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wizzardstaff posted:Are reactions from a first-time viewer going through the series something this thread enjoys, or should I keep it to myself? I'm new to this thread itself, but as a huge B5 fan, I would love to hear your first time impressions.
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Oct 25, 2018 21:08
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Milkfred E. Moore posted:B5 gets pretty stagey and theatrical at times, it rules. Oh yes, but it can be so amazing. Like in season 4, when Cartagia has G'kar whipped. It's just a dark room with a chair for Cartagia and something to chain G'kar to. It really focuses the scene on the characters, and makes it all the more chilling.
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Nov 4, 2018 05:47
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Hazborgufen posted:I had been meaning to watch Babylon 5 for ages and never got around to it. Previous attempts never lasted more than a couple episodes but after rewatching Battlestar Galactica recently Amazon suggested I should watch Babylon 5. I figured that was as good a reason as any to finally do it. You can watch the episodes in the order they aired. A few episodes might be switched around a little bit, but mostly in season 1 and early season 2. But it makes no real difference, especially if you plan on watching everything in a relatively short time span (so about two or three months). Don't watch In The Beginning first, holy poo poo. It's full of spoilers and doesn't make sense without having watched at least the first three seasons.
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Nov 4, 2018 17:39
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Every left-hander is sinister by default. Makes you think...
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Nov 9, 2018 14:53
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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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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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ConfusedUs posted:At the risk of extremely minor spoilers: could you be more specific? I'm like 99% sure it's the one in the episode The Long, Twilight Struggle.
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Dec 18, 2018 16:24
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Wonder how the show would have been if Mira Furlan had bailed. I have an especially hard time thinking up a replacement for Delenn. Also, what would have been her trapdoor? Killed by some warrior caste fanatic?
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Jan 29, 2019 14:27
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Neddy Seagoon posted:The diplomats are the easiest; They get recalled, meet the replacement, because ~Politics~. Sure, theoretically. Yet nobody recalls the "diplomat" that just broke the Grey Council, and leads two thirds of all Minbari. That train left halfway through season 3.
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Jan 29, 2019 14:51
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Wait, you can't leave me hanging like this. What's the Marcus thing? How can there even be a Marcus thing?
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Feb 1, 2019 16:15
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Now you've motivated me to watch the very last episode of B5 again, and I cried a little. It's so well done.
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Feb 10, 2019 14:01
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Saw Rising Star again. Delenn can be so great, but also so blind. Lennier: "Did they tell you what Ivanova said at the end? All love is unrequited?" Delenn: "Yes, they told me. She's wrong, of course." Lennier: "Of course."
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Feb 26, 2019 16:10
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Dirty posted:Argh. He's thinking about this all wrong. More than likely, it was content ID flagged because it looks like footage from a B5 episode. Some low-level person at WB glances at it, thinks it's footage from an episode of B5, and throws it on the pile labelled "monetise with ads", along with the other 20 new B5 vids that were flagged this week. This is so dumb (and great), it could just be true.
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Mar 11, 2019 11:14
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Baronjutter posted:The Mimbari are, as a whole, a deeply backward, genocidal, ultra-conservative imperialistic power barely held in check by the politicial machinations of people like Delen. You can't just call them backward without any qualifiers, because they're certainly not technologically backward. Their society is. Also, I'm not seeing the imperialistic part. That said, you're spot on with your other points.
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May 1, 2019 20:08
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Baronjutter posted:They apparently have a vast collection of "protectorates" which they simply "protect" out of the goodness and honour of their hearts and totally don't gain economic benefits from these lesser races. We have virtually no information about the "protectorates". They could be exploitative in nature, or benevolent. The Mimbari were described several times as notably isolationist, which doesn't really square with being imperialist.
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May 1, 2019 21:46
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Did the books ever expand on how the Centauri tried to claim that Earth was just a long lost Centauri colony? Because we know the evolutionary history of humanity, and we are definitely descended from other Earth animals. Nobody could have believed the Centauri.
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Nov 19, 2019 23:53
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Angry Salami posted:Yeah, like in "Epiphanies", he threatens to turn her over to the Psi-Corps if she disobeys him. Or how she was unceremoniously tossed out of her quarters because the Vorlons weren't paying for them anymore - after Sheridan threw a complete childish fit when Earthforce wanted him to move to smaller quarters. Or how nobody even bothered directly telling her Kosh as dead. She really gets treated like crap throughout the series. I don't usually rewatch season 5, but I always got the impression that Lyta was just treated like crap. Getting thrown out of her apartment, with the Sheridan quarters subplot you mentioned in mind, that always felt terrible to me. Poor Zach who had to tell her the news. I thought Lyta was pretty justified in being fed up with all the crap she had to deal with, it was mostly Byron who led the whole thing into disaster. I'm glad that others also got a similar impression.
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Dec 9, 2019 09:22
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Star Trek: Picard spoilers: Did you see who Tamlyn Tomita (the actress of Laurel Takashima) is playing on Picard? And what said character does? I wonder if there are any Babylon 5 fans among the show runners, that casting choice is making too much sense.
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Mar 19, 2020 08:37
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Was it ever mentioned how big the individual castes were? Did the Worker Caste make up like 80-90% of the population, or did each caste contain about one third of all Minbari?
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Mar 22, 2020 12:34
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Something that was brought up in the blind watch thread. I think the economic use of characters is certainly one of B5's strengths, especially when you compare it to contemporaries. How much better would Deanna Troy have been if she had only appeared when her services were needed, instead of sitting on the bridge all day without doing anything but saying "I have a bad feeling" when poo poo is obviously going to get serious? What about Wesley Crusher needlessly piloting the Enterprise? Instead, Franklin shows up when there's a medical issue, or when the command staff is meeting, either in official capacity, or as a group of friends. And when the plotline is connected to his personal interests. I like that a lot.
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Jun 3, 2020 12:54
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pentyne posted:Vir has it right which makes him the progressive humanist to Londo's staunch conservative imperialist. Even after all the horror Londo is still grasped by the prestige of his position, meanwhile Vir burnt his political career to the ground to save a few hundred Narn lives the moment he could. This is so beautifully said. Vir really is too pure for the world. It's great that he's the only one that got his wish from Mr. Morden, and he's definitely the best next Centauri Emperor that they could have gotten.
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Jun 5, 2020 19:06
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In retrospect, It's pretty amazing how good B5 turned out. With being run on a smaller network, working under fears of being cancelled, revamping season 4 under the impression it would be the last season, and even managing a decent surprise season 5 (that's mostly weighed down by Byron, the rest is pretty good imho). And they didn't even need a film to wrap up the series properly. There are other series, especially in the sci-fi genre, that fared far worse. You can see the three major possible outcomes in Stargate: Atlantis had a proper ending, SG1 needed a film to achieve that, and Universe was just suddenly canceled.
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Jun 8, 2020 11:09
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I've always wondered, is that episode title a hint? English not being my native language, I interpret Babylon Squared as being similar (though not mathematically, of course) to "Babylon times two" = two Babylon stations?
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Jun 8, 2020 12:07
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Son of Sam-I-Am posted:Did I miss something in Atlantis, because I disagree it had a proper ending. The threat to Earth was stopped and the team returned home, but the wraith as a whole are still out there, not only poised to again steamroll the Pegasus galaxy but still trying to find a way to Earth and the Milky Way. Which they can't since the only Pegasus gate that can dial the Milky Way is now on Earth. They could theoretically find more ZPMs to make another super ship, but that's not super likely. And besides, if I recall correctly, the Wraith had mostly been decimated, and if not for that alternate dimension "Michael", the only thing left to the anti-Wraith forces was to mop them up? Torrannor fucked around with this message at 13:24 on Jun 8, 2020 |
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Jun 8, 2020 13:20
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Haha, rating Lennier at number 3, citing how "nice" he is. The irony. Of course it's not TheAardvark's fault for thinking this at this point of the series, I wasn't much different back then.
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Jun 8, 2020 15:39
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Wanted to run this past folks in this thread:The_Doctor posted:S1Ep18 - A Voice in the Wilderness (Part 1) Is it upside down though? Which way is up, when from the perspective of the inhabitants, up is always towards the station's core, since they're simulating gravity by having the station rotate,? Is that okay to post? We have seen the Earth Alliance destroyers that rotate to simulate gravity as well, so this question shouldn't spoil anything. Also, am I correct in my interpretation of that there's no "up" or "down" from an outside view of B5?
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Jun 9, 2020 07:01
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Son of Sam-I-Am posted:I think that's needlessly restrictive and will make that thread just 2-3 people speaking into an echo chamber. It's really not hard to be both engaged and circumspect, just think before posting. Yes, this. TheAardvark specifically welcomed discussion in the thread. And some of the things that might be taken as hints to first time watchers, like refusing to comment on certain things, likely only becomes obvious in hindsight.
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Jun 9, 2020 12:48
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1000 Brown M and Ms posted:Sure is: That was a plot point, was it not? B5 was the match of any younger races war ship after it got it's defense grid updates in GROPOS (I think?), but it took heavy damage in both the fight against the Centauri Cruiser, and the attack by EA ships in Severed Dreams. B4 in contrast was much bigger and better armed, and so was able to serve as a deep space station for the Minbari in the war against the Shadows.
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Jun 10, 2020 08:51
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What kind of emergency power does B5 have in case the fusion reactor has to shut down? I would guess solar panels wouldn't be the worst idea, since those facing the sun are guaranteed to receive sunlight unless a ship is between the station and the sun. Or does the planet Babylon 5 is orbiting sometimes block the sun?
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Jun 10, 2020 18:52
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Timby posted:The bit in the cast commentary on that episode, when Boxleitner says he never understood the scene but then upon re-watching during the recording of the commentary that Kosh was telepathically messaging Sheridan, is amazing. Oh yes, that part is amazing. It was the first time I really appreciated buying the expensive DVDs. It's the only show I have on record at home, and I'm glad I'm not at the mercy of distributors who may make it free some months and cost 30 bucks per season some other months. There are advantages to having physical possession of some media.
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Jun 11, 2020 07:57
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I have a lot to say about B5 intros. First, I actually really like the musical part of the season 1 intro. I love that it sounds more dramatic in season 2, and even more in season 4. I've never actually like the musical part of intro 3, it always sounded pretty generic to me. The speech part of season 3 is obviously the best, a real wham moment in the intro, visually supported by the starfury being destroyed by... another starfury? Aren't we (humans) all on the same side?!? What's going on??? It's a truly great intro, but seasons 4 and 5 also have good openings. Season 4's speech was a nice all cast work, while the faces afterwards show some interesting sides of the characters. Watch again, Lennier looks far less friendly than he does in previous seasons on his "face side", while the other half shows one of his most unfriendly scenes, where he chokes fellow Team Good guy Marcus, and reminds him that humans and Minbari are pretty different after all. That was long before anybody could suspect how he turned out. It's also great that every character has two different scenes shown, except for Londo, who's watching in horror as the Narn homeworld is bombarded with rocks. Very fitting. I also like Season 5's intro, repeating those big quotes from the show while showing scenes from each prior season always makes me nostalgic just by watching that opening. And overall, it's of course genius to have each season telling the events of one year, with the openings reflecting this. Changing up the narrators between each intro might have been an accident of Sinclair's actor leaving the show after one season, but it also works extremely well. tl:dr: B5 openings are really good.
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Jun 14, 2020 23:24
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ultrafilter posted:I'm not familiar with the short story in question. Is there any value in reading it or should I just go on being unaware? The last time that story came up, there were calls for brain bleach, and we congratulated the one goon who didn't look it up for being the Vir to our Londo. So...
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Jun 21, 2020 17:06
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Oooh, some little bit of sympathy for Garibaldi in the Blind Watch thread.
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Jul 11, 2020 16:58
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I didn't notice it because I almost never look at the avatars of posters. So maybe the blind watchers didn't see it, either. One can only hope. The image itself is also not that revealing, considering it's shown in Londo's prophetic dream. The text on the other hand is just not okay.
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Jul 15, 2020 18:57
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TKO is not a great episode, I will die on this hill. Also, I'm really curious how somebody reacts when they watch The Fall of Night for the first time in today's political climate. I'm basically spamming F5 in the blind watch thread.
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Jul 17, 2020 18:19
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Posting "I also liked the scene between Vir and G'Kar very much  " is hardly a spoiler and would mean TheAardvark isn't solo posting in the blind watch thread.It obviously depends on the comment, ConfusedUs could always post the text here for confirmation whether it's okay for the other thread or not.
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Jul 17, 2020 18:44
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Anticipating TheAardvark posting his The Fall of Night review any moment now any moment... 
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Jul 18, 2020 14:31
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As for Anna, every character but Franklin gets a visit from their ex in their first season. Sheridan gets a visit from his sister to talk about his dead wife. Also, important character who "died", but we didn't see them die, and there's no body. I think modern viewers have a good chance to pick up those clues. It's a bit like when people criticize certain older mainstream works for using now common tropes, not realizing that the show/film/book was actually the first medium to use the trope, and everybody else is copying them.
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Jul 30, 2020 21:06
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I found the reference to Lyta possibly going to Vorlon space a lot more suspicious. But it's difficult to compare the reaction of modern, genre savy viewers with our first views, when we could watch one episode a week at most. And unless we had VCR, couldn't rewatch episodes. And rewinding VCRs was a lot less user friendly than jumping to a specific time stamp like you can do with modern videos.
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Aug 5, 2020 11:10
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I'm very sad that VideoGames hasn't posted in a while in the new watchers thread 
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Aug 14, 2020 19:31
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