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Powered Descent posted:Last thought: whatever happened to the commander's girlfriend? It appeared like she'd be sticking around but she hasn't gotten so much as a mention in several episodes now. She has her own gig surveying systems. She'll drop back in
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Nov 20, 2021 07:21
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Powered Descent posted:Switching back to the bullet-point format so the blocks of spoilertext look nicer. JMS originally wanted Patrick McGoohan for that role. Apparently he was interested, but had a scheduling conflict.
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Nov 20, 2021 16:12
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SlothfulCobra posted:The CGI has aged badly (and honestly might've been cheap for its time) Check out other 90s TV CGI, for example from the Battletech cartoon (CGI or partially CGI cartoons were a bit of a fad at the time). Believe me it could be a LOT worse.
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Nov 20, 2021 16:37
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Narsham posted:JMS originally wanted Patrick McGoohan for that role. Apparently he was interested, but had a scheduling conflict. That would have been awesome, and that trivia tidbit also makes the portrayal make a bit more sense. McGoohan could have made the over-the-topness work.
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Nov 20, 2021 16:50
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CGI was on par with contemporary games.
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Nov 21, 2021 01:25
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If you think Kosh walking round the station isn't mysterious, try and figure out how he fits through the doors.
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Nov 21, 2021 02:29
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I got into a car wreck last weekend, and I'm stuck on bedrest for the time being, so I've finally gotten around to binging this. I've heard a lot of good things from enthusiastic friends over the years and I've somehow managed to avoid any spoilers. I'm really digging the opportunity to dive into some classic sci-fi that I really don't know anything about. I'm planning to finish up Season 1 tonight; I've only got three episodes left - Babylon Squared, Legacies, and Chrysalis. I'm enjoying Season 1 quite a bit. I'm giving it a lot of patience because I've been told that it gets better and less episodic as it goes on, but I love the worldbuilding so far. Even when it's a bit hokey, it's still entertaining. I think that the cast has been pretty consistently strong; I'm currently #TeamGaribaldi. I just finished the "A Voice in the Wilderness" (S01E19 + 20) two-parter, and those episodes really up'd my level of investment in the show. I'm extremely intrigued about where this might be going. The political elements of Game of Thrones and The Expanse were always my favorite parts, so I'm hoping/assuming that things are starting to move in that direction. I'd like to post some thoughts on episodes as I go forward from here; I think it'll help me to focus more and do a better job of remembering the important details. On that note, can anyone recommend a good Season 1 recap? I've been watching most of the season on pain meds, so I'd really like to make sure that I didn't miss/forget anything that might be important later on.
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Nov 21, 2021 02:55
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The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5 is a pretty detailed account of what happened on the show and the internet discussion from the original run of the series. None of what's there is spoilers in the sense that the people who wrote it down knew what was coming, but they did guess a lot of things correctly, so stick to the episode synopses if you want the blindest watch possible.
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Nov 21, 2021 03:34
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Erulisse posted:CGI was on par with contemporary games. I would say that's a bit rosy a view of contemporary games.
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Nov 21, 2021 03:58
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Erulisse posted:CGI was on par with contemporary games. Not the first time I've seen someone say this but games contemporary to Babylon 5 season 1 include TIE Fighter and Doom 2. Even season 5 we're talking about, like, Star Wars Rogue Squadron and Half Life 1. The CG in B5 is way ahead of those games and I have no idea how anyone can say they are on par.
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Nov 21, 2021 05:23
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Elder Postsman posted:Not the first time I've seen someone say this but games contemporary to Babylon 5 season 1 include TIE Fighter and Doom 2. Even season 5 we're talking about, like, Star Wars Rogue Squadron and Half Life 1. The CG in B5 is way ahead of those games and I have no idea how anyone can say they are on par. I was thinking, maybe, in comparison to pre-rendered cinematics in mid-90s games? I doubt it'd hold up, and I haven't played enough games from the era to know firsthand, but it'd make more sense than comparing B5's CGI to Dark Forces (released right in the middle of Babylon 5, Season 2).
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Nov 21, 2021 05:45
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Yeah most games coming out around then had terrible and terrifying cg, though that was especially the case when they tried to do human characters. Babylon 5 wisely kept the CG to ships, physical objects, weird aliens, and only far shots of humans. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dvbs0RxrQEU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRDb5OKsPZk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOjejOqiSTo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvj71Cl2iPg The one exception would be Wing Commander III and IV, which had really high budgets and wisely used CG only for ships and sets and such, compositing greenscreen actors on top of them. I'd say in this case the CG was pretty comparable, especially the orgy of CG that was the planet-busting ending: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qYItb4g6qg&t=6518s Honestly that's probably a bit better than most Babylon 5 CG, though again they did have a higher budget.
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Nov 21, 2021 05:54
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s01e10 - Believers
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Nov 21, 2021 06:21
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Powered Descent posted:In a strange way, I agree with two completely opposite viewpoints. You're starting to get the hang of this Babylon 5 thing.
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Nov 21, 2021 06:28
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I just finished up Season 1 and watched the first episode of Season 2. drat, what a ride. It's definitely been worth the slow buildup. Babylon Squared (s01e21)
Legacies (s01e22)
Crysalis (s01e23)
Points of Departure (S02e01)
discoukulele fucked around with this message at 07:07 on Nov 21, 2021 |
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Nov 21, 2021 06:59
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Love the new intro and better music.
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The key difference between videogames and TV CGI is that videogames had to render in real time, while TV can at least do pre-rendered stuff, but that introduces an element of gambling that the animators did everything right, because all the time it takes to render, you may not be able to go back and edit.Powered Descent posted:s01e10 - Believers Honestly, I didn't even notice there being a B plot. The power of the A plot overcame it all. It was also a rare opportunity to really compare and contrast all the major races at once over the same issue, just to really see all their diplomatic styles. But I think the biggest saving grace of the whole episode that allows it to work in a way many shows would be hamhanded with a similar theme is the show really respects religion. Not just how in this episode, everyone is respectful of the religion in this one episode, but the show's earlier episodes established much more respect for religion than sci-fi usually has. There was a whole episode earlier about showing all these races having religion, and humanity not being above the rest of them, but just still having its assortment of religions. There was an episode about soul hunters that sorta implies that there's some kind of real mysticism out there without really confirming or denying anything. So many other works of sci-fi would just turn this into a diatribe against religion as a whole, or worse, imply that the alien religions are uniquely ignorant. Not like it's the best episode, but it's better than it could've been.
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Nov 21, 2021 07:34
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Powered Descent posted:s01e10 - Believers I wonder if that shows how TV has changed since the early nineties. JMS made a big point on usenet at the time about how most shows would have found a way to have the kid alive and well by the end of the episode and how he wanted to subvert that. If memory serves, he was trying to go for a similar feel to the Twilight Zone episode 'The Cold Equations'.
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Nov 21, 2021 10:02
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Elder Postsman posted:Not the first time I've seen someone say this but games contemporary to Babylon 5 season 1 include TIE Fighter and Doom 2. Even season 5 we're talking about, like, Star Wars Rogue Squadron and Half Life 1. The CG in B5 is way ahead of those games and I have no idea how anyone can say they are on par. Are we talking immersion or polygon count? If we talk series-wide timeframe, Toy Story was released in 1995. After you finish crying of how old are we all, theres that caveat to the discussion - show and movie CGI was prerendered for max quality, whilst games had to be dynamically playable on small devices and not on render farms with aftertouches on a different device. To water it down - in 2001 we had mummy returns (enjoy https://www.thewrap.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/the-mummy-returns-scorpion-king-the-rock-bad-movie-cgi.jpg) and it was NOT on par with any game released back then.
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Nov 21, 2021 10:24
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Powered Descent posted:s01e10 - Believers Removing anything spoilery: this is exactly what happened. JMS gave the script outline to David Gerrold with the intention that it would be A-plot only, but the script came back a few pages short so JMS had to write the B-plot himself to pad it.
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Nov 21, 2021 11:18
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Powered Descent posted:s01e10 - Believers Stripping the spoiler tags from these two: Powered Descent posted:s01e10 - Believers discoukulele posted:Points of Departure (S02e01) General S2 question: How do you feel about oranges? Orange juice? Fresh oranges?
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Nov 21, 2021 16:17
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Vavrek posted:Is the pilot hard to find? Not on a streaming service? I have DVDs (or, I have a family member I can borrow DVDs from), so I haven't looked deeply into where B5 can be found these days. At least it's on HBO Max in the US (in fact they consider it episode 1 of season 1 of the series, which is a little silly.)
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Nov 21, 2021 16:26
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Erulisse posted:If we talk series-wide timeframe, Toy Story was released in 1995. The budget and timeline for a feature film and an episode of a TV series were (and still are) completely different.
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Nov 21, 2021 16:33
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discoukulele posted:
Think of the gate as the door to your house. There are more ways in than just the door.
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Nov 21, 2021 17:02
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Re: The Pilot, a lot of services have listed it as Season 1 Episode 0 and it shows up at the end of the season 1 listing, and some have it as it’s own “season”. So check those spots. The episode title is “The Gathering”
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Nov 21, 2021 17:28
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Zat posted:At least it's on HBO Max in the US (in fact they consider it episode 1 of season 1 of the series, which is a little silly.) I figured it was something like that leading to discoukulele calling Chrysalis s1e23.
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Nov 21, 2021 17:42
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Yeah, I'm watching it on HBO Max, so The Gathering was episode 1, and they also apparently switched the placement of Legacies and The Quality of Mercy.Vavrek posted:General S2 question: How do you feel about oranges? Orange juice? Fresh oranges? Guess I'm making mimosas for the S2 finale. discoukulele fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Nov 21, 2021 |
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Nov 21, 2021 18:21
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Zat posted:At least it's on HBO Max in the US (in fact they consider it episode 1 of season 1 of the series, which is a little silly.) I already have HBO Max... wait, you're telling me I've had perfectly legit streaming access to the show this whole time?  Time to give up my piratical ways. But at least the copy I've been watching appears to be a rip of the same (remastered?) video source.
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Nov 21, 2021 18:26
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discoukulele posted:Yeah, I'm watching it on HBO Max, so The Gathering was episode 1, and they also apparently switched the placement of Legacies and The Quality of Mercy. TKO and Legacies were both originally intended to run after The Quality of Mercy. It maybe works a little bit better if you do that, but it doesn't really matter much.
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Nov 21, 2021 19:01
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discoukulele posted:Yeah, I'm watching it on HBO Max, so The Gathering was episode 1, and they also apparently switched the placement of Legacies and The Quality of Mercy. They did. I thought about remarking on it, but it only changes one very small thing in the arc plot and that's an interpretation of one event. Specifically, it changes why Delenn is thinking of a chrysalis. In the intended run order it's because she's building the device to make it; in the HBO Max order it's because she's about to enter it. I don't think we see inside Delenn's quarters, so there's no continuity issue with the device. Fun fact: Legacies is the only episode in the entire five season run where a plot was cold pitched to JMS by the writer rather than him and Larry diTillio assigning an outline or brief.
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Nov 21, 2021 19:17
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Recently I wanted to rewatch the series because I remembered I have the first series on Amazon Prime already, and the next couple seasons all just cost a couple of bucks, approximately. But then I got cold feet because I also remembered there was a remaster at some point and Amazon Prime doesn't tell me which version I'm actually buying. Is my fear completely senseless and Amazon doesn't even have the old non-remasters anymore or am I right not to waste my money?
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Nov 21, 2021 19:33
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The Gathering is listed as a bonus episode in season one on Amazon prime, and from the look of it, it's even listed as free. If you're watching on DVD (which can be cheaper than streaming on Amazon, it's about $100 for a box set) then The Gathering is separate from the rest and usually grouped with the rest of the TV movies. Just don't confuse it with In The Beginning, which is the first of a number of TV movies that were put out in season 5. Vavrek posted:s01e10 - Believers The way I remember it, G'kar was the one really asking for them to prove some kind of strategic relevance for his nation, Londo just wanted a bribe.
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Nov 21, 2021 19:43
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SlothfulCobra posted:The way I remember it, G'kar was the one really asking for them to prove some kind of strategic relevance for his nation, Londo just wanted a bribe. That might be it. I was phone posting and didn't look up to confirm who did what. (I did think those two had similar reactions, but couldn't remember which was which and just guessed.)
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Nov 21, 2021 21:41
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Vavrek posted:That might be it. I was phone posting and didn't look up to confirm who did what. (I did think those two had similar reactions, but couldn't remember which was which and just guessed.) Yeah, though Londo did couch his refusal in similar National interest terms; he just then intimated that a bribe would encourage him to look past that, since what they wanted, while not helpful to the Centauri, also wouldn’t be harmful to them.
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Nov 21, 2021 22:03
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s02e02 - Revelations
s02e03 - Geometry of Shadows
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Nov 22, 2021 00:17
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discoukulele posted:[*]Spacing kills people a lot faster than 5 minutes, right? NASA accidentally put someone in a vacuum chamber once so we actually know this. You pass out in about fifteen seconds, then you'll suffocate which varies by person but five minutes is a pretty reasonable estimate. You don't freeze or anything, space is a thermos and you'll be dead from lack of oxygen long before your body temperature drops noticeably. You also don't explode, your skin is a pressure vessel. You do end up with basically a full body hickey as your capillaries burst though. Fortunately the dude who got vacuumed was rescued before suffocation, around a minute and a half IIRC. It was no fun but no permanent damage.
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Nov 22, 2021 00:28
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Grand Fromage posted:NASA accidentally put someone in a vacuum chamber once so we actually know this.  Do you have the story, there? Because, uh, voice in the back of my head keeps going "What the gently caress? What the fuuuck?" I'd heard all those details about spacing before, from Farscape and Babylon 5, and people saying "yeah that's about right". The only other details I remember are: your eyes might get hosed up, as lowering pressure drops the boiling point of water, and you shouldn't try to hold your breath because the 1 Atm. of pressure inside your lungs can rupture some tissues.
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Nov 22, 2021 01:37
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Well goddamn, at least you'd hopefully pass out in 15 seconds. 
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Nov 22, 2021 01:40
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The Time a NASA Experiment Gone Wrong Almost Killed Someone He was only in there for about half a minute, not a minute and a half, so there was no permanent damage.
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Nov 22, 2021 01:42
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ultrafilter posted:The Time a NASA Experiment Gone Wrong Almost Killed Someone The linked article claims death in 90 seconds. I don't think that can be correct. Wikipedia claims you can last up to 90 seconds without suffering permanent damage; I doubt death comes one second after that. Apparently, animal experiments suggest that after 90 seconds, the kind of permanent damage you'll suffer will kill you, but that doesn't address the original question. Poking around on different sites suggests that organs die from lack of oxygen around 2 minutes in.
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Nov 22, 2021 01:56
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I also remember the two minute figure, but my little sanity check google was saying five minutes is a more normal time for death by suffocation.  Maybe being in vacuum makes it happen faster.Anyway, the uncontroversial part is you pass out pretty quick so other than the existential terror of your final seconds it's not the worst way to die.
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Nov 22, 2021 02:11
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