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The Descent Freespace games are fuckin awesome and some of it really does give Babylon 5 vibes imo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ-xcgBL1mY
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Sep 22, 2022 02:16
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdKcJH9ONqk These are the dumbest motherfuckers this planet has ever produced.
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Sep 23, 2022 07:41
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not giving the comicsgater clicks thx
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Sep 23, 2022 08:07
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Gnome de plume posted:not giving the comicsgater clicks thx You are wise than I.
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Sep 23, 2022 08:52
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I had a screenshot of a promo letter I received from the CW touting the new shows they're airing next fall - leading off with a space station. But then I woke up.
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Sep 23, 2022 12:51
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Neo Rasa posted:The Descent Freespace games are fuckin awesome and some of it really does give Babylon 5 vibes imo Freespace 2 is ludicrously good and still holds up imo (also legal to get copies off your friends). (Also it being called Descent: Freespace was just them attaching the Descent brand to it to try and boost sales)
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Sep 23, 2022 13:18
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Gyrotica posted:To be honest I'm surprised at even this amount of lamp-shading. Like, you can just shrug and say, "Dramatic license." It was a somewhat-experimental 90s sci-fi show with fantasy elements and eternally shaky network support. If in that context command staff flying combat missions bothers you, I don't know what to say. Officers are assigned a general branch: infantry, logistics, etc. Aviation is one of these branches. An officer that's a pilot may very well take command of a unit or two as their career progresses, but they're still a pilot and need to maintain their proficiency. That said, they aren't the tip of the spear flying into combat.
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Sep 23, 2022 13:37
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MrL_JaKiri posted:Freespace 2 is ludicrously good and still holds up imo (also legal to get copies off your friends). (Also it being called Descent: Freespace was just them attaching the Descent brand to it to try and boost sales) dive dive dive
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Sep 23, 2022 20:25
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We’ve got fifteen minutes to change our shorts.
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Sep 23, 2022 20:30
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MrL_JaKiri posted:(Also it being called Descent: Freespace was just them attaching the Descent brand to it to try and boost sales) Also because they were trying to avoid a trademark conflict with a pre-existing software called FreeSpace, although later it turned out to be a non-issue. Also btw, in Europe it's called Conflict: FreeSpace, so there's not even an indirect connection with the Descent series over here. Zat fucked around with this message at 00:45 on Sep 24, 2022 |
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Sep 23, 2022 21:19
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Skippy McPants posted:dive dive dive HIT YOUR BURNERS PILOT! Freespace 2's campaign is easily the very best campaign in the genre.
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Sep 23, 2022 21:33
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Andreas Katsulas was the best. https://twitter.com/straczynski/status/1573412257274667008
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Sep 23, 2022 23:39
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CainFortea posted:HIT YOUR BURNERS PILOT! I recently stumbled on some playthroughs on YouTube (linked from the Freespace wiki I think) and just hauntingly good, especially considering the limitations of PC games at the time.
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Sep 24, 2022 02:25
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Going from the high of victory when the Colossus previals to the existential horror of seeing the second Sathanas is one of the most dramatic moments produced by pre-2000 gaming.
Skippy McPants fucked around with this message at 08:36 on Sep 24, 2022 |
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Sep 24, 2022 04:39
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The gradual power creep of both you and the enemy from the start of FS1 to the end of FS2 is so good, too.
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Sep 24, 2022 07:35
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Luigi Thirty posted:The gradual power creep of both you and the enemy from the start of FS1 to the end of FS2 is so good, too. When you first go up against the shielded Shivan fighters in your small dinky ship, and later you have shields and FTL drives and it all feels so good.
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Sep 24, 2022 11:23
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Gonna rewatch this show; been over fifteen years since my last viewing. Will it hold up?! Started with the only good movie, In the Beginning - One thing definitely holds up, JMS can write the hell out of a monologue. Edit: The Gathering still sucks, though. Skippy McPants fucked around with this message at 02:31 on Sep 25, 2022 |
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Sep 25, 2022 01:10
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Skippy McPants posted:Gonna rewatch this show; been over fifteen years since my last viewing. Will it hold up?! If you want the spoilery answer: yes. Yes it will.
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Sep 25, 2022 04:14
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Midnight on the Firing Line: A much stronger opening than the pilot. Babylon 5 is usually at its best when showcasing intractable political crises, and while this is a pretty early and rough example, it's still good poo poo. I already know Londo and G'kar become the heart of this show, and even this early on, it's easy to see why. Jurasik and Katsulas are just a cut above everyone they're working with. Soul Hunter: I know this show really trades on the sufficiently advanced technology trope, but stuff like the Soul Hunters is really dumb. Since this isn't Star Trek and the basic dignity of all creatures isn't a given, it is hard for me to believe that a race of space hobos possessing technology able to preserve consciousness after death wouldn't be immediately looted for everything they have. Born to the Purple: I'd forgotten Adira showed up this early in the show, but I guess I shouldn't have, considering how much JMS loves setups that won't pay off for another fifty episodes. Though to his credit, he does fire nearly every gun he loads. That's more than can for a lot of show runners. Infection: If there's one thing I don't miss from this era of television, it's monster of the week episodes. I'm not against he concept, but they almost always feel like padding, and this episode is no exception.
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Sep 25, 2022 13:13
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Infection does a lot of groundwork on things like biotech, and introduces IPX as a weapons company that does archaeology for Anna Sheridan's plot. So it's not super necessary but it feels less so than it should
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Sep 25, 2022 13:19
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I used to feel that way about monster of the week episodes. But after however many years of prestige television nonsense with super serialized plots, I desperately miss how episodes like that help to flesh out the world and minor characters. B5 and later DS9 hit a good balance of serialized story telling and stand-alone episodes.
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Sep 25, 2022 14:41
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funkymonks posted:I used to feel that way about monster of the week episodes. But after however many years of prestige television nonsense with super serialized plots, I desperately miss how episodes like that help to flesh out the world and minor characters. I'd feel better about it if we got more good monster of the week episode, but in quasi-serialized shows like B5, it's often clear that the primary focus was on the overarching plot while the one-offs got sent to the quality ghetto. DS9 did a much better job of splitting the difference, maybe better than any other show I can recall. It probably helped that they shared a lot with and were looking to emulate TNG, which is maybe the best monster of the week show ever produced.
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Sep 25, 2022 15:14
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Skippy McPants posted:I'd feel better about it if we got more good monster of the week episode, but in quasi-serialized shows like B5, it's often clear that the primary focus was on the overarching plot while the one-offs got sent to the quality ghetto. That’s a funny way of spelling the X Files but okey
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Sep 25, 2022 15:22
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Chevy Slyme posted:That’s a funny way of spelling the X Files but okey Well, I also don't like shows that go to poo poo in their final chapters, and X Files drat near tops the list on that score. Edit: DS9's denouement was briefer than I would have like, but it avoided coming apart at the seams.
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Sep 25, 2022 15:28
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Skippy McPants posted:I'd feel better about it if we got more good monster of the week episode, but in quasi-serialized shows like B5, it's often clear that the primary focus was on the overarching plot while the one-offs got sent to the quality ghetto. It’s good in the writerly sense, that it looks like a monster of the week while being a microcosm of the central Vorlon/Shadow conflict as well as introducing Earth’s particularly corrupt and reckless interest in exploiting advanced technology. And it also brilliantly establishes the resolution: that killing the monster isn’t the goal, but rather understanding a way out of the conflict. And it’s terrible in the execution. Amazingly flat and dodgy acting, direction by Richard Compton that confirms that for all his technical skill, he seems to see B5 as a bad B-movie and provides no support for performers, allowing them to flounder around on their own in a sci-fi setting that’s already unmoored them. And JMS hasn’t learned yet how to communicate with his regulars, although if he had it’s unclear whether Michael O’Hare could pull off Sinclair’s combination of near-suicidal survivor’s guilt driving him into this confrontation with the empathy and wisdom that gives him which allows him to understand this bio-weapon’s feelings and draw upon its even deeper survivor’s guilt. One B5 podcast rated the opening segment as terrible and the concluding segment as wonderful, and I think that’s a matter of the writing and messaging cutting through the baffling lack of guidance given the actors. Teague actually manages to be convincing, but the difference between his “facemask acting” and what we’re already getting from Jurasik and Katsulas is just night and day. The related issue is that the performers don’t have any confidence that what they’re doing isn’t drek. They don’t know how this episode resonates with the larger B5 story, and have no reason to trust the show runner yet, and my suspicion is that Compton doesn’t even care. As great as Jurasik is, I don’t think he could have delivered that magnificent In The Beginning monologue as well in early S1 as he can, with so much more context, in S5.
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Sep 25, 2022 15:42
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Narsham posted:As great as Jurasik is, I don’t think he could have delivered that magnificent In The Beginning monologue as well in early S1 as he can, with so much more context, in S5. Oh, this isn't even a question. Jurasik and Katsulas are the frontrunners, but they grow over time just like everyone else. I will say, to their credit, that while the rest of the cast never catch up to them, they do at least close the gap. Right now, Michael O’Hare seems like the only one actually trying. Everyone else from the Earth Force side of things is either stiff as a board or emoting harder than an amateur drama club member. I think Richard Biggs is the only one who I remember still being meh in later seasons. He never really learns not to treat his lines like nails to which his voice is the hammer.
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Sep 25, 2022 15:51
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Skippy McPants posted:Oh, this isn't even a question. Jurasik and Katsulas are the frontrunners, but they grow over time just like everyone else. I will say, to their credit, that while the rest of the cast never catch up to them, they do at least close the gap. Right now, Michael O’Hare seems like the only one actually trying. Everyone else from the Earth Force side of things is either stiff as a board or emoting harder than an amateur drama club member. That had a lot to do with him being mostly deaf.
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Sep 25, 2022 16:01
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Jedit posted:That had a lot to do with him being mostly deaf. Huh, I did not know that. Fair enough.
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Sep 25, 2022 16:21
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Skippy McPants posted:I think Richard Biggs is the only one who I remember still being meh in later seasons. He never really learns not to treat his lines like nails to which his voice is the hammer. I guess, but it also makes him a great straight man to Marcus's irreverent hi-jinks. A conversation that can only end in a gunshot, indeed
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Sep 25, 2022 16:25
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Just in case anyone wants to super annoy her about B5. 
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Sep 25, 2022 19:56
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Barnum Brown Shoes posted:Just in case anyone wants to super annoy her about B5. Uh, that's less than 20 minutes by car from here, at my grad alma mater. Am I being B5 stalked?! 
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Sep 25, 2022 20:34
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Skippy McPants posted:I'd feel better about it if we got more good monster of the week episode, but in quasi-serialized shows like B5, it's often clear that the primary focus was on the overarching plot while the one-offs got sent to the quality ghetto. In the streaming age when you don't have to wait a week for the next episode, it works. But back in the 90s, I remember being kind of exasperated that DS9 would dangle status-quo-shifting story elements and then either undo them in the final moments, or push them into the background so they could have a regular story next week. One episode, the dominion would be at the gates, and ultimate doom in the air, next episode, it gets a passing reference so we can see what Doctor Bashir's up to today, or what's going down with the Ferengi. I know it was pretty much the only way to get any kind of serialization into a show in the 90s, and they weren't the only ones doing it, but I think it stuck out the most on DS9 because they seemed to be working under some hard episodic rules while trying to tell a story of the alpha quadrant being slowly torn apart.
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Sep 25, 2022 23:57
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Just started a rewatch when I saw it on HBOMAX, I forgot how much I loved this show. I typically just keep shows on for background noise while playing narrative light video games, but so often with B5, my attention is pulled away from the game to watch what's going on onscreen. I'm almost done with season 2. edit: what's up with the mention of a reboot in the title? I'm not clicking a chud video.
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Sep 26, 2022 01:47
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Soonmot posted:Just started a rewatch when I saw it on HBOMAX, I forgot how much I loved this show. I typically just keep shows on for background noise while playing narrative light video games, but so often with B5, my attention is pulled away from the game to watch what's going on onscreen. I'm almost done with season 2. JMS is making a pilot of a reboot of B5 for the CW. Originally it was being made for release for the Fall of 2022, but it got pushed back a year with the CW being sold and chaos over at Warner with the new CEO axing shows left and right. Last week JMS said that the decision about the show was being made shortly and called on the B5 fandom to make the show trending on Twitter to show that there really is a dedicated fanbase. This was done, but whether or not that will impact the decision at all has yet to be determined. So there MIGHT be a reboot. If there is, JMS is running things again. That's all we know as yet.
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Sep 26, 2022 01:56
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Whoa, I remember Ivanova accepting Taalia as a person and not freaking out over her anymore, but when did they start dating? This episode where Lyta comes back has Ivanova in a bathrobe as Taalia comes out of the shower. A VERY CLOSE heart to heart conversation and then Taalia wakes up, and puts out her arm as if she's looking for her bedmate, which is how we discover Ivanova is missing. Is this show actually queer? (outside of Londo and G'kar) edit: oh no, unless something happens in these last 3 minutes, I guess this is why I don't remember this relationship Soonmot fucked around with this message at 01:50 on Sep 27, 2022 |
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Sep 27, 2022 01:41
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Honestly while it sure seems like that might've been the intent of that one episode, I don't think their other episodes together really carry that connotation, so it might be easier and more straightforward to read the episode on surface value. Imagining when characters would be loving right offscreen in a show that is otherwise direct about things doesn't seem right. But if anyone in this universe isn't loving, it's Londo and G'kar.
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Sep 27, 2022 01:53
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No, I'm pretty sure Ivanova and Talia being an item was the intent, it's just that they couldn't go too far in the 90s so they had to heavily imply it. But they're literally going through the progression of becoming friends, then confidantes, then one staying at the other's room. Just gals being pals, right?
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Sep 27, 2022 01:55
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roommates
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Sep 27, 2022 01:57
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If I remember right, there's a clear progression of them chatting over lunch, to being ... vaguely friendly?, to Talia coming to Ivanova's quarters in tears late one night saying she needs someone to talk to, and then they're just implied to be in bed together. Like, not later that night. But part of Talia moving away from the Corps involves her being closer with Ivanova. Also, thank you, I'd completely forgotten the name Talia Winters yesterday and was trying to remember, but got distracted and never checked what it was. (I was standing there thinking "Okay, Pat Tallman played Lyta Alexander and Andrea Thompson played ... ??? Why have I forgotten that name?")
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Sep 27, 2022 02:02
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I've always seen Ivanova and Talia as lovers and it really feels like the intent. In fact, Ivanova says something along the lines of how she loved Talia, in a later season. Admittedly, she could have meant a platonic love, but it really felt romantic to me?
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Sep 27, 2022 02:13
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