Babylon 5: Reboot and Zooty

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

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Sanguinia posted:

But drat does it not sit right with me to see a guy who was mentally violated in one of the most horrific ways imaginable and a guy who was tortured nearly to death by the state tuck tail instead of taking her to task on her 'arguments.'

I'm guessing you haven't seen yet why Sheridan trusts her despite all that. I don't want to spoil anything so I can't really reply in full, but I do want to add as an aside that this is why I always encourage people to watch everything and form their own opinions. You've made me think and I don't know if I've ever seen your point made in quite this way before, and for that I thank you.

Edit: I don't want to make a big deal out of why Sheridan trusts her, to you it may not change your opinion of her one bit and you'll be like, that's it? It's not a huge character-changing moment but it is relevant.

Winifred Madgers fucked around with this message at 04:55 on Sep 19, 2018

# ¿ Sep 19, 2018 04:52

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 07:46

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Toxic Fart Syndrome posted:

JMS said it's fake.

If you read it, you wouldn't use :smith:

# ¿ Oct 1, 2018 21:24

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

If goons think someone is insufferable then, well, yikes, I'll just stick to this thread.

# ¿ Oct 26, 2018 03:49

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

ConfusedUs posted:

I love the little psi corps commerical. It's a standout moment in a show with lots of those.

Also, I remember reading that JMS actually had to take care not to run afoul of rules/laws about subliminal messaging with the little TRUST THE CORPS blip in the middle of it

As I recall from the DVD commentary track, they contacted the FCC to ask the precise point at which something would be considered illegal subliminal messaging, and made this as close as possible without stepping across the line.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2018 05:13

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Hazborgufen posted:

I still really like DS9 but I'm starting to wonder just how much that show ripped off B5.

This is a rabbit hole you're better off not going down into. I think it's more than likely Paramount cribbed some Cliffs notes when JMS was shopping it around, but we are way past re-re-re-litigating that and frankly I'm pleased we have two really good shows *cough* _{_{B5 is better}}

If it helps, the Trill were introduced on TNG before B5 began.

# ¿ Nov 9, 2018 03:23

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Jedit posted:

^^^ Clockwise.

Only from the front! :pseudo:

# ¿ Nov 10, 2018 04:18

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Absurd Alhazred posted:

JMS hitting on Claudia Christian couldn't have helped.

His side of the story is that it was a misunderstanding.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2018 00:55

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Vavrek posted:

What's the timing on that happening, because that's, you know. That's a scene Ivanova has, with Corwin, later, with some details swapped around.

My (foggy) recollection is it's post season 4, and JMS says he did the same for each of the cast, but Claudia took it the wrong way. No idea if the other cast members have ever confirmed.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2018 04:57

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

And if I ever become independently wealthy, I'm going to learn 3D animation and do just that.

And if I win the mega millions, I'll buy the rights from WB and hand it over personally to JMS.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2018 05:07

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

MrL_JaKiri posted:

JMS has been posting about this on twitter in the last few days, as it happens.

Careful. You're almost making me slightly have interest in getting a Twitter account.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2018 14:18

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Thanks for that. Trying to read it has put me right off Twitter again. I'm much relieved.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2018 20:18

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

You know what, I'm going to say it: going full screen on my work monitor, that's still not much of an improvement over what we have on the DVDs other than the framing.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2018 21:11

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

hope and vaseline posted:

Really the best improvements imo would be the live action/cgi composite scenes that look noticeable horrible when it cuts back and forth from the widescreen live action shots

I'd like to see a comparison to make sure it's not just another compromise. The zoom/crop is bad, and the change from (relatively) good quality live action to that just makes it look even worse. But if it's a matter of the live action stuff looking worse overall too (there's a lot of NTSC inaccuracies in those clips, for example), it's six of one, half dozen of the other, and not even really worth it imo.

If we could get even a quick and cheap transfer from the film masters it would be way better than this. Just straight up dump it to a streamable format with as little processing and care as possible, as long as the masters aren't damaged in any way. I promise to be satisfied with that and not beg for a pristine 4K remaster with new CGI.

For now.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2018 00:24

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

lol, thanks, I can already see and hear him saying "you've all done very well"

Edit: oh jeez I just realized you meant Mr. Humphries :doh:

Winifred Madgers fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Dec 20, 2018

# ¿ Dec 20, 2018 05:20

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

nerdman42 posted:

Finally got back to moving through season 3 and just finished And The Rock Cried Out No Hiding Place. Nothing on this Earth could have prepared me for Refa getting offed to that song and I wouldn't have it any other way. That was buckwild.

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

# ¿ Dec 20, 2018 13:47

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

I'm just going to take everyone's word for it and not look up whatever it is you're finding.

# ¿ Feb 2, 2019 02:13

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

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# ¿ Feb 2, 2019 03:12

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

I kind of got the gist of it already. Enough to... well, I won't say "satisfy" my curiosity, more like "eliminate" it.

# ¿ Feb 2, 2019 04:54

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

On the other hand, it's more hope than we had yesterday.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2019 13:45

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Dirty posted:

I guess. It seems to me like a great way to let something die out. The files have been around for a long time, but only with a few people, who only share them with a few people. That's not sustainable. The files are as good as lost as long as they only reside on the hard disks of people who mostly won't even admit they have them. It's time someone threw them on a torrent so they can be widely preserved. I'm tired of hearing that the files are "out there". It's meaningless. Just release them or delete them, otherwise they just exist to sustain decades of "maybe we'll get that HD remaster after all" dead-ends. One day the files really will be lost, but we'll never know it when it happens.

Same situation with Deep Space 9.

So I don't really see it as hope, just yet another person saying they've got the files too, with the added bonus of asking for money so that they can perhaps maybe render them.

I didn't even know this was a thing, I thought they were actually lost. Now I see that multiple people have copies - even if it's a few, it's better than the zero I was aware of.

Yeah, obviously a torrent would be ideal, and I kinda look askance at the guy asking for donations so he can be the one to render them. But I also can't really blame him.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2019 18:57

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Grand Fromage posted:

JMS claimed on his twitter there is one specific WB executive who has a vendetta against all the PTEN shows like B5 and will not allow anything to be done with any of them, ever, for any reason. When that executive goes there is a possibility of movement. If JMS is right, anyway.

And the reason he was trying to work on a feature film project is those rights he owns, so he can make a movie without WB's approval.

Who is this executive and what is his most treasured dream that we can make come true, in exchange for retiring?

He can't be that young anymore, either. We're already 25+ years past the B5 pilot; if whoever this is was 40 then, he's at retirement age by now. Spend some time with your family, dude.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2019 01:06

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Working in television.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2019 18:46

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Old Boot posted:

I'm trying to think of how I managed this before. Mostly, I just brute-forced it, or made it quid-pro-quo, like-- okay, so you have this show you like that I've been lukewarm on. I have this show I like that you're lukewarm on. We'll have a night where I watch a couple episodes of your thing, and the night after that, you watch a couple of mine. How does that sound?

Turns out I've kinda liked the things I thought I'd hate, and usually it gets overshadowed by B5 anyway, since the arc is pretty absorbing by the midpoint of S2. The season finale of S1 is the wake-up call that some poo poo's going on, but the real 'hook' for people who are wishy-washy definitely comes in later (such was the case with me, actually). That first 1 1/2 seasons are definitely a slog for the people who are resistant, though.

Edit: Note that it helps if it's a series or whatever that your spouse/friend is actually excited about. My only rule about it was 'no anime.'

This worked for me; both Farscape and B5 took her a while to warm up to, but she ended up loving them both - B5 so much that at the end she wanted an immediate rewatch.

And so far I've gotten a couple of good shows (Chuck and Person of Interest) I hadn't seen yet too.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2019 14:38

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Relaying the latest post on the guy's Facebook group:

quote:

Interesting. . . There’s now 4 video clips using the original assets up on youtube, each with different “viewed” numbers. One of them is over 11,000 , and I just noticed a (manual) copyright notice has been flagged against it. . . And it’s from Warner Bros. Television . . . . . . . and . . . . . . .
..
..
..
..
They’re ALLOWING the video to remain on youtube.

They’re basically letting me know they know about it, are watching, and reserve the right to add their own advertisements to it . . . . . . Which is more than fair enough.

Just one of the things I was hoping that might come from doing this potentially risky move of publicly showing them, was to maybe push the boundaries a bit. . . . Shake the tree and see what drops . . . Assuming WB didn’t jump on my throat - and at the moment they're not - the hope was this might encourage some of the others who have the original assets to consider maybe doing something with them. . . . or start talking to each other about what might be possible, pull resources, that sort of thing. . . . WB’s initial response seems to be a pretty big - and encouraging - step in the right direction, and confirms what others have told me . . . . Namely Warner aren’t quite the big bad when it comes to B5 that many have been encouraged to believe. Then again, this might still all blow up in my face at any point/

Something else has happened (that doesn’t directly involve the studio or indeed, any producers). . . . but I agreed not to talk about that, at least not yet.

Anyway. I took the donate button down a couple of weeks earlier than initially intended. No one told me to do it, I just never felt comfortable with the thing, no matter how many told me it would be a great idea. . . . That, and some folks online are now suggesting I might be some sort of con man trying to bleed the B5 fan community because of it . . . . Wow! You try to do something loving nice. Anyway, over the next couple of months I’ll pull a basic system together – and a huge thanks to the twenty odd who helped out, you’ve ensured that can happen a lot sooner than it otherwise would have.

One of the replies says there've been some recent executive retirements/resignations at WB. Is it too early to post itshappening.gif?

# ¿ Mar 9, 2019 20:39

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

wtf, if she loves it just watch it all. Jeez.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2019 21:03

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Learn, schmearn, if you're not enjoying every second Peter Jurasik is on screen then why are you even watching the show.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2019 04:24

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Torrannor posted:

This is so dumb (and great), it could just be true.

I'm willing to believe just about anything in regards to this show's behind the scenes drama, at this point.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2019 13:07

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

I said come in! posted:

I watched the Next Generation episode last night where G'Kar shows up as a Romulan.

There's more than one.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2019 21:49

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

I can definitively answer this as the same thing happened to my season 2 set and I had to pick up another copy. The rerelease is just that, it's the same discs, just in slimmer packaging.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2019 02:53

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Vavrek posted:

As I recall, Crusade was pretty good (last (only?) time I watched it), but the episode order is messed up. Look up some guide online, follow that, ignore how character's costumes keep changing, and think about what could have been. It has my favorite Lochley scenes. Gary Cole's good.

It's (half of) season 1 of what was supposed to be another planned-out show. I think it's at least as good as the equivalent portion of B5 - that is, it'd likely improve on a rewatch with the hypothetical full series. It has a lot of promise, and besides Gary Cole I also liked Galen, even though I can't remember any other characters.

The one thing dragging it down for me is they went with someone other than Chris Franke for the music and it was more experimental and kind of sucked.

# ¿ May 2, 2019 12:58

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

I always knew him as Kang from Star Trek. But, agreed.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2019 00:56

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Jedit posted:

I just started my first rewatch in years, two episodes down and 108 to go. Would anyone be interested in joining in, or hearing my thoughts as I go?

# ¿ Jul 3, 2019 03:03

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

SlothfulCobra posted:

They are a little curiously silent on human religions though.

I seem to recall they pretty much state humans are mostly atheist since spaceflight, I think around when Brother Theo and his monks arrive, which is why they're a curiosity.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2019 03:48

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

CainFortea posted:

Discovery had so much promise

Ehhhhhhh.....

# ¿ Jul 10, 2019 00:57

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

What kind of problem?

# ¿ Jul 13, 2019 01:57

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Jedit posted:

I'd typed up my thoughts on S1E5 and E6, hit Submit and got told the thread wasn't found in the active forums. Lost the post.

I think that's more likely a forums issue than this thread specifically. There have been times in the past I've accidentally closed the thread briefly, because in the mobile app "Post Reply" is usually first in the dropdown list, but it changes to "Lock Thread" if you're the OP. But they changed it a while ago to add a confirmation, so I haven't done that recently.

# ¿ Jul 13, 2019 12:51

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

It's something like 98% complete iirc

# ¿ Jul 17, 2019 18:53

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Some disappointing drama afoot:

B5Scrolls' Facebook page posted:

I guess this isn’t going to go down well with a few folk.

A few months ago I wrote a post about how jms was making some silly claims about the CGI and composite shots. Namely that, according to him, the CGI and composites were created at 2K resolutions and had been archived on film . . . . I’m not going to rehash just how silly those claims are, but basically neither of those things actually happened.

At the time I suggested that he was either mis-remembering or somehow was confused about the facts. However. He’s continued to make the same sort of assertions for months now. . . Whenever anyone points out he’s incorrect he does little more than shrugs, then a few days later will start twittering the same nonsense again.

But now he’s just done something which – and for the life of me I don’t know why he’s doing this – but . . well, he’s now clearly and deliberately trying to mislead people . . . . . . and it’s real easy to show that he’s doing it.

Just a couple of hours ago he posted a number of images at a resolution of 1200x900 – and claimed they are examples of test frames delivered to him back when the episodes were being made. . . He even says the final renders were even higher quality. . . . . . Now straight of the bat that didn’t sound right. Test renders included an overlay with the scene number, episode and the name of the animator. . . they were also created at 720x486 not the 1200x900 he was showing. But let’s forget that detail for now.

I’ve got access to some of the original files and have posted renders and animations showing the original models and scenes at 1080 resolutions. . . . . What jms has obviously done is get hold of someone with the same files and they’ve re-rendered a couple of frames of the original CGI at a higher resolution (1200x900) . . . much like what I’ve often done.

But jms is now claiming these more recent re-renders are test renders dating back to when the series was being put together. . . . . Here’s what he told fans over on twitter a couple of hours ago.

https://twitter.com/straczynski/status/1158175782235062272
-----------------------------------
There's been some debate over quality of the original Babylon 5 CGI, vs. the blown-up, cropped and pixillated stuff on the DVD. These are key frames from EFX sequences submitted for approval, so they were actually still one step down from the final CGI. They speak for themselves.

-----------------------------------

But unbeknownst to jms (and whoever rendered them) the person who did that for him basically made a pretty big error with the one showing the Vorlon ship leaving the station.

I’ve attached two images. The top one is from jms who is claiming it’s a test render for an episode. . . Beneath that is the actual render as it appears in the episode. . . . Anyone see the mistake ?

The one jms posted has red detailing on the front of the station. The one in the episode doesn’t have that red detailing. . . The texture containing that red detailing was a LATER addition to the station . . Both the textures are part of the library of assets which I’ve got access to – the guy doing the forgery probably has the same library. . . . In the show the Vorlon ship never leaves the station with those red bits included. It’s a bit of stock footage used in a couple of episodes, and it was rendered BEFORE the red texture was incorporated into the station design. Check out Hunter, Prey for example. jms’s render is indeed the legit scene used in the series, however the guy putting it together for jms just screwed up what textures to use in it.

Why jms is doing things like this I don’t know. I really don’t. But it’s getting beyond a joke now, because the unfortunate thing is quite a few fans believe what he’s telling them, and he’s now basically fabricating evidence to try and support his claims about hi-def CGI and composites sitting in Warner Bros. Vault. . . . and no one is supposed to notice. This is getting kinda bizarre, but there you go.

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# ¿ Aug 5, 2019 18:39

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Grand Fromage posted:

Not the first time JMS has refused to let something go like this.

I actually don't like the HD re-renders. The muddier quality helps hide how primitive the VFX is. When it's so clear it looks too much like what it is, an early 90s video game cinematic.

I can see your point of view. The same could be said of the live action shots - a 1080p Blu-ray remaster would show, that much more, the flimsy walls, etc. But I've long since come to terms with B5 as a sort of stage play, and I think for me any high-definition presentation would only enhance that more. But it seems that's squarely back in the merely hypothetical.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2019 19:19

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 07:46

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Narsham posted:

As for "JMS lied" accusations: Firstly, I want to know where the bottom source came from, 'cause "actual render" means different things. Is it the "actual render" from the original 4:3 airing on TV? The stretch/crop DVD version? The Laserdisk version? The streaming version? Secondly, the linked Twitter discussion has JMS state early on that the pictures he was offering were not from the "actual render" but were early render key-frames. That doesn't explain how a color highlight in the early render vanishes from the final render, but then again, I can't see the highlight to address that one way or the other. In any event, if you are going after someone for accuracy you need to make some degree of effort to be accurate yourself.

Frankly, I don't care about the quality of the render: if a film version of B5 genuinely exists in the WB vaults and they rereleased the show on Blu-ray I'd buy it even if it doesn't look as good as the DVDs. That's certainly much more likely than WB paying someone else to rerender all the effects. I don't see what JMS has to gain by lying about the existence of such a version; he might lie or be misremembering with regard to the CGI, but who cares if the effect is purely to put pressure on WB to release and maybe fix the lousy Amazon version?

EDIT: pretty pictures on previous page.

The difference in the renders is the one JMS is claiming as an original key frame, not only has highlighting that was added after that scene aired, it's 1200x900 as opposed to the originals being 720x486. It's therefore a current, slightly achronological, re-render using the original data, and cannot be an original key frame from the reels (so to speak) submitted for approval. The bottom render is from the B5Scrolls guy, who also has a copy of the original CGI data.

The only thing I can think of as far as JMS's motivation is that he's trying to backdoor a re-rendering of the CGI data in lieu of the supposed 2K masters set down on film in the archives. Maybe he's going for the "oops we couldn't find the masters after all, but since you've allocated the budget here's the original CGI data, so just add a little more and we can still get this done" angle, I don't know. Kind of soft-selling them on "it'll only take $1 million to scan and digitize the film reels" but then "whoops, where'd they go? Well shoot. Hey, though, if we did a remaster it'd only take $2 million..." and banking on the fact they would have already committed to something. Apropos to his LOTR fandom it'd be like introducing the dwarves to Beorn two at a time rather than all 13 at once.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2019 21:47

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

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