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Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.
Oh man, I totally missed that this thread existed after the last one closed. I'm missing all the B5 chat!

And PM plz.

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Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.
I just wish that the DVDs et al weren't in widescreen. The pan and scan space scenes I can take, but when it cuts from a nice clean shot inside Babylon 5 to a pan and scan blurry effects shot with the actors in it, its just ugly as hell.

No need to really keep it in widescreen anyway, given the fact that all of the actors are always tightly grouped to fit within 4:3 anyway.

Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.

Data Graham posted:

What's everybody's opinion on "A View from the Gallery"?

I thought it was kind of corny, and in terms of the POV shift gimmick episodes it ranked near the bottom for me. But it's been a while since I've seen it.

Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.

CountFosco posted:

Am I the only one who likes Boxleitner's acting? Sure, he doesn't have much range, but within his limited range he's pretty good.

I love his acting. Everyone seemed kind of morose before he arrived, and then he shows up and he's clearly relishing it. He's not a great actor, but he's an enormous amount of fun and its really entertaining to see him.

Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.
I liked the original doctor though. I have no idea what was up with Laurel.

Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.
I've never bought the Kosh "Valen" line as a spoiler- considering that at the time it's just a nonsense sci-fi word in a pilot uttered by a mysterious source. I watched that version of The Gathering and wasn't later let down during the Valen reveal. It more feels like a rewatch easter egg.

Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.
It's one of the few cases where B5 stole from DS9.

Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.
I think the seat of your pants thing works because you can't expect television production to be predictable - even with cast changes and his back up plans, if B5 was canceled in season two (like Sense8) there'd be no real satisfying way to wrap it up without having a tv movie that just speeds through plot.

BSG was screwed by the writers strike - though I think that if they were cancelled from the strike the last episode they shot (the first episode of 4.5, where everything truly goes to poo poo for everyone) would have worked as a particularly dire series finale. To my understanding, they were headed towards a very different 4.5 if the strike didn't happen, and they second-guessed and went in a completely different direction after they returned. Who knows if the first plan was better.

I say all this as someone that is fine with how BSG ended though.

Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.
"Grail" has always been at the bottom of episodes for me, just kind of bottom tier season one (I consider it worse than TKO, which has a good Ivanova plot). The biggest weakness beyond the weird script was Jinxo, who was played by a first time tv actor who was immediately handicapped by being cast opposite David Warner. I've been doing a watchalong podcast of the show and reached out to Tom Booker who played Jinxo, as it turns out I have some mutual friends with via the Chicago comedy scene. To my surprise, not only did he give us an enthusiastic yes, but he told us all sorts of fun stories about his experience being a young starving actor, what the Babylon 5 set was like in the early days, and what a nice guy David Warner is. So, apologies for the self-promotion, but if you're interested in probably the only interview with Jinxo out there - check it out.

Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.
Given the failed post Babylon 5 B5 projects, I think they need to bring Tom Booker back as a good luck charm. He wasn't in Crusade or Legend of the Rangers!

Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.
As far as I'm concerned, the only canonical B5 book is the asides written by the head chef at Fresh Air in the Babylon 5 Cookbook.

Are the comics any good? I know that's like the only place where you can see Keffer actually do anything.

Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.
CW CEO confirms that B5 pilot is still in active development this morning.

B5 seems like it was such a bizarre shot of luck for JMS that he's never been able to replicate, and I still am extremely skeptical, but please please let it happen.

Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.

Soonmot posted:

ugh show should have ended with season 4, I'm two episodes into season 5 and I'm just not feeling it anymore.

JMS got dealt a series of just awful blows back to back at the start of season 5, including housekeeping at a hotel tossing his notes for the season, and then Claudia Christian's status with the show being unclear until extremely late. The first half ain't great, but it recovers in the back half once he gets his bearings. Just in time to have everything totally go to hell for Crusade.

Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.
Its a kind of silly question to ask JMS because it feels like its one of the most known things about his most well-known work.

I think he has a pretty good case, but I adore DS9 so I don't care, and largely it just sounds like execs took the basic idea and said "make it a star trek" to a group of writers without knowledge of B5. It made getting B5 on the air considerably harder, and it always provided a considerably more spendy and slick counterpoint to the low budget B5, but in the end as a viewer we got two great shows.

Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.
Babylon 5 is off HBOMax 1/25. Finish up your rewatch I guess.

I also would assume that this isn't really a vote of confidence in the reboot.

Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.
No idea. FWIW, JMS had this to say on it:

https://twitter.com/straczynski/status/1605386153460260864

Which, people in the thread explain why HBOMax has to pay to license a show which I assumed they owned by owning WB but TV licensing is a huge mess so who knows.

Anyway, a bunch of us bored pandemic podcasters (like the one quoted above) are probably all gonna see a hit to our downloads oops.

Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.

Chevy Slyme posted:

I think the issue is less “podcasters will need to spend 150 bucks.” (Hell, that’s probably cheaper than maintaining the streaming subs, and the financially correct way to go if they’re not really racing through the show) and more that audiences tend to watch along with the podcast and if the audience can’t do that, it may hurt demand to listen to said podcast.

Yup. I already have the show (though the DVDs not the cleaned up versions) but there's been a large crop of watch along podcasts that all popped up with it going on HBOMax and we all will probably see a decrease in listeners (at least in the US, which accounts for a little over half for us). That said this is just a fun side project for us and we're not running ads so it's not really like it will hurt us drastically.

Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.

Just Another Lurker posted:


Is that JMS biography any good btw?

I liked it AND the audiobook is read by Peter Jurasik so it's worth picking that up.

Centauri claim that they have no choice when they do- Turhan realized that at the last possible moment and at that point he literally was too late.

Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.
I had never heard of this about Jason Carter before: My Dad Starred in a Hit TV Show with a Severe Brain Injury.

Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.
Buddy, I'm always trying to forget!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCuDCaVXwEw

Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.
Both Sheridan and Sinclair love rules lawyering, a lot of the first season has Sinclair solving a problem by closely observing the law and finding some loophole. I'm not sure if that's just a character choice, or an overall belief JMS has on how to affect positive change.

Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.
FWIW he's always been remarkably hostile to the B5 Scrolls folks, I have no idea why. But this predates the (likely dead) reboot I think.

Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.
Watched Moments of Transition yesterday, which in addition to being a big Plot Episode is also memorable for being the episode where Scott Adams, at the peak of his nineties comic stardom, makes a cameo as a guy paranoid about his dog and cat trying to hire Garibaldi.

I bet him and Jerry Doyle had some fun politics conversations once the cameras were off.

Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.

Narsham posted:

That's exactly what S5 works and part of why many people dislike it: however much the previous two seasons went heavy on the "great man" theory of history, S5 establishes that Sheridan was an excellent leader of the alliance against the Ancients but is only a so-so politician. SiL makes it fairly obvious that Sheridan's best role is as Ranger One and Delenn is a much better President of the ISA.

It isn't really the victory lap you're expecting, and the telepath crisis operates as a genuine tragedy in the sense that it proceeds slowly and you can see what will happen from a million miles away. That might work for Euripides but thirteen episodes of B5 can't quite make things work.

US Grant was an beloved general, but a terrible terrible politician. And given that season five immediately is in the aftermath of a civil war, it makes sense! Rewatching the show (not up to season five yet) Sheridan has some enormous blind spots, so I can see why JMS figured it'd be a good story to see them all exploited in the fifth season, its just that Byron doesn't work.

Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.

Chef Boyardeez Nuts posted:

Doing a treadmill rewatch and by far the most unrealistic thing I've noticed is this marine still being willing to gently caress Garibaldi after seeing the Daffy Duck poster.



She's going to die soon and knows it, so she's willing to put aside a few red flags (cop, daffy duck, hair situation).

Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.
I've been wondering here based off the excited posts in this thread and chatter I see on Twitter (and I myself run a "newbies watch B5 for the first time" podcast, Last Best Babylon 5) why Babylon 5 fans, even moreso than with a lot of other scifi show are super excited about the impressions of new viewers, and the general conclusion I reached is that unlike a lot of other franchises its just obscure enough that the large majority of people don't really know many of the big plot turns. I knew before I watched it for the first time years ago that the leads changed at the top of the second season, and that there was a generalized war plot that was similar in ways to DS9, and that people love the finale but not the final season, but not much else. If it was GOT or something, everyone knows most of the big spoilery things via cultural osmosis, and more obscure stuff generally never got to finish their story.

Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.
A cursory glance at some of the cast's social medias (potential casting spoilers, nothing else): Boxleitner, Christian (!), Mumy, and Tallman have all posted about it. Idk about anyone else.

Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.

Grand Fromage posted:

I hope Bester's in it. Koenig did some voice work in the last season of Picard and still sounds great.

I also had that thought, and I really really want this to be true. He obviously had more Bester poo poo he wanted to get to, what with that Crusade episode with him that was never made. Lets see him off!

Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.
The group of fans I chat with on the regular are all fairly anti-Talia/Andrea Thompson which I never got. I like Lyta, but I just liked the overall narrative of Talia being this professional true believer who slowly has everything break down in front of her, and I thought that the performance really reflected a person torn between what she's always believed and what she saw.

Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.
While that official version of the 20th reunion video is higher quality and easier to watch, this fan cam version has maybe one of my absolute favorite things at this specific time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv_TBTgnMsk&t=509s
(keep an eye on Scoggins and Mumy)

Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.
It sounds fun and if not eh. It'll be nice to hear everyone (save Talia and uh.. Keffer) that's still around one more time.

But man, it'd rule if somehow Big Finish got the Babylon 5 license. Some of the stuff they've done with Doctor Who is phenomenal.

Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.
Full trailer out early on Amazon (and it also says $20 and an August 14th release).

I think it looks pretty alright, and if its better than Picard then its good enough for me.

Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.

Slyphic posted:

I'm tellin' ya, the Director of Photography, one John C. Flinn III, deserves far more credit than he's ever received, and his absence in spinoffs is palpable.

On my rewatch rn, his work is really really noticeable, and you can tell when he's the sole director on an episode because he knows the sets, the lighting, and everything they can do with what they have inside and out, and everything just looks much more interesting.

Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.
I remain upset that TNT did every single thing they could to make Crusade garbage, when there's a world where we have five years of Gary Cole as a starship captain. Maybe Sheridan will trip into it as he's sliding around.

Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.
One of my favorite second wave or silver age or however its termed 70s scifi books is Robert Silverberg's Dying Inside, which is a story about a lone telepathic man living through the sixties in the US and its just made him a completely lonely and bitter man, and as he enters middle age he feels his "gift" leaving him. Great book!

Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.
It's nice that JMS gets to make this announcement as opposed to being caught completely offguard, like he has been about the 4:3 remasters etc. Hopefully it has some neat features, like his new commentaries he's been recording for youtube synced up with the episodes or something.

Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.
So, not only does it not have any new special features, it has less special features than the dvds! I hate it when they do that.

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Clouseau
Aug 3, 2003

My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.
If they wanted an actiony battle image I'm sure they could have found one with the titular station in it, what a weird pick for the cover.

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