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The alien species that has never been seen before and comes out of nowhere and almost destroys the headquarters of the Interstellar Alliance in the process but are never ever mentioned again always felt dumb to me.
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Nov 10, 2019 08:07
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MrL_JaKiri posted:There's plenty of one-off aliens who pose a military threat and are never seen again, like the ones that kidnap Sheridan or the ones with the probe. The Streib are named and it's mentioned that the Minbari basically burned them back to their homeworld years ago and the ship that abducted Sheridan is them pushing their limits again. The Berserker Probe is a remnant of a dead civilization. Meanwhile, the red helmet guys have a big fleet but no one knows what they're called or where they come from.
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Nov 11, 2019 02:59
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Y'know that bit with the guy who is afraid to leave Babylon 5 because he left the others and they blew up? That, but with dead cast members and changing the thread title.
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Apr 28, 2020 11:12
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Neddy Seagoon posted:The show implies it pretty hard on its own with a pair of Shadow ships towing a bigass bomb towards Babylon 4 that'd almost certainly create a fourth "mysterious explosion" for the Babylon project. I thought War Without End says that the Shadows only tried the 'blow it up with a big bomb' strategy because they didn't recognise what B4 was until it was about to come online. As far as I'm aware, the earlier stations had some combination of accidents and sabotage by anti-alien racists. JMS said: "The B1-B3 sabotages had nothing at all to do with the B4 situation; it was just done by forces opposed to the very notion of the Babylon Project. "The first 3 Babylon stations never got much past the very earliest stages of construction, just some hull elements, that sort of thing, nothing that could be recognized. Other forces took them out, mainly for political reasons." Horizon Burning fucked around with this message at 02:59 on May 20, 2020 |
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May 20, 2020 02:54
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Torrannor posted: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? Pretty much. To square something is to multiple a number by itself. So, four squared is sixteen. Two squared just gives you four.
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Jun 8, 2020 12:17
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1000 Brown M and Ms posted:Was that actually a thing? I've never heard that and just thought the transformation was always part of the story regardless of Furlan's feelings towards the makeup. It was with The Gathering. Mira Furlan apparently hated the heavy makeup and voice alteration, which is why it was lessened to what we got in Season 1, but it was not related to the transformation. Originally, Delenn was going to not just transform from Minbari to human but male to female.
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Jun 9, 2020 06:14
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I don't see why he'd be a fake newbie but if Morden survived then it's entirely possible other people survived, and the Captain's dead wife not being dead would be a pretty standard thing to see. Like Mook says, people are probably 'better' at seeing twists coming.
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Jul 30, 2020 13:37
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There are only three Warriors in the Grey Council. Three from each caste. I'd suspect that one of the Workers stayed behind.
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Aug 20, 2020 01:25
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Q_res posted:Delenn breaking the Council is after she's replaced with a Warrior caste. Oh, right.
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Aug 20, 2020 10:31
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Did Clark have that much genuine support, though? In that sense of 'I'm surprised he had so much.' I always got the impression that there weren't many genuine Clarkists but there were a shitload of people who were scared to speak out or act against him because he'd execute and/or disappear them. When it came down to it, something like half of Earthforce turned against him and the moment there was no threat of reprisal there were people marching on his office. But he has Psi Corps and Nightwatch and so on.
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Sep 27, 2020 01:28
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why are people so astounded that conservative politicians would identify with people like sheridan? B5 is a good show but it's quite literally fukuyama's end of history taken out to 2260, it's not exactly profoundly leftist.
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Feb 14, 2021 03:55
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Sedgr posted:It isn't that hard to see where it comes from. The whole command staff are essentially idealized republican conservatives from 30 years ago. Sinclair/Sheridan/Delenn are quite literally the Holy Trinity, and Sinclair is Minbari Space Jesus. one of the things i find disappointing about b5, but it's more because it's just not the show Straczynski was making than any failing of it, is that the show never really engages with some of the stuff sheridan does. you get a bit of lip service, sure, but it's from people like Garibaldi (literally brainwashed) and the corrupt ISN. but some of the stuff i find most remarkable are the little things, like how sheridan mentions in season 4 that no one hears about the losses his campaign endures and stuff like that. and sheridan ending up as president of the ISA is a heck of a thing, too. dude leads a military coup against his government, then gets signed on to be head of the space UN (seemingly to help evade EA justice for his role in the civil war) by the alien powers who provided material and moral support to his coup and basically gets to dictate stuff to earth. 2261 QAnon would have a loving field day. we like sheridan because he's the hero and B5 treats him as such but, man, i'd love a deeper look into the EA civil war and such
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Feb 15, 2021 06:43
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:I think Stracyznski really undercut that approach when he decided to have EarthForce ships deliberately massacring civilian transports as the trigger point for Sheridan to go on the offensive, because between that and starving out Proxima it's just so egregiously villainous that we as the audience (or at least I) can't be bothered to give a poo poo about Lochley's rationale for not defecting. Like, sympathy for people who couldn't know that had even happened and weren't in a position to realize they were being fed a huge line of propaganda? Sure. But the "yeah sure we were burning down tens of thousands of civilians and starving many times that on the colony worlds, but nuhhhhhh soldiers are supposed to follow orders" line just rings incredibly hollow. true, but that's only part of it. lochley was never a particularly great character and they didn't go nearly far enough in interrogating her defence. we also don't really know much at all about lochley's role in the civil war. i remember an old post in this thread that pointed out how, as far as we know, she didn't participate in any war crimes, didn't benefit from the clarke regime, and didn't fight for or against sheridan's fleet. we don't know where lochley was based or what her role was. the show really needed to explore what was going on in earthforce more than just having heroic sheridan vs war crime clarkists, especially given how president luchenko didn't side with sheridan and how a substantial number of 'liberated' earthforce warships basically 'sat out' of the civil war. what could earthforce realistically do after the civil war? court-martial everyone who didn't oppose clarke? all officers of a certain rank? etc. etc. lots of interesting stuff to ponder there but...
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Feb 15, 2021 08:28
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you would be correct that's kosh and his 'life mate'
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Feb 15, 2021 13:22
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quantumfoam, can you find the first usage of 'mimbari?' tia
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Feb 16, 2021 06:35
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there's also that really weird furry symbol on the thirdspace artifact, isn't there?
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Feb 17, 2021 05:26
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The Last Call posted:My excitement is severely tempered by the fact this is on the CW, they are not known for budgets. well i mean neither was the original....... given the level of JMS' involvement, i'm pretty interested in this project Horizon Burning fucked around with this message at 00:57 on Sep 28, 2021 |
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Sep 28, 2021 00:55
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the show could never do much with lochley when it refused to define her role in the civil war. what did she spend 2260-2261 doing? what did she think about the bombings on mars and proxima 3? did she support sheridan's cause, fight against it, or sit out? where was she based, what did she do? did she comply with clark's orders or find some clever way around them? i feel like in order to have her do things as a character you really need to answer those questions. otherwise, what can you do? the new earthforce military captain has a huge blank space where it concerns the most dramatic event in recent EA history but also the previous two seasons of the show. so, she just kind of exists and the show hopes no one asks what she did under the clark regime.
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Oct 21, 2021 13:27
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Wasn't there this big scene in the mess hall where she justified her pro-regime actions after being called out on them as "protecting her crew"? Or am I misremembering? yeah, but that's about all we get. which i don't really think is enough.
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Oct 22, 2021 10:17
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the top EA brass consider 33% of the minbari population as being devoted to war. londo does not correct them on their figure but on their terminology. i think there is mention in season 3 that between the religious and worker caste they control two-thirds of the minbari navy. so, it seems to be - as silly as it is - a 33/33/33 split. the minbari caste system has always been a bit shaky given that it's mentioned that the business of fighting war is exclusively warrior caste and that's why they don't like the rangers since it's basically the religious caste stepping on their turf, but then, as mentioned, apparently the religious and workers can just grab 2/3 of the minbari navy when delenn breaks the grey council. this is complicated by JMS' own posts that the castes are fiercely delineated (warriors do not do religious stuff, religious stuff do not do worker stuff.)Kibayasu posted:I think it was only mentioned a few times, if not only once, but the worker caste is something like at least 80% of the population. it isn't mentioned at all. the reason why delenn has nothing to do with proportional representation but the belief that the worker caste are the ones best suited to guide the minbari people, and something of an apology for the historical fact that the worker caste has been ignored and/or caught in the crossfire of the warrior/religious civil war. jng2058 posted:What I've always wondered is to what degree the population of Minbar is split between the castes. Is it really a 33%/33%/33% split? Because if so, then the Workers are doing miracles to support the other 2/3rds of the population who aren't producing anything but need everything built for them! minbari society is very rigid and very advanced. in the pilot, delenn has rings that can control gravity, and even if that's kinda disregarded by the rest of the show the minbari have gravity engines and whatever energy sources go beyond earth alliance fusion. it's no different to how fast JMS said starfuries travel: "as fast as the plot requires." how does the caste system work? however the plot requires.
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Oct 23, 2021 09:22
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DeafNote posted:I mean there is probably a reason she disbanded the Grey Council during season 3, and then one season later reinstated it with a 55/22/22 % split in favor of the Workers. yeah, she disbands the council because they won't intervene in the shadow war. it's explicitly said during severed dreams. then, her reasoning for changing the make-up of the council is also explicitly stated in moments of transition. the invention of a silent majority (lol) worker caste and that the grey council make up is more representative of minbari society is fanon (you'd think delenn would mention that sort of historic representation issue instead of the argument that the ethos of the worker caste, building the future, is better to lead society.) a perfect 33 split doesn't make sense? well, neither does the green-purple method of assuming leadership among the drazi. rigid adherence to a bizarre tripartite system is far more closer to the minbari culture as depicted by the show than an attempt to reimagine it as a full automated space gay communism moment.
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Oct 23, 2021 13:32
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the bureau 13 had another thing going on, as it's put by JMS:JMS posted:Larry never pulled his punches, and that frankness requires stating that we did have our differences from time to time. Larry could be fractious, and I think he sometimes resented being brought on by me as a lieutenant. He was talented enough to be a show-runner on his own, and being constantly a second-in-command chafed to the point that he began carving out his own pocket universe in B5. He wanted to show that he could do what I was doing, which for me was never even a question, I just didn’t want him doing it when I was trying to tell a story in a straight line in a way that no one had ever done before. But things became increasingly difficult between us, the friendship strained and broke, and we parted ways after season two. the guy behind bureau 13 got "asked to leave." the threatened to be sued thing doesn't seem to have any evidence, although the crew admit they stopped using it immediately presumably out of worry of that. but it doesn't look like any threats were made.
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Oct 24, 2021 00:46
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i'm sorry but the whole canticle-inspired "great burn" thing is really dumb and doesn't really make much sense in the context of b5, which kinda makes me think JMS did lift it as a deliberate nod or homage. earth gets burnt to pre-industrial ludditism by an unknown side of the second human civil war and then just kind of left there. where's the rest of the EA? unknown. why is the entire surviving population of the planet being punished for the actions of the anti-ISA faction--a war kicked off, i should add, by a pre-emptive strike by the pro-ISA human faction. imagine that in today's world. 'oh, sure, we bombed these people so far back that they don't know how to build a combustion engine and only understand their culture in religious myths, but now we're going to take the time to raise them the right way. the way that just so happens to correspond to our ideology.' how many people died? how many people continue to die on earth's post-apocalyptic husk? why aren't the rest of the EA colonies helping earth? it's just bewildering when you start to think about it. it echoes the vorlons (which we even see humanity kind of become) but without an ounce of self-reflection given, y'know, that kind of obedience-or-punishment talk was a bad thing.
Horizon Burning fucked around with this message at 08:32 on Oct 25, 2021 |
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Oct 25, 2021 08:00
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SlothfulCobra posted:I was in a used bookstore earlier and saw a signed cast photo. That was interesting. pretty much all the B5 novels are really bad and there's a reason why JMS does not consider them canon. one was infamously written in a week, if i remember correctly, and a lot of them feel like they were written by people who'd never seen the show and had only been told about it briefly. of the ones that are considered canon: the shadow within is generally considered decent, as is the psi corps trilogy. the technomages trilogy depends on how much you like technomages and weird retcons. the centauri prime trilogy appears to be okay but rarer than the others. the psi corps trilogy is my favorite set of all the b5 novels. i think all of them are pretty hard to find. they were rare when they first came out and i don't think were ever reprinted. Horizon Burning fucked around with this message at 03:59 on Nov 18, 2021 |
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Nov 18, 2021 03:56
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doesn't a lot of the anti-telepath stuff, like them being the real threat behind clarke and aiming to take over the government themselves, all come from william edgars? i know sheridan accuses bester of preparing for a coup in rising star but i can't remember where that comes from, if there's any evidence at all beyond 'grrr, psi corps bad.'
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Jan 13, 2022 06:14
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i like how that write-up mentions that bester had to be involved in the earth-minbari war given his age. that's not something i'd ever considered before about his character. i feel like the effects of the earth-minbari war are pretty downplayed by the show.
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Jan 14, 2022 07:20
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Jedit posted:Except he wasn't, because telepaths aren't permitted to serve in Earthforce. In fact that's why he created Black Omega Squadron to give Psi Corps a bit of military clout. why do you presume that only members of earthforce would be participating in an existential war? psi corps members can't be members of earthforce meaning they can't enlist and put on the uniform but that doesn't mean they can't still serve the interests of the earth alliance. one of the novels says he was scanning minbari prisoners anyway Horizon Burning fucked around with this message at 12:22 on Jan 14, 2022 |
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Jan 14, 2022 12:17
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JMS posted:B5 CW News
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Feb 4, 2022 00:20
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yeah, the one who is already dead is morden (morden even basically spells it out in that scene). surrendering to his greatest fear is either the keeper or g'kar's hands around his throat. londo's chances are in sequential order and has londo not killed sheridan he wouldn't need to surrender himself to his greatest fear. londo has three remaining off-ramps and he ends up needing to take the final one.
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Mar 3, 2022 05:05
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jms has said that they were supposed to be lovers but that the censors weren't a fan of it and i think he's said that scene with her reaching for her in bed was as far as they were allowed to go
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Sep 27, 2022 02:26
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theblackw0lf posted:What was the purpose of the eating ritual when Delenn invites Sheridan to eat in her quarters for the first time? Was it just that he was a guest or was there more going on that i can’t remember. iirc, there's something like... three rituals the minbari need to do as part of their courtship and that was one of them?
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Oct 14, 2022 08:18
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that discussion that the mass drivers weren't firing asteroids and g'kar was using poetic license has got to be the dumbest conversation i've seen about babylon 5 for the whole time i've been alive
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Jan 20, 2023 12:16
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Rappaport posted:I apologized! dead. dead. DEAD. DEAD!
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Jan 20, 2023 12:36
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looks like JMS considers those cgi remasters on youtube as copyright infringement and has basically told the b5scrolls guy to remove them. some are still up, but the longer, more detailed ones look to have been taken down. from what i can tell, the issue appears to claims made involving the CGI process with how the shots were rendered widescreen vs the normal aspect ratio and other claims made on the b5scrolls site that joe disagrees with (but the CGI artists back up the version of events put out by the b5scrolls guy; jms says that the CGI artists "killed the future of the show.") so, that's cool. i guess.
Horizon Burning fucked around with this message at 13:48 on Feb 1, 2023 |
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Feb 1, 2023 13:17
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sebmojo posted:The purely serialized format can also lead to some deeply tedious tv tbh. I actually think buffy and b5 got a really good balance. absolutely. b5's combination of 'arc episodes' and stand-alones is something i really miss.
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Mar 21, 2023 04:22
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Winifred Madgers posted:Trying not to hold my breath for a proper full remaster. It's on time for a 30th anniversary edition Blu ray though.... i think he's hinted at it being an audio drama or something like that
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Apr 23, 2023 07:56
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I said come in! posted:That hasnt been updated in nearly 13 years. :p The Sierra game I wonder how far along it even was. The only footage im aware of is a trailer that is just footage from the show. It doesnt actually have anything from a real game. I believe an alpha of Into the Fire was leaked a few years back, you could fly a starfury around a bunch of ships.
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Jun 17, 2023 09:02
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CainFortea posted:It's a 5 km long station! On that kind of scale you're not going to see the holes also we see fighters blow apart from PPG fire all the time. i'm sorry, what
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Jul 17, 2023 03:45
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Odd choice of cover art
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Jul 19, 2023 03:49
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i believe JMS has said it's going go be similar to the HBO remaster but with a greater bitrate and while WB wanted to include commentaries, there wasn't time. unclear if that meant the old commentaries, JMS's patreon ones, or new ones. it doesn't seem like it'll have any bonus materials.
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Jul 20, 2023 03:54
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