What if a BSG-styled remake of Babylon 5 was made?

[QCzar]

I thought this thread died ages ago.

Anyway, I'd say a re-mastering of the live action footage, as well as doing modern versions of the CGI and FX shots (TLT give us a glimpse of that and they really did a bang up job, esp. with the station) would be awesome and more than enough. In the same vain as the original SW trilogy, the story of B5 is strong enough on its own and is in no way dated enough to warrant a "reimagining".

 

[Scarpad]

No remake is needed, B5 told it's story, it does not need to be "topped"

 

[RandyS]

No remake is needed, B5 told it's story, it does not need to be "topped"

That's because it CAN'T be topped.

Certainly not by New Galactica.

 

[Anwar]

Eh, the story of B5 was good. A few annoying contrivances here and there but that's forgivable. Not bad for a Space "Lord of the Rings".

 

[Trubinator]

No remake is needed, B5 told it's story, it does not need to be "topped"

That's because it CAN'T be topped.

Certainly not by New Galactica.

Agreed!

 

[griff]

No Joss Whedon humour.

If I were making a re-imagined B5 here is something I'd do.

We were promised this galaxy-wide war early on and what we got, though quite grand, never seemed to live up to that. One way of getting around really expensive CGI would be to do some kind of scroll(I am thinking like the one they did at the beginning of "Emissary" for DS9)with reports from various sectors and quadrants. You show brief, couple of second clips of fleets, squadrons of soldiers going into battle(again, CGI but BRIEF)and, through the written word, you convey SWEEPING and VAST conflicts.

I always envisioned this for B5 but never felt the displayed depictions of "WAR!!!" were extensive enough. You don't need much - you just to convey that it is affecting EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE.

Ya know, you make some good points - but there was actually a reason they kept it contained.... Remember after the Shadow war, when Dr. Franklin and Marcus went to Mars to enlist their aid against President Clark? They talked to some people on Mars about this galactic war and the response was "what war?" .... a small line, but it says a lot about how Clark had been manipulating Earth... it was a humorous exchange to be sure, but kind of ironic as well.

 

[Silvercrest]

Brains! Brains!

 

[Distorted Humor]

I always wanted to have a B5 style story in the Dilger War era. Wouldn't have to BE b5, but Earth expands, meets aliens races, finds out about a brutish race and then decides for moral intrest to defend these races.

And the Humans after the war are not the same that came in.

Just my .02 cents. I would of loved to see Babylon 5 with twice the budget and not squeezing in the war two quickly since they didn't know they would have a 5th season, but I accept Babylon 5 for what it is. A flawed Classic SF with a novel like story arc that makes sense.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Necro! Necrooooo!

If someone must revive B5, just do the Telepath War. I'd to see that.

B5 was not brainless or short on substance, so I don't see how making it more serious a la nuBSG would help. It's serious enough.

As for style, nuBSG cold be pretty tiresome at times with all the angst and navel gazing and shaky cam, so there's nothing to be gained there.

 

[Mars]

What aspects of the original show would be changed in this remake? Which aspects would you rather be changed? How gritty do it think it would be? Would it take the same kind of risks in storytelling the way Battlestar Galactica did? Would be the relationships between the characters be portrayed more realistically and develop more organically? Would be the humor less chessy and more sharp and witty like Joss Whedon's brand of humor in his shows?

Let the discussion begin.

The first thing that would happen is he'd get rid of all the aliens. There were no aliens in his BSG and thus no aliens in Babylon 5, they'd be different human colonies, the mind powers would probably dissappear, the L5 Colony would remain as would the jump gates and hyperdrives, but the ships would fire machine guns, and the computers would run on DVDs.

 

[Sindatur]

What aspects of the original show would be changed in this remake? Which aspects would you rather be changed? How gritty do it think it would be? Would it take the same kind of risks in storytelling the way Battlestar Galactica did? Would be the relationships between the characters be portrayed more realistically and develop more organically? Would be the humor less chessy and more sharp and witty like Joss Whedon's brand of humor in his shows?

Let the discussion begin.

The first thing that would happen is he'd get rid of all the aliens. There were no aliens in his BSG and thus no aliens in Babylon 5, they'd be different human colonies, the mind powers would probably dissappear, the L5 Colony would remain as would the jump gates and hyperdrives, but the ships would fire machine guns, and the computers would run on DVDs.

I'm good with NuBSG and I'd be fine with another "New" Series continuing it's tone, but, NO, Existing Series that are already "dark" enough with their "Fantastical Elements", don't need to be made darker and strip their Fantastical elements away, IMHO

 

[Silvercrest]

The first thing that would happen is he'd get rid of all the aliens.

Why?

There were no aliens in his BSG and thus no aliens in Babylon 5

What does one have to do with the other?

 

[Mars]

The first thing that would happen is he'd get rid of all the aliens.

Why?

There were no aliens in his BSG and thus no aliens in Babylon 5

What does one have to do with the other?

Because BSG has no aliens, the cylons were built by humans, there were no aliens.

 

[Agent Richard07]

I wouldn't mind seeing a BSG-style remake of Andromeda or Earth: Final Conflict.

 

[Silvercrest]

The first thing that would happen is he'd get rid of all the aliens.

Why?

There were no aliens in his BSG and thus no aliens in Babylon 5

What does one have to do with the other?

Because BSG has no aliens, the cylons were built by humans, there were no aliens.

That has nothing to do with B5. You sound as though RDM will not feature aliens in any of his works.

 

[Sindatur]

Why?



What does one have to do with the other?

Because BSG has no aliens, the cylons were built by humans, there were no aliens.

That has nothing to do with B5. You sound as though RDM will not feature aliens in any of his works.

psssst...check the thread title, "BSG-Style remake of Babylon 5"

 

[Methos]

We were promised this galaxy-wide war early on and what we got, though quite grand, never seemed to live up to that. One way of getting around really expensive CGI would be to do some kind of scroll(I am thinking like the one they did at the beginning of "Emissary" for DS9)with reports from various sectors and quadrants. You show brief, couple of second clips of fleets, squadrons of soldiers going into battle(again, CGI but BRIEF)and, through the written word, you convey SWEEPING and VAST conflicts.

I always envisioned this for B5 but never felt the displayed depictions of "WAR!!!" were extensive enough. You don't need much - you just to convey that it is affecting EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE.

Um, I don't remember ever being promised a 'galaxy wide war'... considoring how the Babylon 5 Galaxy is barely explored yet, i think it'd be hard to do a war on the scale you're describing and fit within the confines of the Babylon 5 universe...

Nothing ever said in Babylon 5 points to a war that stretches the galaxy across... in fact, exactly the opposite is true...

In And The Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place, Sheridan and Delenn are studying Shadow attacks from the start of the war, and they graphically plot these attacks on the War Room Map...

So, according to the episode in question, the entire Shadow war takes place in a tiny sector of space, that barely covers a 10th of the galaxy...

Again, this is brought up in The Summoning, when Lyta Alexander is stressing just how much destruction will be caused by the Vorlon-Shadow War. She exclaims, "Nothing within seventy light-years will survive untouched!"

Seventy light years? the Shadow war, the massive 'galaxy spanning war', covered 70 light years?

Well, given the Babylon 5 station is only 18 light years from Earth... as stated by Lise Hampton Edgars when she tells Garibaldi that she didn't want a relationship with someone who was "18 light-years away"... so saying the entire Shadow war barely covered a 10th of a galaxy, is backed up repeatedly through the series... as it's often said about explorer ships on the "Rim of known space", again this is backed up in A Distant Star, when Captain Jack Maynard is not too thrilled with his job of mapping new regions of space. He complains, "Oh, back out to the rim. The NEW rim, now that we've finished mapping Sector 900. We're hoping to build two new jumpgates by the end of the year, and then have Earth follow up with survey ships."

This clearly says that the "rim" is the edge of known space, as such it recedes as humans and other races explore our region of the galaxy... not the "Rim of the Galaxy" or any such nonsense...

Hyperspace travel in B5 is extremely limited, that's the point of it... while it's pretty fast to get around some systems, for exploration, it's limited as all hell, as you can only follow Hyperspace beacon trails, and if you go too far, you're off the grid, lost, and generally never seen from again...

M

 

[Silvercrest]

Because BSG has no aliens, the cylons were built by humans, there were no aliens.

That has nothing to do with B5. You sound as though RDM will not feature aliens in any of his works.

psssst...check the thread title, "BSG-Style remake of Babylon 5"

The premise of BSG does not automatically preclude the existence of aliens. After all, there were aliens in the original, and nothing in nuBSG eliminated the possibility that there were still aliens out there somewhere. They just didn't fit into the story that RDM wanted to tell.

And the premise of B5 does lend itself more toward aliens. Yes, you could tell a similar story with human colonies if you wanted-- but if the premise allows either one, then it's simplistic to say, "BSG-style = no aliens ever!!!"

And if you did, it wouldn't really be an accurate version of B5. That show required beings like the Shadows and the First Ones, beings from before humanity. The premise of those races requires them to be aliens. How would you change them to fit? How would you tell the story without them?

By the way, there's nothing in either premise that requires machine guns and precludes energy weapons, either.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The premise of BSG does not automatically preclude the existence of aliens. After all, there were aliens in the original, and nothing in nuBSG eliminated the possibility that there were still aliens out there somewhere.

Everyone making nuBSG categorically stated that in their universe, there were no aliens. RDM said it, EJO said it (and threatened to walk off the job if aliens were ever introduced), so I'd count that as canon.

 

[Silvercrest]

Okay, fair enough. Does that mean "BSG-style" automatically means "no aliens ever" even when you try to apply it to B5?