Babylon 5: Reboot and Zooty

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > Babylon 5: Reboot and Zooty

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

The Gathering is godawful. It does get referenced so if you're committed to watching the whole series, go ahead but don't let it discourage you.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2017 11:49

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 19:04

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

Space: Above and Beyond was the same era.

# ¿ Oct 20, 2017 04:05

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

hangedman1984 posted:

Is it really only 3 episodes? It feels much longer.

I'm not sure the number but it's surprisingly little. Even the Byron episodes are only like half telepath stuff. When I rewatched the first time I was like oh gotta strap in for this poo poo after reading internet complaints, but it was hardly even there.

Season still gets better in the back half but I think it's more that those were the long-planned episodes and the front half was all last minute, rather than specifically being Byron. JMS has proven over the years that he was a one hit wonder, IMO. B5 proper is fantastic and everything else I've seen him make... maybe if all his projects took him 15 years to get made and he had tons of time for revision.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2018 13:14

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

I didn't think he did a bad job with the material, it just wasn't good material. Like Kate Mulgrew in Voyager.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2018 13:18

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

I have no idea about any of his comic book poo poo.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2018 12:52

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

Last time I was in Japan I noticed they still somehow have Zima. I had to get one because of B5.

It was bad.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2018 20:15

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

Oh man are you in for a... treat?

B5 getting picked up after that steaming turd is as shocking as TNG making it past season one, in retrospect.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2018 07:32

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

Rebooting B5 would be dumb, but the setting has plenty of room for another series in it.

# ¿ May 19, 2018 04:34

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

Angry Salami posted:

I think Crusade and Legend of the Rangers has shown that's not true.

JMS only having one good story in him doesn't mean no one else could write one.

# ¿ May 19, 2018 05:22

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

The tiny Trek colonies are weird but I figured it was partly because humans hadn't been out there that long. Even by TNG era human deep space exploration is only about 200 years old, and Earth is paradise so I doubt there's a huge crush of people desperate to get out to the colonies. Natural growth without immigration would take a long time.

SG-1 was weirder since a lot of those planets had been populated for thousands of years. But there were some that they mention massive cities on and just didn't show because of budget, presumably.

Friendly Fire posted:

When your whole planet has the same biome, you don't need to spread out much to find other resources.

According to most sci-fi shows, earth as a planet is an anomaly in that it has a whole lot of different environments spread out over the surface.

Multi-biome worlds are good, but I also always was confused when people would say it was unrealistic to have a desert world or an ice world or whatever. Like, we have multiple desert and ice worlds in our own solar system. There's nothing unrealistic about them, you can go look at pictures of the real thing.

Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 10:20 on Jul 7, 2018

# ¿ Jul 7, 2018 10:17

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

Doctor Zero posted:

It�s honestly not as bad as you remember it being. At least that was what I thought after my first rewatch. And there�s still some good things intertwined in there. And the Centauri Prime stuff is WORTH IT.

I agree. I remembered it very negatively then when I rewatched it was... still not great but there isn't actually that much of it.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2018 02:02

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

It could've been done badly but yeah, the gradual reveal of the Vorlons being as bad as the Shadows was great. Finding out that oh no, the Vorlons aren't good, it's just Kosh is good and the other Vorlons don't trust him because of it.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2018 23:57

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

skooma512 posted:

It really does boggle the mind that these creative types intend to tell a narrative.... but fly totally by the seat of their pants episode to episode and end up painting themselves into corners.

This is how literally all writing works. You don't see it in books because you can edit, but TV doesn't have that luxury. JMS having ten years to noodle on his ideas before he could get his show on the air was a very unusual situation. A good one, but abnormal. And even then, B5 is quite different from what he planned.

Even the most dedicated outliners change their stories a lot in editing. TV is terrifying without that ability.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2018 03:13

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

I only remember the nonono line once in the series. My liver can take it.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2018 16:06

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

Kurr de la Cruz posted:

The CGI is *really* dated, but it reminds me a lot of the graphics from that old game Escape Velocity, so I'm getting this little nostalgia twinge every time they show something, and it works. It just works.

The CGI gets better. It's still old but by season three or so it looks pretty good.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2018 23:39

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

Londo is the actual central character of the show, not the captain.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2018 17:43

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

Neddy Seagoon posted:

Come to think of it, I honestly couldn't tell you if Voyager actually had any music aside from its main theme.

And the main theme/opening credits was by far the best part of Voyager.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2018 03:53

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

Oh poo poo mine also did and I forgot to post. Thanks for da sticker Pick.

# ¿ Sep 6, 2018 14:55

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

I agree don't read anything. It's very good. It doesn't really get going until episode four, but as a B5 veteran I don't think that'll throw you.

# ¿ Oct 26, 2018 00:10

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

The books are good, I'm not including those as don't read. But the show is an excellent adaptation so if you don't feel like reading you're not really missing out.

# ¿ Oct 26, 2018 00:22

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

Plotac 75 posted:

Which is funny, because it was pulled from a planned tabletop setting.

Which was from a cancelled MMO, so the show is a TV adaptation of a book adaptation of a tabletop adaptation of a video game.

# ¿ Oct 26, 2018 00:50

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

wizzardstaff posted:

Yeah, I am really liking that every episode contributes something interesting to the overall big picture, even just a little.

Yep. And there are tons of small things that you aren't noticing that will come back later. It's super well done and rewards a rewatch some day in the future to see how there are things laid down in like episode two that don't come up again until the fifth season or whatever.

# ¿ Oct 27, 2018 17:08

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

The headbones are different for the castes but I don't think the makeup is always done consistently.

E: Actually maybe it's that the ones for men are spikier than for women, I don't remember.

E2: of course I should've just looked for a sperg wiki

quote:

The Minbari's distinctive head bones are actually two separate and distinct ridges. At birth, Minbari infants posses two very small, soft ridges that sprout from the temple and grow and close at the back of the skull, forming the appearance of a single structure. The ridges grow in stages, each stage advancing another few millimetres and do not fully develop until child is approximately one cycle old. By that time the two soft ridges should join at the back of the head and harden into a firm exoskeletal structure.

In its natural state the boney structure is smooth, interrupted only with subtly layered ridges in a pattern that resembles the growth rings of trees or antlers. Minbari however choose to style and sculpt the ridges into certain styles, a process achieved through laborious carving and ritualized binding. This practice of body modification is broadly similar to the ancient Chinese foot binding or Mayan head shaping once practiced on Earth, but is by no means as crude or damaging. From a cultural standpoint, it is akin to the Human and Centauri practices of cutting and styling hair and nails or the Narn practice of buffing their spots.

The binding itself is done with strong moulds (sometimes made from native Minbar crystal) applied to the bone at a key developmental phase and kept under continuous pressure, though care must be taken to keep pressure away from brain and neck. By tradition the moulding process takes place during adolescence, in a developmental period when the bones undergo rapid growth. The final binding ritual is considered something akin to coming of age ritual that marks a passage into adulthood. Once the bone is set, it will essentially hold its basic shape for the rest of its life, though adult Minbari will continue to carve to keep it looking neat and symmetrical.

Within the ridge structure itself is a veiny layer of very raw and tender flesh, akin to the quick under fingernail. Carving too deeply or carelessly will cause a substantial amount of discomfort and bleeding which is why carving is kept to the outer edges only. Members of the Warrior Caste almost exclusively favour a rough, jagged look, that they like to think makes them appear ominous. Some males of the other castes also adopt this more rough hewn style, but not for the same desired effect. Non-warrior females, especially those of the Religious Caste tend to favour smoother, much more rounded and elegant styles. Female warriors on the other hand tend to adopt the same style as male warriors.

Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 04:01 on Oct 28, 2018

# ¿ Oct 28, 2018 03:56

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

Vavrek posted:

There's two or three people watching for the first time and sharing their thoughts with the thread. We're all hovering over them, whispering to each other behind our hands.

Yeah please use tags for now since we just had multiple posters say they're watching for the first time. Once it's back to nothing but us geriatric nerds we can be looser.

# ¿ Oct 30, 2018 20:48

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

Neddy Seagoon posted:

I knew I had the screencap somewhere! Seriously, look at this shot.

This really seems intentional.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2018 22:46

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

It doesn't need a ring, the whole station rotates.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2018 22:50

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

I missed insect dude later on.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2018 01:32

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

Neddy Seagoon posted:

I thought he was a pretty great secondary character, and a reason to go to the non-human parts of the station that didn't involve Kosh.

I liked that they were going to bother having a nonhumanoid alien character and then...

Okay there's Kosh but, you know. Weird spacesuit guy isn't the same as a mantis dude.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2018 05:28

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

JMS had a habit of denying any extremely obvious influences, like Lord of the Rings. I don't know why.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2018 17:00

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

Don't watch In the Beginning first, that's stupid. Don't bother with the movies until after.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2018 17:14

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

Pick posted:

Man it bums me out when people rag on him, he's a great writer and made a great show I love a lot.

I'm not ragging on him, but he has quirks and one specific one I noticed is pretending like nothing in B5 has any outside influences. At least that's what I gathered from reading along the JMS posts on the Lurker's Guide, he may have chilled out about it since.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2018 23:28

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

Well he's since mentioned having the sperg so a lot of his posting makes more sense now.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2018 00:56

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

I do think it helps make season one look well produced in comparison.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2018 01:31

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

The station is in Epsilon Eridani, 10.5 light years from Earth. The area of the galaxy B5 takes place in is fairly small, hyperspace travel is FTL but not crazy fast like a lot of other scifi.

Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 17:42 on Nov 7, 2018

# ¿ Nov 7, 2018 17:39

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

It seems like Io is where the solar system's jumpgate is. Makes sense you'd want to keep it at a distance for defense and because uh, they can explode.

# ¿ Nov 7, 2018 17:51

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

Then again there are other episodes that suggest the show takes place across the entire Milky Way. Like all TV scifi series, it's not entirely consistent about space geography, even with as much planning as there was behind B5.

In general it leans much more to the small area of space side though.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2018 01:05

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

I mean it could work that the various planets are actually very widely dispersed throughout the galaxy and hyperspace makes it irrelevant but whenever they give a firm distance it's always very close together. There's a line at one point implying everything is within a 70 light year sphere.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2018 02:38

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

It definitely was a thing of its era. B5 is the most recent big thing I can think of that had it, which makes sense when you consider he was designing and shopping it around starting in the early/mid 80s. Mass Effect did too I suppose but all that Syd Mead-y design was of the psychics period.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2018 04:08

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

No there's a drift, if you lose power you get slowly pulled deeper into hyperspace until you're gone.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2018 04:30

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 19:04

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

Doctor Zero posted:

I think it's drat near certain that Paramont ripped off the original idea but the two series diverge dramatically almost immediately.

Yeah there are enough background similarities scattered around to make it suspicious but I don't think it matters at all. The vibe is totally different and the plots have nothing to do with each other.

And DS9 is the best Trek series so if B5 triggered its existence, well, that's a net benefit for everybody.

# ¿ Nov 9, 2018 07:16

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