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Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/05 19:59:54


Post by: warboss


I used to love this show back in the 1990's and avidly followed the show's progress on the creator's website as it happened... but I've since mainly forgotten about it. I wasn't a fan of the impromptu 5th season nor of the followup movies and iirc single season of the spin off show. Unlike Star Trek and Star Wars, I've never bought the DVDs (which were of inferior quality from what I heard) nor even rewatched the show in its entirety. For a while, I couldn't even find it streaming anywhere readily accessible as I found out that it was exclusively on some obscure Verizon streaming network and then later on the obviously more mainstream Amazon Prime though the quality of both was still the substandard DVD version. Well, now finally after 20+ years we have an HD version of both the live action and the special effects.

For the live version, they rescanned the original film (16mm?) in 4k, removed scratches, and downres'ed it to 1080p for this release. The special effects weren't redone but rather AI-upres'ed to 1080p to match the live action. Both are in the old 4:3 boxier screen format as the special effects were only done to that so it should have bars on both sides. The CGI is noticeably crisper but I'd say the live action stuff only moderately so. I'm not a big cinephile but it seems like the film grain is pretty coarse and the details feels to me more like a 720p upgrade over the old standard definition rather than a full native 1080p bluray quality. I don't personally have HBO Max but, if they come out with a bluray set of the series, that would be something I'd be interested in picking up!

https://www.space.com/babylon-5-remastered-streaming-amazon-itunes-hbo-max

Comparison shots:




Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/05 20:26:07


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


This is a series I would buy a second time just for the special effects shots in their original aspect ratio. I take it this version is only available through HBOMax? Please keep us updated on any DVD or Blue Ray release.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/05 20:30:03


Post by: warboss


 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
This is a series I would buy a second time just for the special effects shots in their original aspect ratio. I take it this version is only available through HBOMax? Please keep us updated on any DVD or Blue Ray release.


Supposedly the HD verson is also for purchase on Prime and iTunes as well but honestly I never buy digital shows/movies. Either I stream it as part of a subscription or buy a physical copy.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/05 20:40:44


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


We’re pretty much the same, but I’d make an exception to be able to show my son Babylon 5 as it was meant to be seen.

We recently started Stargate SG1 with him because it popped up on Netflix...Even though we also own the disks. Better to have them and not need them, I guess.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/05 21:40:00


Post by: Voss


I've never bought the DVDs (which were of inferior quality from what I heard)

Something of an understatement, sadly. Though I believe there was a second version that wasn't quite so bad.

Everything from the physical quality of the disc to the usability of the menus was pretty starkly terrible.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/05 21:52:24


Post by: warboss


Voss wrote:
I've never bought the DVDs (which were of inferior quality from what I heard)

Something of an understatement, sadly. Though I believe there was a second version that wasn't quite so bad.

Everything from the physical quality of the disc to the usability of the menus was pretty starkly terrible.


That's sad to hear and likely part of why the show isn't as popular now as it was back then compared with contemporaries. Between that inferior DVD quality, missing the entire original bluray era, and the almost complete lack of mainstream streaming options for years at a time, it's been largely forgotten unless you were a fan during the initial run.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/05 22:36:45


Post by: chromedog


 warboss wrote:
I don't personally have HBO Max but, if they come out with a bluray set of the series, that would be something I'd be interested in picking up!


From what they've said, blu-ray version will only be released where HBO is NOT available. It may eventually filter out to the rest of the market but not right now.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/05 22:52:42


Post by: Jadenim


I heard a story that Strazynski wanted to film the whole thing in widescreen and crop down for initial broadcast, as he could see that 4:3 was on it’s way out, but the studio wouldn’t stump up the cash to buy the VFX team 16:9 reference monitors (which were insanely expensive at the time), hence the weird format differences. Apparently Warner Bros. also lost some, if not all, of the original masters (at least for a while) so the DVDs were made from the broadcast tapes rather than the source material. It’s a real shame, because if the whole thing had been done in film quality 16:9 as JMS wanted it would have been virtually HD from the start, with no work required.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/05 23:00:11


Post by: warboss


 Jadenim wrote:
I heard a story that Strazynski wanted to film the whole thing in widescreen and crop down for initial broadcast, as he could see that 4:3 was on it’s way out, but the studio wouldn’t stump up the cash to buy the VFX team 16:9 reference monitors (which were insanely expensive at the time), hence the weird format differences. Apparently Warner Bros. also lost some, if not all, of the original masters (at least for a while) so the DVDs were made from the broadcast tapes rather than the source material. It’s a real shame, because if the whole thing had been done in film quality 16:9 as JMS wanted it would have been virtually HD from the start, with no work required.


Obviously I have no insider info but that's corroborated amongst other things if you go down the embedded link rabbit hole in the article I posted.

https://www.engadget.com/2018-06-22-babylon-5-digital-video-quality.html

Spoiler:
Foundation Imaging, which produced the CGI for the pilot through to season three, was apparently willing, and able, to produce widescreen effects. Co-founder Ron Thornton, who passed away in 2016, said that his company "offered to do all of Babylon 5 in widescreen." Quotes attributed to Thornton on the JMSNews forum point the finger over a fight regarding a $5,000 HD "reference monitor so we could check our output."

That request was apparently denied, either by Ken Parks, WB's then-business affairs chief, or the show's co-executive producer Douglas Netter. Thornton went on to say that "each blamed the other," but the decision meant that "for $75 an episode, they could have had awesome, near hi-def." Unfortunately, it is difficult to verify his account, and Parks died in 2014 while Netter passed away last year.

"There was not a breakdown over a monitor," John Copeland, who produced Babylon 5 and its sequel, Crusade, told Engadget. Copeland, now the owner of Rancho Olivos olive oils, says that "Ron [Thornton] wanted to get paid for re-rendering everything." And render time was the issue that forced every compromise when it came to making the show's visual effects. But Copeland feels Warner Bros. itself was the problem, rather than visual effects.

"We had set up the show to make the transition to what was, at the time, called Advanced Television Technology," he said. "Everybody knew that [HD] was coming, and that the preferred format would be 16:9," and Copeland toured how other Warner shows were planning for the future. On Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, the team "were doing a 'video hack' to retransfer the negative, stretched in such a way that it would unfold in a 16:9 frame." Unfortunately, the results, while meeting the requirements for widescreen TV, "looked absolutely awful."

So Copeland approached the studio and said that they would "shoot in a 1:78 (widescreen) format, and we'll compose for 4:3, but frame for 16:9." And at the end, the production team "gave them everything in two formats [4:3 and 16:9] with the exception of the visual effects." But, that wasn't a problem, because Warners' Advanced Technology Center had a plan to remedy the problem.

"This company in Sweden, called Teranex, were way ahead of the curve in knowing people would need to upconvert standard def to high definition." Warners owned a Teranex box, and the idea was that, eventually, the 4:3 CGI sequences would be upconverted and integrated into the 16:9 footage. It wouldn't be perfect, but it would look pretty good. But rather than doing it, in the end WB simply reconverted the futzed Portuguese and Belgium footage to NTSC and sold it.

The reason that the show was never given the proper Teranex treatment was, according to Copeland, "because they didn't wanna spend the money." He explained that in the days before DVDs were expected to be lavished with extras, home video departments just took existing material, slapped it in a box and reaped the rewards of doing so.





Automatically Appended Next Post:
 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
We’re pretty much the same, but I’d make an exception to be able to show my son Babylon 5 as it was meant to be seen.

We recently started Stargate SG1 with him because it popped up on Netflix...Even though we also own the disks. Better to have them and not need them, I guess.


You make wise choices. Just make sure to stop SG1 before Colonel O'Neill turns to pure snark because the actor obviously doesn't want to be there and is just phoning it in.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/06 00:04:40


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


We watched the whole show through, and Atlantis too, when my wife was recovering from surgeries. When O’Neill started becoming annoying, other characters stepped up to keep us interested. There’s an undeniable drop in quality, but like Buffy season 4 we get to spend a not-unwatchable time with characters we mostly enjoy.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/06 14:20:50


Post by: warboss


I was never a fan of Vala or Mitchell nor of the Ori in general so the last season of two were mostly a miss for me kind of like the last season of B5 and the spin offs. YMMV.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/06 17:02:30


Post by: aphyon


I own everything on DVD including all the made for TV movies. still one of the best written scifi shows ever made with character acting/development that is some of the best ever to be put to film of any genre,

It was a labor of love done on a shoestring budget that was groundbreaking in many of the concepts and technologies it pioneered

Yes everybody was pissed about the season 4/5 debacle....but what were they supposed to do when they though it was not getting a 5th season? i can imagine how much better it would have been had they fully finished the shadow war and earth civil war arc over another season.

At least season 5 had gems like "sleeping in light"

I also loved both "in the begining" and "a call to arms" tv movies.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/06 17:35:31


Post by: warboss


 aphyon wrote:

It was a labor of love done on a shoestring budget that was groundbreaking in many of the concepts and technologies it pioneered


I wouldn't say shoestring but I'd wholeheartedly agree that they did an amazing job with what they were given.

Straczynski estimated that each of their episodes cost US$650,000 to make, compared to the US$1.5 million cost of each episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5

Last year, I watched interviews on youtube from the 90's where they were explaining how they saved money on the season 1/2 shots by rendering them with banks of much cheaper high end but still just off the shelf Amiga computers with video toaster boards installed instead of splurging on $35k+ each Silicon Graphics workstations.



Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/06 18:12:02


Post by: Overread


 warboss wrote:
I was never a fan of Vala or Mitchell nor of the Ori in general so the last season of two were mostly a miss for me kind of like the last season of B5 and the spin offs. YMMV.


I think once they hit the Ori and Replicator story lines the series was starting to get a bit long in the tooth. It was basically stuck trying to advance its own storyline and setting, whilst also trying to still be the SG1 team going out on weekly adventures in a super secret bunker that no one else knew of. Only by that stage they were REALLY stretching the storylines to have 5 people take on whole alien civilizations without the rest of the Earth ever knowing. They were also somewhat recycling the story concepts and such.

It was fun and it was very Stargate* but it had reached a point where it either needed to change or come to a close.


*though at some point they gave up needing Daniel to translate as all the aliens started speaking American


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/06 18:33:58


Post by: warboss


 Overread wrote:
I think once they hit the Ori and Replicator story lines the series was starting to get a bit long in the tooth.


Yeah, my issue with the Ori basically is the same as with Star Wars' The Force Awakens. It's Malibu Spacey, but with a new helmet. They just finished up a multiseason epic storyline where the SGC battled a powerful space empire ruled by evil super advanced functionally immortal aliens who demand their primitive subjects worship them as gods... to start to battle a powerful space empire ruled by super advanced aliens who demand that their primitive subjects worship them as gods. But this one is totally different! Because they ARE immortal and sorta kinda gods! Yeahhhh....


*though at some point they gave up needing Daniel to translate as all the aliens started speaking American


Well, in their defense, I imagine that most starfaring civilizations have advanced to the point where they logically have given up on using superfluous silent vowels in words like foetus and oesophagus.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
On a more thread B5-related note about conflict with super advanced space alien empires, one of the things I'm looking most forward to in eventually rewatching B5 in its entirety is seeing how I view the proxy conflict between the Vorlons and Shadows. As I said before, I've only watched maybe a dozen episodes of B5 over the past two decades so my memory of the details is quite fuzzy and I'm curious if I'll appreciate the thought put into that.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/06 18:38:13


Post by: LordofHats


Yeah, I think when O'Neil ceased to be a regular on the show, SG-1 just kind of stopped working. His character and the dynamics around him really made the cast's chemistry work and was central to the show.

At the same time he started stepping back, the show always found itself turning to plot lines and concepts that felt too different (and all at once all too familiar) from the show's origins. It was cool that humanity was becoming a galactic citizen toward the end, with it's own space fleet and strong alliances that weren't a desperate bid to just hold the Gould off a while longer.

But by that point it also just felt like a very different show that had long since advanced past the elements that made it fun in the first place. I don't think the closing seasons were bad, the show maintained a great quality of writing and acting throughout it's run, but I feel like it was reaching the point that the series just didn't have solid footing anymore.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/06 19:30:38


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


I’d say that’s fair. In fact, I might say you guys were being generous. The whole storyline of SG1 was pretty much done being fresh by the time Anubis showed up. From then on, the show wasn’t bad, but it felt like rehashed highlights, like TFA. There were still a few brilliant episodes per season, but the show was pretty much a sit com where the “sit” was “secret Friends fight space gods”. It was still enjoyable for me.

And Vala was one of my favorite characters. I still crack up thinking about this scene:



As for Babylon 5, I’ll never forget the fan community at the time, trying to piece together the clues, figure out what would happen next. It was like Lost, except good.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/06 19:42:15


Post by: LordofHats


I forgot about that scene. Tealc is a treasure XD

I'd also say that the Ori plot managed to basically be the same thing the story was doing before but somehow made it trite and cliche. Evil aliens pretending to be gods just isn't as cool when they're basically the catholic church. There's a thousand evil catholic church stories in the world. Going that route in a lot of ways felt like a regression from earlier (otherwise exactly the same) plots that just felt more inventive and novel for the effort.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/06 23:29:38


Post by: AduroT


I’m sad we never got the post series Atlantis movie.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/07 05:18:17


Post by: Matt Swain


What really boiled my blood was when they put that awesome plotline in SGU, then canned the series without closing it.

But by and large SFC ran SG1 into the ground, keeping it going too long, after that they canned series too soon, leading to the meme

"The SFC, Imagine the end.

You have to because we cancel everything."


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/07 15:31:11


Post by: Hoitash


It never helped that the channel made it a policy to wait until the last legally possible moment to inform a show if they were cancelled, and their constant whining about "the wrong demographics" and, ugh

JMS got hosed by the network, too, but he had an entire arc strategy to build around, so it sort of worked out in the end.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/07 15:45:32


Post by: Voss


 Hoitash wrote:
It never helped that the channel made it a policy to wait until the last legally possible moment to inform a show if they were cancelled, and their constant whining about "the wrong demographics" and, ugh

JMS got hosed by the network, too, but he had an entire arc strategy to build around, so it sort of worked out in the end.


Different network, however. JMS would have been better served sticking to his original end and not letting TNT talk him into a crappy additional season with a focus on divorces, alcoholism and other mundane drivel.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/07 16:36:56


Post by: warboss


Has anyone here watched it on HBO max? If anyone has a sub, any first hand opinions on the quality compared to the DVDs if you have them as well?

I don't have a sub to that service though I may join up for a month over the summer to catch up on a half dozen things that by that point might make it worth it.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/07 18:05:20


Post by: bbb


I never really watched much of B5, but when I decided to try to start I rented the pilot from Netflix and it was one of those double-sided DVDs with the pilot on one side and a movie called In the Beginning on the other. I didn't know at the time that In the Beginning WASN'T the pilot, so when I put the disc in and it came up I watched it... Then I flipped the disc over and watched the otherside and realized the mistake I
'd made.

So, by this point I've forgotten most of what I saw, and it might be worth trying to revisit it from the actual start, but at the time I thought it was pointless to watch anymore since it was all spoiled for me in the beginning...


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/07 19:28:31


Post by: Matt Swain


 warboss wrote:
 aphyon wrote:

It was a labor of love done on a shoestring budget that was groundbreaking in many of the concepts and technologies it pioneered


I wouldn't say shoestring but I'd wholeheartedly agree that they did an amazing job with what they were given.

Straczynski estimated that each of their episodes cost US$650,000 to make, compared to the US$1.5 million cost of each episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5

Last year, I watched interviews on youtube from the 90's where they were explaining how they saved money on the season 1/2 shots by rendering them with banks of much cheaper high end but still just off the shelf Amiga computers with video toaster boards installed instead of splurging on $35k+ each Silicon Graphics workstations.



Man I owned an amiga when i was a kid, you just gave me a multi megaton nostalgia rush....

I remember how the 'amiga shows' like b5, hercules, xena, wete going to topple the networks and crush the hollywood studio system, and usher in a new age of small, independent production firms making better movies free from the pablum factories that were running the media.

What happened?


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/07 19:55:42


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


They both won and got coopted. Shows like Buffy, Firefly, BSG, SG1 became more mainstream, and then the streaming services peeled away the mainstream back into lots of little, more or less creator-driven series.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 bbb wrote:
I never really watched much of B5, but when I decided to try to start I rented the pilot from Netflix and it was one of those double-sided DVDs with the pilot on one side and a movie called In the Beginning on the other. I didn't know at the time that In the Beginning WASN'T the pilot, so when I put the disc in and it came up I watched it... Then I flipped the disc over and watched the otherside and realized the mistake I
'd made.

So, by this point I've forgotten most of what I saw, and it might be worth trying to revisit it from the actual start, but at the time I thought it was pointless to watch anymore since it was all spoiled for me in the beginning...


In the Beginning mostly spoils arcs from the first season. Some of the future scenes are revealed in the second and third season. It doesn’t spoil as much as it seems because B5 would frequently show the future destinations of certain arcs, leading the audience to believe the story unfolds one way only to show that it played out quite differently.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/08 05:01:43


Post by: Matt Swain


I had a friend named dennis who was quite religious. I once talked him into watching babylon 5 third space because it was basically a bible story redone as a sf movie. He kind of liked it but didn't get it was the tower of babel until i explained it to him.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/08 07:58:29


Post by: kodos


not going to buy those as a digital medium only but looking forward to a new physical release

for the DVD's there seems to be a big difference in quality for Region 1 and Region 2 (US vs EU), hence why the EU DVD quality was better than the prior streams available on Amazone (similar with Buffy, were the original EU DVD's are still the best quality available), specially if you had a player/TV with good upscaling


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/08 12:30:00


Post by: bbb


 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
They both won and got coopted. Shows like Buffy, Firefly, BSG, SG1 became more mainstream, and then the streaming services peeled away the mainstream back into lots of little, more or less creator-driven series.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 bbb wrote:
I never really watched much of B5, but when I decided to try to start I rented the pilot from Netflix and it was one of those double-sided DVDs with the pilot on one side and a movie called In the Beginning on the other. I didn't know at the time that In the Beginning WASN'T the pilot, so when I put the disc in and it came up I watched it... Then I flipped the disc over and watched the otherside and realized the mistake I
'd made.

So, by this point I've forgotten most of what I saw, and it might be worth trying to revisit it from the actual start, but at the time I thought it was pointless to watch anymore since it was all spoiled for me in the beginning...


In the Beginning mostly spoils arcs from the first season. Some of the future scenes are revealed in the second and third season. It doesn’t spoil as much as it seems because B5 would frequently show the future destinations of certain arcs, leading the audience to believe the story unfolds one way only to show that it played out quite differently.


That's good to hear. Now I just need to get past the dated CGI.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/08 12:48:37


Post by: warboss


 kodos wrote:
not going to buy those as a digital medium only but looking forward to a new physical release

for the DVD's there seems to be a big difference in quality for Region 1 and Region 2 (US vs EU), hence why the EU DVD quality was better than the prior streams available on Amazone (similar with Buffy, were the original EU DVD's are still the best quality available), specially if you had a player/TV with good upscaling


Yeah, there was in one of the embedded links in the article above a reference to having to get PAL interlaced versions of the show and convert them back to NTSC progressive (with a loss of quality) and then soon in for 16:9 cropping (for a further noticeable loss of quality) for the DVD release here.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 bbb wrote:

That's good to hear. Now I just need to get past the dated CGI.


I'm afraid no one can help you with that. Unlike with the TNG blurays, the effects weren't redone but rather AI upscaled. They're noticeably crisper but the baseline detail is the same.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/11 02:38:31


Post by: Matt Swain


I really don't give a damn about sfx as long as they're not so bad they detract from the story.

I consider the star trek axenar preview to be a better trek films than all 3 of the JJA abominations combined.

That said i do think the improvements made to TOS are positive as they are doing what GR wanted to do and would have done had budget and technology allowed. We now see actual alien ships, not just animated lights on a screen, for example. When we see a rear camera view on the viewscreen, we see the nacelles in it. We seen ships moving and not just the same stock footage shot over and over. Likewise i genrally approve of the updates to STTMP, except for cutting the computer translation of the klingon dialog in the beginning.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/11 03:21:37


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


Remastered Trek is great for showing us what the ships should have looked like, but nothing beats the charm of a roomful of actors staring at a blinky light.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/11 06:47:58


Post by: kodos


TOS has shown 2 things

a show made to be watched on small screen will always look "bad" on large screen, no matter how good the remaster is because cheap studio decoration will look cheap

the other point is that cheap CGI will not age well, no matter how new it is
it might be good when it comes out but dated a year after


so a full update for the B5 CGI would have been a problem, because there won't have been enough money to make it look good


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/11 10:08:20


Post by: tneva82


Would love to get this but can't even on stream nevermind actual physical product rather than permission to view on web site which might or might not be removed in future.

Ah well.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 aphyon wrote:

Yes everybody was pissed about the season 4/5 debacle....but what were they supposed to do when they though it was not getting a 5th season? i can imagine how much better it would have been had they fully finished the shadow war and earth civil war arc over another season.


Keep in mind civil war would have ended on around ~ep 3 or 4 of season 5 originally...S5 was never going to end with civil war. There was going to be telepath and centauri crisis in S5 anyway. The rushing up to end in S4 was only ~3 or 4 episodes as per JMS.

Bigger issue was JMS's prewritten plans and notes etc were either lost or stolen(don't recall which) between the seasons before he had had chance to start writing so at that point he had to start from scratch in a hurry with only shaky memories of plotlines he had written years ago to guide him...

For crusade it annoyingly stopped before it got good. If you haven't read the written scripts for future episodes that didn't get filmed yet well worth it. For here again worth keeping mind crusade wasn't about the plague. That would have been solved early 2nd season. It was going to be about earth black operations with shadow technology(and even that might not be the ultimate arc). Plague was crusade's "sinclair & his battle of the line mystery". Kickstart show for the real event.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
 bbb wrote:

So, by this point I've forgotten most of what I saw, and it might be worth trying to revisit it from the actual start, but at the time I thought it was pointless to watch anymore since it was all spoiled for me in the beginning...


As JMS always said end isn't important, road is.

We saw scene that basically told ending of series in first season. Season 3 there's huge "spoilers" for future. Didn't matter.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/11 12:48:02


Post by: aphyon


 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Remastered Trek is great for showing us what the ships should have looked like, but nothing beats the charm of a roomful of actors staring at a blinky light.


Have you watched any of the fan series star trek new voyages?


It is a take on the original 1960 TV series with cameo roles from many of the original cast-chekov, sulu and uhura all make appearances and updated graphics for the space scenes but they still have the look of the 1960 series.

It was made before the axanar lawsuit so they still were able to do a proper fan series. they even included the 1060s NBC peacock logo intro.


https://www.youtube.com/user/startrekphase2DE/playlists










Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/11 16:40:24


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


I’ve seen a few TOS fan shows, and they were mostly decent. I don’t remember the names. However, I’m more of a TNG fan and I prefer the novel continuity for the TNG timeline past nemesis to any “episode of the week” stories.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I’ll give this one a shot next time I’m ready for some ToS.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/11 16:59:41


Post by: warboss


They really tried (and succeeded) in replicating the TOS feel of episodes in both the acting, sets, and effects. Neither New Voyages nor Continues are a modern day version of TOS but instead a loving homage to it.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/11 23:43:39


Post by: Matt Swain


Speaking of babylon 5 and trek, one thing i hated about b5 was the way its fans seemed to need to gak on trek and trek fans during the early days of the net and BBSs.

Now i can like b5 as an example of what a series can be when one talented and creative man has a vision and is able to keep a legion of 'audience experts', marketing analysists" and other empty soulless suits from coming in and 'improving' things.



Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/12 07:24:23


Post by: aphyon


 Matt Swain wrote:
Speaking of babylon 5 and trek, one thing i hated about b5 was the way its fans seemed to need to gak on trek and trek fans during the early days of the net and BBSs.

Now i can like b5 as an example of what a series can be when one talented and creative man has a vision and is able to keep a legion of 'audience experts', marketing analysists" and other empty soulless suits from coming in and 'improving' things.




Well that is true of any fandom, back in the 90s the "big 3" were trek, wars and B5. and fans compared them (and still do) by various standards-tech, FTL speeds, firepower, resources etc...it was a good bit of fun with fans gravitating towards one show or another. as more of a newtonian physics guy and a realist about human nature/history i was more drawn to B5 than i was to the technobabel and utopian future of post kirk trek. that doesn't mean i didn't enjoy the various universes.

But a good fan crossover video like those on the old spacebattles forums or the fine parody "star wreck in the perkining" (an early fan film by the creator of iron sky) are always fun to see (both are available on youtube now)


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/12 15:27:48


Post by: Compel


Meanwhile I was in the corner chanting 'Shel Kek Nem Ron!'


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/12 15:38:04


Post by: Overread


I never got to enjoy B5 growing up - it was always on Channel 4 which by and large was so erratic with reception for us it basically wasn't there or worth watching most of the time (and when Channel 5 appeared it didn't even exist).

But that's what you get when you put your Tv aerial up a pear tree


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/12 16:02:20


Post by: aphyon


Well it was on PTEN (prime time entertainment network) a loose coalition of independent stations and networks. so there was no set time slot, you just had to get lucky and catch it when you could. even so it was such a great show it grew to rival the big kids even with the handicaps.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/16 14:51:07


Post by: zedmeister


tneva82 wrote:
For crusade it annoyingly stopped before it got good. If you haven't read the written scripts for future episodes that didn't get filmed yet well worth it. For here again worth keeping mind crusade wasn't about the plague. That would have been solved early 2nd season. It was going to be about earth black operations with shadow technology(and even that might not be the ultimate arc). Plague was crusade's "sinclair & his battle of the line mystery". Kickstart show for the real event.


Yeah, ending crusade early was a bummer. When the apocalypse box appeared, you knew that shadow and vorlon remnants were going to start to feature and mess things up. Pity...


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/16 18:49:15


Post by: aphyon


That unfortunately is what happens when a network tries to tell JMS how to run his show. he packs up his toys and goes home.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/21 13:26:08


Post by: warboss


Some b5 recent uploads popped up on my YouTube recommended feed last night and I plunged deep into the jumpgate. There is a definite and immediately increase in both the quality of the live action and crispness of the CGI. It best reminds me of a 720p HD video with some added film grain which is a huge improvement over the substandard blurry sooner and dropped crap that previously was available. After about a dozen clips covering various plot twists last night, I really didn't remember just how much of a soap opera the show really was!


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/21 13:42:14


Post by: Shadow Walker


 Matt Swain wrote:


I consider the star trek axenar preview to be a better trek films than all 3 of the JJA abominations combined.


Agreed 100%. Axanar is much better than any new and official release, including Picard (which I liked except the last episode).

As to Babylon 5, it is my second favourite s-f show (after ST:TNG), and I would really like to see something new in that universe, as long as it stays true to the franchise (so there are no ugly surprises like trek had with mentioned above JJA abominations, which I call his SW demos, or Discovery, which I call a DIS(aster)).


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/22 18:38:38


Post by: tneva82


 aphyon wrote:
That unfortunately is what happens when a network tries to tell JMS how to run his show. he packs up his toys and goes home.


Uuh order to stop came from above.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/22 19:22:37


Post by: chaos0xomega


Unfortunately it seems any reboot or new development of B5 works is unlikely to ever happen. Per JMS, Time Warner owns the TV rights and some adjacent licensing rights, while JMS has the film rights. According to him, TW has no intention of doing anything with the license/IP, nor allowing anyone else to do so (i.e. they won't sell the rights), and even though he could *in theory* produce a B5 film, no producer or distributor wants to even discuss it with him unless they can also get the tv/other media rights as part of the deal.

Kinda makes you wonder why he doesn't just create a new IP with a similar premise, maybe call it, I dunno, like Hammurabi 7 or something, and have fun with it.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/22 20:04:12


Post by: warboss


Well, that sucks. Plenty of expensive films with no immediate TV rights/spinoff plans or significant merchandising potential (get your Irishman action figures and PS5 game here!) get made every year but admittedly the "potential" for cross media spin offs is technically there. I wonder why they won't sell of the rights; maybe they're just asking for too much for a frankly dead for decades franchise? Honestly, I don't see B5 ever being profitable on an MCU style budget but I think it would have been a great Expanse style/quality movie. YMMV.

At this point, personally, though.. I'd prefer a BSG reboot rather than a continuation of the original. I realize that may be a heretical hot take but it's just been too many years to pick up where the previous left off without a century long TNG style time jump that would preclude all the previous characters/actors from guest staring (not too difficult since seemingly half of them have prematurely passed away with some sort of Space Mummy's Curse unfortunately).


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/22 20:10:18


Post by: Compel


I think it's a case of a combination of 'too expensive to make something for the audience' but also 'this could potentially be successful, so we don't want anyone else to do it.'

So it gets locked in limbo.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/22 20:57:42


Post by: chaos0xomega


Theres apparently some internal politicking involved from what I gathered, apparently B5 was headed by a now-defunct studio or subsidiary or whatever within Warner Brothers or Time Warner or whoever it is and there is some bad blood between the people involved with that organization and the current execs and senior leadership of Warner Bros or whoever, so they are intentionally trying to bury any trace of anything that the other group had ever touched or some gak. As far as why they won't sell, JMS said it would "embarrass" them if they sold it and the property did well with another studio.

At least thats the story JMS is selling, in truth I suspect that the real reason is that theres bad blood between the WB/TW/whichever company execs and JMS directly (or maybe its the fact that Babylon 5/Crusade was massively unprofitable and WB don't feel like it could ever be a winner given its past history). With one exception (where he was hired directly by the films producers, who are his personal friends, at the very last possible minute to rewrite a script within 3 days), he hasn't worked on anything film/tv wise that WB has been involved in that I could find since B5/Crusade ended, other than that his only involvement with the organization has been via DC Comics which might be sufficiently far removed from whatever execs he has pissed off that it didn't come into play. He also seemed to have trouble getting film/tv work for a period of time after B5/Crusade ended which may have been the result of an industry blacklist or something resulting from an undiscussed falling out he had with the studio.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/22 21:21:31


Post by: warboss


I suppose I'm partly to minisculely blame for everything post season 4 as I mostly didn't tune. I watched the final season of the show proper (although possibly in part with reruns) but the films/show after that I probably skipped half of them during their initial runs. And I haven't tuned back in in any meaningful way since. This thread is probably the most time I've devoted to b5 over the past 15+ years other than a single demo at gencon of the ACTA game.

Still, it's sad to hear that the all to common combo of mean girls and greed might prevent a real return of the IP.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/23 08:54:03


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


Chaos0xomega, was that one exception the Marvel Movie Thor?


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/23 11:18:01


Post by: kodos


I have to say I am glad that something like a reboot is not happening

I am not very happy with most things that come out of Hollywood these days and most remakes are usually just copies to please fans without doing justice to the show

so seeing it once is ok, but not something you watch several times or want to watch twice to get all the foreshadowing

same with Buffy, I rather watch the original show again than a reboot were people think that new special effects will make up for bad writing/acting


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/23 12:49:25


Post by: chaos0xomega


 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Chaos0xomega, was that one exception the Marvel Movie Thor?

No, Thor had nothing to do with WB. It was a Wachowskis film by the name of Ninja Assassin.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/23 12:55:35


Post by: Overread


The problem with reboots and remakes and all that is that they very often aren't interested in telling the original story and want to tell their own.

Sometimes this is because the original story was never shown, it got cut up, sliced up and changed in the original production.
Sometimes its because someone has a load of theories on what does and doesn't generate money and attract audiences. So suddenly a tale without any romance gets an elf falling in love with a dwarf over a few scant lines of poetry.
Sometimes its because the person in charge wants to make their own thing, but can't get funding so they "steal" another show for a reboot/remake and then change as much as they can to try and tell their own story they wanted to tell (eg the recent The Watch Tv show from BBC USA which is not the Discworld story nor characters in the least).


This is before we even get to the issue of too many chiefs where you've got investors, actors, producers, directors and more all wanting to make changes. Actors that don't want to be typecast or do certain scenes or roles; directors who want their own vision; the writer*; investors who want certain elements included from the check-list to ensure full "market penetration" etc....


Now these are all things new productions also have to suffer as well. Indeed one of my examples above is from a new production (or at least new for live action - The Hobbit); where the adaptation from the original is from a book. Book adaptations sometimes get away with it more because the book isn't often heavily advertised. Indeed sometimes its quite a surprise to learn that there's things like a book behind Jurassic Park and such (which honestly has got to be rather painful for the author who's work was adapted).



So yeah remakes/reboots can be a minefield of issues.


*who from what I can tell might often do a good job of adapting, but often are the smallest in the set and get overruled all the time


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/23 13:17:13


Post by: kodos


there is a difference between re-imagine a story or making a film from a book and a reboot/remake of an original movie/tv show

who many movies and mini series are made from the Odyssey
some have a different focus on the story, and others want to make it just an original with better effects

but we have not seen a straight 1:1 reboot of the 1954 Ulysses movie and it would make no sense to do one

for Ben Hur there are 6 movies based on the book with only 1 being really successfull

another TV Show or movie inside the B5 universe, something about the Rangers, Mimbari War, or taking on Valen and doing a show about the Shadow War could work well
but doing a reboot of B5 will fail from the start


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/23 13:31:05


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


The only thing B5 needs are new effects.

Even when it was released, they weren’t as good as Star Trek, who were still based in model work.

The pure CGI approach was innovative, sure. And the originals should always remain. But because of how quickly that art advanced, they looked tired super quickly.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/23 15:07:09


Post by: chaos0xomega


B5 absolutely needs a reboot, it remains a relatively obscure scifi franchise with basically zero name recognition outside of its relatively small cult following. A prequel/sequel film or tv series would fail on launch because "this is a story in a 20 year old setting that most of you have never engaged with and probably are only vaguely aware of it having existed" is not a particularly strong selling point when your goal is to make money - and thats the *only* goal for Hollywood when they decide to fund development of a tv series or a film.

The fact of the matter is that the target audience for any future development on the franchise at this point is *not* targeted towards the established B5 fanbase - theres no money to be made there, because it was never a particularly large population of people to begin with. The goal is to appeal to "the masses", the large swathes of consumers who by and large don't know what B5 or the Minbari War or the Shadow War are, who the Rangers or Valen are, etc. but are ready to hand over their money if you can hook them in with a dramatic plot that features some complex narrative twists and some deep-seeded mysteries for them to unravel wrapped up with stunning set and costume design and impressive visual effects.

Could you tell that sort of a story about the Rangers, or the Earth-Minbari War, or the Shadow War, Valen, or what-have-you? Sure, but its a much steeper mountain to climb for B5 than it would be if we were talking 'Trek or 'Wars which have spent decades in the public conscious and as a result have widespread name recognition coupled, large semi-dedicated fanbases, and a far-reaching casual viewership at least passively familiar with certain basic concepts of the story and setting.

Most normies knew, vaguely, that Boba Fett was a Mandalorian and that had something to do with his helmet or armor, even if they couldn't quite explain to you what a Mandalorian is.

Most normies know Jean-Luc Picard was a starfleet officer of some sort and could probably tell you he was the captain of the Enterprise, even if they couldn't tell you *which* Enterprise or what stardates he commanded, or what he did as a captain.

What do most normies know about B5? Well, they know it was a space station, probably, and thats basically the extent of it. Shadows - What are those? Valen - Who? Rangers - You mean the hockey team from New York, or is it more like Walker, Texas Ranger? Minbari - Never heard of them.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/23 15:16:51


Post by: kodos


so we should never make anything new because if the "normies" have no previous knowledge that there is already something behind, it cannot work


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/23 15:34:59


Post by: warboss


 kodos wrote:
so we should never make anything new because if the "normies" have no previous knowledge that there is already something behind, it cannot work


You're not advocating making something completely new; in your last post, you referred to spin offs based on the existing show.

 kodos wrote:


another TV Show or movie inside the B5 universe, something about the Rangers, Mimbari War, or taking on Valen and doing a show about the Shadow War could work well
but doing a reboot of B5 will fail from the start


A spin-off that doesn't significantly time jump that must adhere to established asthetics and canon isn't arguably any more "new" that a reboot that uses the original names and overall general plot/themes but rewrites the rest of the 95%. It's totally fine if you like/want a spin-off but I don't believe "newness" is the key difference. I haven't seen anyone in the thread advocating for a modern retelling (i.e. Shakespeare style) with the same scripts and plots as the original run with new actors/props/cgi but rather (at least in my case) a BSG style reboot. I much prefer the 2004ish reboot to the 1980 spin-off or Richard Hatch's attempted 2000ish spin-off/continuation proposal. Ymmv.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 kodos wrote:


I am not very happy with most things that come out of Hollywood these days and most remakes are usually just copies to please fans without doing justice to the show


I agree with the first part but not the second. It feels like most rebooted things out of Hollywood place current year ideology (not the same as actual morality and/or a message) over story and real character development and frequently are done to spite the existing classic fan base preemptively deemed "toxic". The end result is the same with it not doing justice to the show. That doesn't mean it can't happen though but rather just makes a good reboot that scratches the classic itch while still being new enough to expand the fanbase beyond the core less likely.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/23 15:45:42


Post by: kodos


you said a spin-off cannot work if the normies to not know the original show and background

yet there are several spin-offs around that are much more popular than the original show and/or no one really knows something about the main show

even in a bigger franchise, people can watch Deep Space Nine without ever seeing anything else from Star Trek before and don't need to know who Kirk or Picard was to understand the show


and the BSG style reboot is a good example, they wanted to make BSG again with good effects but did not really have an idea what else they should do with the show

if they make this thing with B5, missing the points of the original and don't know what story to tell outside "but it looks nice", it won't work out well


so, yes you can make something new that is using the B5 universe, it would not matter for those who don't know anything about it but a new SciFi show as long as the plot does not need you to know the original one

stories about Rangers or Valen, nice to know where they came from, but needed for the "normies"


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/23 15:46:22


Post by: warboss


 Overread wrote:
The problem with reboots and remakes and all that is that they very often aren't interested in telling the original story and want to tell their own.

.....

So yeah remakes/reboots can be a minefield of issues.



Wouldn't that be expected/intrinsic to the terms reboot and remake? I'm not sure what an entirely faithful modern version of a classic is called... A retelling? Regarless, I totally agree with the last part.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 kodos wrote:
you said a spin-off cannot work if the normies to not know the original show and background


I think you're confusing me with someone else. I don't believe I said that; I do however think having a popular original show vastly increases the success of a spin-off compared with a spin-off of an unpopular show. At least in geek fandom, I can't think of an example of an unpopular or cult hit show that had a mainstream successful spinoff though I'd love to hear examples otherwise (No sarcasm... It's great geek trivia).


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/23 16:15:58


Post by: kodos


 warboss wrote:

 kodos wrote:
you said a spin-off cannot work if the normies to not know the original show and background


I think you're confusing me with someone else. I don't believe I said that; I do however think having a popular original show vastly increases the success of a spin-off compared with a spin-off of an unpopular show. At least in geek fandom, I can't think of an example of an unpopular or cult hit show that had a mainstream successful spinoff though I'd love to hear examples otherwise (No sarcasm... It's great geek trivia).


yes, sorry was thinking about the previous post made by someone else while writing it

and the first shows that come to my mind would be J.A.G. with Navy CIS as its spin-off
another one would be Family Matters as spin-off from Perfect Strangers (and at least here no one really knowed anything about Perfect Strangers)

while those shows might not be that "unpopular" (depends on region though as B5 was also much popular here were those 2 shows were not), the spin-off was much more popular


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/23 16:26:15


Post by: warboss


 kodos wrote:


and the BSG style reboot is a good example, they wanted to make BSG again with good effects but did not really have an idea what else they should do with the show

if they make this thing with B5, missing the points of the original and don't know what story to tell outside "but it looks nice", it won't work out well



You really think they had no idea where they were going or what they wanted to do with the BSG reboot other than just good effects? I couldn't disagree more as I think the show was very well planned and consistently executed as a sci fi action grim space opera for the first 3.5 seasons roughly. Admittedly they forgot the action sci-fi part for most of the last season and a half (or at best purposefully substituted in/ramped up the spirituality for it) but I didn't get the feeling that they were just throwing everything at the wall to see what might stick ala Star Trek Discovery.

I think a modern looking hopeful during times of war B5 that has the same main factions and characters and well as the same main storybeats (Earth minbari war, b5's purpose, Narn Centauri confluct, shadows awakening and relationship with the Vorlons, etc) could work with plenty of room to put their own twist to it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 kodos wrote:
yes, sorry was thinking about the previous post made by someone else while writing it

and the first shows that come to my mind would be J.A.G. with Navy CIS as its spin-off
another one would be Family Matters as spin-off from Perfect Strangers (and at least here no one really knowed anything about Perfect Strangers)

while those shows might not be that "unpopular" (depends on region though as B5 was also much popular here were those 2 shows were not), the spin-off was much more popular


No worries as I figured that was likely the case. You do bring up an interesting point in that some subjective differences in popularity may be regional. I watched and enjoyed as a child and young adult (respectively) Perfect Strangers and JAG and both were popular enough to last multiple seasons as well as both of the spin offs you mentioned. I didn't know Family Matters was a spin off of Perfect Strangers but here it too was also more popular at least in my area of the US at the time (though the original was still very popular as well). Same with JAG and CIS (both that I didn't know it was a spin off and that the latter show was longer lasting and more popular overall). I think those two are examples of popular shows in their intended original marketplace (the US) having more popular spin offs rather than the originals being unpopular but admittedly my own enjoyment at watching them all might be influencing that opinion as I haven't actually looked at the old ratings.

Just a footnote, I still make "Don't be ridiculous" jokes with the cousin that I lived with while watching Perfect Strangers as a kid including at least once so far in 2021.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/23 16:44:20


Post by: kodos


Family Matters was the one popular sitcome everyone aired by its time
Perfect Strangers hardly anyone had seen it before

JAG while I have seen it and liked it, was more like a niche late afternoon show while NCIS the primetime show of many channels

@BSG
well, they had no real idea what "the plan" should have been right from the beginning but just used it to get the show going

the idea from the original, war with machines, odyssy thru space with some mysteries along the way, and finally reach earth and than add the "looks good" factor

that the show was seen as iniovative by that time as making a SciFi show for adults (were only kids watch such stuff) with a "complex" plot made it popular in the US
here it was not really seen as something new or innovative while still being popular as SciFi (and still most people who watched it knew about the classic show as well and compared it)

I think it is really something regional and a big difference in US and EU


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/23 17:00:45


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


chaos0xomega wrote:
 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Chaos0xomega, was that one exception the Marvel Movie Thor?

No, Thor had nothing to do with WB. It was a Wachowskis film by the name of Ninja Assassin.


Straczynski has a story credit and a cameo in Thor, so I thought that must be the one thing you said he had done without WB patronage since B5 ended.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The reboot BSG really only “works” because the original didn’t hold up. And by works, I mean the first two seasons were good, then the show nBSGed the bed. Like Lost, the problem was precisely that the writers didn’t know where the story was going and were, in fact, seeing what sticks.

Also lol that nBSG is Sci fi for adults.


If there need to be reboots, I’d prefer they messed around with shows that weren’t so well executed, like oBSG. There would be a lot less backlash for a mediocre reboot of Buck Rogers or V than for a mediocre reboot of Babylon 5. There’s also more room to expand the themes and more.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/23 17:31:41


Post by: chaos0xomega


so we should never make anything new because if the "normies" have no previous knowledge that there is already something behind, it cannot work


Thats an incredible logical somersault that you took there. You're still able to make new stuff, but you have to acknowledge when you're dealing wiht a property 20+ years stagnant you have to retread some common ground first, i.e. take one step back to take two steps forward. Besides that, I would argue that spinoffs aren't exactly the definition of "making something new".

you said a spin-off cannot work if the normies to not know the original show and background

yet there are several spin-offs around that are much more popular than the original show and/or no one really knows something about the main show

even in a bigger franchise, people can watch Deep Space Nine without ever seeing anything else from Star Trek before and don't need to know who Kirk or Picard was to understand the show


Are you trying to prove my point for me? Deep Space Nine was on the air concurrently with 2 other Star Trek series (The Next Generation and Voyager), one of which had been on the air for about 5 years before Deep Space Nine launched, and about 3-4 films that had come out in the 5 years leading up to Deep Space Nines release, not to mention a number of comics, novels, video games, and other pop culture staples. Deep Space Nine was as current as current could possibly be, audiences knew what Star Trek was, they knew who the characters were, and it was easy to step into a spinoff in that context, even if you had never actually watched Star Trek before - because it was societally relevant and highly pervasive.

Babylon 5 has been off the air since 1998, there have been precisely zero books, comics, video games, or any other form of media dealing with the setting released in almost 20 years (the last novel came out in 2002). Aside from that, the only B5 related content published was a handful of rpg sourcebooks and miniatures game rulebooks (i.e. nothing relevant - even most hardcore B5 fans probably never touched them), all of which went out of publication 13 years ago. Even watching reruns of the show has been difficult for the past 20+ years, if not impossible. For the most part it hasn't been syndicated or aired on regular reruns anywhere, for a number of years it was streaming *nowhere*, and for a while VHS/DVD options were non-existent or out of print. B5 has virtually zero market penetration, this remastered release is the most visible and accessible that the series has received in decades and its not immediately clear that its making inroads with anyone who wasn't already a fan of the series, in part because its paywalled on Amazon/iTunes and only available for on-demand streaming on HBO Max which is still a fairly small streaming service (literally 1/5th the size of Netflix). It has a very steep hill to climb before its in "yeah, theres an audience for this" territory needed to justify not rebooting the franchise - and even then it would be hard to do spinoffs when most of the actors are dead and the production assets are nonexistent. Chalk up a few more points to the "reboot" category.

Thats not the environment you launch a spinoff in, thats the environment you do a full reboot in.

and the BSG style reboot is a good example, they wanted to make BSG again with good effects but did not really have an idea what else they should do with the show

if they make this thing with B5, missing the points of the original and don't know what story to tell outside "but it looks nice", it won't work out well


The BSG reboot is the perfect example of why to do a reboot - it was massively successful and extremely popular. It earned critical acclaim everywhere, won countless awards, launched several actors careers, launched a number of spinoff series, comics, and books, and in general made the producers quite a nice little sum of money (contrast to B5 which only really ever lost money), likewise based on a show that had disappeared from the general cultural awareness about 20-25 years prior.

Now, *you* may not have enjoyed the BSG reboot - but you evidently were not the audience for it. Myself, personally, I loved it - I was only vaguely aware of the original existing, likewise for many of my friends, etc. Younger audiences born in the 80s and 90s have absolutely eaten Moore's BSG reboot up, and by and large most of us don't seem to care very much for the original and have never watched it. 100% honest, I would not have bothered with the show at all if it was a spinoff or continuation of the original, it simply did not appeal to me when I eventually did try to watch it, it was too dated and old.

and the first shows that come to my mind would be J.A.G. with Navy CIS as its spin-off
another one would be Family Matters as spin-off from Perfect Strangers (and at least here no one really knowed anything about Perfect Strangers)


Again, making my point for me. JAG TV Series: 1995-2005. NCIS? 2003 - Present. The shows overlapped, JAG was still popular when NCIS was launched.
Perfect Strangers: 1986-1993. Family Matters? 1989 - 1998. Again, the shows overlapped. There was an awareness and familairity with the subject material.

Babylon 5? 1993-1998. Its 2021 bro, even if they started today a B5 spinoff wouldn't be out before 2023-2024 at the earliest. A 25 year gap with zero content, no books, comics, spinoff shows, movies, etc. Its effectively a dead franchise. This is where you do a reboot. This is not comparable, even remotely, to DS9, NCIS, or Family Matters.

Straczynski has a story credit and a cameo in Thor, so I thought that must be the one thing you said he had done without WB patronage since B5 ended.


No you got it backwards, he's only worked on non-WB related projects with one exception (Ninja Assassin), i.e. hes only worked with WB once since B5 ended.



Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/23 17:55:26


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


Ah, I misunderstood your point earlier.

Also, Babylon 5 had a straight-to-DVD movie with more modern special effects in 2007.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/23 18:17:46


Post by: kodos


chaos0xomega wrote:

Now, *you* may not have enjoyed the BSG reboot - but you evidently were not the audience for it. Myself, personally, I loved it - I was only vaguely aware of the original existing, likewise for many of my friends, etc. Younger audiences born in the 80s and 90s have absolutely eaten Moore's BSG reboot up, and by and large most of us don't seem to care very much for the original and have never watched it.

maybe were you are around, but kids of the 80s and 90s here were well aware of the orginal BSG, because it was one of the SciFi shows that aired during the "kids time" on the weekend (together with Star Trek TOS)
I guess the US had their Saturday Cartoons, kids here got their share of classic SciFi, so most of the target audiance for the reboot had seen BSG as kid


chaos0xomega wrote:

Thats not the environment you launch a spinoff in, thats the environment you do a full reboot in.

only if you assume that a connection is needed to see the show
as I said, JAG had a very different target here and nearly none of those who regulary watch NCIS now even know that the shows are connected or have seen it before

so how could NCIS, as a show set in the same Universe, within the same organisation, having some cameos and connections, work well if none has seen the original (for an audiance that basically just new that the US has a Navy and not more background information)

I don't if the are regular reruns of B5 in the US, but in German TV there is always at least 1 channel showing it
so even in 2021 people watch B5 on TV


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/23 18:34:33


Post by: warboss


 kodos wrote:

I don't if the are regular reruns of B5 in the US, but in German TV there is always at least 1 channel showing it
so even in 2021 people watch B5 on TV


I haven't seen it on TV in decades in the US and it wasn't even on any popular streaming sites for many years. For a while, it seemed to exclusively be on a new streaming platform that I had never heard of run by a cellular phone company (go90 by Verizon). Finally two years ago, it made an appearance for about a year on Amazon Prime but soon left (obviously to premiere now on HBO Max which is owned by the corporate comglomerate that also owns Warner who made the show); I only watched a few episodes but the substandard quality of the video stream turned me off to a complete watch. I can't speak about the availability of the DVDs but their relatively poor quality in this region combined with the complete lack of anything official in any form of HD didn't help either.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/23 19:47:40


Post by: chaos0xomega


 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Ah, I misunderstood your point earlier.

Also, Babylon 5 had a straight-to-DVD movie with more modern special effects in 2007.


They did? The last movie I know of was released was in 2002, The Legend of the Rangers.

I don't if the are regular reruns of B5 in the US, but in German TV there is always at least 1 channel showing it
so even in 2021 people watch B5 on TV


That would be news to me, as JMS and others within the B5 fan community that document this sort of stuff seem to be wholly unaware of the existence of broadcast reruns of the show on any network in any country.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/23 19:50:26


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


Babylon 5 Lost Tales.


It was better than Legend of the Rangers...kind of.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/23 20:49:27


Post by: warboss


I'm enjoying the resurgence of B5 talk. Out of curiosity, is anyone posting here under the age of the show? i.e. <28 years old?

Also, which show is the more underrated and forgotten... B5 or Seaquest DSV? I think the later is more forgotten but the former is more underrated.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
edit: Oh wow.. it appears that the show is almost exactly 28 years old according to the wiki as the pilot film premiered on Feb 22nd. Happy belated birthday, B5!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/23 20:58:00


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


Seaquest, Andromeda and Space: Above and Beyond are all pretty forgotten. I would need to rewatch them, but I feel like they would not hold up, so probably not underrated.

The writing for that dolphin was absolute garbage.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/23 21:04:37


Post by: warboss


 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Seaquest, Andromeda and Space: Above and Beyond are all pretty forgotten. I would need to rewatch them, but I feel like they would not hold up, so probably not underrated.

The writing for that dolphin was absolute garbage.


Yeah, it was incomprehensible at times!

I think it's probably best that Space Hercules is mostly forgotten; it was barely adequate by the standards of its day similar to that Earth Final Conflict show. Still, it didn't stop me from watching both on Saturdays instead of studying and both did have the occasional good moment. I did like the design of the Andromeda ship though... Space Above and Beyond was a better show iirc but had a flawed basic premise that I just couldn't overlook; there is no way a semi-realistic military would spend the likely hundreds of millions of dollars each to train and outfit squadrons of elite space fighter pilots only to have them constantly land their expensive craft and hoof it as infantry grunts to accomplish missions.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/23 21:11:58


Post by: Voss


 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Seaquest, Andromeda and Space: Above and Beyond are all pretty forgotten. I would need to rewatch them, but I feel like they would not hold up, so probably not underrated.

The writing for that dolphin was absolute garbage.

'Gene Roddenberry's' Andromeda? It was on Amazon Prime a while back when I had a free trial. I managed... 2 or 3 episodes before giving up. It was just a terrible mess at basically every level- story, characters, effects, setting, nonsense takes on philosophy. The whole thing.

When it originally aired, I think I watched the pilot episode and not much else. And I vaguely remember the later seasons when they were in some bubble reality or something? When it shifted to the Sci-fi channel and amazingly became even worse. [Well, amazing that the show could get worse, not that something moved to Sci-fi and got worse]

The truly baffling thing is it won a fairly big pile of awards at that time, which makes me wonder about how few shows there were and/or how terrible the various award processes are.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/23 21:46:55


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


I’ll always have a soft spot for Amdromeda as it appeared in internet spacebattle culture. “200gt/s pwnzors ur mom!”


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/24 06:39:58


Post by: kodos


Space Hercules had the problem that the original main plot was seen as too complex after the first season and the show was changed from a more serious scifi story to really being Space Hercules (and this they delivered very well)

chaos0xomega wrote:

That would be news to me, as JMS and others within the B5 fan community that document this sort of stuff seem to be wholly unaware of the existence of broadcast reruns of the show on any network in any country.

German Tele5 is currently in season 5
not sure but think in France the last rerun was 2013 or 2015


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/24 08:07:14


Post by: Jadenim


I think the aforementioned issues with format, lack of masters, etc. put TV stations off of reruns. Ironically/annoyingly if they had made the full widescreen version originally, it probably would have been one of the first things to be rerun when HD services first rolled out, as they would have been looking for anything that would justify the increased resolution.

I bought Space: Above and Beyond a few years ago purely for nostalgia value, but it actually holds up remarkably well, much better than I was expecting.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/24 13:34:21


Post by: chaos0xomega


What the hell is Space Hercules?


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/24 13:40:06


Post by: Hoitash


chaos0xomega wrote:
What the hell is Space Hercules?


Kevin Sorbo started getting more and more creative control over Andromeda, much to the shows detriment according to certain circles. Hence the nickname.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/24 14:15:13


Post by: warboss


chaos0xomega wrote:
What the hell is Space Hercules?


It's a slightly playful to derisive name for the Andromeda syndicated series with Kevin Sorbo from the early 2000's. I use it personally in a more playful/sarcastic sense as I did actually watch the show and enjoy it to some degree despite its many faults during the initial run.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda_(TV_series)


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/24 17:39:50


Post by: chaos0xomega


Ah, gotcha. Never really watched Andromeda, wasn't aware.

EDIT - I hate Kevin Sorbo, but this show sounds awesome.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/24 17:54:11


Post by: Overread


Andromeda was good fun, got a bit odd/funky at some stage, but then I'd fallen out of watching it and there's a few bit twists as it goes on. It's certainly trying well, but you can tell they don't have Jim Hendson when you compare the puppet and model quality to the likes of, say, Farescape. But its a good clean bit of fantasy fun in space.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/24 18:34:36


Post by: AduroT


Andromeda as a series has the premise of the latest season of Discovery. Federation (I forget what it was called in Andromeda) ship sent to the future where the federation no longer really exists, and the crew works to reestablish it and it’s ideals. I enjoyed it back in the day. Earth: Final Conflict was another oldie I liked from around that time.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/24 19:44:44


Post by: gorgon


chaos0xomega wrote:

The BSG reboot is the perfect example of why to do a reboot - it was massively successful and extremely popular. It earned critical acclaim everywhere, won countless awards, launched several actors careers, launched a number of spinoff series, comics, and books, and in general made the producers quite a nice little sum of money (contrast to B5 which only really ever lost money), likewise based on a show that had disappeared from the general cultural awareness about 20-25 years prior.

Now, *you* may not have enjoyed the BSG reboot - but you evidently were not the audience for it. Myself, personally, I loved it - I was only vaguely aware of the original existing, likewise for many of my friends, etc. Younger audiences born in the 80s and 90s have absolutely eaten Moore's BSG reboot up, and by and large most of us don't seem to care very much for the original and have never watched it. 100% honest, I would not have bothered with the show at all if it was a spinoff or continuation of the original, it simply did not appeal to me when I eventually did try to watch it, it was too dated and old.


This.

The creators knew *exactly* what they wanted from the show...maybe it didn't resonate as well outside the US because a lot of the themes involved reflected what the country was going through post-9/11. (Then again, you're watching an American TV show. So...sorry, not sorry?) Just because they didn't plan out every season -- and this aspect of B5 is wildly overrated, BTW -- doesn't mean they didn't have vision.

Also, I watched the original as a kid and loved every second. Saw episodes again on the SciFi channel many years later and was absolutely shocked at how bad they were. Recycled plots, painful scripts...so much bad acting. It was a far better show conceptually than in actuality.



Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/24 20:48:21


Post by: chaos0xomega


 gorgon wrote:
and this aspect of B5 is wildly overrated, BTW



Yep, its not even entirely true. I mean, sure JMS planned out the plot from the beginning, but between a number of cast departures and changes, having seasons canceled and then restarted midway through filming at least once, studio interference mandating changes to the plot and story, etc. the end product deviates pretty dramatically from what he originally planned in quite a few ways.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/24 20:53:55


Post by: Overread


chaos0xomega wrote:
 gorgon wrote:
and this aspect of B5 is wildly overrated, BTW



Yep, its not even entirely true. I mean, sure JMS planned out the plot from the beginning, but between a number of cast departures and changes, having seasons cancelled and then restarted midway through filming at least once, studio interference mandating changes to the plot and story, etc. the end product deviates pretty dramatically from what he originally planned in quite a few ways.


The key is that at the time a lot of TV series and almost all sci-fi were based around the repeat event of the week formula. Star Trek Original Series was Alien of the week with no interconnecting elements and very limited character growth. Many many others were the same. B5 did have alien of the week themes, but there was a huge amount of interconnected elements going on through its whole series. The idea that predictions and story events setup in the very first episodes would not be resolved until the final seasons was groundbreaking for its time. Plus they were handles that were intended to be developed and thus received proper support throughout. Eg the prediction that he'd become Emperor wasn't just a throw away line in one episode; it was a key part of his characters plot that was brought up many times and developed, adjusted through the time.

Yes things changed; heck a massive change was losing the lead actor who was pinned as a major cornerstone of the series story. But the story was worked around those changes and eventualities. The reality changed the end goals somewhat, but the fact was the end goals were part of the story structure.

We honestly don't start to see story telling like that in TV again for a very long time. Even many modern series still go for the repetitive theme of the week. Drop into NCIS adn barring actor changes through the years you can pretty much get up to speed in the first few moments unless its the first or last episodes of a season. Even when characters change the "role" is filled by another. If the Director dies there's a new Director etc...



Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/25 12:45:13


Post by: AndrewGPaul


Fifteen quid extra and I can only get series 1? Nah, I’ll keep watching the DVDs. The CGI isn’t as distracting as the 90s fashion anyway.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/25 13:08:43


Post by: warboss


 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Fifteen quid extra and I can only get series 1? Nah, I’ll keep watching the DVDs. The CGI isn’t as distracting as the 90s fashion anyway.


You take that back right now or I'll shoulder pad check you with my oversized double breasted jacket!


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/25 15:43:28


Post by: gorgon


 Overread wrote:
chaos0xomega wrote:
 gorgon wrote:
and this aspect of B5 is wildly overrated, BTW



Yep, its not even entirely true. I mean, sure JMS planned out the plot from the beginning, but between a number of cast departures and changes, having seasons cancelled and then restarted midway through filming at least once, studio interference mandating changes to the plot and story, etc. the end product deviates pretty dramatically from what he originally planned in quite a few ways.


The key is that at the time a lot of TV series and almost all sci-fi were based around the repeat event of the week formula. Star Trek Original Series was Alien of the week with no interconnecting elements and very limited character growth. Many many others were the same. B5 did have alien of the week themes, but there was a huge amount of interconnected elements going on through its whole series. The idea that predictions and story events setup in the very first episodes would not be resolved until the final seasons was groundbreaking for its time. Plus they were handles that were intended to be developed and thus received proper support throughout. Eg the prediction that he'd become Emperor wasn't just a throw away line in one episode; it was a key part of his characters plot that was brought up many times and developed, adjusted through the time.

Yes things changed; heck a massive change was losing the lead actor who was pinned as a major cornerstone of the series story. But the story was worked around those changes and eventualities. The reality changed the end goals somewhat, but the fact was the end goals were part of the story structure.

We honestly don't start to see story telling like that in TV again for a very long time. Even many modern series still go for the repetitive theme of the week. Drop into NCIS adn barring actor changes through the years you can pretty much get up to speed in the first few moments unless its the first or last episodes of a season. Even when characters change the "role" is filled by another. If the Director dies there's a new Director etc...


Eh, you're just talking about series vs. serials. Serial storytelling has been around for decades. Hell, Flash Gordon in the '30s/'40s. Sure, film vs. TV...but it's still not nearly as groundbreaking as JMS devotees claim. See also basically every soap opera ever made. B5 has a LOT of soap opera elements.



Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/02/25 15:59:10


Post by: warboss


True. But I think it's understood that we're referring to sci-fi tv shows when we laud the show for paving the way rather than ignoring linked short films played in a depression era theater or a historical documentaries series about a war for example. I agree though on the soap opera influences.

Had anyone seen b5 fan films btw? I did a quick search and only found a few CGI space battle scenes.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/03/01 22:48:35


Post by: Backfire


 gorgon wrote:

Eh, you're just talking about series vs. serials. Serial storytelling has been around for decades. Hell, Flash Gordon in the '30s/'40s. Sure, film vs. TV...but it's still not nearly as groundbreaking as JMS devotees claim. See also basically every soap opera ever made. B5 has a LOT of soap opera elements.


I feel this is not very accurate description of what B5 brought to the table, however. Serial storytelling as such was not unique in TV shows as you said, not even adventure/scifi shows (original BSG was pretty serial, for example, and TNG had some elements too). What B5 had as Tolkienesque attention to details and depth of the story and universe building which was unmatched in previous attempts, because it was not really seen necessary. TV shows were throwaway entertainment where viewers were happy to see engaging characters, some nice dialogue and cool special effects and scenes. Plots and mythologies were just an excuse to provide these things. With B5 they took the center stage and encouraged fans to involve themselves within the framework. It was the overall level of artistic ambition which made B5 groundbreaking, rather than having some unique never-before-seen individual aspect.


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/03/01 23:06:19


Post by: Overread


Even today many TV series don't reference much if anything beyond the season they are in. You get very little foreshadowing of things that might be 2, 3, 4 seasons away. Often as not the end of season episode will wrap most things up neatly unless they are expecting a second season at which point they either end of a cliffhanger or they seed details then. Basically the next season isn't in the story as such until your near the end of the current.

That's a big difference to Babalon 5 where they reference multiple events that might not happen for many many seasons.




The western media seems to dislike leaving undeveloped plotlines. You really notice this when you watch anime where many might well end without resolving all the details even if it was their intended spot (a good few get so far and then complete their current main story but never fully finish- sometimes they don't get the second season etc...).


Babylon 5 Remastered now available @ 2021/03/02 11:56:45


Post by: Backfire


TV shows tend to constantly live on the chopper's block, waiting for axe to fall, so it somewhat limits how far ahead you can plan, unless you are David Lynch. Joss Whedon said that he always tried to design the seasons so that the season finale could work as a series finale in the case the show was cancelled. Buffy did have some story arcs which were build up over multiple seasons, but usually the storylines were concentrated on single season.

Another trick is X-Files/Lost school of mythology building, where you leave everything so vague that you can add layers upon layers of new stuff depending on how many seasons get produced.

Mangas and animes based on them are often products of a single mind who has a strong vision how story proceeds. Both of the above approaches are used there too.