3 ms·

I recently tried to re-watch B5. I was a huge fan when it came out. I managed to get to early season 2 before I couldn't take the cringe any more. Sometimes it

by jahnu 3y ago

I recently tried to re-watch B5. I was a huge fan when it came out. I managed to get to early season 2 before I couldn't take the cringe any more. Sometimes it's best to leave things in the past. That being said, a complete re-boot like they did for BG could work.

mysterydip 3y ago
"Babluon 5: The Road Home" just premiered at San Diego Comic Con. Trailer shows off the animation and style pretty well: https://youtu.be/Z54XNJivHOs https://youtu.be/Z54XNJivHOs
mixmastamyk 3y ago
Zero-content dig at a great show, thanks. I do remember the graphics being poor until they fixed the lighting in S2, however.
vidarh 3y ago
I've rewatched it twice, and season two is where it seriously picks up. You do need to be able to look past very dated effects and decor and some dated storytelling devices, but to me that adds to the charm. Incidentally some of that dated story telling is what makes season 1 slow - there's a lot of set-up going on, both in terms of setting and characters while they'd have benefit from just jumping straight in and filling those bits in along the way. In terms of telling a coherent story throughout multiple seasons, it was remarkable at the time, and so compared with most series of the era it stands up far better despite the dated effects. If they do a reboot, I hope they really does it justice and changes the stories enough that it can stand on its own. A straight remake would be a waste.
- yardie 3y ago
  To me, The Expanse was the equivalent of a reboot of B5. Interstellar politics, realistic physics, and multi-season plot arches made it a really dramatic, yet geeky show in the same vein as B5. If there is to be a reboot of B5 I feel it would take off from where The Expanse finished rather than where B5 ended over 25 years ago.
  - vidarh 3y ago
    I loved The Expanse, but the setting is very different, and I'd feel cheated if I was promised a B5 reboot and got The Expanse. So much of B5 comes down to the very alien conflicts and unfolding of the time loop. In terms of continuation I might prefer a continuation of The Expanse over a continuation of B5 - because of the time loop, the B5 story is very closed and complete in a way that means I feel if you were to do anything else in that universe without it getting tedious you need to do something entirely different that'd pretty much need to be its own thing. But where The Expanse TV series ended they had pretty much just started a new story.
  - misnome 3y ago
    > realistic physics It was a while ago, but a lot of the action tension in the first couple of seasons seemed to rely on things like, "We are leaving [jupiter moon], we are in a rush! Adrenaline is high!... We are arriving at [Mars Moon] 30 seconds later, nothing has changed!". And suspense of "Earth is launching missiles now, oh-no they are about to hit us so we must dodge them!". It paid lip-service to being "Realistic" physics, but it was just a thin veneer. (Completely fine with "alien physics"/"drive physics" because that is in the story construction. It's everything else, that goes out the window instantly).
    - vidarh 3y ago
      Having written two (self published) novels so far that tries to get it right, I know I've made stupid mistakes, and it's really hard to get it right without seriously limiting the story, or just hard to get it right full stop. So frankly I'm impressed how well The Expanse TV series did, though they certainly took liberties. They at least seemed to mostly try even when it wasn't important from a plot point of view, but then also used it for better effect as part of the plot. B5 was much more relaxed about that, with JMS explicitly saying in the context of B5 that ships "travel at the speed of plot" [1][2], and with ostensibly having the station rotate for perceived gravity but leaving C&C near the middle where it'd have near zero g, nor did they make the view out their window rotate (pet peeve: should have been a viewscreen, and C&C should be nowhere near the hull; those things are also very much plot driven). For B5 I'd agree they paid lip service to it. For The Expanse I feel it goes at least a bit deeper. I feel like they come at it from different sides: B5 ignores realism beyond the very superficial (e.g. the station rotating) for the most part except when necessary for the plot, while The Expanse tries to remain realistic except when deviating was necessary for the plot. Note: Realistic not accurate, and I do think there's big gap between what is realistic to an average audience, even if asked to pick out holes, and what is accurate. [1] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TravelingAtTheSpeedOfPlot https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TravelingAtTheSp... [2] https://www.patreon.com/posts/57948595 https://www.patreon.com/posts/57948595 "HOW FAST DO WHITE STARS TRAVEL? They travel at the speed of plot."
- abruzzi 3y ago
  Season 1 was closer to tradition SciFi TV of the time (think of the Star Trek Next Gen.) Each episode is fully self contained and there is little in last weeks episode that you need to know to understand this weeks. There is a tiny bit of story moving from episode to episode (basically the Sheridan/Minbari/Battle of the Line bits and pieces), but mostly it is 22 episide of setup. Seasons 2-4 move away from that construction to a fully searial story. its 90's TV so there still need to be a definite episode arc in most of the stories, so you still have pointless digressions like Garibaldi getting stuck in Grey 17, but the Shadow/Vorlon war takes over the bulk of the story telling followed by the Earther war. Season 5 seems more like they did well on the previous seasons so while it was intended to end with season 4, they kept going but without a larger story to propel it.
  - komadori 3y ago
    I think it was originally planned for five series, but then they thought that they were going to get cancelled after the fourth series so they squeezed the planned plot arc in to conclude the end of the fourth instead.
  - sillywalk 3y ago
    JMS called them 'wham episodes', there are only a few in Season one - a sky full of stars, Signs and Portents, and *Chrysalis, more in season 2.. I believe they weren't sure that Season 5 would happen, so the Shadow War/Earther war was ended earlier in Season 4. JMS apologized for the 'Grey 17 is Missing' episode. :)
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Sharlin 3y ago
I mean, the story really only starts in season 2. Most everyone agrees that you’re better off skipping most of season 1 except for five or so pivotal episodes and a few others that are quite important wrt character development.

by jahnu 3y ago

mysterydip 3y ago

"Babluon 5: The Road Home" just premiered at San Diego Comic Con. Trailer shows off the animation and style pretty well: https://youtu.be/Z54XNJivHOs https://youtu.be/Z54XNJivHOs

mixmastamyk 3y ago

Zero-content dig at a great show, thanks. I do remember the graphics being poor until they fixed the lighting in S2, however.

vidarh 3y ago

I've rewatched it twice, and season two is where it seriously picks up. You do need to be able to look past very dated effects and decor and some dated storytelling devices, but to me that adds to the charm. Incidentally some of that dated story telling is what makes season 1 slow - there's a lot of set-up going on, both in terms of setting and characters while they'd have benefit from just jumping straight in and filling those bits in along the way. In terms of telling a coherent story throughout multiple seasons, it was remarkable at the time, and so compared with most series of the era it stands up far better despite the dated effects. If they do a reboot, I hope they really does it justice and changes the stories enough that it can stand on its own. A straight remake would be a waste.

yardie 3y ago
To me, The Expanse was the equivalent of a reboot of B5. Interstellar politics, realistic physics, and multi-season plot arches made it a really dramatic, yet geeky show in the same vein as B5. If there is to be a reboot of B5 I feel it would take off from where The Expanse finished rather than where B5 ended over 25 years ago.
- vidarh 3y ago
  I loved The Expanse, but the setting is very different, and I'd feel cheated if I was promised a B5 reboot and got The Expanse. So much of B5 comes down to the very alien conflicts and unfolding of the time loop. In terms of continuation I might prefer a continuation of The Expanse over a continuation of B5 - because of the time loop, the B5 story is very closed and complete in a way that means I feel if you were to do anything else in that universe without it getting tedious you need to do something entirely different that'd pretty much need to be its own thing. But where The Expanse TV series ended they had pretty much just started a new story.
- misnome 3y ago
  > realistic physics It was a while ago, but a lot of the action tension in the first couple of seasons seemed to rely on things like, "We are leaving [jupiter moon], we are in a rush! Adrenaline is high!... We are arriving at [Mars Moon] 30 seconds later, nothing has changed!". And suspense of "Earth is launching missiles now, oh-no they are about to hit us so we must dodge them!". It paid lip-service to being "Realistic" physics, but it was just a thin veneer. (Completely fine with "alien physics"/"drive physics" because that is in the story construction. It's everything else, that goes out the window instantly).
  - vidarh 3y ago
    Having written two (self published) novels so far that tries to get it right, I know I've made stupid mistakes, and it's really hard to get it right without seriously limiting the story, or just hard to get it right full stop. So frankly I'm impressed how well The Expanse TV series did, though they certainly took liberties. They at least seemed to mostly try even when it wasn't important from a plot point of view, but then also used it for better effect as part of the plot. B5 was much more relaxed about that, with JMS explicitly saying in the context of B5 that ships "travel at the speed of plot" [1][2], and with ostensibly having the station rotate for perceived gravity but leaving C&C near the middle where it'd have near zero g, nor did they make the view out their window rotate (pet peeve: should have been a viewscreen, and C&C should be nowhere near the hull; those things are also very much plot driven). For B5 I'd agree they paid lip service to it. For The Expanse I feel it goes at least a bit deeper. I feel like they come at it from different sides: B5 ignores realism beyond the very superficial (e.g. the station rotating) for the most part except when necessary for the plot, while The Expanse tries to remain realistic except when deviating was necessary for the plot. Note: Realistic not accurate, and I do think there's big gap between what is realistic to an average audience, even if asked to pick out holes, and what is accurate. [1] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TravelingAtTheSpeedOfPlot https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TravelingAtTheSp... [2] https://www.patreon.com/posts/57948595 https://www.patreon.com/posts/57948595 "HOW FAST DO WHITE STARS TRAVEL? They travel at the speed of plot."
abruzzi 3y ago
Season 1 was closer to tradition SciFi TV of the time (think of the Star Trek Next Gen.) Each episode is fully self contained and there is little in last weeks episode that you need to know to understand this weeks. There is a tiny bit of story moving from episode to episode (basically the Sheridan/Minbari/Battle of the Line bits and pieces), but mostly it is 22 episide of setup. Seasons 2-4 move away from that construction to a fully searial story. its 90's TV so there still need to be a definite episode arc in most of the stories, so you still have pointless digressions like Garibaldi getting stuck in Grey 17, but the Shadow/Vorlon war takes over the bulk of the story telling followed by the Earther war. Season 5 seems more like they did well on the previous seasons so while it was intended to end with season 4, they kept going but without a larger story to propel it.
- komadori 3y ago
  I think it was originally planned for five series, but then they thought that they were going to get cancelled after the fourth series so they squeezed the planned plot arc in to conclude the end of the fourth instead.
- sillywalk 3y ago
  JMS called them 'wham episodes', there are only a few in Season one - a sky full of stars, Signs and Portents, and *Chrysalis, more in season 2.. I believe they weren't sure that Season 5 would happen, so the Shadow War/Earther war was ended earlier in Season 4. JMS apologized for the 'Grey 17 is Missing' episode. :)

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Sharlin 3y ago

I mean, the story really only starts in season 2. Most everyone agrees that you’re better off skipping most of season 1 except for five or so pivotal episodes and a few others that are quite important wrt character development.