Babylon 5 blind watch thread: Maybe they're Zorlons?

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Sci-Fi Wi-Fi > Babylon 5 blind watch thread: Maybe they're Zorlons?

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Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

TheAardvark posted:

you mentioned a spin-off, and I know there are other movies but I think they were all post series.

when will we need to think about watching spin-offs/movies? Not for a long time? I tried a combined Buffy/Angel rewatch a couple years ago and working out production order between both was a nightmare.

You can just watch them all after you finish the series, there's no need to try to slot things in.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2020 18:39

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# ¿ Dec 11, 2023 09:23

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

VideoGames posted:

Walter Koenig as Bester is a real treat Also am I reading too much into it, or is he called Bester due to Alfred Bester?

Discussion of a character's name: Yep, it's a reference. The character's full name is also Alfred Bester.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2020 17:09

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

The_Doctor posted:

The tiny lowlife bar way deep in Brown Sector (I’ve really got to see a map at some point)

Here's a map of B5. I'm tagging out of an abundance of caution but I don't think this is really a spoiler.

is from an RPG.

Brown - Life Support and Waste Reclamation facilities
Blue - Maintenance and Operational controls
Green - Arponics and the ambassadorial quarters.
Grey - Atmosphere monitoring and the station's original power station.
Red - Public and Commercial facilities including hotels and Medlab
Yellow - Power supply, fuel tanks, various labs.

This map is from the show:

# ¿ Jun 5, 2020 22:33

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Torrannor posted:

You're brave, I'd always be wary of looking up things like that for fear of spoilers.

That's why I figured I should post one since I need fear no spoilers.

I was also going to post a map of the B5 setting but there really isn't an official one. It takes place in a fairly small part of the galaxy by sci-fi standards though. B5 is at Epsilon Eridani, which is a remote location in the show but only ~10.5 light years from Sol.

# ¿ Jun 5, 2020 23:23

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Keep in mind Stargate is a fun show more than it's a serious show. It's good, but it never takes itself as seriously as B5.

# ¿ Jun 9, 2020 17:18

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Hyperspace is another dimension where distances are different, basically. You're traveling at the same sort of sublight velocities as you do in normal space but Sol to Epsilon Eridani in hyperspace is I dunno, a week's journey instead of a hundred years. There's no terrain or anything so the beacons they reference are how you navigate. Hyperspace also has a flow that will pull you in one direction if you lose your engines. So if you have no power and lose track of the beacons, bad times. Jump points are one-way portals between hyperspace and normal space. Many large ships can create their own jump points, most smaller ships have to use jumpgates.

# ¿ Jun 18, 2020 21:14

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Son of Sam-I-Am posted:

I believe I've heard they tried to get him not to do the accent either, but every time they rolled film he kept doing it. Definitely the right choice on his part, it's iconic.

Yeah, they specifically told him not to do an accent then he showed up with that accent ready to go and would not stop doing it, so they gave up. Peter Jurasik rules.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2020 02:10

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Do not google Lost Tales if you're blind watching. They take place after the series.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2020 23:13

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

VideoGames posted:

Is it a requirement that anyone with PSI abilities has to wear black gloves? I have noticed that all the agents seem to do that and I suppose it is an easier way to quickly identify them.

Answering telepath question: Yeah. You can do telepathy by skin contact, so wearing gloves minimizes the chance of accidental scan. It's also part of the Psi Corps uniform.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2020 15:10

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

TheAardvark posted:

Thoughts about a character up through end of S1 -

I think us starting the show up in the middle of the U.S. rioting may have colored Garibaldi for us in a way that isn't completely fair. He acts like every cop from television ever, and actually the ones people tended to like a lot in other shows. I bet live S1 watchers probably ranked him way higher than we all did.

I would agree with this. As someone who watched it ages ago, Garibaldi is probably third on my favorite characters list.

# ¿ Jul 11, 2020 15:58

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

paragon1 posted:

Yeah my understanding was that area wasn't meant to be any kind of living area. They're in the equivalent of the crawlspace under a house.

I think at least some parts of it were intended to be finished as habitable sections, but the station ran out of money before they got to it. Other parts are basically maintenance ducts and open space between hulls and whatnot.

# ¿ Jul 15, 2020 16:12

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

TheAardvark posted:

Today I begin season 3.

You may want to clear your schedule and hydrate first, you're not going to want to get up again for a while.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2020 17:04

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

The Kosh costume was apparently a nightmare for the actor to deal with. That's the only one I remember reading.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2020 15:20

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

On Franklin's actor (no plot spoilers): Keep in mind the actor was almost completely deaf, so he had to memorize the entire script and work off reading lips. I'm not saying he's the greatest actor, but the work it took for him to do the job was really impressive.

# ¿ Aug 4, 2020 21:56

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

The CG does get better as the show goes on. IIRC S3 is where it makes a big jump and at least the ships look great from now on. Still kind of low-res texturing but B5 CG has lots of color and really good composition, so it still looks good despite the obvious technical limitations.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2020 01:46

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

I'm also up to 305 on my rewatch and lollin' at this lady eating with cooking chopsticks.

# ¿ Sep 7, 2020 02:30

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

The_Doctor posted:

Is that what they are? I saw them and mildly wondered, but the thought was swept away as the episode went on.

Yeah, I've never seen non-cooking chopsticks tied together like that and they were pretty long.

# ¿ Sep 7, 2020 15:46

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

I don't think it's spoiling anything to say this but I'll tag it anyway. You may want to budget enough time to watch the next three episodes all at once.

# ¿ Sep 10, 2020 23:39

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

The_Doctor posted:

Oh heck, so there’s tie-in comics, and they’re plot relevant? That makes them fairly unique. Worth tracking down?

The ones I've read have been pretty boring. All the ancillary material is canon though, including all the novels. Those are supposed to mostly be good, particularly the Technomage and Psi Corps trilogies. I again have those and haven't read them.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2020 15:46

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

It might be because they're ship-generated jump points? We see Starfuries use jump gates but I don't remember if ship jump points ever allow other ships to use them as well.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2020 04:18

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

B5 hyperspace is simple I think. It's an alternate spatial dimension or universe where distances are shorter. It has no features whatsoever so you have to navigate using beacons from jump gates. There's a current in it that gradually pulls everything in one direction if you have no propulsion. And that's pretty much it.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2020 15:47

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

I think it's fair to say the effects often suffer from being rendered on a series of toasters in 1995 and a lot of the set design in particular looks cheap. But there's a lot more to a show than the visuals.

Now and then it aggressively reminds you it's the 90s too. Whether that's a feature or bug is entirely subjective.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2020 16:47

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

It definitely improves throughout, and I think the artistry of the scenes make up for a lot of the rough edges of the effects. But I'm not going to fault anybody who thinks the CGI looks rough, it was 25 years ago so of course it does.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2020 17:37

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Hell yeah. I've rewatched the entire series since the last post.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2020 16:51

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

To be fair, rewatching means you can do other things while it's on rather than focusing. I wasn't just staring at B5 for 90 hours or whatever it is.

(I was staring at video games)

# ¿ Oct 29, 2020 16:57

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

I wonder about the remastered branding. From my understanding they did do something to make it look better but I suspect people will see that and expect a full HD treatment like TNG got and be disappointed.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2021 17:06

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Sorry about the impeding breakup.

# ¿ Apr 18, 2021 01:39

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

sebmojo posted:

Yeah your write ups are great! We are reading them avidly but the clean room level spoiler protocols mean we can't go ".. ha, wait until you see X!" so just assume we are all muttering it under our breaths gleefully.

# ¿ Apr 27, 2021 01:22

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Empress Brosephine posted:

I know the show only gets better from here so I'm excited.

This I will openly confirm.

# ¿ Apr 27, 2021 01:36

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

ultrafilter posted:

IIRC the rank system was supposed to track the US Navy's ranks, but clearly it missed. It's best not to think too hard about it.

JMS has said it mixed ranks because Earthforce is an entirely new service made up of components of old militaries. I dunno if he said that after the fact or at the time.

# ¿ May 8, 2021 23:13

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

DS9 season one is okay, probably comparable to B5. TNG season one is an abomination and it's a miracle the show didn't get cancelled.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2021 04:12

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Doctor Zero posted:

It gets better as the seasons go on. At the time it was the first show to do all-CGI space scenes.

Yep. It never looks like Expanse quality but it was the 90s, what can you do. By season three it's pretty good though. And there's a lot of good composition and artistry in the space scenes that makes up for the lack of technical quality IMO.

# ¿ Oct 17, 2021 17:33

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

The pilot is unusually bad. It was made in 93, then they started making the actual series in 94 so that tech advance alone improved it.

# ¿ Oct 17, 2021 18:02

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Winifred Madgers posted:

That was a pretty wild time, every year saw significant and very noticeable improvement in what they could do.

It's crazy to me that B5 ended in 99, looking much better but still fairly primitive, then four years later we get BSG which I think looks just as good as any 2021 space CG. The Centurions look a little rough sometimes, but it's still hard to mix CG and live action well.

# ¿ Oct 17, 2021 20:01

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Powered Descent posted:

(I actually started enjoying their performance more by thinking of their scenes as a stage play on film.)

This is a good way to think of the entire series, really.

Powered Descent posted:

I'll keep watching, but... it DOES get better than this, right?

Oh yes it does.

If you've watched through all of TNG, you should have no problem getting through B5's rough patches. Nowhere near as much, and nowhere near as bad.

# ¿ Nov 1, 2021 02:59

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

On cheapness, IIRC B5's per episode budget was a bit under half that of Star Trek's. It's really impressive how good the show looks given how little money there was.

# ¿ Nov 1, 2021 03:09

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Also since you're just starting, you are watching the new-ish HD remaster, right? It's the one that came out on HBO Max and maybe elsewhere.

# ¿ Nov 1, 2021 04:00

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Pilots are expensive, they have to build all the sets and poo poo. My memory is a standard DS9 episode was ~1.5 million and B5 was like 650k but I could be wrong.

# ¿ Nov 1, 2021 04:30

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

It was also great how the accent ended up being an unintentional regional/class thing that added some great variety to the Centauri, despite it only happening because Jurasik straight up refused to stop doing the loving accent every time the camera rolled and they had to give up.

# ¿ Nov 1, 2021 15:40

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# ¿ Dec 11, 2023 09:23

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

B5 has a fairly large cast and they just don't try to shoehorn everyone into every episode.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2021 02:43

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Sci-Fi Wi-Fi > Babylon 5 blind watch thread: Maybe they're Zorlons?

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