Babylon 5: Reboot and Zooty

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > Babylon 5: Reboot and Zooty

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Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

Pivoting after O'Hare had to leave worked out pretty well.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2017 15:32

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 13:19

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

That fuckin music though.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2017 22:00

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

I vote for "wacky outtake"

# ¿ Dec 31, 2017 20:35

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

I think he was pretty open about how many Tolkien influences and homages were visible in B5.

�Lorien� is a really weird name to reuse in the way he did though

# ¿ Apr 9, 2018 13:31

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

Well, or they could be alluding to how more renowned stuff wasn't necessarily all that well received when it first came out but then came to be much better regarded over time?

# ¿ Apr 12, 2018 10:44

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

Psi tape is real

# ¿ May 2, 2018 03:31

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

Schizophrenia eh? Well never mind. Here's your role: THERE IS A HOLE IN YOUR MIND

# ¿ May 6, 2018 01:41

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

I know, let's do a prequel series about Sheridan as a kid

# ¿ May 24, 2018 13:36

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

You mean aside from �keep the Russians from getting there�?

# ¿ Jul 7, 2018 01:33

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

I honestly am still kind of flabbergasted that they managed to write their way around O'Hare's situation and turn it into a coherent story.

# ¿ Aug 4, 2018 14:35

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

Also it would be one thing if the leading man left because of a contract dispute or getting disgraced in Hollywood or something like that. But O'Hare's problem was literally "There is a hole in your mind" :psyduck:

# ¿ Aug 4, 2018 18:07

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

Pick posted:

Oh also don't skip any episodes. They're basically all important.

It's highly sequential. In a way that even DS9 is not. You don't want to miss anything.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2018 22:31

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

SlothfulCobra posted:

From the poking around I've done with Star Trek, it seems like there was a real decline in music from the original series to Next Generation to DS9. I don't know if that's cheaper cost of musical talent in the 60s, shifted priority to effects, or what, but the original series is musically vibrant and complex with themes and musical effects and weird sounds to evoke the weird future, while TNG was somewhat more simplistic but compensated with full orchestral arrangements.

And then by the time of DS9, it still was trying to use the sort of orchestral arrangements that TNG had going on, but the music felt blander and less ambitious. I think B5's music does a drat sight better than DS9, but I'd have to go back and watch more to make sure.

TNG's music was consciously kept in check, especially in later seasons, by Rick Berman specifically telling them to make it more like "sonic wallpaper" than any kind of music that would draw attention to itself or be interesting in its own right.

gently caress you Rick Berman

# ¿ Aug 20, 2018 23:00

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

Kurr de la Cruz posted:

Londo and G'Kar stuck in the elevator is now my most favorite sci-fi thing of the 90s.

You and ... I'd wager just about everyone who has seen B5 :allears:

# ¿ Aug 26, 2018 21:23

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

Kurr de la Cruz posted:

Season 4 paying off big time so far. Vir got to do his wave

drat that�s a pro use of that emote.

# ¿ Sep 10, 2018 05:07

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

Unless we�re talking about like a Venture Bros crossover

# ¿ Sep 18, 2018 18:03

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

Timby posted:

To me, Robert Rusler will always be Seether in Wing Commander IV.

Pliers was the best :allears:

# ¿ Nov 1, 2018 23:54

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

If something looks expensive, it's probably not long for the show.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2018 23:31

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

Forever holding up a card in front of its face, sporting a grim expression

# ¿ Nov 4, 2018 05:03

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

Dirty posted:

This was my favourite thing about Babylon 5. The world felt real and fully-formed, and it didn't casually toss in epoch-defining discoveries like gods, superweapons, world-changing technologies etc. for the sole purpose of making a 45-minute point. The Star Trek universe feels like a circus sometimes, everywhere you look there's something astounding and improbable, to the point where nothing is, and nothing matters when the episode ends. I know that's a pretty stale thing to say at this point - Star Trek is at it's core episodic, but in 1994 everything was episodic, which made every plot twist and escalation in B5 very exciting. I remember watching the Earth Force destroyer ramming sequence in Severed Dreams and thinking "holy poo poo, they're really doing it, everything's about to change". 18-year-old me hadn't seen TV like that. 40-year-old me has seen a lot since then, and I can see how B5 might be a hard sell to a modern TV watcher - it broke some ground at the time, but you don't get that from it today. But I still think it's drat good and there's nothing quite like it.

What I like about this is that yes TV in the 80s-90s had settled into a comfortable sitcom-style episodic groove where the universe resets at the end of every half-hour, as the industry had figured out syndication and thought it was the greatest cash cow ever. But that was not just "the way it always was"; serials were more the "default" state, dating back to the golden age of radio and even serialized novels (published in weekly/monthly magazines) before that. Cliffhangers and months-long plot developments were arguably "how it was always done", and the syndicated/episodic format is going to be the weird aberration in history now that TV has gone thoroughly back to serialization (especially since streaming seasons dropping all at once makes it a no-brainer).

# ¿ Nov 9, 2018 15:12

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

Also the Frogstar Fighters are green.

# ¿ Nov 10, 2018 00:29

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

Which isn't to say, like, it's all downhill from here or anything.

Just ... more like, that scene is pretty much why we're all here.

# ¿ Nov 16, 2018 03:08

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

Son of Sam-I-Am posted:

I think this is the very moment, for me, where the show takes the last turn from excellent, and becomes sublime.

I've said it before, but I also think it's the moment when B5 changes from "Trek-esque 80-style thinky sci-fi" to "prestige drama that I'd expect to see on AMC"

# ¿ Dec 20, 2018 14:19

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

The best thing about Crusade was Commander Bill Lumbergh

# ¿ Jan 18, 2019 01:57

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

I mean, it's a pretty lucrative gig

# ¿ May 2, 2019 13:28

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

Burning_Monk posted:

"How do you want to be remembered in history? Alongside the Wright Brothers? Elon Musk? Zefram Cochrane? Or as a failed fungus expert?"

Actual line from the latest Star Trek series. (aired right before Musk started going crazy on twitter with the pedo cave diver brouhaha.)

To this day I giggle about Voyager doing a Y2K themed episode

# ¿ Jul 10, 2019 01:10

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

Nope, just pop a Zima.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2019 16:32

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

TraderStav posted:

He hails from the same country as I do and adore his acting, so I will do just this.

Seriously though, I am really impressed by the acting of J'kar and Londo. Whenever they're on screen I am completely engaged and impressed with their craft.

Put it this way. The G'kar/Londo elevator scene is pretty widely regarded as THE scene that most embodies why everyone in this thread loves B5.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2019 18:45

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

TraderStav posted:

Ooohh! They may have found Babylon 4

Show is definitely getting really cool and good.

The first one sank into the swamp

# ¿ Sep 21, 2019 17:05

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

Yeah, they should have used something nice and legible, like the LCARS font

# ¿ Oct 8, 2019 21:57

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

TraderStav posted:

Unrelated, I can't stop thinking of Fifth Element Bruce Willis for him.

Same. Back when both things were new I had trouble telling them apart.

# ¿ Oct 15, 2019 03:08

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

TK-42-1 posted:

Thats why I used it. If you're having trouble understanding my point, Minbari aren't called something other than Minbari. It's just Minbari even between themselves. Klingons are all Klingons et al.

From the planet Kling of course

# ¿ Oct 21, 2019 00:24

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

What I can't get over with O'Hare is that every part of his S1 character arc is THERE IS A HOLE IN YOUR MIND.

Like, that's the line he has to keep having shouted at him over and over, episode after episode, and it is literally true

# ¿ Oct 25, 2019 03:14

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

JMS making S4/S5 work out narratively was probably a bigger feat than recovering from O�Hare�s exit.

# ¿ Oct 26, 2019 22:10

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

Guy I know has literally never said "parents" in all the time I've known him, it's only "parental units" or simply "units"

# ¿ Nov 11, 2019 19:41

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

CainFortea posted:

Yea sorry. From now on you will compare the story depth and continuity of every new show you watch to B5 and they will be found wanting.

Been working my way through The Expanse and it's pretty chewy. Can't believe there's no thread for it.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2020 20:00

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

Much obliged. (drat, third page?)

# ¿ Mar 6, 2020 21:07

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

The first one sank into the swamp

# ¿ May 19, 2020 11:44

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

Doctor Zero posted:

Does she? Like the Tiki gods and the like? Come to think of it, you are right. She talks about the old ones (plural) walking through the galaxy like gods. I always thought she just meant the Vorlons and Shadows. Regardless, I'm quite sure the tone of the delivery of that line was deliberate, like a child feeling ashamed after calming down from a tantrum.

E: Yeah, you are right. Here is the whole exchange:

Delenn : [In Delenn's quarters] There are beings in the universe billions of years older than any of our races. Once, long ago, they walked among the stars like giants. Vast and timeless, they taught all the younger races to explore and create great empires. But, to all things, there is an end. Slowly, the First Ones explored beyond the rim never to return. Some simply disappeared.
Capt. John Sheridan : Delenn, I'm sure this is all very fascinating but what does any of this have to do with Morden?
Delenn : Not all of the First Ones have gone away. A few stayed behind watching and waiting for the day when they may be needed. When the Shadows come again.
Capt. John Sheridan : Shadows?
Delenn : We have no other name for them. The Shadows were old when even the Ancients were young. They battled each other over and over across a million years. The last great war against the Shadows was 10,000 years ago. It was the last time the Ancients walked openly among us. But the Shadows were only defeated, not destroyed. A thousand years ago, the Shadows returned to their places of power, rebuilt them, and began to stretch forth their hand. Before they could strike they were defeated by an alliance of worlds including the Minbari and the few remaining First Ones who have not yet passed beyond the veil. When it was over, the First Ones left. All but one.
Capt. John Sheridan : There's still one of them left? Where?
Delenn : [Delenn looks at Kosh and Sheridan realizes what she means] That is why Kosh cannot leave his encounter suit. He would be recognized.
Capt. John Sheridan : Recognized by whom?
Kosh : Everyone.

So perhaps the Shadows evolved after Lorien's race who (speculation) saw them like children. This would explain why Lorien is on Zhahadum and not with the Vorlons instead. And also why Lorien is so tolerant of them. He probably finally realizes that like a parent with a delinquent kid, that something extreme must be done. I always wondered about that.

"Delenn, why do I feel like I've read this book before?"

# ¿ Jun 5, 2020 01:34

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 13:19

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

TheDiceMustRoll posted:

Is there a better payoff in all of sci-fi than the "No Hiding Place" scene in season 4?

I do feel like it was maybe the first (or among the first) such scene where completely incongruous music was used to amazing dramatic effect.

I like to think of everything from the warm jazz space battle music of Cowboy Bebop to the retro synth navel-gazing soundtrack of the climax of Uncut Gems as owing a debt to it.

# ¿ Jun 7, 2020 00:58

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > Babylon 5: Reboot and Zooty

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