I did not know that.
Babylon 5
- Thread starter Kail
- Start date
Almost done... But there's a cross over problem with B5 In the Beginning and Battlestar Galactica.
Right at the very beginning Patrick Stewart is posing as a presidential aide circa 2243... No, not that Patrick Stewart. It's the Milky Bar Kid from Galactica 1980, so I gotta assume that they were keeping the Galactica in reserve THE WHOLE TIME even as the line around Earth was crumbling because the Cylons are still more scary than the Minbari.
Right at the very beginning Patrick Stewart is posing as a presidential aide circa 2243... No, not that Patrick Stewart. It's the Milky Bar Kid from Galactica 1980, so I gotta assume that they were keeping the Galactica in reserve THE WHOLE TIME even as the line around Earth was crumbling because the Cylons are still more scary than the Minbari.
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The Battle of the Line was an attempt to buy time for humanity to evacuate and find a new world, so obviously they'd need a ship to protect and lead that fleet. A 260+ year old ship from another franchise.
Would rather they adapted " To Dream in the City of Sorrows" book. It had Marcus backstory, Jeff and Sakai arc conclusion, Neroon, Minbari society, Vorlons, Shadows, creation of Rangers.
A lost opportunity.
I'm sure I said it elsewhere, but I just wasn't very impressed by LotR, and it was disappointing to me that G'kar came off as hammy. And then there's the weapons system, but I repeat myself...
An adaptation of "To Dream..." would have been interesting, but I don't think Michael O'Hare would have been up for reprising the role on that level (sadly).
An adaptation of "To Dream..." would have been interesting, but I don't think Michael O'Hare would have been up for reprising the role on that level (sadly).
imo, the only material worth incorporating would be some of the Psicorps novels in a Telepath War story. The rest of the material would have absolutely no mass appeal and much of it is meh.
It would probably depend on how drastically they change the story.
Why did JMS changed them? Is it to add something new, or was there some copyright issues at play.
The former. He mentioned in his Patreon commentary for "In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum" that he would've liked to have something more apocalyptic for the Icarus flashbacks, with the Shadow city rising from the ground, and millions of creatures swarming out of it, but with the limitations of technology and budget, they could just have one Shadow ominously lurking in a cave and had to leave the rest to implication.
To be fair, he'd probably already started work on TRH when he recorded that, so it might've been a comment with hindsight, at least in the way he exactly described the TRH version as what he had wanted to do in the '90s. I don't remember seeing any comments from more than a couple years ago to that effect (not that I've checked), but I buy it, since he revisit that "evil city" concept in "Z'ha'dum" and Thirdspace.
To be fair, he'd probably already started work on TRH when he recorded that, so it might've been a comment with hindsight, at least in the way he exactly described the TRH version as what he had wanted to do in the '90s. I don't remember seeing any comments from more than a couple years ago to that effect (not that I've checked), but I buy it, since he revisit that "evil city" concept in "Z'ha'dum" and Thirdspace.
For me that kind of goes against the whole (seeming) MO of the Shadows, which is that they operate out of...well...the shadows, and they rarely appear in force, particularly against the younger races, because they simply don't need to. It's like the Borg sending only a single cube to Earth; because there's no need for more than one, and even if they lose they have plenty more to spare and they've learned new things about their adversary in the process.
As for the Icarus incident, I rather enjoyed how it was depicted in The Shadow Within, so I was a bit distressed that when they had the opportunity to do an homage to that they went in a very different direction. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised, but part of what made that book so effective was the building tension.
As for the Icarus incident, I rather enjoyed how it was depicted in The Shadow Within, so I was a bit distressed that when they had the opportunity to do an homage to that they went in a very different direction. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised, but part of what made that book so effective was the building tension.
One thing I wondered, was Morden supposed to be a human who willingly served the Shadows and kept his personality and free will or was he supposed to be like Anna Sheridan, someone who had been used in Shadow tech and their human personality died. Because when Londo destroys the Shadow ships on Centauri Prime, Morden seems to "feel" the death of the Shadows there like he was connected to them.
If he WAS just a puppet, then it adds some tragedy to his character
If he WAS just a puppet, then it adds some tragedy to his character
The tragedy of Morden is that he wasn't a bad guy when he was working with Anna, but he had a fatal flaw that the Shadows ultimately exploited. At some point terrorists had destroyed a jumpgate while his family was on a ship that was going through it, and while he intellectually believed them to be dead, a part of him, familiar with hyperspace theory, couldn't shake the idea that they were still alive and forever trapped in agony on the verge of death.
In exchange for his service, a Shadow ship found the hyperspace 'knot' formed where the jumpgate had exploded and unraveled it so his family could rest in peace...if you believed they weren't already dead.
Morden acknowledged to Anna that his family had most likely already been dead, but also that it didn't matter.
The Shadows did create a bit of a link to Morden, somewhat akin to a keeper, so that they could keep their eyes on him, but by and large he served them willingly in exchange for them allowing his family to die in peace.
In exchange for his service, a Shadow ship found the hyperspace 'knot' formed where the jumpgate had exploded and unraveled it so his family could rest in peace...if you believed they weren't already dead.
Morden acknowledged to Anna that his family had most likely already been dead, but also that it didn't matter.
The Shadows did create a bit of a link to Morden, somewhat akin to a keeper, so that they could keep their eyes on him, but by and large he served them willingly in exchange for them allowing his family to die in peace.
Seems a little contrived, to be honest...would've been easier and more in line with the series to just say his personality was gone like Anna's was and he was just a puppet.
The Shadows are not hat bad.
Sure a lot of people had to die, but they were only trying to make everyone stronger, healthier and Happier.
Morden wore a less than masculine pendant, which I assumed connected him to the Shadows.
I think it's more meaningful if Morden is acting (mostly) of his own volition than if he's just another robot. Contrived or not, the novel gives us more insight into his background than the show ever did. And considering that allying with the Shadows is a terrible, terrible thing to do, it makes sense to me that Morden would have had a damn good, damn personal reason to be doing it.
Thinking about it, I'm more curious as to where the Shadows dug up Justin and why he was working with them.
I have to no problem with making everyone (Stronger, Healthier, & Happier).
I do have a problem with the methodolgy that "The Shadows" used to get there.
If your method to get there requires a giant pile of dead bodies, I'm going to question you morally on what kind of person/faction are you.
Well?
I got to wonder what the death tally was for those following the Vorlons?
With the Shadows they made you fight other people until you were the strongest or dead, but the Vorlons killed you themselves if you did not rise to the occasion or live up to their expectations, after they set undefined weird goals.
In either case, their success criteria was to create immortals.
Their failure contingency was to wipe the board and make room for younger races when a species (the Narn and Centauri according to JMS) do not transcend into Gods, or it starts to look unlikely.
Immortal species take up less room.
60 trillion mortal Narn, 10 million years after they first go into space, sprawling across 3/4s the galaxy are vermin, but 60 x 2 million year old immortal Narn living on one moon celebrating 10 million years of Narn History sounds dreadful and you wonder why they don't kill themselves?
The Vorlons and the Shadows were both horrible. They kept messing about in other races' development.
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