Didn't B5 plagiarized Star Trek before DS9?

[Inactive-Shapeshifter]

So, i know about all that talk off how DS9 plagiarized Babylon 5, but, taking a look back, even though the storylines are different, B5 did got a lot "Star Trek" stile in the begging. Some episodes you can actually pretend you're watching a TNG episode, but centered on a space station.

Any toughs?

OBS: I am NOT trying to star a STAR WAR HERE! Let's talk like civilized vulcans shall we?

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

Are you talking about the early Babylon 5 episodes which were written by D.C. Fontana or David Gerrold?

 

[Inactive-Shapeshifter]

Are you talking about the early Babylon 5 episodes which were written by D.C. Fontana or David Gerrold?

Yeah, but i'm aiming more for the hole idea! I mean, if you get the federation and put them in the story arc developed in the later seasons, we have "Star Trek - Babylon 5" Just change the uniforms and a thing or two...

 

[Saga]

what is a story ark?

 

[Starfury]

Whatever it is, it belongs into a museum!

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

There are only so many stories you can tell. B5 and DS9 didn't plagiarize each other. There are bound to be similarities.

Even JMS, for example, never thought that DS9's writers were sitting around going "Now what's the best way we can rip off B5 this week?" Same goes for the reverse.

 

[Inactive-Shapeshifter]

what is a story ark?

Sorry, English is not my native language

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Even the early B5 episodes weren't nearly as similar to Star Trek as Stargate.

Some Stargate episodes were just "Ok let's take a story concept that worked for TNG and have O'Neall make sarcastic remarks about it".

 

[MacLeod]

There are only so many basic plots to tell, there are bound to be some similarities.

 

[CorporalClegg]

what is a story ark?

It melts grammar Nazis.

 

[DaddlerTheDalek]

I love B5 & DS9. Both shows have unique characters.

 

[Zek]

what is a story ark?

It melts grammar Nazis.

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Grammar and Spell Check

But in all seriousness imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Though I've never watch B5 and looked for similar story lines I'm familiar enough with the scifi genre to understand that plot devices, general arcs, and character templates often overlap. Hell take a look at the books and short stories written before Trek or Star Wars that all use ideas common to all science fiction. To be influenced by someone else's work is not the same as plagiarism.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

There are only so many basic plots to tell, there are bound to be some similarities.

What I found hilarious is that they hired the same writer who wrote Code of Honor, one of the worst Star Trek episodes of all time, and she immediately wrote basically the same episode for SG1, which became one of the worst Stargate episodes of all time.

 

[RoJoHen]

what is a story ark?

It melts grammar Nazis.

 

[anotherdemon]

Babylon 5 has a lot of references and even direct copies of scenes/ideas of various sci-fi books and films/shows.

Say, Alfred Bester novels.

 

[TheSubCommander]

So, i know about all that talk off how DS9 plagiarized Babylon 5, but, taking a look back, even though the storylines are different, B5 did got a lot "Star Trek" stile in the begging. Some episodes you can actually pretend you're watching a TNG episode, but centered on a space station.

Any toughs?

OBS: I am NOT trying to star a STAR WAR HERE! Let's talk like civilized vulcans shall we?

Here is a wiki page that really delves into the ds9/B5 debate: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Babylon_5

You can decide for yourself what you want to believe. But as for me, other than the premise of a space station, I never saw DS9 as a rip off of Star Trek, and I am a fan of both shows. I am sure JMS would have jumped at the chance to write for a Star Trek show if offered, and he may have even pitched his idea for B5 to paramount, but the idea of a starbase in Star Trek predates B5 by a good 25 years, if you go back to TOS. SO, to me, when DS9 was developed, it was really the next logical step after having two shows and 5 movies (at that time) about star ships, and just happened to be done simultaneously as B5. I think a starbase premised show was bound to happen for Trek, sooner or later, regardless of B5. As for plot or character similarities, I think there is such a thing as a zeitgeist when it comes to sci-fi, and many sci fi writers have the same influences, which creates similarities in writing. Not to mention, so many writers cross-pollinate between sci fi shows.

Indeed, I think it can be argued that Star Trek may have been a major influence on JMS. He had several Star Trek actors appear on his show, as well as the likes of DC Fontana write for B5 (see article link above). In fact, I don't know if DCF and JMS's paths ever crossed prior to B5, but they both did write for Filmation's He-Man, so at the very least, that is an example of a trek writer working on a show JMS did, and perhaps by writing for the same characters on the same show, it may have influenced JMS's style somehow, even subconsciously.

Regardless, I am a fan of both DS9, and B5, and I enjoy both to this day. Like the Star Wars VS Star Trek debate, I find it moot because I like both franchises.

 

[Blamo]

So, i know about all that talk off how DS9 plagiarized Babylon 5, but, taking a look back, even though the storylines are different, B5 did got a lot "Star Trek" stile in the begging. Some episodes you can actually pretend you're watching a TNG episode, but centered on a space station.

Any toughs?

Hmm no, not really.

While the first season had perhaps the most standalone episodes, they weren't at all TNG (or even TOS) in style. Believers for example would have ended entirely differently. Probably with the parents nodding as the Doctor delivered his lesson. Soul Hunter in TNG would have had the "soul hunting" explained away as advanced science, while Babylon 5 left it open for interpretation. Then there's the lack of tech as a method of solving problems.

Also Babylon 5 treated humanity very differently to Star Trek. In TNG we had become almost perfect. In B5 we were basically the same.

Similarly in Trek telepaths were treated the same as everyone else, while B5 took a more realistic direction with them in how people would react.

In fact the only real similarity they had was they were both Space Operas.

As for the whole DS9 Vs B5 thing, that only occurred due to Star Trek being the only other space opera on TV at the time. Both great shows, but have very little in common beyond being set on a space station in a space opera (which are very general concepts).

It's basically fans just over thinking things and/or trying to tear another show down, through very rough patterns that are akin to saying Cagney and Lacey is a rip off of Starsky and Hutch.

To be honest it's better to make comparisons between Forbidden Planet and Star Trek or Babylon 5 and Lord of the Rings. Again, no plagiarizing, but there are obvious influences and far more so than with Trek and B5.

 

[vulcan redshirt]

Certainly some of the early standalone episodes from either series could have been easily transposed, for example, Move Along Home, or the one with Tosk could have worked in the B5 setting quite well.Some of the B5 ones, especially the ones about IPX bringing in rare artifacts that turn out to be dangerous, could have been used within DS9, with respect to explorers in the Gamma Quadrant bringing things back that they have no idea what they are.

IMO, the two shows may have both sprouted from the same seed, and some ideas may have been borrowed between the two series, but I would say that that makes the shows compliment each other, rather than rip each other off.

Oh, and I would have loved to see Quark's Bar on B5!! Londo would have been his best customer, and the dynamic between Quark and Garibaldi would have been quite interesting.

 

[Lt. Marseille]

DS9 obviously ripped off B5. Set on a space station with a continuing novelistic (or if you prefer soap operatic -entirely unlike prior Trek series) plot covering the entire breadth of the show's multi-season run, developing from small scale interactions into interstellar politics and warfare against an enemy that is unknown at the beginning.

Did B5 owe a lot to Trek? Of course, it would be virtually impossible to do space opera on TV without borrowing from it. However, I think that B5's style was very different and distinctive.

FWIW, I'm not a fan of DS9 but I still prefer it to B5 which I'd regard more as a form of torture than entertainment.

 

[kkt]

I don't really see what's to rip off. So they're both set on a space station. Any spacegoing culture is going to have space stations, and space stations have been in fiction and TV for decades before either B5 or DS9 was on the air, including Star Trek's original series.

Both shows gradually reveal more about their worlds as the shows go on, but that's good storytelling that's been done in all sorts of mediums. 19th century novels were generally published first serially in magazines and the writer often didn't know the ending when the first installments were published.