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Craig T Nelson was the monster in Flesh Gordon?????  
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Nov 25, 2018 23:53
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My favourite VFX shot from the whole show is from 'Severed Dreams': the one where a couple of Thunderbolts do a Stuka run on C&C and one gets a wing blown off by the point defences, but keeps going along its original course and tumbles straight into the bow of the station - with the camera following it all the way in. 'Severed Dreams' in general really raised the bar for CG as a replacement for motion controlled modelwork in general; not just the sheer volume of shots, but the scale and choreography of the action. It was basically Return of the Jedi, but on a (small) TV budget and schedule. Sure, the models are low-detail by modern standards, but everything is moving so fast and fluidly (and consistently through consecutive shots) that you don't have time to care.
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Nov 26, 2018 00:04
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Also the Agrippa/Roanoke thing.
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Nov 26, 2018 00:51
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Doctor Zero posted:Craig T Nelson was the monster in Flesh Gordon????? You didn't just watch Knives, by any chance?
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Nov 26, 2018 00:54
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Payndz posted:My favourite VFX shot from the whole show is from 'Severed Dreams': the one where a couple of Thunderbolts do a Stuka run on C&C and one gets a wing blown off by the point defences, but keeps going along its original course and tumbles straight into the bow of the station - with the camera following it all the way in. That was the first space battle in B5 that really seemed like a pitched battle. Everything prior to that had been either a bunch of slow moving warships shooting lasers, or a small amount of fighters coasting around the screen. I almost forgot the Centauri attack in S2 but that wasn't really memorable or dramatic in the same way.
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Nov 26, 2018 01:00
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McSpanky posted:There's also the very first monorail shot with Ivanova in it where something hosed up with the chroma key and her uniform turned deep green with a black center panel, they couldn't even spring for half a minute of color correction? Deep Space Nine had a budget of about $1.5 million per episode. B5 had a budget of $800,000 per episode. So no, they probably couldn't spring for half a minute of color correction. Warners has not wanted to spend an extra dime on the show for VHS or DVD or streaming, from what I've seen.
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Nov 26, 2018 01:40
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Are you sure? I get the sense that modeling file formats have an obscenely long shelf-life. LightWave has been used as recently as in Lost. I think Lost was closer to B5 than we are to Lost now.
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Nov 26, 2018 02:35
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Midjack posted:I think Lost was closer to B5 than we are to Lost now. It ended 8 years ago, started in 2004 while B5 ended in 1998, so 6 years beforehand... so I guess you're kind of right, but 8 years ago isn't much in file format years, I think.
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Nov 26, 2018 02:37
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Jedit posted:You didn't just watch Knives, by any chance? No, why? Although I’ve seen the series 3 times now. Wait. 4
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Nov 26, 2018 04:31
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Narsham posted:Deep Space Nine had a budget of about $1.5 million per episode. B5 had a budget of $800,000 per episode. So no, they probably couldn't spring for half a minute of color correction. I know, that wasn't a criticism of the production, it's just like "hey guys, we have a brief but important scene that for  reasons came out looking like it's from an alternate universe, can we get a few thou to fix it in post?" *beancounters furiously tapping at calculators for ten seconds* "...No."Good things aren't produced by WB, but in spite of them.
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Nov 26, 2018 04:35
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Payndz posted:My favourite VFX shot from the whole show is from 'Severed Dreams': the one where a couple of Thunderbolts do a Stuka run on C&C and one gets a wing blown off by the point defences, but keeps going along its original course and tumbles straight into the bow of the station - with the camera following it all the way in. Spoiler: here's that shot!  quote:'Severed Dreams' in general really raised the bar for CG as a replacement for motion controlled modelwork in general; not just the sheer volume of shots, but the scale and choreography of the action. It was basically Return of the Jedi, but on a (small) TV budget and schedule. Sure, the models are low-detail by modern standards, but everything is moving so fast and fluidly (and consistently through consecutive shots) that you don't have time to care. I could bang on about the quality of B5's CG all day.
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Nov 26, 2018 12:18
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Maelstache posted:Ron Thornton confirmed as much in an interview years back. The problem isn't sourcing the models necessarily, it's that the technology and software involved is so archaic(we're talking Lightwave and Video Toaster here) that even if all the model data survives I doubt it would be of much use. Lightwave is very backwards compatible (I'm the one guy that still uses it) - the current version will load stuff from the B5 era, although there would probably need to be a few tweaks. Procedural textures like on the Vorlon ships and jump points would probably need to be remade, but if all the original files were intact I really don't think it would be a big job, relatively speaking. The most recent use of it in TV/movie productions that I could find was last year's Wind River, for some surprisingly good snow FX. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIGp2XL9QrU LW definitely seems to have dropped off a cliff in the past few years in terms of use.
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Nov 26, 2018 12:26
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Severed Dreams is an amazing episode all around. Not just for the great CGI, it has a great story, character development, acting, the whole gamut. Quotable one liners for days. Even apart from the most famous quote, hearing "There's nothing we can do except..." still sends chills down my spine.
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Nov 26, 2018 12:52
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Doctor Zero posted:No, why? Although I’ve seen the series 3 times now. Wait. 4 Because it's the only episode I can think of that connects Flesh Gordon to B5. One of the Centauri nobles is William Dennis Hunt, who played Wang the Perverted.
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Nov 26, 2018 12:59
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Jedit posted:Because it's the only episode I can think of that connects Flesh Gordon to B5. One of the Centauri nobles is William Dennis Hunt, who played Wang the Perverted. We've just been talking about Flesh Gordon (due to the Knives connection originally, but then more generally)
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Nov 26, 2018 13:14
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I've lost my stamina for episode-by-episode recaps but I am plugging my way through the third season. The descent of EarthGov into fascism is a wild ride. I am trying to imagine the reception this show would get if it was aired today. (Answer: it wouldn't, there would be too much focus on putting a morally grey "maybe they're doing the wrong thing for the right reasons" spin on Earth politics.) I just finished the episode that was a two-part followup to Babylon Squared. I love time travel plots. I know it's kind of like stage magic, applauding someone for making a tricky called shot when really they were in total control of the outcome the whole time, but it's so satisfying to see everything wrap up and resolve from a different perspective. Even though it's the literal definition of a retcon.
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Nov 29, 2018 16:37
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I’m at about the same place in my watch, and as an adult in 2018 I find the show’s depiction of the slide into fascism as thoughtful and well-done. Who knows what I would have thought at the time though: I recently rewatched the Ds9 where they go back in time and team up with Dick Miller to liberate the poor-people concentration camps, and while I found it timely and thoughtful now, as a pampered white 90s teen I thought it was hyperbolic and preachy.
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Nov 29, 2018 17:06
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wizzardstaff posted:
It wasn’t 100% in JMS’s control though because he lost Michael O’Hare between Babylon Squared and WWE. I have to imagine that required some effort to bend the whole storyline to where Sinclair could still be The One and Sheridan/Delenn were still the main characters. I wonder what that would have looked like if O’Hare had stuck around for the whole run - would that 2 parter have been the series closer at the end of season 5?
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Nov 29, 2018 17:37
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head58 posted:It wasn’t 100% in JMS’s control though because he lost Michael O’Hare between Babylon Squared and WWE. I have to imagine that required some effort to bend the whole storyline to where Sinclair could still be The One and Sheridan/Delenn were still the main characters. I wonder what that would have looked like if O’Hare had stuck around for the whole run - would that 2 parter have been the series closer at the end of season 5? Pretty sure that was the original treatment, or at least the concept at some point in drafting. The cycle would be have been closed at the end of the series, when Sinclair got sent back to be Valen.
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Nov 29, 2018 17:51
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What I meant by total control was that if Babylon Squared was a called shot, War Without End was a target that could be moved exactly where it was needed. No matter what happens while the shot is traveling through the air, it's guaranteed to make a bullseye. I do agree that it feels like the episode came at an unoptimal time though. When I watched Babylon Squared I was expecting the payoff to be a pivotal climax, not halfway through a season that up until then had felt more focused on earth politics. From a meta sense it did smell a little bit like needing to wrap up Michael O'Hare's involvement in a timely manner. Also, speaking of called shots and looking even more forward into the future, in those scenes with Londo: was the "friend" on his neck supposed to be a callback to the parasites from Exogenesis earlier in the season, or is that something unknown that I am still supposed to be mystified and intrigued by with current knowledge? It didn't look the same, but I'll admit that I wasn't paying close attention to the screen during that earlier episode and might have missed something.
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Nov 29, 2018 17:57
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wizzardstaff posted:Also, speaking of called shots and looking even more forward into the future, in those scenes with Londo: was the "friend" on his neck supposed to be a callback to the parasites from Exogenesis earlier in the season, or is that something unknown that I am still supposed to be mystified and intrigued by with current knowledge? It didn't look the same, but I'll admit that I wasn't paying close attention to the screen during that earlier episode and might have missed something. The latter.
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Nov 29, 2018 18:00
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Antifa Turkeesian posted:I’m at about the same place in my watch, and as an adult in 2018 I find the show’s depiction of the slide into fascism as thoughtful and well-done. Who knows what I would have thought at the time though: I recently rewatched the Ds9 where they go back in time and team up with Dick Miller to liberate the poor-people concentration camps, and while I found it timely and thoughtful now, as a pampered white 90s teen I thought it was hyperbolic and preachy. To me, that set of B5 episodes seems all too credible, and DS9's a bit quaint in that the solution is to let normal people know about the suffering. Both kind of a dark tack, frankly.
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Nov 29, 2018 18:00
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wizzardstaff posted:I've lost my stamina for episode-by-episode recaps but I am plugging my way through the third season. The descent of EarthGov into fascism is a wild ride. I am trying to imagine the reception this show would get if it was aired today. (Answer: it wouldn't, there would be too much focus on putting a morally grey "maybe they're doing the wrong thing for the right reasons" spin on Earth politics.)  this is not a single smiley reply and not sarcastic. I genuinely want to see your thoughts on this in the future.
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Nov 29, 2018 18:49
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Doctor Zero posted:
Haha, gladly. I know I love gleefully watching people experiencing the things I love for the first time. This is like 60% of why I am excited to become a parent. Maybe there will be more shades of gray in the future, but right now as of Season 3 EarthGov is being portrayed pretty starkly in black and white. We've got subliminal messages in commercials, informants wearing armbands, political coups, suppression/control of the media, and outright collaboration with nefarious alien powers. No one from the government is really being cast in a sympathetic light.
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Nov 29, 2018 22:09
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MrL_JaKiri posted:We've just been talking about Flesh Gordon (due to the Knives connection originally, but then more generally) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068595/characters/nm0005266 The video clip on YouTube was taken down or I'd link that.
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Nov 29, 2018 22:27
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wizzardstaff posted:"maybe they're doing the wrong thing for the right reasons" OMG!! Doctor Zero posted:
Oh, please!
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Nov 29, 2018 23:36
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Oh god, Delenn said something in the last episode about "the only way to avoid this [presumably referring to the destruction of Centauri Prime but also potentially some other future conflict] is by surrendering to the Shadows" and that's gonna be foreshadowing, isn't it. 
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Nov 30, 2018 00:42
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Platonicsolid posted:Pretty sure that was the original treatment, or at least the concept at some point in drafting. The cycle would be have been closed at the end of the series, when Sinclair got sent back to be Valen. Not in the original plan. Spoilers for the plan of a TV show that got abandoned entirely: Originally, Sinclair would have been bringing B4 twenty years into the future to help in the war against almost everyone, after the Minbari warrior caste destroy Babylon 5 following the destruction of a massive Vorlon ship by Shadowmen and Centauri which got blamed on Earth. This would have been part of a spinoff Babylon Prime series that resolves the war and ends with Sinclair, alone, fishing. Most of the time, I'm just grateful we didn't get anything near to that in the actual show. Every so often, I find myself wondering if Ron Moore read that treatment and liked how it ended.
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Nov 30, 2018 01:31
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Plenty of great ideas have turned out terrible, plenty of terrible sounding ideas have turned out great. Maybe it would have worked!
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Nov 30, 2018 01:38
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wizzardstaff posted:Haha, gladly. I know I love gleefully watching people experiencing the things I love for the first time. This is like 60% of why I am excited to become a parent. What about the junior security guy? He makes kind of a plausible case for not trusting Garibaldi in light of how shady the main characters look from the outside. And it’s not like he just goes fash because they lied to him and froze him out. He just gets confused for a while in a pretty plausible way.
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Nov 30, 2018 02:00
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Antifa Turkeesian posted:What about the junior security guy? He makes kind of a plausible case for not trusting Garibaldi in light of how shady the main characters look from the outside. And it’s not like he just goes fash because they lied to him and froze him out. He just gets confused for a while in a pretty plausible way. He goes fash because it's easy money for doing nothing, then when more duties are required of him than just wearing an armband he realizes it's a shitshow and exits pretty much as soon as possible. I interpreted that as illustrative of how the fascist Earth government swelled its ranks by duping/enticing people, not of the government being less evil.
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Nov 30, 2018 02:15
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wizzardstaff posted:What I meant by total control was that if Babylon Squared was a called shot, War Without End was a target that could be moved exactly where it was needed. No matter what happens while the shot is traveling through the air, it's guaranteed to make a bullseye. That's assuming that there would even be another season in which to wrap it up. This is early 1990's TV, not a good time for a non-Star Trek genre show to make such predictions. It was a pretty reckless gamble in a show with many reckless gambles.
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Nov 30, 2018 05:29
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Antifa Turkeesian posted:I’m at about the same place in my watch, and as an adult in 2018 I find the show’s depiction of the slide into fascism as thoughtful and well-done. Who knows what I would have thought at the time though: I recently rewatched the Ds9 where they go back in time and team up with Dick Miller to liberate the poor-people concentration camps, and while I found it timely and thoughtful now, as a pampered white 90s teen I thought it was hyperbolic and preachy. It seems so dumb and cheesy and then you find out that the rise of actual fascism is super dumb and filled with cheesy obvious lies. The real world seems so badly written at times.
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Nov 30, 2018 14:39
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SlothfulCobra posted:It seems so dumb and cheesy and then you find out that the rise of actual fascism is super dumb and filled with cheesy obvious lies. Looking forward to seeing reactions to the rest of season 3 since it contains possibly my all-time favourite "holy poo poo" ending to a season. It's not even really a cliffhanger, it's just a "yup, everything just went to poo poo" ending.
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Nov 30, 2018 14:58
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SlothfulCobra posted:It seems so dumb and cheesy and then you find out that the rise of actual fascism is super dumb and filled with cheesy obvious lies. What I loved about that slide isn't that it was due to some leader people rallied behind, but that people just stood back and let it happen. Clark was the figurehead, but there was an orchestrated attempt by powers to get the population of Earth to get behind an authoritarian regime using all-too-familiar rhetoric.
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Nov 30, 2018 18:31
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Dirty posted:Looking forward to seeing reactions to the rest of season 3 since it contains possibly my all-time favourite "holy poo poo" ending to a season. It's not even really a cliffhanger, it's just a "yup, everything just went to poo poo" ending. refresh my memory? it's been a while
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Nov 30, 2018 18:38
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dreadmojo posted:refresh my memory? it's been a while Seriously? Franklin in critical condition in Medlab, Sheridan missing and (correctly) presumed dead, the Interstellar Alliance falling apart in his absence, and the Shadows and the Vorlons in full on insane mode. Literally the only thing that goes right is that the Shadows don't destroy B5.
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Nov 30, 2018 18:59
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This thread inspired me to do my own rewatch (probably my sixth time through the show). I hadn't consciously noticed the subtle shift in Ivanova's behavior in season 2 in my earlier watching. With Sinclair she's a little stiff. With Sheridan, since they've served together before, she's more relaxed, and even willing to tease him.
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Nov 30, 2018 20:03
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Jedit posted:Seriously? Also has my favorite G'Kar monologue in the series.
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Nov 30, 2018 20:10
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Jedit posted:Seriously? You also forgot Garibaldi gets kidnapped by the Shadows.
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Nov 30, 2018 21:02
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