Babylon 5 - I'm finally going to do it

[tomalak301]

I can understand being bummed that it felt like the War ended easily. I think why I liked this ending was because we did see the War off screen and it was more about ideology than anything else. I'm hoping in the next few episodes we might see how the War (and maybe the horrors of war) affected everyone. I think we got some of that with Garibaldi quitting but I want to see more. I know when DS9 ended the Dominion War, we really didn't see the effects post war. Yeah we saw the horrors of war itself and the damaged it caused, but then the question becomes what happens next. How does one recover. Babylon 5 has so much time left to answer those questions and I hope they take advantage of it some how.

 

[neozeks]

^
I agree, DS9 nedeed another season.

But doesn't "we did see the War off screen" sound a bit contradictory to you?
Just kidding, of course, I know what you meant. It was nice seeing the onscreen effects of the offscreen War but I would still have liked to see the B5 (or Earth even, it seemed Earth was totally forgotten during this period) itself a bit more involved in the War.

 

[tomalak301]

^
I agree, DS9 nedeed another season.

But doesn't "we did see the War off screen" sound a bit contradictory to you?

Simple case of a thought not coming out as well as I hoped.

 

[GhostFaceSaint]

So tomalak301, what season are you up to now? By the way I recommend you ignore the rangers series it was so-so and never was finished unfortunately, so you wouldn't be at all satisfied watching it, just enjoy B5 alone and end the series with it.

 

[Hyperspace05]

He is starting the 8th episode of season 4. No spoilers.

 

[tomalak301]

So tomalak301, what season are you up to now? By the way I recommend you ignore the rangers series it was so-so and never was finished unfortunately, so you wouldn't be at all satisfied watching it, just enjoy B5 alone and end the series with it.

I'm on Season 4, and just watched "Epiphanies" last night. As for the other series, that was a question I was going to ask after I finished the main series. I was thinking about the movies and Crusade and The Lost Tales, but wanted to focus on the main series to not divert the topic significantly.

 

[Trubinator]

The movies, Lost Tales and Crusade are all worth a watch. IMHO...

 

[Jan]

I'm on Season 4, and just watched "Epiphanies" last night. As for the other series, that was a question I was going to ask after I finished the main series. I was thinking about the movies and Crusade and The Lost Tales, but wanted to focus on the main series to not divert the topic significantly.

Let your own feelings about the B5 universe determine whether you want more. Don't let anybody else make up your mind for you.

Jan

 

[tomalak301]

I'm on Season 4, and just watched "Epiphanies" last night. As for the other series, that was a question I was going to ask after I finished the main series. I was thinking about the movies and Crusade and The Lost Tales, but wanted to focus on the main series to not divert the topic significantly.

Let your own feelings about the B5 universe determine whether you want more. Don't let anybody else make up your mind for you.

Jan

I think I've been doing quite well so far. No problem asking about recommendations on which to see first though. Actually I think I had that decision all made up. I'm really interested in watching the Earth Minbari War unfold, so In the Beginning might be the most logical choice.

 

[Mal]

I'm on Season 4, and just watched "Epiphanies" last night. As for the other series, that was a question I was going to ask after I finished the main series. I was thinking about the movies and Crusade and The Lost Tales, but wanted to focus on the main series to not divert the topic significantly.

Let your own feelings about the B5 universe determine whether you want more. Don't let anybody else make up your mind for you.

Jan

I think I've been doing quite well so far. No problem asking about recommendations on which to see first though. Actually I think I had that decision all made up. I'm really interested in watching the Earth Minbari War unfold, so In the Beginning might be the most logical choice.

watch In The Beginning once you've finished with S4, but before you start S5.

 

[Harvey]

Or wait until you've finished with the penultimate episode of season five, "Objects at Rest," before you watch that film. That's where it fits best chronologically and tonally, IMHO. Regardless, it is widely viewed as the best of the telemovies. Keep that in mind whenever you choose to watch it. Although "A Call to Arms" is a good launching point for "Crusade," and "Thirdspace" has its charms, none are as good as "In The Beginning."

 

[Trubinator]

Watch the movies after the series is over.

 

[tomalak301]

Watch the movies after the series is over.

I'm probably going to do that. The thing with the movies is I actually need to rent the DVDs for that and who knows how long that will take. The series itself is all online anyway so it's easy to get to.

 

[Mr Light]

As for the Shadow War ending being anti-climactic, I like to think that the *REAL* reason they left was because Lorien and the First Ones went with them. I feel this is more important than "get the hell out of our galaxy". The Shadows worshiped Lorien as Gawd so if he goes with them they'd definitely be all for it. In the end, the younger races were just a small puppet role in the conflict, and it was really Lorien who turned the tide. He just needed a bit of extra weight to tip the scales and that was Sheridan and his alliance.

 

[Reverend]

I've got to say I really haven't been wowed by the episodes this season, but they've still been interesting to say the least.

FWIW, my favorite episode is this season: 4x18 Intersections in Real Time.

Mine too, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

I'm also watching B5 for the first time (started another thread but don't have time to post there regularly) and I was VERY disappointed by the resolution of the war. The few previous episodes were really building up nicely (actually, I like them better than the third season) and then slam! I know I shouldn't compare it to Trek but it's as if the Dominion war ended with 'Sacrifice of Angels'. As someone said it would have been nice to actually see a bit more of the war and it should have taken a bit more time to convince the First Ones to go away. This way it felt a wee bit too much like 'Picard does some speechifing, aliens accept, everything is solved' on a grander scale.
Actually, I was so disappointed that I lost the will to watch B5 for a few days. But, thankfuly I came back to my senses . S4 is shaping up nicely so far.

I think it would have been a lot less credible if they younger races had somehow beat the First Ones through strength of arms. It would undermine everything that has been said about their terrifying power up until that point. Between them, the Shadows and the Vorlons alone could probably wipe out all life in the galaxy if they REALLY wanted to. So while a few thousand primitive ships and a few nukes might get their attention, that's about all. Bottom line is you can't win a war of ideology by shooting at things, you have to understand your way out of it.
As for convincing the First Ones, I rather think the real deciding factor in their leaving wasn't what Sheridan said so much as who was stood behind him at the time. Him they listen to.

 

[tomalak301]

The Illusion of Truth

There is only one episode in this entire series that has really angered me and that was Season 1's Believers. Now there is a second episode (And hopefully the final one) that really angered me, and that's this. I understand what the writers were getting at, how a government ran news network is really just a propaganda machine, but we knew about that all the way in the third season. They spent 20 minutes or so on the news report. I wanted to watch an episode of Babylon 5, not the news which was clearly biased and that's why I don't watch much of the cable news here. This episode was horrible. Hopefully Clark gets it good in the end. Maybe his head on a pike right next to Mordon's on Centauri Prime. That would be sweet.

There was one good scene. The Open Airlock policy scene was hilarious.

 

[neozeks]

I think it would have been a lot less credible if they younger races had somehow beat the First Ones through strength of arms. It would undermine everything that has been said about their terrifying power up until that point. Between them, the Shadows and the Vorlons alone could probably wipe out all life in the galaxy if they REALLY wanted to. So while a few thousand primitive ships and a few nukes might get their attention, that's about all. Bottom line is you can't win a war of ideology by shooting at things, you have to understand your way out of it.
As for convincing the First Ones, I rather think the real deciding factor in their leaving wasn't what Sheridan said so much as who was stood behind him at the time. Him they listen to.

Oh, no, no, I have no problem with a diplomatic solution, I agree it wouldn't be credible any other way. I understand the reasoning (and the outside world reasons), I just felt the execution was a bit disapointing. I mean, all the time you had the big foreshadowing 'the darkness is coming', 'the oncoming shadow' (cue ominuos music ) etc. And then just as it starts building up the whole thing is solved in one episode by a bit of speechiefing, and, well, it doesn't really seem that big a thing anymore.
If it really was Lorien who was the prevalent factor, then I feel it somewhat undermines the point. Did they then even understand what Sheridan was saying to them? Or did they just bow to Lorien's authority? Why didn't Lorien just come out sooner and explained to them their mistakes?

 

[OdoWanKenobi]

I think that's the point. This episode is supposed to anger you. The reactions of Sheridan, Ivanova and Delenn are the same one you're feeling.

 

[Reverend]

I understand what the writers were getting at, how a government ran news network is really just a propaganda machine, but we knew about that all the way in the third season.

Actually I think the point was that all news is biased because objective journalism is something of an oxymoron. It might also be worth remembering that JMS used to be a journalist himself, so it's not pure fantasy. As a matter of fact whenever I see any news report that agrees a little too much with my preconceptions, I remember this episode and remind myself that just because I've seen something in the telly, doesn't mean it's the truth.
Plus I think you'll find the nature of the truth is one of the major themes of the show as a whole.

Oh, no, no, I have no problem with a diplomatic solution, I agree it wouldn't be credible any other way. I understand the reasoning (and the outside world reasons), I just felt the execution was a bit disapointing. I mean, all the time you had the big foreshadowing 'the darkness is coming', 'the oncoming shadow' (cue ominuos music ) etc. And then just as it starts building up the whole thing is solved in one episode by a bit of speechiefing, and, well, it doesn't really seem that big a thing anymore.
If it really was Lorien who was the prevalent factor, then I feel it somewhat undermines the point. Did they then even understand what Sheridan was saying to them? Or did they just bow to Lorien's authority? Why didn't Lorien just come out sooner and explained to them their mistakes?

Well to be fair, the Shadow war began mid way though Season 3, right up until "Into the Fire" and by the end of it, who knows how many planets were destroyed, whole races were wiped out, untold billions were killed and the galaxy was changed forever. If that's not a big thing then I don't know what is!
The problem with how it was done was that because we only saw a minuscule percentage of what was a galaxy wide conflict so you never really got a grasp of the scale of what was going on out there, but that's the nature of the show. It's Babylon 5 and everything that happens has to be shown from the perspective of the station and the people on it. As for the final battle itself, I think there was supposed to be more of a thing made of the other ships crowing around the White Star taking hits from the deathcloud for them, though I think it's one of those cases where they were either short on time, money or both.

As for Lorien and Sheridan's speech; of course the Vorlons and the Shadows understood him, though the point wasn't to make them understand where they'd gone wrong (I'm sure they were perfectly aware already) the point, from Lorien's perspective was to make sure the younger races understood. Once they understood then the guardians had no hold on them. At which point Lorien tells them it's time to step aside and leave. Sure, Lorien could have just swept in right from the get go, told them all to pack up and leave with him and that would be that. He probably could have don that millenia ago, but in a few short eaons, the younger races, left to their own devices would evolve and probably make all the same mistakes the others did. He wanted to break the cycle and make sure that it stayed broken.

 

[Harvey]

I think that's the point. This episode is supposed to anger you. The reactions of Sheridan, Ivanova and Delenn are the same one you're feeling.

We're supposed to be angered at the Vorlons and the Shadows, not at the episode itself. That's silly. What always undermines Into the Fire for me is that I don't buy that the Shadows/Vorlons are so quickly concerned by the fact that a couple of ships willingly sacrifice themselves to protect Sheridan. Those numbers should just be a drop in the bucket for the Shadows/Vorlons. Add to that Ivanova's childish psychological trick that somehow works on one of the first ones in an earlier episode, and Sheridan's "now get the hell out of our galaxy" that punctuates the episode, an I'm just a *little* disappointed in the execution of the conflict's resolution. That's all. A few things that could have been easily tweaked.