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ConfusedUs
Feb 24, 2004

Bees?
You want fucking bees?
Here you go!
ROLL INITIATIVE!!





I mean, Vir got exactly what he wanted: Morden's head on a pike. He, explicitly, wanted that. To say he would never want any heads on any pikes is entirely wrong.

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Absurd Alhazred
Mar 27, 2010

by Athanatos

ConfusedUs posted:

I mean, Vir got exactly what he wanted: Morden's head on a pike. He, explicitly, wanted that. To say he would never want any heads on any pikes is entirely wrong.

You could easily have interpreted it as hyperbole at the time. Especially for how Vir was presented: a weak, bumbling, coward who can barely perform his functions. This was before the Abrahamo Lincolni affair, right?

ConfusedUs
Feb 24, 2004

Bees?
You want fucking bees?
Here you go!
ROLL INITIATIVE!!





Absurd Alhazred posted:

You could easily have interpreted it as hyperbole at the time. Especially for how Vir was presented: a weak, bumbling, coward who can barely perform his functions. This was before the Abrahamo Lincolni affair, right?

Vir always had that little bar of steel in his spine, it just took a while before he was able to use it for/against his own people. I think it took the "dead, dead, dead, dead..." speech from G'Kar to get him to start acting out in Centauri matters.

But anyway...even if it was hyperbole...he still smiled and waved when it happened. He said what he wanted. He got what he wanted.

Eighties ZomCom
Sep 10, 2008




Let's not forget that Vir went from "I dunno if this is the right thing to do :ohdear:" to "kill the fucker :argh:" within 5 seconds of meeting Cartagia after what he saw what was happening to G'Kar, so him wanting Morden's head on a pike and being happy he got it is completely within character for him.

Jedit
Dec 10, 2011

Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

Absurd Alhazred posted:

You could easily have interpreted it as hyperbole at the time. Especially for how Vir was presented: a weak, bumbling, coward who can barely perform his functions. This was before the Abrahamo Lincolni affair, right?

I don't think it was hyperbole from Vir. It's our first real sign that Vir loves the Republic not blindly and unquestioningly, but for what it can and should be.

The point, which people keep sailing past with nary a care in the world, is that it's not how Londo sees Vir. Londo always sees Vir as the bumbling, good-hearted but naive assistant who despite everything he has grown quite fond of. He makes multiple attempts to protect Vir from the darkness surrounding himself and the Intrigue of the Centauri court. It is thus out of character for Londo to give Vir this "surprise gift".

ultrafilter
Aug 23, 2007

It's okay if you have any questions.


At that point Vir has already assassinated an emperor. That plausibly changed Londo's view of him.

Absurd Alhazred
Mar 27, 2010

by Athanatos

ConfusedUs posted:

Vir always had that little bar of steel in his spine, it just took a while before he was able to use it for/against his own people. I think it took the "dead, dead, dead, dead..." speech from G'Kar to get him to start acting out in Centauri matters.

But anyway...even if it was hyperbole...he still smiled and waved when it happened. He said what he wanted. He got what he wanted.

My question is, when you see him asking that of Morden, has he been established in our eyes as having that bar of steel?

Soylent Pudding
Jun 22, 2007

We've got people!


One of my favorite moments is Lando beaming with pride when Vir grabs a sword and hacks apart the stall of the merchant who planted a bug on them.

https://youtu.be/RX4i4eN5YW8

Iron Crowned
May 6, 2003

by Hand Knit

Jedit posted:

I don't think it was hyperbole from Vir. It's our first real sign that Vir loves the Republic not blindly and unquestioningly, but for what it can and should be.

The point, which people keep sailing past with nary a care in the world, is that it's not how Londo sees Vir. Londo always sees Vir as the bumbling, good-hearted but naive assistant who despite everything he has grown quite fond of. He makes multiple attempts to protect Vir from the darkness surrounding himself and the Intrigue of the Centauri court. It is thus out of character for Londo to give Vir this "surprise gift".

It's been a minute since I've watched it, but it's pretty in character for Londo to have bugs all over B5, so it's likely Londo had some secret recording of Vir's wish.

E;fb

Maybe not

CainFortea
Oct 15, 2004


Absurd Alhazred posted:

My question is, when you see him asking that of Morden, has he been established in our eyes as having that bar of steel?

If every single change in a character is going to be written off as out of character, then there can never be growth in characters ever.

Absurd Alhazred
Mar 27, 2010

by Athanatos

CainFortea posted:

If every single change in a character is going to be written off as out of character, then there can never be growth in characters ever.

That's not what I'm arguing. I'm arguing that at the time this might have been legitimately been seen as (and might have been) hyperbole, which is what makes the payoff so much more meaningful, not just in terms of an offhand remark leading to a literal result, but in terms of how the character or its perception by the audience has changed. Which is why "what did Londo know and when did he know it" isn't really that important.

Doctor Zero
Sep 21, 2002

Would you like a jelly baby?
It's been in my pocket through 4 regenerations,
but it's still good.

Absurd Alhazred posted:

My question is, when you see him asking that of Morden, has he been established in our eyes as having that bar of steel?

Stephen Furst had back surgery to correct his posture, and had to wear a brace for the entire 2nd season (IRRC) so that bar of steel was quite literal.


Also, in googling about this I forgot that he died in 2017 and I am heartsick all over again. :smith:

Absurd Alhazred
Mar 27, 2010

by Athanatos

Doctor Zero posted:

Stephen Furst had back surgery to correct his posture, and had to wear a brace for the entire 2nd season (IRRC) so that bar of steel was quite literal.


Also, in googling about this I forgot that he died in 2017 and I am heartsick all over again. :smith:

Ugghh. :smith:

ultrafilter
Aug 23, 2007

It's okay if you have any questions.


He came pretty close to dying sometime around the third season and that's why he lost so much weight before 401. Can you imagine seasons 4 and 5 without Vir, or with someone else in the role?

Erulisse
Feb 12, 2019

A bad poster trying to get better.

Doctor Zero posted:

Stephen Furst had back surgery to correct his posture, and had to wear a brace for the entire 2nd season (IRRC) so that bar of steel was quite literal.


Also, in googling about this I forgot that he died in 2017 and I am heartsick all over again. :smith:

You can see how Stephen Furst notably aged somewhere during s2. :(



Absurd Alhazred posted:

That's not what I'm arguing. I'm arguing that at the time this might have been legitimately been seen as (and might have been) hyperbole, which is what makes the payoff so much more meaningful, not just in terms of an offhand remark leading to a literal result, but in terms of how the character or its perception by the audience has changed. Which is why "what did Londo know and when did he know it" isn't really that important.

I'll support your pov here. While I wanted so much to see Vir's handwave to Morden's head (like The Doctor wondered), I had my bet that this was going to be a hyperbole. While having 'spine', Vir was in way lower 'league' than Morden. While both being 'servitors', assets to their cause, Vir was a goofy helper while Morden was 'the' guy to make your wishes come true. The fact that they were equally 'weighted' for the story but came out oh so differently made me pleasantly surprised but satisfied. Very pleasantly surprised. It was a bigger payoff. It (out of the universe) ment that Vir will be the emperor and he will rebuild Centauri as he wanted to. Because he can. I cant put it in better way.

Erulisse fucked around with this message at 18:30 on Jul 31, 2020

Narsham
Jun 5, 2008
Furst grew into that part so well. I love his performance in Sleeping in Light, where pretty much on a dime he goes from being interrupted while counting to six to a sober statesman who also happens to be less surprised than any of Sheridan's closest friends about the news.

Then the Londo story he tells, which isn't just about missing Londo or about the pak'ma'ra, but a way of relating that moment of perfect beauty to the dinner they're having, and maybe even a hint at the possibility of something greater existing in the universe that could be a comfort to Sheridan.

TheDiceMustRoll
Jul 23, 2018

Eighties ZomCom posted:

Let's not forget that Vir went from "I dunno if this is the right thing to do :ohdear:" to "kill the fucker :argh:" within 5 seconds of meeting Cartagia after what he saw what was happening to G'Kar, so him wanting Morden's head on a pike and being happy he got it is completely within character for him.

Can't imagine why seeing a kindly young man watering plants would make Vir be filled with such hate, but, hey, we all have our triggers.

TheDiceMustRoll
Jul 23, 2018

CainFortea posted:

A) Vir did not appear to keep his intense dislike of Morden secret. It would not take a telepath for Londo to go "you know who hates Morden the most? Vir."

2) It doesn't matter if Vir would never actually put someone's head on a pike, if it's a common enough thing in a society he was raised in then that's a threat he will know about.

C) I also don't think Vir was ever someone who is against putting heads on pikes. Vir was against doing it for political infighting, or slavery reasons. He would have absolutely no problem doing it for "you are actually evil and can gently caress right off" reasons.

A lot of people have this memory problem when they reveal themselves as not remembering that Vir thinks the Zat genocide was hilarious

Zat
Jan 16, 2008

Finished my rewatch (though I plan to do Call to Arms and Crusade next), and drat that was good.

I didn't quite remember how great the second half of season 5 was. "And All My Dreams, Torn Asunder" in particular was an amazing highlight.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Zat posted:

Finished my rewatch (though I plan to do Call to Arms and Crusade next), and drat that was good.

I didn't quite remember how great the second half of season 5 was. "And All My Dreams, Torn Asunder" in particular was an amazing highlight.

yeah the only real bad bit is byron, about which nothing good can be said.

Jedit
Dec 10, 2011

Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

sebmojo posted:

yeah the only real bad bit is byron, about which nothing good can be said.

Two good things can be said about Byron.

1) the role kicked off Robin Atkin Downes's career, which has in the main been good.

2) he dies.

Anonymouse Mook
Jul 12, 2006

Showing Vettel the way since 1979

Jedit posted:

Two good things can be said about Byron.

1) the role kicked off Robin Atkin Downes's career, which has in the main been good.

2) he dies.

3) Wherever Byron went, Bester followed

Narsham
Jun 5, 2008

sebmojo posted:

yeah the only real bad bit is byron, about which nothing good can be said.

Good idea, bad implementation.

And while what it wants to illustrate is as useful a warning as all the Homeguard black armband stuff, there’s an underlying strain of bothsidism. And a deep inconsistency in how the show presents the cult as peaceful/hippy, but with individuals willing to turn terrorist on a dime, and casually betraying the values they claim to hold in the process. Despite all the time and focus this story steals, there’s little attempt to engage either with the questions of hypocrisy and deception inherent in such cults, or with the broader question of the place of violent protest in the face of something like the Psi Corps.

I do wonder whether, as one of the many fans of B5 born after the whole Manson family thing, there’s something in the Byron arc so intimately connected to Manson and the news stories and myths built around him that this all rings false if you’re not invested in them. Even if so, Robin Atkin Downes is not a good casting choice for that kind of Byron.

ultrafilter
Aug 23, 2007

It's okay if you have any questions.


I vaguely remember reading somewhere that the telepath arc was originally slotted to begin in season 4, and it got cut when it looked like season 5 wouldn't happen. Presumably it would've been better if it had been given more time to develop.

MrL_JaKiri
Sep 23, 2003

A bracing glass of carrot juice!

ultrafilter posted:

I vaguely remember reading somewhere that the telepath arc was originally slotted to begin in season 4, and it got cut when it looked like season 5 wouldn't happen. Presumably it would've been better if it had been given more time to develop.

Quite the opposite. S4 was going to end with Intersections in Real Time and the first half of S5 had to be expanded from post-Civil War pre-Centauri crisis filler.

Eighties ZomCom
Sep 10, 2008




Just watched Call to Arms and I have to ask, what the hell is going on with the music?

BigShasta
Oct 28, 2010
The scene with Londo and G'kar stuck in the elevator in Convictions just made my day. I had forgotten about that scene. I'm about to burn through season 3.

Zaroff
Nov 10, 2009

Nothing in the world can stop me now!

Eighties ZomCom posted:

Just watched Call to Arms and I have to ask, what the hell is going on with the music?

A decision to not use Chris Franke and go with someone else instead - this will unfortunately continue through Crusade.

Doctor Zero
Sep 21, 2002

Would you like a jelly baby?
It's been in my pocket through 4 regenerations,
but it's still good.

abrosheen posted:

The scene with Londo and G'kar stuck in the elevator in Convictions just made my day. I had forgotten about that scene. I'm about to burn through season 3.




I can hear you :laugh:

Jedit
Dec 10, 2011

Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

abrosheen posted:

The scene with Londo and G'kar stuck in the elevator in Convictions just made my day. I had forgotten about that scene. I'm about to burn through season 3.

It's one of the greats, for sure. It was interesting to see Aardvark's reaction to it.

It was also interesting to see him ask why certain jobs weren't palmed off to B5's third-in-command. I guess he hasn't noticed Major Atembe. :v:

Baron von der Loon
Feb 12, 2009

Awesome!
Recently continued my rewatch. Nearly done with season 3, now heading into the last three episode. From what I remember, those were incredibly good, and I prolly want to see them back-to-back.

There's one thing from season 3 that stood out from me the first time I watched it, and now as well...

Namely, how sudden and rather quiet the Shadow War starts. I don't remember off-hand where it was, but it almost seems to start as an afterthought at the end of an episode where someone reports in that they've begun attacking the colonies.

And I do admit, I really liked it back then, and now as well. No big spectacle, no build-up to the big event, nothing about the Rangers trying to stop it from happening and failing... it just starts, completely outside of the control from the main cast. Just takes the galaxy by complete surprise.

TheDiceMustRoll
Jul 23, 2018

Angry Salami posted:

The hell kind of crazy people say you should skip "Passing through Gethsemane"?

There's a type of media consumer that, in my experience, just wants what is known as the "borg show". This doesn't mean they specifically like genre stuff either, but rather there's a part of the media consumption base that kind of just wants shows to dispense with character development or buildup or storytelling and just wants pure, non-stop action, regardless of how unsustainable it would be or how quickly uninteresting it would be to have a star trek show where the borg invade earth every week and there's a big space battle.

These are the same people that think Star War's prequels had the best battle scenes because they're much more epic and the lightsaber fights last on average twice as long and found the rise of skywalker to be the best movie yet because there's an action or chase scene for every two or three minutes of downtime.

The same people who think that True Detective had a poo poo ending in its first season because it didnt end with two people charging through innsmouth, blowing away deep ones and rescuing people from sacrificial altars.

And, they are, in the case of the people discussing this stuff, proudly recommended you skip PTG because it didn't forward the shadow war or civil war plot and had no space battles at all. Because storytelling, character development, and sci-fi exploration of interesting ideas is boring and gay unless it has a really cool space battle at the end or drops mysterious or revelations.

Many of these people are marvel fanboys

Edit: I am fully aware that its possible to do an episode like PtG and tell a really great story and also have a swordfight and a space battle and poo poo but it's really hard and the story of that episode didn't need it. One of the people in my watch group is a literal "pulls out nintendo switch and plays pokemon until lore development/action/space battle happens" type watcher and even his eyes were riveted to the screen during PtG and he said it was his second favourite episode.

TheDiceMustRoll fucked around with this message at 02:28 on Aug 2, 2020

Rappaport
Oct 2, 2013

Jedit posted:

I don't think it was hyperbole from Vir. It's our first real sign that Vir loves the Republic not blindly and unquestioningly, but for what it can and should be.

The point, which people keep sailing past with nary a care in the world, is that it's not how Londo sees Vir. Londo always sees Vir as the bumbling, good-hearted but naive assistant who despite everything he has grown quite fond of. He makes multiple attempts to protect Vir from the darkness surrounding himself and the Intrigue of the Centauri court. It is thus out of character for Londo to give Vir this "surprise gift".

Londo says it himself, "today, mister Morden, today is a very different day" though! :haw: I took it more as part of the elation Londo felt about thinking he got rid of the shadow influence at the time. And therefore, Vir's little gift was very much on the nose. They're a very... Passionate people, after all.

Erulisse
Feb 12, 2019

A bad poster trying to get better.

TheDiceMustRoll posted:

There's a type of media consumer that, in my experience, just wants what is known as the "borg show".

People who can skip such wonders like "Passing through Gethsemane" are not going to watch B5 because its an old show with lovely sfx. There are a lot of netflix marvel dceu poo poo getting released every week now or something, so they stick with that.
Also not all marvel fans are dumb :sun:
But again there are people who refer to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest as poo poo old movie and Iron man as 'classic'

Jedit
Dec 10, 2011

Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

AntherUslessPoster posted:

People who can skip such wonders like "Passing through Gethsemane" are not going to watch B5 because its an old show with lovely sfx. There are a lot of netflix marvel dceu poo poo getting released every week now or something, so they stick with that.
Also not all marvel fans are dumb :sun:
But again there are people who refer to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest as poo poo old movie and Iron man as 'classic'

What do these people have against Brad Dourif?

Polaron
Oct 13, 2010

The Oncoming Storm
What the gently caress is Incelshock talking about in the newbie thread?

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Red eyes? I've never heard of that before.

ultrafilter
Aug 23, 2007

It's okay if you have any questions.


EFX guy hosed up.

JMS posted:

Garibaldi's eyes glow for one frame in the flashforward scene.
(sigh) Our rotoscope EFX guy was waiting for a bunch of PPG EFX to finish rendering in that battle scene, and was bored, and like many such EFX types, filled in the eyes of Garibaldi with weird stuff while waiting around. When the other scene finished rendering, he got out, believing that he had not saved that one frame. Unknowingly, he had.
Nobody caught it until after broadcast.

We talked.

It's kinda strange to think of the PPG effects as being something that took time to render, but it was 1994.

There's another instance in Messages from Earth where they straight up used a frame from a different program in one of the scenes. That's probably been edited out too.

Midjack
Dec 24, 2007



Polaron posted:

What the gently caress is Incelshock talking about in the newbie thread?

Who cares, it’s a crappy rereg that’s been probed almost the entire time it’s been around for insanely racist and sexist posts.

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sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









The doctor guessing vorlons as angels is, well... Hmm.

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