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It is pretty crazy to think that Babylon 5 had better special effects than TNG (in my opinion) and did it for cheap on the Amiga compared to Industrial Lights a
by 7thaccount 6y ago
It is pretty crazy to think that Babylon 5 had better special effects than TNG (in my opinion) and did it for cheap on the Amiga compared to Industrial Lights and Magic that TNG used.
- LeoPanthera 6y agoIt's a weird comparison. Babylon 5's special effects were very early CGI, but TNG has almost no computer graphics at all. (Nearly) everything was done practically, and with models. Personally I think TNG stands up better, and the fact that it was done practically and shot on film now allows a high-definition version to exist, which can never happen for B5.
- mixmastamyk 6y agoB5 was done mostly in HD, they lost a few shots IIRC.
- monocasa 6y agoTheir effects weren't, which is the point the parent was making I think.
- CyberDildonics 6y agoYou might want to go watch that stuff again before you make your mind up. It is still impressive however that some of these amiga + lightwave effects were done with 12MB of RAM.
- jacobush 6y agoBut for the time it looked OK, especially on the typical bedroom 14" CRT.
- CyberDildonics 6y agoHe wasn't stating how it looked for the time, he was comparing it to star trek: the next generation, which used models and was shot on film while even high budget CG was still in its infancy.
- 7thaccount 6y agoYeah I was basically just saying star trek spent a fortune, while B5 was done "on the cheap". I was wrong and forgot TNG still used models, but the overall comment still stands.
- 7thaccount 6y agoI rewatch B5 every few years. It still looks great with some exceptions (Vorlon planet killer looks like it didn't get much time).
- CyberDildonics 6y agoOriginally you made a comparison to Star Trek.
- setpatchaddress 6y agoA couple of years ago, I watched the whole of Star Trek TOS, TNG, DS9, and then Bablyon 5 one after the other. So I have to ask whether you're using a modern TV and perhaps what your media source for B5 is. Because, frankly, most aspects of B5 pretty objectively haven't aged well (the elevator scene is one exception), and the FX renders are especially bad, at least from the DVD box set. I fully believe it looked incredible at the time on a standard def CRT. But TNG still looks OK and DS9 looks good.
- 7thaccount 6y agoAre you watching a digitally remastered Star Trek? I've watched B5 on CRT and various LCD. The station monitors obviously aged poorly, but a lot of ships still looked pretty good. Minbari Sharlin, White star...etc.