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Vudu got updated, it seems like they have the b5 remasters too. Although now the ipad app isn’t stretching it out full screen, was trying to watch at work today and there’s black bars on all sides. Hopefully the android tv app isn’t bugging out like that too
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Dec 1, 2020 23:11
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sebmojo posted:Are we at the point of doing AI upscaling, like they can do with video games? Or is that still a ways away? I guess you'd need to do it frame by frame, but it seems achievable. Having seen AI upscale of several TNG episodes, we are there.
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Dec 1, 2020 23:22
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The main reason people aren't doing AI upscaling is that that's not what they've always done.
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Dec 1, 2020 23:23
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If nothing else having good quality broadcast masters will give The Community a much better base to do AI upscaling on than the blurry dvd rips EDIT: a swedish store is listing the release date as late March https://www.discshop.se/tv-serier/bluray/babylon_5_complete_collection_blu_ray_import/P171025 TomWaitsForNoMan fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Dec 1, 2020 |
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Dec 1, 2020 23:49
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Zat posted:Something like a March 2021 release would be amazing even if it's just an upscaled broadcast master deal. I thought the Vudu version was the best one we were ever going to get, but the iTunes/Prime video sampler looked better for sure, and I have no doubt that's the stuff that's gonna be on the discs. We literally just finished Sleeping in Light like 3 days ago, and I'm already excited to watch again. hope and vaseline posted:Vudu got updated, it seems like they have the b5 remasters too. Although now the ipad app isn’t stretching it out full screen, was trying to watch at work today and there’s black bars on all sides. Hopefully the android tv app isn’t bugging out like that too Did it get updated on Vudu just within the last few days or something? As mentioned above, we just watched the finale the other day and it was still like it has been up until now.
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Dec 1, 2020 23:55
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TomWaitsForNoMan posted:If nothing else having good quality broadcast masters will give The Community a much better base to do AI upscaling on than the blurry dvd rips Also curious how this pricing will go in the US. Roughly $150 at current exchange rates.
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Dec 1, 2020 23:57
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ultrafilter posted:The main reason people aren't doing AI upscaling is that that's not what they've always done. Also in my experience it often looks weird. HD remaster from the original material looks better.
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Dec 2, 2020 00:42
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Son of Sam-I-Am posted:We literally just finished Sleeping in Light like 3 days ago, and I'm already excited to watch again. Ok I don't really know what's going on here, but I bought the Amazon Prime remasters today, and I've owned the Vudu ones for a while now. Side by side, with Amazon on my nvidia shield tv and Vudu on my ipad, the picture looks identical. But when I use Vudu on my shield tv, it seems like the old muddy coloured master. I have no idea why the same Vudu app on different devices shows a different picture???
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Dec 2, 2020 02:15
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hope and vaseline posted:Ok I don't really know what's going on here, but I bought the Amazon Prime remasters today, and I've owned the Vudu ones for a while now. Side by side, with Amazon on my nvidia shield tv and Vudu on my ipad, the picture looks identical. But when I use Vudu on my shield tv, it seems like the old muddy coloured master. I have no idea why the same Vudu app on different devices shows a different picture??? Without knowing anything about Vudu I'm guessing the app probably reads off something about the Shield hardware and thinks it's a four year old Android tablet that can't handle the higher resolution stream so it helpfully goes with a lower quality stream that's based on the old masters.
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Dec 2, 2020 02:35
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This might be of historical interest for Babylon 5 fans. From the SF-LOVERS internet mailing list that ran from late 1979 - late 2000. Earlier mentions of Straczynski in this mailing list have been his work on the 1980's Twilight Zone series & the Captain Video tv series. Knew that Babylon 5 would be mentioned eventually, didn't expect it to appear so early. ------------------------------ Date: 3 Oct 89 19:56:57 GMT From: jas@isi.edu (Jeff Sullivan) Subject: Re: ALIEN NATION - Just another cop series. J. Michael Straczynski is trying to package a SF series of his called "Babylon 5." He says that it will do for SF on TV what Hill Street did for Cop stories. We'll see. He says the financing is almost locked, and it should air next fall. Jeffrey A. Sullivan Senior Systems Programmer Information Sciences Institute University of Southern California jas@venera.isi.edu jas@isi.edu ------------------------------
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Dec 3, 2020 21:37
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hope and vaseline posted:Ok I don't really know what's going on here, but I bought the Amazon Prime remasters today, and I've owned the Vudu ones for a while now. Side by side, with Amazon on my nvidia shield tv and Vudu on my ipad, the picture looks identical. But when I use Vudu on my shield tv, it seems like the old muddy coloured master. I have no idea why the same Vudu app on different devices shows a different picture??? I just checked on our Roku last night with Midnight on the Firing Line, and it still looks the same as it did before. Well, we could stand to wait a while before rewatching at this point, but it's weird to me that it would be so inconsistent.
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Dec 3, 2020 22:50
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quantumfoam posted:This might be of historical interest for Babylon 5 fans. So Peter Jurasik is not the only connection, eh?
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Dec 3, 2020 23:57
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yeah i think my eyes must just be broken or something
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Dec 3, 2020 23:59
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Ok I'm not crazy. B5 through the Vudu iOS has the newer WB animated logo, and B5 through the web interface or android TV app has the old static logo. They definitely have two different sources that their different apps are fetching. WTF.
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Dec 6, 2020 17:22
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I ran into some problems getting 4K Vudu to play on a new Chromecast when it works just fine on an old one. I think their software may be a bit jankier than some of the big players like Netflix so that wouldn't surprise me.
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Dec 8, 2020 03:45
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Found my old Shadow fleet commander hat from the B5 Wars tabletop days:
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Dec 11, 2020 00:18
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I convinced a Trekkie friend of mine to give Babylon 5 a go - no small feat, as I live in South America and janky 90s scifi just was never much of a cultural thing here. I have accordingly started my third rewatch of the series since I originally saw it back in 2010 or so, many years after it originally aired. I'd already forgotten so many key details, like (I assume that there's no need for spoilers in this thread) Londo foreshadowing his relationship with G'kar from the very first episode of the series. I had never known the circumstances of Michael O'Hare's departure from the series until recently, possibly because it was revealed after my first viewing and the second time around I don't think I consumed trivia quite as avidly. This series has such good writing that it occasionally floors me. The beginning is a bit rough as the actors adapt to their characters, and I feel like the whole show was a bit odd all the way through, but it's just so drat good. I really feel like you can see Harlan Ellison's touch later on as well - I was a fan of his writing for many years, and I feel like thematically it complemented Babylon 5's space epic aesthetic very well. I was surprised to find this thread on just the second page, and I plan on going through the whole thing as I rewatch the series to see what fun stuff you guys have discussed over the years.
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Dec 18, 2020 13:17
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There's a great blind watch thread in sci fi wifi that has unfortunately stalled, but fun to see newbie reactions!
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Dec 19, 2020 22:16
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sebmojo posted:Are we at the point of doing AI upscaling, like they can do with video games? Or is that still a ways away? I guess you'd need to do it frame by frame, but it seems achievable. just popped in my feed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1ISBQRyLeE
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Dec 26, 2020 17:01
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Welp, i was finally gifted the DVD set this Christmas (it's been on my wishlist for years) only to find out there might be HD/Blu ray versions coming out in the next 6 months :/
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Dec 26, 2020 21:33
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Historical Babylon 5 stuff ------------------------------ Date: 25 Jan 92 19:34:00 GMT From: Edward_Lee_Whiteside@cup.portal.com Reply-to: sf-lovers-tv@Rutgers.Edu Subject: "Babylon 5" info. BABYLON 5 Is Coming With the news breaking about a Star Trek related series set on a space station, there is also another science fiction series to debut in syndication this fall which is also set on a space station. This series is called BABYLON 5 and has been in development with Warners for several years. The go-ahead for production was given last November with filming for the initial two hour movie starting in May. It was created by J. Michael Straczynski, who has written for Captain Power, The New Twilight Zone (syndicated version) as well as non-science fiction series such as Jake and The Fatman and Murder She Wrote. Following are some comments from JMS on the new series: BABYLON 5 is a three-mile-long space station in neutral territory that is heavily traveled by five governments: one human, the rest alien. It is virtually a self-contained world built along the lines of an O'Neill station, with gardens, casinos, docking bays, bars, customs areas, you name it. It is a center for travel (refugees, ambassadors, businessmen, smugglers, tech-runners and others), espionage, intrigue, on and on. BABYLON 5 will air in the fall of this year. It's set in the year 2257, in a time of uneasy peace. Two of the five governments have lately been at war - the Earth Alliance and an alien race known as the Minbari, and we came within inches of losing the war, which ended in a very strange way: on the verge of victory, the Minbari surrendered. No one knows why. It is, in this time, one of the big mysteries that we will be dealing with. BABYLON 5 has an advisory council consisting of one ambassador from each of the four major alien confederations, with the commander of B5 serving as the fifth representative. There is a constant shifting and jockeying for power among these groups, sometimes culminating in assassination attempts or other intrigue. We have already locked down some of the country's leading SF writers to write scripts for the series; we have a 2-hour movie that will go before the cameras in a few months; we have a leading SF writer who will serve as our Creative Consultant; we have EFX and design people who have come over to us from TERMINATOR 2, the Henson Creature Shop, HONEY I SHRUNK THE KIDS and other films; we have top-of-the-line computer EFX people working with us who will give BABYLON 5 a look unlike ANYTHING you've ever seen before. As background for the movie and series, there's over 200 pages of backstory and history of the story, written over the last several years that the project has been in top-secret development at Warner Bros. An entire 5-year story arc has been prepared. And this, to me, is the most crucial thing: the Star Trek universe is, with some exceptions, still the same basic universe we've had now for 25 years: Klingons and Romulans and the Federation and the like. BABYLON 5 represents the first real attempt since ST to create a new, completely thought out SF universe for television, with specific alliances and players and governments. (There was some of that on Battlestar Galactica, but it was not as thoroughly developed.) This is an entirely new universe in which to set our stories. Some people who have seen the material have compared it to the scope of the LENSMAN or FOUNDATION novels; others have (more commercially, I suppose) nicknamed it CASABLANCA in space. I can promise you that it will be unlike anything you've seen before. Warner Bros. announced the go-ahead on our series last November, though we knew as early as September/October. It was reported in the trades, and there's been a discussion on GEnie about it for some months now. In short, insofar as a space station series is concerned, we were here FIRST. jms [This info came mainly from posts by Joe on Compuserve. He has also commented that he did pitch the show to Paramount, but was told they weren't interested since the show would "conflict" with Star Trek. Looks like maybe they thought it was a good idea after all. ] ------------------------------ Date: 15 Feb 92 07:07:19 GMT From: Edward_Lee_Whiteside@cup.portal.com Reply-to: sf-lovers-tv@Rutgers.Edu Subject: Babylon 5 Info Direct from the Creator The following info comes from a press release file on Babylon 5. There is an ongoing discussion and even more details on GEnie in the Science Fiction Roundtable. BABYLON 5 WHAT IS BABYLON 5? - History Babylon 5 is a new science fiction project for television that has been in top-secret development, first with Chris-Craft Television, and then in combination with its associate Warner Bros., for over three years. Selected early on as one of several flagship projects for a new fledgling network, the producers and creator of Babylon 5 used that time to fully flesh out the universe in which our stories would be told. First, a series treatment and bible was written by J. Michael Straczynski, creator and co-executive producer of Babylon 5. This was then followed by a 2-hour screenplay for a TV movie entitled "The Gathering." Also developed were storylines for a first full season of episodes, and artwork was commissioned that illustrated what, and where, Babylon 5 was. Finally, a video demo tape was produced. By the time this was completed, Warner Bros. was in place to make an important announcement. On November 20, 1991, Warner Bros. held a press conference in Burbank, California, to announce the formation of a fledgling network, similar to the Fox network when it first went on the air. First-run programs would be produced, to air one night per week (as Fox began once per week) on a consortium of over two dozen TV stations around the country. At the heart of this was the Chris- Craft/United Television Network group of television stations. One of the projects announced as a Go was Babylon 5. Not only was Babylon 5 approved as a Go project, it was announced at a major press conference held February 12th, 1992 in New York City that B5 would be the first Consortium project to air, making it the fledgling network's flagship production. The target airdate for "The Gathering" is Tuesday, November 17th, 1992. WHAT IS BABYLON 5 -- The Concept The year is 2257. Mankind has gone to the stars, and we have found that we are not alone. There are other governments and empires that are far older than ours, and some that are younger. Some we met in peace, and began an exchange of technology and information that substantially increased the pace of Terran space exploration and colonization. Some contacts were hostile. And some led to outright war. The Earth/Minbari war lasted for almost a decade, and led to one of the great mysteries of the time in which our story is set. On the very edge of victory over the Earth Alliance, when everything Earth tried had failed and their destruction seemed imminent...the Minbari surrendered. It is now five years later, and the dark secret behind the Minbari surrender will finally begin slowly to emerge. And over the course of the series, that secret will have a direct and substantial impact on Babylon 5. As for Babylon 5 itself...it is a space station roughly three miles in length, with docking bays fore and aft. It is made up of sections that rotate at varying speeds to create alternate gravities to accommodate various lifeforms. Different atmospheres are also used in different sections. Babylon 5 is located at a key jump-point; to get from any one of the five major confederations (four alien, one human), you almost always have to pass through this sector of space. Thus, the area surrounding Babylon 5 has been designated Neutral Territory. Babylon 5 itself, therefore, functions as a sort of futuristic free-port, a space-borne Casablanca open to travelers from anywhere, going anywhere; people fleeing from something or escaping to something, on missions of urgency...smugglers, diplomats, scientists, mappers, traders, soldiers, refugees...sooner or later, they all come to Babylon 5. The station boasts substantial facilities, including the docking bays, customs areas, nightclubs, casinos, meeting rooms, a Rent-A-Telepath service for use by businessmen, living quarters and other facilities. Because the station creates its gravity by rotation, like an O'Neill sphere, the very center of Babylon 5 is a null-gravity area. On the fringes of that round section, where gravity returns, hydroponic and other forms of gardens and crops have been planted. In that respect, Babylon 5 is a self-enclosed planet turned inside-out. It is self-sustaining in most regards. Though run under the nominal jurisdiction of the Earth Alliance, the station also has an advisory council consisting of one ambassador from each of the four major alien confederations, with the station commander forming the fifth, tie-breaking vote. In that sense, the station serves as a sort of min-U.N., the first time all five groups have ever gathered together before under one roof. As such, Babylon 5 represents the best chance for peace that's come along in a very long time. But there are also those who profit by trying to sabotage that peace. And they, too, come to Babylon 5. The station is called Babylon 5 because it is not the first such attempt. Babylons 1 through 3 were sabotaged and destroyed. Babylon 4 disappeared mysteriously, without a trace, 24 hours after becoming operational. Which makes life aboard Babylon 5 tenuous at best. They are very literally on the fringe, on their own. If something should happen, no one could reach there in time to help. Babylon 5 is run by Commander Jeffrey Sinclair, a nominal war hero during the Earth/Minbari war (who is missing 24 hours of memory from the last day of that war), though he serves more as diplomat and figurehead most of the time. In general, the actual day-to-day operations of Babylon 5 are actually run by Laurel Takashima, one of the few command crew actually born on Earth, she is consistently on top of things and is Sinclair's buffer between his diplomatic responsibilities and the physical running of the station. There are, in total, ten regular, recurring characters, in addition to whatever new characters may enter during any given episode. The intent is to create an ensemble show with widely divergent characters, some good, some bad, but most a mix of the two. Where some shows might show a perfect world without conflict, where everything works as it should, where the regular characters have no character flaws or inner doubts, the residents of Babylon 5 are very different. They have all the flaws to which humans have always been prey. The mistake is in the belief that technology means perfection, somehow eradicating humanity, which has been shown not to be the case. In 1792, people worked, got married, had affairs, had children, grew angry, touched passion and hoped for a better future. In 1992, though technology has given us 200 years of progress, of flying machines and computers, humans still work, get married, separate, have children, have affairs, grow angry, touch passion and hope for a better future. In 2257, our humanity continues, full of all its flaws and latent nobility. Those aspects may be enhanced, for good or ill, by the new technologies, but we are still recognizably human. The primary goal behind Babylon 5 is to do a show that is both good science fiction and good television. An SF series without cute robots or kids. An SF series that is thoughtful, but which has action. An SF series for grownups, with the same level of characterization and storytelling found in such shows as Hill Street Blues or St. Elsewhere or L.A. Law. In preparing Babylon 5 for production, a comprehensive five year arc has been created. Though stories will stand on their own in each episode, the series overall will gradually tell a story on a much grander scale, a tapestry of falling and rising empires in which one or two individuals may mean the difference between a new dark ages on one side and a future of hope on the other. In that respect, Babylon 5 will be treated as a five-year miniseries, with a definite beginning, middle, and end, with each year equaling one "chapter" or book in the saga. In that respect, it has been likened by some to going for the broad tapestry of a Lensman or Foundation series of books. BABYLON 5 - Behind The Scenes The production team assembled for work on Babylon 5 consists of the best and the brightest, including EFX experts and others who have worked on such projects as TERMINATOR 2, HONEY I SHRUNK THE KIDS, THE ABYSS, TOTAL RECALL and other films. Heading up the effects and production elements are Ron Thornton (computer EFX) and John Iacovelli (production designer). Ron, one of the country's foremost experts in computer-generated graphics, will be working with NewTek -- creators of the Video Toaster, a company on the cutting edge of computer EFX technology -- to create images never before seen on television. John Iacovelli, from HONEY I SHRUNK THE KIDS, is bringing a range of innovative new techniques to give the everyday scenes of Babylon 5 in action a vastly different and futuristic look. (If you're interested at getting a sneak peek at Babylon 5 itself, there are two ways of doing it: 1) Find a copy of STARLOG SPECTACULAR #4, March 1992, and turn to page 54. The photo that fills the bottom half of the page is an early version of the B5 station. 2) Call NewTek at (800) 765-3406 and request a copy of their latest demo tape. This tape contains a moving Babylon 5 station, and a starship that is also used in the first part of the B5 demo itself, though the two are shown in reverse order.) Other EFX people working on Babylon 5 have been drawn from the ranks of Hollywood's finest, ranging from the Henson Creature Shop to those who've worked in James Cameron's Lightstorm Prods. Most importantly, every person thus far associated with Babylon 5 is a fan of the SF genre, and wants to join in the excitement of creating a brand new universe. Every effort will also be made to keep the SF as "real" and rigorous as possible. In addition to good SF going into the production side, quality SF will also play a role in the creative vision of the project. When Babylon 5 goes into series in 1993, it will draw upon the talents of leading SF writers for its stories, much in the tradition of the original Trek series. The creator of Babylon 5 has a long and healthy relationship with SF and related genres. He has previously been the story editor and primary writer for the syndicated Twilight Zone series, and his recent adaptation of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for Showtime earned him both Ace and Writers Guild Award nominations. He has story edited such other series as Captain Power, the animated Real Ghostbusters, and such mainstream network programs as Jake and the Fatman and, concurrent with Babylon 5's development, producer on the highly rated Murder, She Wrote. He has also written many published short stories, a published anthology, and two published dark fantasy/horror novels. BABYLON 5 -- Where To Find It A comprehensive list of TV stations slated to carry B5 will be added to supplement this release. But the preliminary list of stations guaranteed to carry Babylon 5 include WWOR Secaucus, KCOP Los Angeles, WPWR Chicago, KBHK San Francisco, WDCA Washington DC, KTXA Dallas, KTXH Houston, WUAB Cleveland, WTOG Tampa, KMSP Minneapolis, WDZL Miami, KPLR St. Louis, KRBK Sacramento, KUTP Phoenix, WNUV Baltimore, WTXX Hartford, KPTV Portland, WSTR Cincinnati, and KSMO Kansas City. ------------------------------
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Jan 4, 2021 04:18
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Also curious how much of the material from JMS's failed pitch for a V: The series reboot got reworked into the Mars Resistance plotline for Seasons 3 & Seasons 4 of Babylon 5. ------------------------------ Date: 10 Oct 91 01:12:03 GMT From: bsu-cs!bsu-ucs!00sdriddle@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu Subject: "V:TNC" Michael Straczynski was hired two years ago to write a pilot for a new 'V' series that Warner Bros. requested be turned into a four hour mini-series. He spent most of 1990 rewriting the script and handed it in one month ago. Kenneth johnson is in no way involved with the project and there are no plans to reunite the original cast. The series leans in the direction of the original series in flavor, approach, and tone. The new series takes up five years after the end of the weekly series. There was a massive war between the two sides (we lost). The LA Resistance has either been captured, disappeared, or gone into hiding. Much has changed. The big cities are under Visitor control,new currency has been issued, there are collaborators and sabouteurs. We learn more about Visitor culture history and religion. We will also learn the real reason they came to Earth in the first place which may involve a Third Force. The next step is to take it to NATPE to try and sell it in the syndication market. If it sells it will be produced. If it doesn't, it won't. To write Warner Bros. to convince them to produce a series a/o conclusion write Warner Bros., 4000 Warner Blvd., Burband, CA 91522. USA. The above information was published in TV Zone #20. ------------------------------
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Jan 4, 2021 04:25
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My comic book friend described JMS as "a great writer" but also "a giant loving baby." I'd be curious to know more about his run as a comic dude.
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Jan 4, 2021 04:55
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VinylonUnderground posted:My comic book friend described JMS as "a great writer" but also "a giant loving baby." I'd be curious to know more about his run as a comic dude. I seem to recall as his early forays in comics writing were ongoing (Rising Stars, Midnight Nation, etc) he became infamous for turning in scripts that were increasingly late. In the case of Rising Stars I think being pressured to get something, anything in did serious disservice to the back half of the series, but I thought Midnight Nation was great all through. I didn't ever read any of his more mainstream Marvel/DC runs. He catches a lot of flak for some of the stuff that happened during his Amazing Spider-Man run but I've also heard that a lot of it was editor fiat that eventually made him quit the book. His Superman stuff seems to be pretty universally regarded as garbage.
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Jan 4, 2021 07:03
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Off the top of my head I think he wrote one or two reasonably respected things (a Thor run, I think?) but also handed in one of the most reviled Spiderman stories there is, and was in the middle of a dreadful run of Superman before he cut and run leaving it for others to clean up the mess
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Jan 4, 2021 07:04
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There’s a lot of stuff from his Spider-Man run I like, to the point I partly want to assume his bit on One More Day was something he was pushed into, but I have no evidence to back up that belief and I doubt it exists.
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Jan 4, 2021 08:03
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Lemniscate Blue posted:I seem to recall as his early forays in comics writing were ongoing (Rising Stars, Midnight Nation, etc) he became infamous for turning in scripts that were increasingly late. In the case of Rising Stars I think being pressured to get something, anything in did serious disservice to the back half of the series, but I thought Midnight Nation was great all through. Nor should you. Supreme Power, on the other hand, is very worth reading and I'm pissed that once again he bailed on it - although as with Crusade, it was editorial interference that triggered the walkout.
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Jan 4, 2021 10:40
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Nerdietalk posted:There’s a lot of stuff from his Spider-Man run I like, to the point I partly want to assume his bit on One More Day was something he was pushed into, but I have no evidence to back up that belief and I doubt it exists. Most stories I've seen lay the blame on Joe Quesada, who had a reputation for hating Peter Parker's marriage to Mary Jane. Stracynski himself has complained about it, but that may be another for the "giant baby" column. Wikipedia posted:Straczynski surprised many when he publicly revealed: "There's a lot that I don't agree with, and I made this very clear to everybody within shouting distance at Marvel, especially Joe Quesada... there was a point where I made the decision, and told Joe, that I was going to take my name off the last two issues of the OMD arc. Eventually, Joe talked me out of that decision because at the end of the day, I don't want to sabotage Joe or Marvel, and I have a lot of respect for both of those."[9] Quesada explained this disagreement with Straczynski, stating that their rift was primarily over the "methodology" of how to erase Peter and Mary Jane's marriage, but Straczynski was on board with the editorial mandate of undoing the Parkers' marriage.[citation needed] I don't really know how well the marriage worked in the comics since I never read much around that point, but I've heard that when it first happened, Mary Jane hadn't really been prominent for a while and it was only happening because Stan Lee was making the marriage happen in newspaper Spiderman. It's also not the first time Marvel tried to squirm out of the marriage, since that was a big part of the extremely controversial Clone Saga, but now they have two or three young spider-people that they can tell their young spiderman story ideas with, along with occasionally doing flashback series to Peter as a kid. I feel like all of them lack the angry nerd loner jerk energy that I found interesting about classic Spiderman, but other people seem to enjoy them.
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Jan 4, 2021 18:12
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His run on superman is some of the worst dreck I've ever read. Grounded is abysmal on every conceivable level and was less about JMS writing a Superman story than him projecting his weird liberterian leanings on Superman. It's offensively bad. How bad you ask? Well, he threatens a drug dealer, then burns down his appartment building. He then asks A FIVE YEAR OLD KID STANDING NEARBY TO DELIVER A MESSAGE TO THE DRUG DEALERS WHEN THEY GET BACK. He ask this little kid to tell them that he'll be back every couple of weeks and burn down the house again if they are still there. When the kid says "well they'll just go somewhere else", superman literally says Well that's their problem! That doesn't even begin to cover when he lectures illegal aliens (literal aliens) that they need to contribute to society and stop being parasites, or when he orders Lois to not run a story about a factory violating environmental laws, because that means it would shut down and all the people in the small town would lose their jobs. It's not just a bad Superman Story. It's the worst Superman story. It was so bad he left midway through and his replacement had to come up with a story that Superman was mindcontrolled and that's why he was acting so drat weird
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Jan 4, 2021 19:18
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Straczynski is also massively insecure to the point that he felt the need to take a potshot at Spider-Man sales numbers after he left the book, pissing off Steve Wacker and eventually Mark Waid, leading to this amazing slam by Waid:quote:"Dick move, Joe. Flat out, a dick move, and you know it. Either your point was to show people how awesome you were, or to show people how things have deteriorated since your absence. There’s no other way to interpret your post. None. Are you really that hard up for approbation and fan love that you can’t rise above that sort of poo poo? I understand Wacker’s frustration. Maybe he overreacted a bit, in the way good friends DO react when they perceive their friends and employees being attacked by a bitter man with a bottomless ego, but you made the first move, and it was a dick move. And if anyone doubted you were doing it for anything other than informational purposes, adding "Just sayin’" was the snarktacular icing on the cake. No one says "Just sayin’" unless they’re doing exactly the opposite of "Just sayin’ Straczynski is very much a textbook example of the adage that if you think you're running into assholes all day, it's probably you who's the rear end in a top hat.
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Jan 4, 2021 19:35
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VinylonUnderground posted:My comic book friend described JMS as "a great writer" but also "a giant loving baby." I'd be curious to know more about his run as a comic dude. I think we have enough data about JMS to conclude that he doesn't relate to other people well and he has a tendency towards the grandiose which he can only carry off some of the time. Reading Becoming Superman provides a good sense of his foundational characteristics, and "messed up" is quite reasonable; I wonder if he didn't mostly get along great with Ellison because they had been about equally damaged during their developmental years, on levels their "peer" writers couldn't imagine. Where Ellison had a whole pile of negative character traits, JMS mainly seems to have trouble relating to other people and be hapless in terms of workplace politics, in a way that leads him to feel betrayed frequently and to write people off completely (burning his bridges along the way). In most cases, you can point to specific elements of his early life and identify where these traits come from. What I've heard second-hand about his comics work is that he ranged from doing brilliant stuff (parts of his Spiderman run; I've heard good things about his Thor run) to complete dumpster fires, some of which weren't entirely his fault (One More Day) and some of which were (Superman). My sense of him as a creator is that his stuff works best in constructive collaboration (B5, Sense8, Real Ghostbusters) that comes with a minimum of workplace politics. If he gets to do whatever he wants, or he has to navigate a snakepit situation, things get a lot more uneven, and a heavily political workplace just destroys him (Crusade, Jeremiah, at least parts of his comic run). Calling him "a giant loving baby" sounds a bit too close, in my mind, to that one kid in school who is getting bullied and tries to fight back by flailing and slapping around feebly, and the other kids who respond to that by pointing at him and laughing instead of feeling sorry for him. He's making up through talent for the near total lack of some basic human operating skills. He's taken multiple job paths and burned his bridges behind him. He might say some hurtful things, but he will never have the capacity to ruin someone's career. He's not a baby: he's an exposed nerve, an open wound. He doesn't scream when you lightly punch him in the wrong spot because he's infantile, but because he's been brutalized and never fully healed. He doesn't lash out (ineffectually) out of cruelty, but out of injury, and he's not very good at doing any real or lasting damage when he does. Having written that, I am now picturing the comic fan community as a huge scrum of those kids in school flailing around at each other and screaming. Probably not entirely fair.
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Jan 4, 2021 21:06
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Narsham posted:Having written that, I am now picturing the comic fan community as a huge scrum of those kids in school flailing around at each other and screaming. Probably not entirely fair. I wouldn't say that's entirely unfair either.
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Jan 4, 2021 21:39
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I feel like that might be part of how B5 is so rough earlier on when there's much less drama, JMS might just be bad at casual reactions and so can't write moments like that as well. He probably couldn't sustain writing a low-stakes sitcom for long. But was absolutely great from the start is the interplay between two characters who hate eachother on every level.
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Jan 4, 2021 23:31
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Nerdietalk posted:There’s a lot of stuff from his Spider-Man run I like, to the point I partly want to assume his bit on One More Day was something he was pushed into, but I have no evidence to back up that belief and I doubt it exists. I don't think he gets as much flak for One More Day as he gets for Sins Past which, I get the idea behind it, but there was no way to make it work feasibly. Edit: i think his run before it was great though and I love the idea of a Peter Parker who was a Spiderman and had a family that supported him behind it. quote:but Straczynski was on board with the editorial mandate of undoing the Parkers' marriage.[citation needed] That's weird since he spends like three issues getting them back together. V-Men fucked around with this message at 15:25 on Jan 5, 2021 |
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Jan 5, 2021 15:22
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSIc01NgbjE I was totally amazed to just find out that Lyta was a stuntwoman. And worked for BOTH Star Trek and Babylon 5 at the same time. She never told Star Trek that she was working on Babylon 5 either.
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Jan 6, 2021 02:04
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happyhippy posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSIc01NgbjE If you remember the first Austin Powers movie she’s the waitress in the disco at the start that Austin punches because she’s a man, man!
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Jan 6, 2021 09:32
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happyhippy posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSIc01NgbjE It kind of solved 2 problems in one, a stuntwoman and a show actress. I doubt they expected her to do any stunts but it's still an option. JMS got real creative to stretch the budget for the show.
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Jan 6, 2021 09:40
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pentyne posted:It kind of solved 2 problems in one, a stuntwoman and a show actress. I doubt they expected her to do any stunts but it's still an option. JMS specifically asked for her for the role because he
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Jan 6, 2021 14:49
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Yeah I watched the same podcast thing too. I love DS9 but had never watched their show until someone from B5 was on, odd. Always thought Lyta was just what ever, a minor main character who was fine I guess. But after the interview I'm a big fan of hers. She seems extremely cool and passionate about the work she's done and boy has she done a LOT of work. Just an all around interesting person!
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Jan 6, 2021 19:51
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She was most known at the time for her role in Night of the Living Dead (remake).
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Jan 8, 2021 04:26
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