very very late on in season 4's run - this meant that, in order to wrap everything up without any guarantee of another season, a lot of season 5 material was pushed into season 4, and when season 5 was finally green lit it had to have a load of new material written for it.
I think the original storyline was going to be season 4 wrapping up the Shadow-Vorlon conflict, and then season 5 dealing with Earth and the telepath situation.
Won't be the same... (Score:2)
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agreed! Does midwinter still exist?
Cheers, Uwe
Looking forward to it (Score:4, Informative)
I found the story wide-ranging and interesting, both the episodic plots as well as the seasonal/multi-season arcs. More shows could benefit from being planned out so far in advance.
I'm always saddened to hear of the passing of another one of the original's actors. I will always fondly remember them and the characters they brought to life.
A reboot by the original writer? I'm definitely going to be keeping tabs on this.
As a massive B5 fam (Score:2)
Just one suggestion for JMS... (Score:2)
So I really liked B5. Realistic society, a story that was thought out ahead of time, accurate space fights and such.
I just... um... could JMS please leave the dialogue and directing to someone else? I'm probably going to get modded down for this but if you come from watching BSG 2004 then watch B5, the acting and the dialogue just make me wince half the time.
I'm just saying I would love to see B5 remade with the original story more or less and with the prestige TV treatment.
While it should work today - and why it won't (Score:5, Interesting)
We were lucky we got the first one at all. Today, this cannot fly.
The older ones here will be able to think back to when the first season landed. The rest can maybe imagine it. You have this show. A scifi show about a space station. With a weirdly I-want-to-diplomat-but-can't Sinclair, an enigmatic Delenn, a G'Kar who is apparently from some kind of warrior race who will cause trouble, a scheming Londo and a totally weird Kosh, who experience fairly nonsensical adventures every week. Sure, today we know where these things lead to and that what these characters did makes a lot of sense, but back then, we did not have that information and all we saw is a random selection of aliens and humans doing random stuff on some random space station for some random reason.
Everyone here be honest: How many here have religiously watched B5 every week in the first season? How many actually cared what happened?
B5 would be the perfect show for the way people watch shows today: Binge watching. We don't watch one show at a time. We watch seasons. You tune your Netflix to the start of the season of the show, grab a large bag of popcorn and watch 20 episodes en bloc. B5 is perfect for that.
And at the same time, this is what will make this show fail.
Because more than ever, ratings are everything. And B5 fans know that you can't just watch an episode of B5 a week. You'd forget the important details you didn't even consciously notice before the next episode, let alone before it becomes relevant in the plot. You'd have to watch the whole show again. Which you'll do anyway, but you don't want to do that. You don't want to wait a whole week for the cliffhanger to be resolved either.
So what fans will probably do is to NOT watch it week by week, but wait for the season to finish to get their treat. But by then, the show execs will have noticed that nobody watches the show and will cancel it.
B5 got lucky the first time. JMS obviously had a long term contract running, or else that show would never have survived past its second season. A show that only picks up steam after two whole seasons is a huge gamble for a studio, and one that none will enter these days. Especially not with an expensive SciFi show.
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I remember how much miserable little gits like yourself lost their shot when they gender swapped Starbuck.
Anyway please take your identity politics to the GOP conference or whatever. They're not interesting.
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facist
I admit, I'm a bit of a facist. The ones that are always smiling kinda tick me off.
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> I admit, I'm a bit of a facist. The ones that are always smiling kinda tick me off.
I prefer facists to arsists.
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Note: there are no typos in the above post
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It's being developed for the CW, and if they can drag "Flash" out to eight seasons, surely they can get this to at least four. I just have to hope they have a better CG budget than what currently airs on the network.
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CW means it will suck. If it were on Amazon or any other serious streaming service it would be amazing, with good story lines. But we'd only get 8 shows a year and it would take 2 years per season. I wonder if the streaming services can ever figure out a middle ground.
Re: Well I will look forward to it (Score:2)
Re: Well I will look forward to it (Score:5, Insightful)
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the whole third and fourth season features a rebellion against a President and his lackeys whose literal motto is America--sorry--Earth First!
Yawn, that's basically the US in the 40s, except for the president part. You only had tens of millions of lackeys.
In the subject line! (Score:2)
Where is the best place to answer a rhetorical question in a Slashdot comment?
Alas! (Score:2)