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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.

That episode really hits you from all angles.

There’s an interesting story about Vir in that episode.

JMS originally planned to have Londo kill the emperor but as he wrote the scene, his head-Vir said that it had to be him. (I know it sounds corny but if you write something for any length of time, characters start to do that. It’s kind of strange) and upon reflection it made sense. Everyone expected Londo to be capable of doing it, but nobody expected Vir - Mr Abrahamo Lincolni - to murder anyone. It’s a bittersweet moment in the series - Vir loses his innocence and changes as a character in ways that are logical, affecting, and unforeseen. It’s wonderful writing.

THAT is why I have faith in JMS doing a reboot right. I wouldn’t trust anyone else with his universe.

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Hollismason
Jun 30, 2007

Witchfinder General

I've made it all the way to Season 4 episode 17, this is a wild loving ride. Have no idea what's going to happen Garibaldi turning on Sheridan is kind of bittersweet and sucks.

Erulisse
Feb 12, 2019

A bad poster trying to get better.

Doctor Zero posted:

That episode really hits you from all angles.

There’s an interesting story about Vir in that episode.

JMS originally planned to have Londo kill the emperor but as he wrote the scene, his head-Vir said that it had to be him. (I know it sounds corny but if you write something for any length of time, characters start to do that. It’s kind of strange) and upon reflection it made sense. Everyone expected Londo to be capable of doing it, but nobody expected Vir - Mr Abrahamo Lincolni - to murder anyone. It’s a bittersweet moment in the series - Vir loses his innocence and changes as a character in ways that are logical, affecting, and unforeseen. It’s wonderful writing.

THAT is why I have faith in JMS doing a reboot right. I wouldn’t trust anyone else with his universe.


These sudden and logical things are what amuses me in JMS' writing.

Hollismason
Jun 30, 2007

Witchfinder General

drat just got to Season 4 Episode 18 Intersections in Real Time. Goddamn this show Garibaldi got done loving wrong. I hope Bester gets his comeuppance. Knowing this show he probably won't but still drat

Hollismason
Jun 30, 2007

Witchfinder General

Well I've done it I've watched B5 from start to finish even going back and rewatching episodes I fell asleep to. drat what a great show. Can't believe its over. drat..

Mooktastical
Jan 8, 2008

Hollismason posted:

Well I've done it I've watched B5 from start to finish even going back and rewatching episodes I fell asleep to. drat what a great show. Can't believe its over. drat..

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Hollismason posted:

Well I've done it I've watched B5 from start to finish even going back and rewatching episodes I fell asleep to. drat what a great show. Can't believe its over. drat..

did u cry at sleeping in light

Hollismason
Jun 30, 2007

Witchfinder General

sebmojo posted:

did u cry at sleeping in light

I got a little choked up it was very emotional episode.

Super Deuce
May 25, 2006
TOILETS
Oh, I like the smell of my own dumps.

sebmojo posted:

did u cry at sleeping in light

Just finished a watch that took a couple weeks start to finish. Started like 15 different posts for the thread but kept watching ahead before I'd finish any.

Yea, that ep hit hard. I'm afraid to even watch it again.

Hollismason
Jun 30, 2007

Witchfinder General

Sleeping in the Light I liked the way things ended with Sheridan. I was surprised by the fact that Lorien came back to take Sheridan away. Ivanova becoming in charge of the rangers was good. Garibaldi having a daughter and living out a great life on Mars was great. I was most surprised by Vir becoming emperor. That was pretty surprising. We didn't learn much about Franklin just that he was a head of xenobiology. Still working as a doctor. I like that Sheridan visited B5 one last time. The B5 explosion was kind of weird isn't blowing it up jsut going to lead to more problems lol. Sheridan's send off was super emotional drat. I was disappointed Lennier died on his way back to his home planet. That was a little strange. Really was one of the better season finales I've seen. It didn't tie up all the loose ends but it ended in a way that was incredibly hopeful

Elder Postsman
Aug 30, 2000


i used hot bot to search for "teens"

Hollismason posted:

I was most surprised by Vir becoming emperor. That was pretty surprising.

There was that one episode with I think the Centauri fortune teller or whatever who said they would both be emperor, but one only after the other was dead

Midjack
Dec 24, 2007



Hollismason posted:

isn't blowing it upjsut going to lead to more problems lol.

Depends on what's going on at the time, destroying it means it can't be reused as a pirate base or similar.

jng2058
Jul 17, 2010

We have the tools, we have the talent!





Midjack posted:

Depends on what's going on at the time, destroying it means it can't be reused as a pirate base or similar.

Let's be honest with ourselves, it was totally a Rule of Cool decision. I mean they recycled parts of B1-B3 for B4 over and over again after the first three were blown up, there's really no good reason not to just dismantle B5 for parts and raw materials. But it has symmetry with Kosh's answer to the dying Centauri emperor, "How does it end?" "In fire." It's also a cool visual and that's what JMS wanted. :shrug:

Chevy Slyme
May 2, 2004

We're Gonna Run.

We're Gonna Crawl.

Kick Down Every Wall.
God I can still hear the ending theme from that finale playing in my head anytime people talk about that scene.

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl
edit: i forgot i was in the blind-watch thread, i'd rather not post anything about late show, even behind spoilers. sorry.

Lawman 0
Aug 17, 2010

Just picked this up and holy poo poo is the cgi terrible

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.

Lawman 0 posted:

Just picked this up and holy poo poo is the cgi terrible

It gets better as the seasons go on. At the time it was the first show to do all-CGI space scenes.

Zat
Jan 16, 2008

Lawman 0 posted:

Just picked this up and holy poo poo is the cgi terrible

It does get better, but it's still a product of its time.

Also if you started with the pilot movie, The Gathering, it looks even worse than the actual series even in season 1.

Lawman 0
Aug 17, 2010

Zat posted:

It does get better, but it's still a product of its time.

Also if you started with the pilot movie, The Gathering, it looks even worse than the actual series even in season 1.

Oh lol that's what I did.
Watching it on HBO Max.

Zat
Jan 16, 2008

Lawman 0 posted:

Oh lol that's what I did.
Watching it on HBO Max.

Yeah, HBO Max is a bit silly to not point it out that The Gathering is the pilot and pretty much an optional curiosity rather than the actual start of the show. Or failing to mention that it's not remastered unlike the rest of the show.

HBO even messes around a bit with the episode order in the first two seasons, which is questionable as well but I don't think it ruins anything.

Jedit
Dec 10, 2011

Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

Zat posted:

HBO even messes around a bit with the episode order in the first two seasons, which is questionable as well but I don't think it ruins anything.

There's somewhere between nine and thirteen episodes that really need to be watched in the right order. What's the HBO order?

Zat
Jan 16, 2008

Jedit posted:

There's somewhere between nine and thirteen episodes that really need to be watched in the right order. What's the HBO order?

https://b5remasterissues.wordpress.com/the-ugly/episode-order-changes/

Jedit
Dec 10, 2011

Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014


OK, that's not too awful. I'd still swap Legacies and The Quality of Mercy personally, but that's a matter of taste.

Grand Fromage
Jan 30, 2006

L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?


Doctor Zero posted:

It gets better as the seasons go on. At the time it was the first show to do all-CGI space scenes.

Yep. It never looks like Expanse quality but it was the 90s, what can you do. By season three it's pretty good though. And there's a lot of good composition and artistry in the space scenes that makes up for the lack of technical quality IMO.

Lawman 0
Aug 17, 2010

I got alot of tolerance for bad cgi but the quality of the stuff in the pilot jumped out at me.

Grand Fromage
Jan 30, 2006

L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?


The pilot is unusually bad. It was made in 93, then they started making the actual series in 94 so that tech advance alone improved it.

Winifred Madgers
Feb 12, 2002

Grand Fromage posted:

The pilot is unusually bad. It was made in 93, then they started making the actual series in 94 so that tech advance alone improved it.

That was a pretty wild time, every year saw significant and very noticeable improvement in what they could do.

Grand Fromage
Jan 30, 2006

L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?


Winifred Madgers posted:

That was a pretty wild time, every year saw significant and very noticeable improvement in what they could do.

It's crazy to me that B5 ended in 99, looking much better but still fairly primitive, then four years later we get BSG which I think looks just as good as any 2021 space CG. The Centurions look a little rough sometimes, but it's still hard to mix CG and live action well.

Vavrek
Mar 2, 2013

I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

Grand Fromage posted:

It's crazy to me that B5 ended in 99, looking much better but still fairly primitive, then four years later we get BSG which I think looks just as good as any 2021 space CG. The Centurions look a little rough sometimes, but it's still hard to mix CG and live action well.

First thought: What, no, wasn't that '06 ...
One Wikipedia check later: The pilot came out December 2003?!

Wow.

jng2058
Jul 17, 2010

We have the tools, we have the talent!





We should point out that the CG for the pilot were done on an Amiga. Given the tools they were using back in 1993, what they managed to accomplish was nothing short of miraculous.

Jedit
Dec 10, 2011

Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

Grand Fromage posted:

It's crazy to me that B5 ended in 99, looking much better but still fairly primitive, then four years later we get BSG which I think looks just as good as any 2021 space CG. The Centurions look a little rough sometimes, but it's still hard to mix CG and live action well.

Do bear in mind that once Babylon 5 had its models, it was pretty much stuck with them. There simply wasn't time, money or even really the option to redesign things. With each iteration, though, the CGI evolved. For example, this is a jumpgate from S1:



And this is a jumpgate from Lost Tales, made 15 years later on a budget of $5 and two packs of spearmint chewing gum:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XKRKihnxs4

I couldn't find a still from A Call To Arms or Crusade, but they had jumpgates that were somewhere in the middle.

Narsham
Jun 5, 2008

Jedit posted:

Do bear in mind that once Babylon 5 had its models, it was pretty much stuck with them. There simply wasn't time, money or even really the option to redesign things. With each iteration, though, the CGI evolved. For example, this is a jumpgate from S1:



And this is a jumpgate from Lost Tales, made 15 years later on a budget of $5 and two packs of spearmint chewing gum:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XKRKihnxs4

I couldn't find a still from A Call To Arms or Crusade, but they had jumpgates that were somewhere in the middle.

Sadly, that 240p Youtube clip doesn't really get across the real impact, especially after hearing for years that all the original models had been lost by WB and having no idea how any of the effects would look.

B5 always went for a more colorful aesthetic than the BSG reboot, too. It'll be interesting to see what the B5 reboot opts to do in that regard. I don't think it's a Vorlon or Minbari ship without the bright colors, for example.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









goggles in awe at vorlon ship with the windows 3.11 for worksgroups hotdog stand theme stretched across it

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.

jng2058 posted:

We should point out that the CG for the pilot were done on an Amiga. Given the tools they were using back in 1993, what they managed to accomplish was nothing short of miraculous.

Wellll it wasn’t *AN* Amiga, it was a farm of them, but it’s still drat impressive.

Lawman 0
Aug 17, 2010

jng2058 posted:

We should point out that the CG for the pilot were done on an Amiga. Given the tools they were using back in 1993, what they managed to accomplish was nothing short of miraculous.

:stonklol: Just incredible.

ultrafilter
Aug 23, 2007

It's okay if you have any questions.


s2e20 features five minutes of CGI and at the time that was the limit of what they could do with their budget and production schedule.

Assepoester
Jul 18, 2004
Probation
Can't post for 11 years!
Melman v2
http://www.generationamiga.com/2020/08/30/how-24-commodore-amiga-2000s-created-babylon-5/



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXmSA18cfgA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn3UraChY0c

Assepoester fucked around with this message at 03:41 on Oct 18, 2021

TK-42-1
Oct 30, 2013

looks like we have a bad transmitter



45 minutes for a single frame. It’s bonkers how far we’ve come.

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.

Jesus a 12 gig 486. That was some serious storage at the time. And no, this isn’t sarcasm. I worked for a phone book company whose entire company was stored on a terabyte (actually one and a quarter) storage array. That was millions of dollars.

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MikusR
Jan 5, 2008
I will take any B5 CGI over the vomit inducing BSG shaky-cam. Also I hope there is a special place in hell for whoever had the idea to fast forward the whole episode during intro.

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