Logos, logos and some more logos...

[Reverend]

Captain Robert April wrote:

---

It might help if we saw some examples of the old and new logos.

Right. This is what the new one should look like.

The Axeman wrote:

---

I have to say I was never a fan of B5, it looked cheap & nasty next to the $1,000,000 an episode TNG. I caught some of an episode of it on Sky last night, and it just reconfirmed my opinion of it.

Still, I was shocked at how little B5 stuff still remains on the internet. When I was asked to make that B5 wallpaper I thought it would be the work of 2 minutes to download the models and set up the scene. Lightwave 3D made it's name doing the visuals for Bab-5 and there was always a ton of related models and stuff online for it. Now it's rare to find any decent models or info, so much so that when I reopened my model site I made sure that all my mates B5 stuff was put up first.

Kenny, I had no idea you'd be so shallow to judge a show by it's production values and effects! Some of the best shows ever made had wobbly cardboard sets and some slightly naff acting.
As far as the CG goes, yeah the early stuff is very ropey but it comes in leaps and bounds over time. So much so that by the end of the 3rd or 4th season Star Trek had poached their people and made the switch from models to CG. It might be worth keeping in mind that the early early stuff was all rendered on a bunch of old Amigas. If I remember it right, the idea at the time was that they could either spend x-amount on one or two really powerful (circa 1994) machines or on a bunch of not so powerful, but can collectively whack out more footage at a time.

If you really want to see some (more or less) up to date CG have a look at this little clip. Mind you, youtube's resolution doesn't do it much justice.

Still however cheep it might have looked, B5's real strength was in it's characters and story, something Trek had increasing problems with, no matter how pretty it looked.

[The Axeman]

I originally saw B5 in the US when it first came out, and it looked much worse on US format tellys than it did on our PAL sets. When I saw it here it didn't look quite so bad. It wasn't just that I didn't like the wallpaper however, I didn't much care for the whole thing.

My friends were rabid B5 fans but the stories just didn't grab me for some reason, and they chinned me mercilessly for preferring old fashioned Trek with it's seperate episodes. Thing is, it didn't really matter if you missed an episode or two, but it could matter a lot with B5 and you couldn't be bothered getting back into it. The terrible acting in the first series also did it no favours, but to be fair they did ditch Commander Plywood fairly smartly for someone who had more than one expression.

I also had an issue with JMS and his writing. He really seemed to be making it up as he went along, yet always tried to maintain he was creating a huge story arc. Garbage, as he had no idea how long the show might last, and like Lost it took off unexpectedly and he was scrabbling to make crap up. It was more soap opera than serial, which did not endear it to me. What can I say, it just never got me interested.

[Captain Robert April]

I'm only seeing the newer logo.

[Reverend]

The Axeman wrote:

---

I originally saw B5 in the US when it first came out, and it looked much worse on US format tellys than it did on our PAL sets. When I saw it here it didn't look quite so bad. It wasn't just that I didn't like the wallpaper however, I didn't much care for the whole thing.

My friends were rabid B5 fans but the stories just didn't grab me for some reason, and they chinned me mercilessly for preferring old fashioned Trek with it's seperate episodes. Thing is, it didn't really matter if you missed an episode or two, but it could matter a lot with B5 and you couldn't be bothered getting back into it. The terrible acting in the first series also did it no favours, but to be fair they did ditch Commander Plywood fairly smartly for someone who had more than one expression.

I also had an issue with JMS and his writing. He really seemed to be making it up as he went along, yet always tried to maintain he was creating a huge story arc. Garbage, as he had no idea how long the show might last, and like Lost it took off unexpectedly and he was scrabbling to make crap up. It was more soap opera than serial, which did not endear it to me. What can I say, it just never got me interested.

B5 fans can get a little rabid at times - not quite as bad as some browncoats, but along the same lines - so that alone has been known to put people off. I have to admit it took me a while to get into B5 at first and it didn't help that it was usually on at stupid o'clock at night on channel 4 and I'm sure I missed most of the first half of the first season, but by the end of the second season I was hooked and wouldn't miss a single one.

From an acting standpoint, I think the worst offenders were usually the guest characters ('By Any Means Necessary' & 'Legacies' spring to mind) plus as I recall they had at least one director in season one that they had to sack for some reason or another, so that can't have helped.

As far as the "pre-planned arc" goes, I think there's a lot of innocent misconception surrounding that. Mostly down to what degree things were plotted out in advance and how flexible it was. JMS did say that he intentionally wrote in several trap-doors and loop-holes that allowed almost any character to be dropped or replaced, with their arc moved over to someone else if real world circumstances dictated. Something that was done on quite a few occasions, not just with Sinclair but Lyta, Talia, Nakashima from the pilot, Draal, Na'Toth & her predecessor...others. Plus of course there was the point where it looked as if the forth season would be the last one, which resulted in a little compression get get things tied up, followed by the 11th hour save by TNT and the somewhat spread out fifth season.
It certainly wasn't as tightly plotted as some fans like to claim, but he certainly wasn't making it all up as he went along. There was defiantly some slight of hand involved in making certain elements gel together in ways other than they were intended, but not that often.

I think the basic essence of the story remained what JMS had intended from the onset but some pieces did get shuffled about a bit and as far as I can tell he's been pretty open about that fact. I think part of the problem stems from the aforementioned rabid fans defending their favourite show just a little too much.

Still, I can certainly appreciate that it's not to everyone's taste, but just have a look at the other threads on here tagged "Babylon 5" and see just how many people are watching it now for the first time and getting hooked. I think if you're willing to give it the benefit of the doubt it'll grow on you.

Like the new site BTW, I'd forgotten how many of those things I'd done the image maps for!

Captain Robert April wrote:

---

I'm only seeing the newer logo.

Thanks for that. I'm getting the same reports from Flare too so it much be a cache thing. Buggered if I know where it's hiding though, I've cleared it a dozen times ran searches for manual deletions, disabled, bypassed and refreshed the cache with no effect and for some odd reason, my laptop is having the same problem.

Perhaps it has something to do with my wiki login, but I can't see how that would work!

[The Axeman]

Reverend wrote:

---

Like the new site BTW, I'd forgotten how many of those things I'd done the image maps for!

We were a bit prolific back in the day, eh? I reckon I've got about half to two thirds of my stuff on line again, but there's still more to come from my mate as well.

I still cant draw a line in photoshop for toffee. I'm uploading a fair few models to my 'spares & repairs' section purely because I cant be arsed to try and detail them with image maps.

[Reverend]

Well we certainly started a lot of projects, though you can probably count on one hand the number we actually finished.

For the record, I can't deal with photoshop either. A few months back I had to help my brother out with a logo for a client (he was working at a sign maker at the time) and it took me an hour to do in photoshop what it'd take me 2mins to do in PSP. Something about Adobe that just feels clumsy, I have no idea how it managed to become the industry standard.

[The Axeman]

I love it for working on my photos, but for simply drawing a line it cant hold a candle to PSP.

[Owen E Oulton]

Reverend wrote:

---

And while I'm at it, I've begun a chart of the various EF uniforms, though it's still sketchy in places and I'm not 100% sure what some of them are for.

These are great! I'm doing up a page for B5 RPGing. Do you mind if I use this as a basis for a page on B5 uniforms, with credit given, of course?

CFN, O