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Now that the remaster is out, is there any fan edit project to stitch together a cut that uses as much of the 16:9 DVD as possible, but swaps in 4:3 HD footage to replace the cropped SFX scenes?
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Apr 14, 2021 02:07
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Season 2 of Babylon 5 (fall 1994) just started on my SFL Archives readthrough, and JMS is extremely online in the most toxic usage of that phrase. The easiest way to anger JMS in 1994 is to mention Star Trek, the 2nd easiest way to anger JMS in 1994 is to ask what role other people have in the production/licensing/casting decisions of Babylon 5 (JMS doesn't like sharing credit yet is already eagerly dumping blame onto other people for various decisions made). By episode 2 of season 2 fans of B5 have already predicted alot of things that would happen for real. The biggest thing for this thread: The Shadows are being referred to as Shadowmen by JMS. Shadowmen ships. Shadowmen. Shadowmen influencing Londo, etc.
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Apr 16, 2021 04:42
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Jedit posted:
There's an episode where Talia says she's been trying to get another telepath sent out to B5 to take up some of the work load, and Psi Corps won't because there's not enough available (or they don't want to risk any more telepaths on the death trap space colony than they absolutely have to).
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Apr 16, 2021 07:17
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quantumfoam posted:Season 2 of Babylon 5 (fall 1994) just started on my SFL Archives readthrough, and JMS is extremely online in the most toxic usage of that phrase. Is Strasczynski getting salty about people already predicting his plot twists?
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Apr 16, 2021 14:20
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Timby posted:Is Strasczynski getting salty about people already predicting his plot twists? Oh yeah, he was always super pissy about that because if someone predicted it correctly he'd whine about having to change his plan so the poster couldn't claim that jms ripped the idea off.
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Apr 16, 2021 19:20
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Timby posted:Is Strasczynski getting salty about people already predicting his plot twists? Timby posted:Is Strasczynski getting salty about people already predicting his plot twists? Most of the stuff fans accurately predicted haven't been written yet.
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Apr 16, 2021 20:57
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Wasn’t there an issue with Passing Through Gethsemane where someone wrote to JMS suggesting that exact plot line while he was writing the episode, and so he had to go through a load of legal hoops to ensure he wasn’t accused of copying the idea?
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Apr 16, 2021 21:53
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Zaroff posted:Wasn’t there an issue with Passing Through Gethsemane where someone wrote to JMS suggesting that exact plot line while he was writing the episode, and so he had to go through a load of legal hoops to ensure he wasn’t accused of copying the idea? "On another service, someone without considering what he was saying (not his fault, it just happened) said, in essence, "What if somebody on B5 found out that he had been mind-wiped, and used to be something awful previously?" Well, I'd had "Passing Through Gethsemane" on the wire at that time, but when I saw this, I had to scuttle the story. It lay there, untouched, for over a year, until I could finally meet the fellow and get a signed release indicating what'd happened. If that fan had not been fair and reasonable, that episode -- which many consider one of our best -- would never have been made."
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Apr 16, 2021 22:12
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MrL_JaKiri posted:"On another service, someone without considering what he was saying (not his fault, it just happened) said, in essence, "What if somebody on B5 found out that he had been mind-wiped, and used to be something awful previously?" Well, I'd had "Passing Through Gethsemane" on the wire at that time, but when I saw this, I had to scuttle the story. It lay there, untouched, for over a year, until I could finally meet the fellow and get a signed release indicating what'd happened. If that fan had not been fair and reasonable, that episode -- which many consider one of our best -- would never have been made." To be clear this was a viper pit of his own making by actively engaging in the conversations in those threads.
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Apr 16, 2021 22:22
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CaptainPsyko posted:To be clear this was a viper pit of his own making by actively engaging in the conversations in those threads. Yeah, it's the bane of creative types who like to interact with their fans. Terry Pratchett had to abandon his own fangroup on Usenet because if someone put out an idea he couldn't use it.
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Apr 16, 2021 22:48
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Add in that JMS has posted 3 different versions of why Michael O'Hare left/got fired from Babylon 5 in 1994 so far, hyped the hell out of Boxleitner and SFL Archives 1994 has another 2 months to go. I no longer believe the ultimate JMS explanation post O'Hare death.
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Apr 17, 2021 01:40
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*mails a copy of every in-progress script to myself because of vague Hollywood hearsay lawlore*
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Apr 17, 2021 02:11
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quantumfoam posted:Add in that JMS has posted 3 different versions of why Michael O'Hare left/got fired from Babylon 5 in 1994 so far, hyped the hell out of Boxleitner and SFL Archives 1994 has another 2 months to go. I no longer believe the ultimate JMS explanation post O'Hare death. There being a real reason that MO'H left and he's sworn to secrecy about it makes it more likely he'll post random bullshit at the time, surely
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Apr 17, 2021 09:21
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quantumfoam posted:I no longer believe the ultimate JMS explanation post O'Hare death. This is a loving appalling thing to say and you should be ashamed. Literally saying that JMS decided to slander and abuse O'Hare as soon as he wasn't around to fight back. Also I don't see the problem with JMS hyping up Boxleitner. He'd burst onto the scene saying his show was already planned out for a full five year arc, something that had never been done in genre TV before, then at the end of season 1 he had to create a new lead character. As an original run viewer, let me tell you that there was a lot of doubt about Sheridan - especially as the first rumour was that Ivanova was going to be promoted to station command. But then Boxleitner engaged everyone almost immediately and by the middle of S2 confidence was restored.
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Apr 17, 2021 10:11
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MrL_JaKiri posted:There being a real reason that MO'H left and he's sworn to secrecy about it makes it more likely he'll post random bullshit at the time, surely This is a downside of JMS being being so online circa 1994. He can't stop replying and first-posting about Babylon 5. JMS directly broke the news of O'Hare leaving B5 in one of his summer of 1994 posts to GEnie/SFL Archives, which was a flat "Michael O'Hare made the decision himself to leave B5" statement. Then O'Hare leaving B5 switched to Michael O'Hare having been in deep consultation with JMS before deciding to leave B5. Then in fall 1994 the definitive story of O'Hare leaving B5 switched to JMS & the two other producers of B5 (Netter & Copeland) having a sit-down meeting with O'Hare I have no doubt O'Hare shared his condition with JMS later on and that they made that private agreement, in a followup meeting maybe a year or so later, when O'Hare was doing convention tours alongside JMS or during one of his guest-starring returns to B5. What I highly doubted was all that highly private & personal information was already known or came out during that meeting with JMS & Netter & Copeland.
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Apr 17, 2021 14:16
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None of those statements are actually contradictory. They could all be true and it still would fit the reason he left.
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Apr 17, 2021 14:25
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Doctor Zero posted:None of those statements are actually contradictory. They could all be true and it still would fit the reason he left. True. However what is known in 2021 may not have been known in 1994. Here's the full JMS post on O'Hare --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 3 Oct 1994 06:55:05 -0400 From: straczynski@genie.geis.com Reply-to: sf-lovers-babylon5@Rutgers.Edu Subject: Re: Truth on Ohare <offical> "It wasn't JMS's call (re: O'Hare)." Okay, I've sat on the sidelines through enough of this; I feel that I have to dive in on this. Frankly, I don't much care what "the Hollywood" word is about Michael. The word from Hollywood also said that we had fired ALL the cast, that we had fired Michael *and* Richard Biggs, that Michael had quit, on and on and on. (The bit about firing Richard Biggs, btw, came up at a Conadian panel by someone who *swore* up down and sideways that it was true, and he'd heard it from someone at Warners. I've got the tape of the panel.) I don't know who you are. I *do* know that there were only four people in the room when we broached this with Michael, and you're not one of them. (Present: me, Michael, Doug Netter and John Copeland.) We indicated that there were some new and interesting directions that the story could take in season two, but it would mean Sinclair vanishing for a prolonged period of time, and what were his feelings on that? He noted that he'd been expecting this from where the scripts had been going, and that there were some opportunities that he wanted to explore on his own. It seemed like a good opportunity for both sides. It was made clear at that meeting that Sinclair was *not* gone for good, that he *would* be back at various points, but not in the same capacity...because we had some nifty ideas about something we could do with that character outside of the confining role of Commander. By the end of the meeting, it was decided that that was, indeed, what we would do. We knew that Michael would be returning to New York soon to pursue some long-standing options, and since we knew we'd be needing him (and I knew where and when), I scripted out material for when he is seen again, and we filmed that prior to his jaunt so we wouldn't have to shlep him clear across the country later, and in case he should indeed be busy at the time. I could frankly give a poo poo what anybody hears on the Hollywood rumor mill. More nonsense goes out on those particular jungle drums than anyone can even conceive of...and anyone who takes them to heart is more than a little foolish. JMS ------------------------------
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Apr 17, 2021 14:31
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quantumfoam posted:This is a downside of JMS being being so online circa 1994. He can't stop replying and first-posting about Babylon 5. This claim has absolutely no support and is just weird. O’Hare was behaving strangely on set. When he and JMS discussed his situation, the agreement they reached was intended to conceal the real reason he was leaving the show, because word he had a mental problem would have destroyed his career and as a working actor, that would have also meant he had no means to get the help he needed to get through his problems. That doesn’t just mean JMS commiting to lie about the departure, it necessitated lies, and it meant JMS had to work urgently to quash rumors that O’Hare was being fired for being “difficult” on set, or a bad actor, or anything else that would skuttle his future career. His actual behavior at the time, online, supports the story he has since told, and nothing you have posted calls that into question or provides the slightest hint that JMS is lying NOW when he has no reason to, instead of then, when he did and pretty clearly was. Assuming that producers meeting happened, the lie was what JMS told the others about the agreement he reached with O’Hare. We know Sheridan was never the original plan, B4 was to be taken 20 years into the future, Sinclair wasn’t Valen. JMS had to rework the story to accommodate the change. But given the rework did improve the story, he could tell the other producers that was the motive for O’Hare’s departure and omit the real reason entirely.
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Apr 17, 2021 14:55
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The Prisoner is more popular than I thought. I should probably watch it at some point.
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Apr 21, 2021 14:08
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I've been doing a rewatch for the first time since my initial go through (which was in uhh 2009 or 2010?) and god drat the episode with the religious parents who won't let their kid get the operation pissed me off immensely. Otherwise A+ still very good so far even on season 1. Really helps that I was still doing a lot of drugs ten years ago and I basically don't remember anything!
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Apr 21, 2021 15:07
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ultrafilter posted:The Prisoner is more popular than I thought. I should probably watch it at some point. I watched it semi-recently and it's quite the trip.
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Apr 21, 2021 23:02
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ultrafilter posted:The Prisoner is more popular than I thought. I should probably watch it at some point. It's good! I recommend it. One concern: The episodes of The Prisoner don't (for the most part) lead in to one another, but the order in which they were aired is thought to be a very poor arrangement. There are several proposed orders which make the show make more* sense: https://prisoner.fandom.com/wiki/Episode_order_(1967_series) An example: the second aired episode was, in the DVD release, moved to be episode 5. *It never makes a lot of sense, but, you know, more.
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Apr 21, 2021 23:19
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Pretty good posted:I've been doing a rewatch for the first time since my initial go through (which was in uhh 2009 or 2010?) and god drat the episode with the religious parents who won't let their kid get the operation pissed me off immensely. You're not supposed to be happy about it. The author wasn't: he figured out while writing that JMS assigned him the concept because he had a son the same age as the child in the episode, and called JMS up in the middle of the night to say "You son of a bitch, now I know why you assigned me to write this episode."
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Apr 22, 2021 00:27
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgeuBYw2J3Y Always enjoy getting a little sad seeing what the show could look like with modern tech.
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Apr 23, 2021 05:34
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It’s a symptom of fan projects and the time it takes to do them and not at all about the talents of the person creating them but so many of these videos look way too much like a video game cutscene for me to like them too much. I’ve seen a few DS9 videos that evoke the same feeling. I know this is a weird thing to say about the CGI on Babylon 5!
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Apr 23, 2021 05:47
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Kibayasu posted:It’s a symptom of fan projects and the time it takes to do them and not at all about the talents of the person creating them but so many of these videos look way too much like a video game cutscene for me to like them too much. I’ve seen a few DS9 videos that evoke the same feeling. No, I get what you mean. They've gone overboard with the VFX just for the sake of doing so without adding anything to what was already there. B5's CGI was (admittedly probably partly due to budgeting) often very direct in its intent rather than for its own sake, and when you get shots like the Centauri ship getting destroyed it's not about "woo ship blow up", it's about the potentially-terrible ramifications of sinking a Centauri warship up so political refugees can make a getaway.
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Apr 23, 2021 06:34
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------------------------------ Date: 18 Dec 1994 19:55:34 -0500 From: straczynski@genie.geis.com Reply-to: sf-lovers-babylon5@Rutgers.Edu Subject: JMS: Londo and Shakespeare? The interesting thing for me in this and related conversations is that I frequently notice messages indicating that "JMS is doing the whole Kennedy thing," or it's the Lord of the Rings, or it's Dune, or it's tracking the Bible, or it's following Yeats...or it echoes Shakespeare, as in this case. In a way, they're all right, and in a way, they're all wrong. Right in the sense that in trying to create myth, or a story using traditional epic structure, you can see echoes not only between B5 and other such stories, but also between those other epics. The mistake is in thinking (and this isn't directed at you, just sort of woolgathering) that it is in fact a parallel to any one of them. That leads you into the error of the blind men each touching a part of an elephant; if you think the trunk IS the elephant, you've erred, and all conclusions that follow are thus skewed incorrectly. To the question of Shakespeare and Londo...yes, there's some resonance there, because Londo is an almost archetypal tragic/comic, or romantic/tragic figure. There was certainly a fair amount of Falstaff in him; references to consulting three technomages certainly resonates with Macbeth being "endorsed" as it were by the three witches. You can look at Londo and see Lear, or Hamlet, or others...and they all resonate to one degree or another, but none of them is wholecloth. Right now, all that most viewers have of the B5 story is a piece of the elephant, and are assuming that that *is* the elephant. Another good comparison would be to say that if you stop a reader part way into The Lord of the Rings, they'll assume it's all about some hobbits on the road, having adventures. Because they don't yet know about Mordor, or Sauron, or the Rings, or Rivendell, or the sheer *scope* of the thing. I don't think anyone has yet twigged to what this story is, really. One of the things really lacking in American culture, I think, is a sense of *myth*. So the story of Babylon 5 has a very mythic kind of structure. I think that's important. Which is why a lot of the elements I draw on aren't traditional television devices...literature, poetry, religion, hard SF, metafiction, Jungian symbology...there are an awful lot of ingredients in this particular pie, culled from the less likely aisles in the supermarket. You have to remember that my degrees are in psychology and sociology, with minors in literature and philosophy. So my tastes and predilections and resources are fairly eclectic and lean toward the classical. (How else to explain an atheist who's read the Bible cover to cover *twice*?) And I think I just answered your question in far more detail than could possibly have been desired... JMS ------------------------------
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Apr 23, 2021 07:28
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Hey, I don't know if anybody is familiar with him but SfDebris is a science fiction reviewer who is also doing Bablyon 5 and has been for at least the last 10 years. Recently he covered Interludes and Examinations and while giving his analyses of Kosh's final experience, he mentions that the Vorlons not only didn't fight the Shadows due to their gentleman's agreement, but that they also wouldn't be match in a straight up military conflict and actually need the alliance of the younger races to stand a chance. And I am not quite sure that actually true. Like, I can't remember if we ever get actual information about the relative military strength of the two races, but I am pretty sure we never get a definite statement like that and the impression I always got from later episodes was always that they were two evenly matched foes, with the ways they engaged in their conflict totally being about proofing their respective ideologies right. I can't check the episode atm, but I appreciate if someone could clarify that for me.
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Apr 23, 2021 11:39
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Kibayasu posted:It’s a symptom of fan projects and the time it takes to do them and not at all about the talents of the person creating them but so many of these videos look way too much like a video game cutscene for me to like them too much. I’ve seen a few DS9 videos that evoke the same feeling. It's not just fan projects, for a long time now all manner of genre work has been stuck in the "more = better than" mode of VFX and space cinematography. Just because you can doesn't mean you should.
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Apr 23, 2021 12:01
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He's completely wrong, and this is explicit text.
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Apr 23, 2021 12:12
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Jedit posted:He's completely wrong, and this is explicit text. If anything I thought that the shadows had less military strength than the Vorlons. That’s part of the reason why they operated through subterfuge and buried their capital ships all over the place.
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Apr 23, 2021 12:17
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Kwatz posted:If anything I thought that the shadows had less military strength than the Vorlons. That’s part of the reason why they operated through subterfuge and buried their capital ships all over the place. The Shadows and the Vorlons both operate through subterfuge. It's just a bit more overt in the case of the Shadows, because they buried ships while the Vorlons buried telepaths. But we know that both races have the power to extirpate life from the galaxy if they wish; judging their respective strength by how far they could make the pieces fly is meaningless.
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Apr 23, 2021 12:26
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Jedit posted:He's completely wrong, and this is explicit text. Yeah, I think he's reading too much into the line of "we are still few." that always struck me as more of an excuse than a literal fact. But it is possible that there are fewer Vorlons, but they tend to be more powerful/advanced. When you see them going toe to toe, the Vorlons generally come out on top. It could be a 'fewer but stronger vs a zerg rush' thing. This is just a thought and not backed up anywhere that I know of.
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Apr 23, 2021 12:50
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Yeah, it always struck me as more of a Cold War MAD scenario. If one side has enough weapons to wipe out humanity x20, and the other x50, doesn't make much practical difference.
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Apr 23, 2021 12:50
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Doctor Zero posted:Yeah, I think he's reading too much into the line of "we are still few." that always struck me as more of an excuse than a literal fact. Shadows as the Zerg and Vorlons as the Protoss is surprisingly close.
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Apr 23, 2021 14:25
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Doctor Zero posted:Yeah, I think he's reading too much into the line of "we are still few." that always struck me as more of an excuse than a literal fact. I'd say you're right. Keep in mind that Vorlon Planet-Killer basically went uncontested, and you'd think if the Shadows had the means to kill it then they would ASAP.
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Apr 24, 2021 10:15
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The show never explored it further, but back in the day once the malevolence of Kosh's replacement was clear and the Vorlons shown to absolutely not be few in number or lacking power, I assumed that Kosh telling Sheridan there were too few of them to help meant there were too few sympathetic Vorlons like himself
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Apr 24, 2021 11:12
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Seemlar posted:The show never explored it further, but back in the day once the malevolence of Kosh's replacement was clear and the Vorlons shown to absolutely not be few in number or lacking power, I assumed that Kosh telling Sheridan there were too few of them to help meant there were too few sympathetic Vorlons like himself Vorlons are just ur-Boomers. 99% of them think that everyone younger them is an idiot, politically naïve and the only reason they're even alive is because we built this loving galaxy and now you kids want to tell us how to run it, but gently caress you, we'll do what we want and if you don't like it, we'll genocide the loving lot of you, we earned these genocide credits, not like you.
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Apr 24, 2021 14:04
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Neddy Seagoon posted:I'd say you're right. Keep in mind that Vorlon Planet-Killer basically went uncontested, and you'd think if the Shadows had the means to kill it then they would ASAP. When tricked into direct confrontation, neither side backed down. We do know the Vorlons had multiple planetkillers and fleets; the Shadows also had multiple planetkillers but may not have deployed one of them given that the Drahk were able to abscond with it later. Given their rules of engagement, it’s likely neither side was actually sure whether their forces had an advantage in direct confrontation, which gives them reason to continue that policy and use Younger Races as proxies for their conflict. After the end of S3, the Vorlons evidently believed the Shadows weakened enough to move openly in a way that does appear to violate their rules of engagement, but it’s unclear whether the Shadows fail to mount an effective defense because they lost military strength or because their leadership got blown up and they take some time to work out replacements. It’s likely the latter, because there’s a delay before they deploy their planetkiller, and after it is deployed the Vorlons do not voluntarily attempt to stop it. The key may be that the Vorlons had superior fighting power, but that the Shadows, by using others to operate their ships, suffered fewer casualties in actual combat. In other words, the Vorlons might prevail in direct combat but some actual Vorlons would die doing so, while the Shadows might lose but their losses would be ships, not population. One presumes, therefore, that they could better replace their losses, which would in turn make the Vorlons overcautious.
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Apr 24, 2021 14:38
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Londo's guards were able to wipe out a couple Shadows pretty easily, but B5's entire security team was overwhelmed by one Vorlon. That doesn't really say much about how the two races would fare in ship-to-ship combat, but it's consistent with the idea that the Vorlons are fewer in number but much stronger than the Shadows.
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Apr 24, 2021 15:22
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