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Palleon posted:The whole Reebo and Zooty bits were TERRIBLE. The rest of the episode was okay (I actually liked it quite a bit), but any scene with Penn and Teller was brutal. I can't tell if they thought that was supposed to be funny, or if it was supposed to be ironically funny because they were so terrible. I always assumed it was the latter. When Sheridan/Londo have their first conversation about them (I think it's in season 4), Sheridan cracks up at the line, "Zooty, zoot zoot!" and Londo doesn't get it (Londo is the audience). I think it was an attempt to poke fun at the fact that Earth humor a lot of times isn't actually that funny, yet we laugh at it for any number of reasons (our friends laugh at it, there's a laugh track, etc.) Just another one of those things they did in that show to show you human culture from an alien perspective. But whether Penn and Teller were in on the joke when they came on the show or were just getting paid to do bad jokes, we may never know.
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| # ? Jun 28, 2010 19:52 |
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| # ? May 24, 2013 12:03 |
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Or it showed the change in humor. Jokes from a few hundred years ago aren't usually very funny to us, there's no reason to expect jokes a few hundred years from now to be funny to us either.
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| # ? Jun 28, 2010 20:07 |
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So what you're saying is, Rebo and Zooty are the Carlos Mencia and Jeff Dunham of the future.
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| # ? Jun 28, 2010 20:12 |
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Grand Fromage posted:Or it showed the change in humor. Jokes from a few hundred years ago aren't usually very funny to us, there's no reason to expect jokes a few hundred years from now to be funny to us either. Wasn't there a species on the show that determined sentience by just a few simple rules, and one of them was the species had to have developed slapstick humor? They didn't require the entire species to like it, just that it was developed, some members of the species liked it and it was acknowledged as a part of their culture. I could have sworn there was a scene where Reebo and Zooty were talked about in reference to another species, and seeing it was enough for them to believe humans were sentient. That, or it's just a reference to how much Garibaldi loved that kind of thing, so they brought it up and Penn and Teller were available. The characters were referenced long before they were shown in an episode.
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| # ? Jun 28, 2010 20:13 |
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Hard Clumping posted:I always assumed it was the latter. When Sheridan/Londo have their first conversation about them (I think it's in season 4), Sheridan cracks up at the line, "Zooty, zoot zoot!" and Londo doesn't get it (Londo is the audience). I think it was an attempt to poke fun at the fact that Earth humor a lot of times isn't actually that funny, yet we laugh at it for any number of reasons (our friends laugh at it, there's a laugh track, etc.) Just another one of those things they did in that show to show you human culture from an alien perspective. I think it was more along the lines of what Grand Fromage said, or to demonstrate that humor does not always carry over between societies/cultures/species.
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| # ? Jun 28, 2010 21:07 |
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Habibi posted:I think it was more along the lines of what Grand Fromage said, or to demonstrate that humor does not always carry over between societies/cultures/species. They did it better when Delenn was watching Looney Tunes with Garibaldi and she had no idea why it was funny.
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| # ? Jun 28, 2010 21:09 |
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I thought the situation was kind of like when the audience at a comedy show start laughing at the comedian before he/she even says anything funny. Like the expectation of comedy overrides the reality of it. Maybe Rebo and Zooty really are hilarious when they try to be. In other news, I've finally gotten my hands on script book vol. 15. It's autographed by JMS! The contents include: - B5 Original Treatment - "Writer's Bible" - Production Draft for "The Gathering" (the pilot) with handwritten notes - Alternate draft of "And the Sky Full of Stars" (1x08, when Sinclair is abducted into a virtual reality) - Infamous lost draft for Soul Hunter - Practical joke script featuring G'Kar and Londo as lovers - Memo describing the 5 year arc with Sinclair still present - Inventory of variances between the scripts and dvds I skipped straight to the 5 year arc bit. Everything up to the end of season 3ish is the same, but 4-5 go really off-course, and the spinoff was going to be completely different. One thing that was pointed out that I guess I either didn't notice or forgot was that Delenn and the Grey Council (the ones that didn't think it was an abomination) planned her change specifically so that she would have a child with Sinclair. I thought they said on the show that her change was simply to offset the Valen thing, and that getting with Sheridan (Sinclair) kind of just happened.
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| # ? Jun 28, 2010 22:40 |
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General Emergency posted:Goons can't pull off a bitchin' Gilbert & Sullivan though. Speak for yourself. 
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| # ? Jun 28, 2010 22:45 |
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bobkatt013 posted:They did it better when Delenn was watching Looney Tunes with Garibaldi and she had no idea why it was funny. Basically, for everything that happens in Season 5 (Teep cult, Reebo and Zooty) there was a situation where they did it better in the earlier show (Night Watch, Daffy Duck) Palleon posted:So what you're saying is, Rebo and Zooty are the Carlos Mencia and Jeff Dunham of the future. Exactly.
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| # ? Jun 28, 2010 22:57 |
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The Big One posted:I skipped straight to the 5 year arc bit. Everything up to the end of season 3ish is the same, but 4-5 go really off-course, and the spinoff was going to be completely different. Specifics you drat tease.
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| # ? Jun 28, 2010 22:59 |
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CommunistMojo posted:Specifics you drat tease. There's a really good write-up here: http://trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=53739 The only things I have to add at the moment is that it seems that G'Kar isn't a huge character in the later seasons; he leaves at the end of season 3 to help the Narn resistance and doesn't come back until season 5 to reveal Londo as the one working with the Shadows. I'm not sure that they were originally going to be begrudging friends at all, which I've always thought was one of the high points of their character development. And Babylon Squared wouldn't have been resolved until the spinoff, entirely dependent on the original series' success. I'd say what we got was a lot better than the stuff with their rapidly-aging child and massive Vorlon ships blowing up. It is surprising how much of Londo's character he did plan and follow through on. He even included the bit where Londo is saddened that he didn't see a religious figure like everyone else at the end of season 2.
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| # ? Jun 28, 2010 23:21 |
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JMS is a magnificent bastard for being able to blow our minds with future comedy!
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| # ? Jun 28, 2010 23:24 |
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A lot of comedy shows end up with catchphrases just like "with his machine!" which aren't funny unless you've seen the show. I assumed what we saw was two guys referencing their shows and films and people who had seen them finding that funny.
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| # ? Jun 28, 2010 23:47 |
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The Big One posted:There's a really good write-up here: http://trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=53739 Glad this isn't how it turned out, it seems too pedestrian and simplistic for B5.
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| # ? Jun 29, 2010 00:26 |
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Grand Fromage posted:Glad this isn't how it turned out, it seems too pedestrian and simplistic for B5. Things like this convince me more and more that adversity is the soul of creativity.
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| # ? Jun 29, 2010 00:27 |
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The Big One posted:the bit where Londo is saddened that he didn't see a religious figure like everyone else at the end of season 2. I loved this part, but was always confused about how humans saw him. It was just some lumpy headed alien. Was it supposed to be a Grey?
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| # ? Jun 29, 2010 01:00 |
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Hard Clumping posted:I loved this part, but was always confused about how humans saw him. It was just some lumpy headed alien. Was it supposed to be a Grey? Stop focusing on the head. The rest of him looked like an angel. EDIT: That was one of my favorite reveals in the series. I remember back towards the beginning when someone asked Kosh who would recognize him out of his encounter suit, to which he replied "...EVERYONE..." I wracked my brain trying to figure out, and then it all made perfect sense! 
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| # ? Jun 29, 2010 01:05 |
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Hard Clumping posted:I loved this part, but was always confused about how humans saw him. It was just some lumpy headed alien. Was it supposed to be a Grey? If you mean the Vorlons - An angel.  Thats not their true form though, this is:  The thing about B5 that annoys me is you look at that top picture. There are probably semi-detached houses, schools and people walking their dogs. All we ever saw was a lovely garden, some corridors and a bar. Daimo fucked around with this message at Jun 29, 2010 around 01:16 |
| # ? Jun 29, 2010 01:06 |
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Hard Clumping posted:I loved this part, but was always confused about how humans saw him. It was just some lumpy headed alien. Was it supposed to be a Grey? I thought it was suppose to be an angel, and everyone else saw a spiritual figure from their religion.
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| # ? Jun 29, 2010 01:06 |
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The "everyone" bit and the Kosh reveal is one of the best of the whole series. And there is some information about how he looked as an angel in the original arc writeup, actually. The angel is supposed to not be "stereotypical" but have some alien aspects: larger eyes, menacing wings, and bronze skin. So if you thought the angel looked a little weird, it was because that was JMS' intention. e: I also looked at the beginning of the writer's bible. It's intended to be read by the writers coming in to do their episodes in season one, before JMS decided to just write all the episodes for the rest of the series. I thought this part was kind of funny: quote:If your story has a point of view, has something to say (without hammering it home like a ball peen hammer between the eyes), those we especially like. In other words, we won't do a "Racism Is Bad" or "Gays Are People Too," because if people haven't figured that out by now, one hour of television ain't gonna change that Guess the writers behind "TKO" and "The War Prayer" didn't get that memo  We're all alien........to each other.
The Big One fucked around with this message at Jun 29, 2010 around 02:03 |
| # ? Jun 29, 2010 01:15 |
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bobkatt013 posted:I thought it was suppose to be an angel, and everyone else saw a spiritual figure from their religion. Yeah, an angel makes sense I guess, it's just that every other species saw a specific person. Though since Earth's religions are so varied it'd be lovely to just pick Jesus or someone equally recognizeable, especially since the main human characters are all atheist. It would have been especially hard if Sinclair had been the one saved, considering that episode where he introduced Delenn to a bunch of religious leaders of Earth at the end of that S1 episode. My favorite part about B5 is how beautifully the show consistently dealt with (earth) religion - smart and skeptical with the occasional dose of awe-filled reverance, and all done from an outside perspective. The whole concept of Franklin's religion, Foundationism, is a lot like an idealized version of Unitarian Universalism, a church I've been tied to most of my life despite some misgivings I have - namely, they profess to be open-minded towards all religions, but most of the members I've met are ex-christians(or jews, is, whatever) who are too busy being angry and liberal to do any meaningful soul-searching of their own. e: and about the angel thing, kinda weird they'd spend the money on new alien makeup when they could have just had a human angel, or at least one that was obviously human with perhaps some off-putting differences (maybe hairless) - since the Vorlons appeared to every other species as exactly that species. Hard Clumping fucked around with this message at Jun 29, 2010 around 01:24 |
| # ? Jun 29, 2010 01:21 |
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Hard Clumping posted:e: and about the angel thing, kinda weird they'd spend the money on new alien makeup when they could have just had a human angel, or at least one that was obviously human with perhaps some off-putting differences (maybe hairless) - since the Vorlons appeared to every other species as exactly that species. No, you're missing the point. The Vorlons were doing subtle manipulation, which is why they were so reluctant to reveal it. They didn't come down to early humans and go WE ARE ANGELS AND YOU WILL DO OUR WILL OR SUFFER, otherwise they wouldn't bother creeping around in encounter suits. They planted the seeds in each race. Appear to some poor schmoe here, do some miracle there, so it all ends up being woven into the myth and psyche of each race. Then when they pop out of the encounter suit, those races go "dawwwww, they look kind of like angels!  " and not "HOLY poo poo YOU'VE BEEN MIND loving US FOR 10,000 YEARS YOU ASSHOLES!  "Remember, the point of the Vorlon/Shadow conflict wasn't direct confrontation (at least until Sheridan mucked it up), it was to sheppard the younger races along, and they did that behind the scenes. To use the parent analogy, it would be easy for a father to sit a kid down and say "gently caress what your mother wants, you're gonna be a goddamn astronaut!" and another to just give the kid a toy rocket ship, or put on NASA TV when the mom's not around. One is giving the kid no choice, the other is trying to get the kid to make the choice "by himself." Doctor Zero fucked around with this message at Jun 29, 2010 around 01:59 |
| # ? Jun 29, 2010 01:53 |
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Daimo posted:The thing about B5 that annoys me is you look at that top picture. There are probably semi-detached houses, schools and people walking their dogs. All we ever saw was a lovely garden, some corridors and a bar. They probably didn't have the budget to show off areas like that at the time.
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| # ? Jun 29, 2010 02:30 |
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Doctor Zero posted:those races go "dawwwww, they look kind of like angels! A lot of conflict might have been avoided if only the Shadows looked like puppies
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| # ? Jun 29, 2010 02:34 |
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The Big One posted:A lot of conflict might have been avoided if only the Shadows looked like puppies Who's a cute widdle vorlon? You're a cute widdle vorlon! Yes you are, you're the cutest vorlon! Edit: Huh...how did I read Shadows as Vorlons? DrBouvenstein fucked around with this message at Jun 29, 2010 around 03:18 |
| # ? Jun 29, 2010 02:43 |
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The Big One posted:A lot of conflict might have been avoided if only the Shadows looked like puppies Ya but then the puppy would tell you to kill your neighbor. So the Son of Sam was not crazy but just talking to a Shadow?
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| # ? Jun 29, 2010 02:53 |
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Doctor Zero posted:No, you're missing the point. The Vorlons were doing subtle manipulation, which is why they were so reluctant to reveal it. They didn't come down to early humans and go WE ARE ANGELS AND YOU WILL DO OUR WILL OR SUFFER, otherwise they wouldn't bother creeping around in encounter suits. They planted the seeds in each race. Appear to some poor schmoe here, do some miracle there, so it all ends up being woven into the myth and psyche of each race. Then when they pop out of the encounter suit, those races go "dawwwww, they look kind of like angels! Which is fine, but the other races DID see specific imagery, there's even a scene where a narn (probably g'kar) and a drazi were arguing over who it actually was, but none of them seemed to realize it was Kosh for some reason. The Vorlons didn't seem to use a pattern in their manipulation is all.
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| # ? Jun 29, 2010 04:47 |
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Hard Clumping posted:Which is fine, but the other races DID see specific imagery, there's even a scene where a narn (probably g'kar) and a drazi were arguing over who it actually was, but none of them seemed to realize it was Kosh for some reason. The Vorlons didn't seem to use a pattern in their manipulation is all. Ya they saw it as a religious figure from their religion. We only saw it as an angel because it would be easier for the viewer to understand and it was pov from Sheridan. The manipulation was coming to them as a religious figure and nudging them on their way, and that was their pattern. They did not get involved since that was the Shadows way.
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| # ? Jun 29, 2010 05:09 |
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Does anyone know if there are any plans to remaster/re-release B5 on bluray? I tried rewatching the first season and um, the cgi doesn't hold up as well as I thought it would.
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| # ? Jun 29, 2010 06:50 |
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bobkatt013 posted:Ya but then the puppy would tell you to kill your neighbor. So the Son of Sam was not crazy but just talking to a Shadow? Well the Vorlons got Jack the Ripper. I'd like to think the Vorlons and Shadows got bored after all their friends left and started picking up weird hobbies, like snatching up serial killers, creating religion, and messing with telepaths. Not for any ideological or political reasons, just pure boredom.
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| # ? Jun 29, 2010 07:35 |
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The Big One posted:And there is some information about how he looked as an angel in the original arc writeup, actually. The angel is supposed to not be "stereotypical" but have some alien aspects: larger eyes, menacing wings, and bronze skin. So if you thought the angel looked a little weird, it was because that was JMS' intention. Angels look loving weird anyway. Ezekiel 1:5-10 posted:5 Also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance; they had the likeness of a man. Revelation 4:6-9 posted:6 And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal.
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| # ? Jun 29, 2010 08:39 |
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adaz posted:Does anyone know if there are any plans to remaster/re-release B5 on bluray? I tried rewatching the first season and um, the cgi doesn't hold up as well as I thought it would. There are no (publicly announced) plans to do it, and as previously discussed in this thread, it would be fairly expensive to do, because so much CGI would have to be basically redone from scratch. Keep in mind that the CGI on the DVDs looks even worse than it did during the original broadcast run, because it's been zoomed/cropped/scaled or whatever to make it fit 16:9.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2010 03:49 |
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The CGI does get a lot better over the course of the show, but gently caress, imagine if the studio that did Firefly and BSG remastered B5. 
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| # ? Jun 30, 2010 03:51 |
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One thing that always makes me wonder when I see the CGI is the Omega-class ships. When they're first introduced in Season 2 they don't have the red docking bay they have in Season 3. Then, in Season 4, they're back to their Season 2 aesthetics. And why do some Omegas, like the Agamemnon, have an additional letter on their bow to match the first letter or their name, but others don't follow that pattern. Is that some real-life naval thing that I don't understand?  quote:Remember, the point of the Vorlon/Shadow conflict wasn't direct confrontation (at least until Sheridan mucked it up), it was to sheppard the younger races along, and they did that behind the scenes. Really? I'm pretty sure its implied that the Vorlons were considering the warpath they eventually went on for a long time. Hell, they created telepaths purely as a weapon against the Shadows. In a way, what the Shadows point out at the end of Season 3 is completely correct. The Vorlons decided that their way was the right way a long time ago.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2010 09:26 |
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I think it's more accurate to say that the vorlons and shadows preferred to fight proxy wars against each other every 1000 years than to directly engage one another in all out war.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2010 09:50 |
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Milky Moor posted:Really? I'm pretty sure its implied that the Vorlons were considering the warpath they eventually went on for a long time. Hell, they created telepaths purely as a weapon against the Shadows. As haraksha points out, the key here is direct confrontation. That is, up until B5, the Vorlons and the Shadows never directly attacked each other. They manipulated the younger races to fight, and then whoever's "side" won would cause the other side to hide out for a while. part of that was providing "weapons" against the other, yes. Basically it goes like this  *MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR THE STORY ARC*The old races advance and develop to the point where they're too big / outgrow / run out of fun poo poo to do with the galaxy. They decide to go "beyond the veil" to allow younger races to develop. They leave behind the Vorlons and Shadows to act as caretakers for the younger races. The Vorlons and Shadows have opposing viewpoints (Order vs. Chaos). After a while the Vorlons & Shadows lose sight of the original goal (raising up young races). Like two parents fighting over their kids, they go from watching over to manipulating. Then they go from manipulating to using as pawns. What started out as an ideological choice turns into a massive military dick waving contest. The rules of this contest however, remain that the Vorlons and Shadows do not directly fight each other, they get the younger races to do the fighting. During B5, Sheridan asks Kosh (who is sympathetic to the human races) for help. Sheridan doesn't understand the rules, he only knows the Vorlons are at least as powerful as the Shadows and yet they sit back and do nothing. He convinces Kosh to get the Vorlons to directly attack the Shadows. The Shadows go  "what the gently caress, you broke the rules you assholes." And kill Kosh. And of course Sheridan goes and nukes Zaha'dum and then everything escalates and the Vorlons and Shadows go "okay, gently caress this poo poo" and just start burning everything to the ground.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2010 14:25 |
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Doctor Zero posted:They leave behind the Vorlons and Shadows to act as caretakers for the younger races. The Vorlons and Shadows have opposing viewpoints (Order vs. Chaos). I'm not sure you're right about that part. One could argue natural selection favours *chaos* and that it was the Vorlons who were actively loving with races because they believed loving with nature was the right thing to do. If you assume that then that may explain how religion gives us some sort of order and that in turn was what was required for us to get our act together and remove the younger-firstones. Then I believe you are right and this followed: Doctor Zero posted:During B5, Sheridan asks Kosh (who is sympathetic to the human races) for help. Sheridan doesn't understand the rules, he only knows the Vorlons are at least as powerful as the Shadows and yet they sit back and do nothing. He convinces Kosh to get the Vorlons to directly attack the Shadows. The Shadows go undefined "what the gently caress, you broke the rules you assholes." And kill Kosh. And of course Sheridan goes and nukes Zaha'dum and then everything escalates and the Vorlons and Shadows go "okay, gently caress this poo poo" and just start burning everything to the ground. But I may be overthinking it and holy hell this is geeky.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2010 15:05 |
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Daimo posted:I'm not sure you're right about that part. One could argue natural selection favours *chaos* and that it was the Vorlons who were actively loving with races because they believed loving with nature was the right thing to do. If you assume that then that may explain how religion gives us some sort of order and that in turn was what was required for us to get our act together and remove the younger-firstones. Well, to be sure I am over-simplifying. The Shadows are all about advancement through conflict, the strong that survive make the race stronger, etc. etc. The Vorlons are all about do as you are told, the only right way is our way, etc. It's more complex than good vs. evil, order vs. chaos, but those are good short-hand. Actually, if you want to make it analogous to religion, I think that's a fair assessment (and likely intentional from JMS) as the Church is traditionally all about telling people how to act, and as you say, nature is survival of the fittest. As far as geeky goes, if you meant my paragraph, I basically got tired of typing and just kind of farted it out quickly. if you mean the conversation in general, then, hey man, we're posting on the internet about B5 - enjoy it. 
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| # ? Jun 30, 2010 15:23 |
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It was pretty easy to tell what was going on when both sides were trying to telepathically argue down Sheridan and Delenn in "Into The Fire". The Vorlon image was a woman frozen in a block of ice telling him to shut up and take his orders, the Shadow image was constantly morphing between a bunch of people and trying to rile her up.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2010 17:48 |
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| # ? May 24, 2013 12:03 |
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Haraksha posted:Is it wrong that I've spent the last several minutes giggling like an idiot picturing Londo saying, "Mr. Gauis Balter!"
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| # ? Jun 30, 2010 20:19 |
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