is babylonian 5 any good

Discussion in 'Science Fiction & Fantasy' started by tmosler, May 23, 2013.

  1. teacake

    teacake Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I think it's better than Star Trek. There's just a lot more Star Trek and huge fandom.
     
  2. jclark14

    jclark14 Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

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    Just start from the beginning, and dive right in. It's the best Science Fiction TV show ever produced.

    jeff
    skip the first season? skip the first season! not on my watch, mister...
     
  3. Warped9

    Warped9 Admiral Admiral

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    Love this show. My second favourite SF series after Star Trek TOS.
     
  4. tmosler

    tmosler Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    so befoure buying the series I am going to watch the movie in the beginng and if I like it babylon 5 will probly be for me. I dont care about spoilors so is this a good way to go about watching it?
     
  5. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    The movie is set 20 years before the pilot and 20 years after the pilot.

    Sooooooooooooooooooooooo many spoilers, and just as many out right clips since the TV show is heavily laden with Flashbacks to things that happened 20 years ago and things that will happen in 20 years.

    But yes, if you don't like the movie, the first season might kill you.
     
  6. Jimi_James

    Jimi_James Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    I thought some of the smaller less important lines of dialog were often clunky and the shots at humor were usually far off course. That being said, when it came time to deliver a powerful moving speech or some important critical information, JMS more than made up for it. G'kar and Delenn deliver some of the most moving monologues of any piece of sci-fi I have ever seen on TV or film.

    It's a series that every sci-fi fan should see at least once.
     
  7. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Don't you mean "twice"?
     
  8. lennier1

    lennier1 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    One of the advantages of the show. It actually rewards you for watching it again and again, like all the stuff foreshadowed through background characters, set decorations (TV reports on screens in the background), the number on the display in the pilot movie that answered the original version of one early-season mystery, ...
     
  9. teacake

    teacake Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I am in pain thinking about anyone watching In the Beginning first.

    WAY too spoilery :(
     
  10. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    TV was awful when Babylon 5 came out.

    TV was awful, and we were stupid(er).

    You can't tell me that in today's market that Babylon 5 would make any impression on the zeitgeist when Game of Thrones is thumping around dating raping everyone's expectations?

    I watched an early episode of Voyager today.

    To sort a pissing match in the Voyager Forum.

    Point is, I warmly recall being more challenged by the seminal episodes of Blues Clues while raising "my" children than that fleck of Star Trek trope.
     
  11. teacake

    teacake Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I don't care if Game of Thrones looks like a visual feast of fantasy and delivers gorgeously ugly people stabbing and fucking each other all out the wazoo, complete with dragons. Babylon 5's story is far more meaningful and interesting than anything we see on Game of Thrones.

    AND Crusade has dragons. Yes yes, I know that is not supposed to be a high point :lol:
     
  12. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Technomages seemed cool, until you read the Technomage novels and found out that they were clueless patsies. I thought they were smugly laughing at every one fully aware where their tech and power comes from and who they were supposed to be working for in The Great War...
     
  13. teacake

    teacake Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I've told everyone (no one has listened, but whatever) that the technomage trilogy was the best books I've ever read. Put me off Treklit for years because it was so superior.
     
  14. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I preferred the Centauri trilogy of books where Galen is helping Vir's rise to power when he wasn't off with Gideon on the Excalibur.

    I like Vir.

    I got really upset when they replaced him with that stick like skinny bloke after season three.

    Can you imagine if they had squashed the shittier episodes of Crusade down to 25-30 minutes, and they spliced in the continuing misadventures of Vir and Galen on top of what they already gave us?
     
  15. teacake

    teacake Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    The Centauri trilogy I have but have yet to read because of my Peter David allergy, but I have every intention of getting over it and reading them. Vir was much better round. Crusade was more interesting after reading Galen's story in the technomage trilogy.

    Psi Corp trilogy was a quick read and had some excellent Bester development.

    I suppose I shouldn't handwring over people's failure to read the technomage trilogy when I've failed to read the Centauri trilogy.. but KingDaniel if you are reading this you of all people still have no excuse considering how much abysmal Treklit you've read and retained.
     
  16. teacake

    teacake Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I'm inspired now, I'm going to watch Legend of the Rangers!! I haven't seen it properly yet.

    :: pours tea ::
     
  17. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I'm a completest. I believe in the whole story with no censorship.

    Legend of the Rangers was... Inbred.
     
  18. inflatabledalek

    inflatabledalek Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Plus, as a introduction to the world it suffers from the fact that one of the major characters from the first season, who plays an essential role in ending the war the Movie is about, wasn't avaliable when they filmed the film and only appears in stock footage.

    Meaning that, for anyone watching it cold, it must seem really odd to have this guy who hasn't been in it before show up five minutes from the end and shut the whole plot down.

    EDIT: Legend of the Rangers was piss poor.

    I was actually surprised on my recent rewatch how much I enjoyed Crusade (which I'd seen a couple of at the time but had found a bit crap). It's by no means perfect, and you can definately see the impact of the behind the scenes problems, but it's saved by some excellent casting (the fact Gary Cole isn't a bigger TV star is a crying shame) meaning it's never less than watchable.

    Legend of the Rangers on the other hand, which again I only watched properly for the first time this time through, had all the bad points of Crusade and none of the good ones. Other than the carry over of G'Kar the cast are the blandest, dullest group of characters in the entire history of television. Especially compared to B5, which certainly had a few cast members take a while to find their feet but still had some real stand out performances right from the off.
     
  19. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I'm just happy that next time I watch Crusade, if I haven't lost the disk I burnt a couple years ago with the a.d.d. laser precision of a meth tweaker, that the bloody episodes will finally be seen by me in the right damn order.
     
  20. teacake

    teacake Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Legend of the Rangers would have made a perfectly good single episode of Bab 5 or Crusade but was dragged out and full of flab as a movie. Nothing even happened for 33 minutes. Lead was Ken Doll dull. G'Kar was cliche G'Kar most of the time. Some of the Minbari were interesting. Not sure what the point of it was, did they think it was going to be a series? Introduce a new BADDER THAN SHADOWS bad guy and then it's over? JMS wrote it too.

    Hilarious weapons system!!

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