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You can't really deny the similarities in setups, but they really went for different themes, different types of characters, different grand political stages, different set design, different approaches to storytelling. For a while at the beginning, DS9 was trying to do the old planet a day formula with the wormhole. I do wonder how many similarities were later driven by things like cultural zeitgeist, current events, or industry trends. I think there were a lot of dystopias in the 90s.
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Apr 15, 2019 04:51
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SlothfulCobra posted:You can't really deny the similarities in setups, but they really went for different themes, different types of characters, different grand political stages, different set design, different approaches to storytelling. For a while at the beginning, DS9 was trying to do the old planet a day formula with the wormhole. DS9's thing early on was the weird planet-a-day stuff came to them through the wormhole. Babylon 5 did the same thing in its early standalone episodes, and it has an artificial wormhole of its own. It tears one open into Hyperspace for regular incoming and outgoing traffic on a regular basis.
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Apr 15, 2019 05:38
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SlothfulCobra posted:I do wonder how many similarities were later driven by things like cultural zeitgeist, current events, or industry trends. I think there were a lot of dystopias in the 90s. The weird part is that all the way into the middle of each show's run, both shows had a storyline about a military coup and takeover. Featuring the same recurring guest star. With episodes shooting at the same time, so much so that B5 had to kill off a character offscreen because the actor was going to be shooting for DS9 that week. Clarke's takeover was always going to be a major arc for B5, a highly similar plot happening on DS9 is very suggestive. Sure, they played out very differently on each show, but that's an amazing congruity if the wasn't some B5 influence handed down from the executive suite.
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Apr 15, 2019 07:18
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Narsham posted:Remember that B5 was getting pitched at a time where the commonplace wisdom was that a non-Trek sci-fi show was no longer viable. Does anyone really think that nobody who had heard about the pitch would mention it to any of the people working on Trek? Forget about the "no longer". When B5 was first pitched, people thought JMS was insane because pretty much no US SF show not called "Star Trek" had ever had a third season. Meanwhile, here's this guy saying "it's a five year space opera with no payoff if it's cancelled early".
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Apr 15, 2019 08:37
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Jedit posted:Forget about the "no longer". When B5 was first pitched, people thought JMS was insane because pretty much no US SF show not called "Star Trek" had ever had a third season. Meanwhile, here's this guy saying "it's a five year space opera with no payoff if it's cancelled early". Don't forget the pilot was a tediously-dull slog to get through.
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Apr 15, 2019 09:02
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Anyone expecting anyone in show business to go on the record saying "yeah, we ripped this off" has way too high evidentiary standards. You couldn't get anyone to admit that either of Rhapsody Rabbit and The Cat Concerto were ripped off from each other, and there the similarities were even closer.
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Apr 15, 2019 12:05
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Anyone expecting anyone in show business to go on the record saying "yeah, we ripped this off" has way too high evidentiary standards. You couldn't get anyone to admit that either of Rhapsody Rabbit and The Cat Concerto were ripped off from each other, and there the similarities were even closer. Some of the overlaps have obvious explanations, like the shapeshifting element in the B5 pilot and DS9. "Morphing" CGI had just been developed and that encouraged everyone with a genre show to propose using it: anyone hungry for Manimal? As mllaneza notes, DS9 seems to have leaned in B5's direction once they started airing. Certainly the shift away from the most distinctive difference (Bajor and matters relating to it) in favor of a war smacks of series one-upsmanship.
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Apr 15, 2019 15:57
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It could also be because Michael Piller left DS9 around that time to go work on Voyager.
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Apr 15, 2019 17:23
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I'm a big ol fuckin' nerd for both and I still don't think there's much similarity beyond superficial stuff. Yeah you can point at the space station and some character parallels, but the nature of the shows is so different. Even in the later seasons when DS9 got more serialized it was nowhere near B5's level, plus the themes are all different. And that's good, we have two excellent sci-fi series instead of one.
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Apr 16, 2019 00:05
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Grand Fromage posted:I'm a big ol fuckin' nerd for both and I still don't think there's much similarity beyond superficial stuff. Yeah you can point at the space station and some character parallels, but the nature of the shows is so different. Even in the later seasons when DS9 got more serialized it was nowhere near B5's level, plus the themes are all different. And that's good, we have two excellent sci-fi series instead of one. It comes across to me more like what someone might've remembered from an outline they skimmed a while back or just certain elements from the pitch stuck in the head and the person making the suggestions for DS9 might not remember where they got the idea from. Comparing the two, B5 had way less clunker episodes than DS9 had and even then, the clunker B5 episodes were nowhere near as bad as the DS9 ones. As far as my getting into the show goes, I really didn't watch it much when it first aired since I'd tune in to the channel a bit early for the show (probably something Trek) following B5. What caught my eye was catching a scene in Garabaldi's room and seeing the Daffy picture because you practically never saw anything our era in a sci-fi show. Any 'past' references would be something classical music or a historical person's name for the most part. It was enough to get me starting to watch the show and it's what I hold as the best example of sci-fi show writing. I ended up getting my fiance hooked back when we were dating and I suggested B5 while he was interested in another Trek-a-thon. He never really watched it and wrote it off as just a 90s era sci-fi show. I had him look up "Babylon 5 No Hiding Place" on Youtube and told him to sit through that clip first, then make a final decision. He had so many questions from just that clip that B5 won out. All I told him as the first episode started was 'pay attention to everything' and as references from early episodes ended up paying out later like G'Kar's ant example and the gradual build up and reveal of Sinclair is Valen had him excited for what next was going to happen. I realized how much of an impact the show made on him when I was sitting through the extras on my uncut edition of the '04 Dawn of the Dead. The Special Report extra has Richard Biggs as the reporter doing the breaking news report. Near the end is the last speech of the US President which after a couple lines in, my fiance came into the room saying 'I hear a Sheridan speech.' Bruce Boxleitner gives the sort of speech you'd expect Sheridan to give when dealing with a zombie apocalypse. For what amounts to Biggs sitting at a newsdesk and cutting to outside footage, he really knocks it out of the park. I'm not sure if it's his last role. Here's the bit on from Youtube. Hopefully it'll start at the 18:40 or so mark for the speech. I really wouldn't be surprised if there's others from B5 in this. I'm just linking it since the rest is NSW for zombie violence, blood and mild gore. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly7Laj8Yp6w&feature=youtu.be&t=1116
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Apr 16, 2019 08:42
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As far as I can recall, Biggs's last role was an appearance on the much underrated SF legal drama Century City.
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Apr 16, 2019 16:26
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The big problem with Star Trek is that as good as it can get, it's always moored in its own Star Trekky flavor. They want to show off the heights of what humanity could reach, not something dumb and goofy like zima. They'll talk your ear off about the values of culture and pursuing art in the abstract, but you'll never see like a Star Trek teenager's deviantart. Babylon 5 carries the dumb proudly. It's a lot like how they eschew a lot of futuristic minimalism in favor of real cluttered sets filled with posters and advertisements. A lot of focusing on the familiar.
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Apr 17, 2019 03:40
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Speaking of a Star Trek teenager's deviantart, here's a couple doodles   
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Apr 21, 2019 04:20
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Pick posted:Speaking of a Star Trek teenager's deviantart, here's a couple doodles 
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Apr 21, 2019 10:06
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those are neat 
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Apr 21, 2019 10:14
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sebmojo posted:those are neat thanks, I went for spotty kangaroo (marsupial) and elephant seal + peacock. Among the alien-redrawing folk it's actually sort of unimaginative because almost everyone thinks of the head bit of a centauri as peacock thing but drat that's what the designers were suggesting so how can I argue with that?
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Apr 21, 2019 18:10
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Pick posted:thanks, I went for spotty kangaroo (marsupial) and elephant seal + peacock. Among the alien-redrawing folk it's actually sort of unimaginative because almost everyone thinks of the head bit of a centauri as peacock thing but drat that's what the designers were suggesting so how can I argue with that? I interpret them as squid people what with the mantle/fin like head/hair and the tentacle dicks.
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Apr 21, 2019 19:44
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In contrast to good art (I rather like the designs, though I had a moment of looking at Londo and thinking 'oh god it's ultra-weird pony fanart isn't it' before my brain snapped back into gear), let's have some bad official art I've been reading through the old 1995 comics, and while they're interesting in places, they're like the films in that they're rather substantive moments in the canon that never get mentioned again, which-- has some notable problems with continuity. The Garibaldi-centric one is especially egregious-- and not just because of this ~amazing art~ (with bonus bad!Londo).  Aside from aforementioned bonus, those are all supposed to be Garibaldi. And the dude he's wrasslin with is supposedly Sinclair. I personally am quite fond of 'squishy babyman' in the upper left. Only upshot is that the comics detail a) Sinclair's reassignment to Minbar (and the inevitable shitfit the Warrior Caste has-- this is less good and more 'oh this again'), b) how Sinclair and Garibaldi met. Hence Shaggybaldi. The art really is precious. EDIT: Oh god, I posted too soon and missed the missed the weird, gnarly cat men. Old Boot fucked around with this message at 03:50 on Apr 22, 2019 |
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Apr 22, 2019 03:29
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Even though I don't think it was ever mentioned on the show, it's seemingly common fan lore that Babylon 4 had engines mounted so that it could move. I figure this comes out of the original plan of B4 later becoming Babylon Prime and being able to roam around (jesus, that'd be a monster starship to be tooling around in that setting!) but did anyone (JMS, art guys, rando internet nerd) ever offer a reason why Earth Alliance would bother mounting engines on a giant space habitat?
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Apr 26, 2019 21:52
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:Even though I don't think it was ever mentioned on the show, it's seemingly common fan lore that Babylon 4 had engines mounted so that it could move. I figure this comes out of the original plan of B4 later becoming Babylon Prime and being able to roam around (jesus, that'd be a monster starship to be tooling around in that setting!) but did anyone (JMS, art guys, rando internet nerd) ever offer a reason why Earth Alliance would bother mounting engines on a giant space habitat? You'd need at the very least station-keeping thrusters and things like that. Some lovely little engines to move the station in case of a disaster or emergency just seem like a fairly obvious thing to add to the design.
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Apr 26, 2019 22:21
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Old Boot posted:In contrast to good art (I rather like the designs, though I had a moment of looking at Londo and thinking 'oh god it's ultra-weird pony fanart isn't it' before my brain snapped back into gear), let's have some bad official art Oh wow, is that Ridgway art? Dude was so good on Hellblazer and the old Dr Who comics. Uh, must've had some trouble drawing B5 likenesses I guess?
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Apr 26, 2019 23:40
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Maelstache posted:Oh wow, is that Ridgway art? Dude was so good on Hellblazer and the old Dr Who comics. They probably only gave him one photo-reference per character.
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Apr 27, 2019 00:55
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Season 4 is worth it for Emperor Cartagia alone. Also, did you know that the actor portraying him has since become a lawyer? Wild.
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Apr 28, 2019 00:07
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Been watching seasons 2 (shame a few of my disks are missing or corrupt) & 3 and I'm now midway through War Without End. Good to see the best character of all time again, it's been too long.
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Apr 28, 2019 01:26
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Also, respect the 
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Apr 28, 2019 01:35
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Also, respect the I lived during a time where I was "Hey that's the Malcolm in the Middle dad" What a changing world we live in.
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Apr 28, 2019 01:49
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Gnome de plume posted:Been watching seasons 2 (shame a few of my disks are missing or corrupt) & 3 and I'm now midway through War Without End. Zathras is used to being beast of burden to other people's needs. Very sad life. Probably have very sad death. But, at least there is symmetry.
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Apr 28, 2019 01:58
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Apr 28, 2019 02:38
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Neddy Seagoon posted:Zathras is used to being beast of burden to other people's needs. Very sad life. Probably have very sad death. But, at least there is symmetry. He did, too. 
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Apr 28, 2019 13:07
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Zathras told you he would have sad death. You didn’t listen to Zathras did you? No. No one ever listens to Zathras.
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Apr 28, 2019 16:20
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Maelstache posted:Oh wow, is that Ridgway art? Dude was so good on Hellblazer and the old Dr Who comics. Oh poo poo, I can't believe I didn't recognize it, that's totally his linework, too. To be sure, "dark British horror/sf" isn't the art pairing I'd want for B5.
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Apr 28, 2019 17:03
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Watching S4E8 The Illusion of Truth and when ISN shows someone confessing for crimes against Earth, the people he names have the surnames Jarrico, Trumbo, and Mostel - can't be a coincidence that Paul Jarrico, Dalton Trumbo, and Zero Mostel were all blacklisted during the real Red Scare of the 1950's.
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Apr 28, 2019 21:30
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Watching S4E8 The Illusion of Truth and when ISN shows someone confessing for crimes against Earth, the people he names have the surnames Jarrico, Trumbo, and Mostel - can't be a coincidence that Paul Jarrico, Dalton Trumbo, and Zero Mostel were all blacklisted during the real Red Scare of the 1950's. Less a coincidence and more totally deliberate.
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Apr 28, 2019 22:16
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Jedit posted:Less a coincidence and more totally deliberate. Yes, that is what I was alluding to. I'm sorry, I should refrain from apophasis, clearly it doesn't carry well in written media.
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Apr 28, 2019 22:34
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Speaking of “whatever happened to that actor,” the reporter in TIoT was a former gay porn star who later painted a portrait of Dubya and was invited to show it in the White House.
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Apr 28, 2019 23:22
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Yes, that is what I was alluding to. I'm sorry, I should refrain from apophasis, clearly it doesn't carry well in written media. That wasn't apophasis you μαλάκας, it's a sledgehammer reference to a famous event because jms thinks subtlety is a hate crime (bless him)
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Apr 28, 2019 23:52
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sebmojo posted:That wasn't apophasis you μαλάκας, it's a sledgehammer reference to a famous event because jms thinks subtlety is a hate crime (bless him) My apophasis. As in when I said "I'm sure it's no coincidence" I meant "clearly it was intentional", you נודניק דגנרט.
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Apr 28, 2019 23:54
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Started watching Babylon 5. Man, "Believers" was harsh. "Oh you thought the doctor was going to find a way to save the kid in the last second? gently caress OFF EVERYONE IS SAD". Shame that every time there's cgi the image quality becomes horribly bad.
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Apr 29, 2019 04:34
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OK everyone, tea break is over - get the spoiler space back on.
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Apr 29, 2019 11:42
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So I'm mid way through season 4, Mimbari civil war is happening. There's already been all this inter-caste poo poo but do we ever see the worker caste? They're always going on about 3 casts but it seems only the worker and religious have a seat at any tables or are represented. Mimbar needs a fuckin' proletariat revolution.
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Apr 29, 2019 19:48
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