Funny how a few years pass and suddenly "amazing, cutting-edge" becomes "disappointment, primitive."
Farscape or Babylon 5?
- Thread starter kirk55555
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Funny how a few years pass and suddenly "amazing, cutting-edge" becomes "disappointment, primitive."
Oh come on.
Yeah, but I'll take early SFX with actual models over early CGI any day. As the mid 1990's unfolded, CGI was improving dramatically. But unfortunately B5 budgetary constraints kept it on the older CGI platform, rather than revising to adopt significant improvements. Yes, it still keeps getting better, but there is a certain degree of unrefined appearance to the earliest efforts that just looks so collegiate in comparison to what followed.
In a "Babylon 5 versus Farscape" contest I would have to go with "Farscape" - based on consistancy. B5 lost it, in my opinion, when the writing had the character of Captain Sheridan abandon his forces in the midst of war to confront The Shadows. It may have seemed justified in JMS's head, may have looked great on paper but failed in execution. And the entire fifth seasons was terrible.
On the flip side, Farscape was true to itself, came across as fresher both in style and substance.
Also, the fact that Farscape was cancelled was a major injustice. They consistantly gave the Sci-Fi Channel it's highest ratings (for the time) with brilliant demographic performance BUT the network didn't own the show so they pulled the plug on it.
I've never understood how anyone could say the entire 5th Season of Babylon 5 is Terrible? I know some hated the Telepath Arc in the first half, but, you got a bold end to The Telepath Crisis, you have the excellent Neil Gaiman episode, The very Long Night of Londo Molari, A View to the Gallery, the ratcheting up of the arc at the end of the First half, the entirety of the second half especially Sleeping in Light...
There's been a couple folks who have declared they thought B5 was all about The Shadow War, and everything after that sucked
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How is confronting the dudes that you're at war with in an attempt tobring swift resolution to the conflict in any way abandoning your forces?
Some would argue that B5's innovations were part of what allowed small-screen CGI to become practical so fast. Someone had to do the legwork so everyone could benefit.
Problem is, because of WB's lack of file keeping, and other jacking around of the series, The CGI would have to be totally re-rendered, which would cost at least a million an episode, unfortunately, there's no way WB will ever do that
Babylon 5 was on the leading edge of CGI. I don't know what "older platform" refers to here. The Amigas? They changed to PC in season two. Lightwave was basically engineered around Babylon 5's needs and was updated season-to-season. Second season CGI already looks much improved from season one. Star Trek used the same CGI company later for a reason.
Um...what? That didn't happen.
Well that doesn't seem to be the conclusion in this particular thread; kirk may not have liked the Londo resolution but he seemed to like a majority of the fifth season episodes beyond that.
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The work Foundation Imaging did for DS9 and VOY was better than the contemporaneous work Netter Digital was doing for Babylon 5, though.
I enjoyed the fifth season when I watched the show. It wasn't the best season, but I don't remember my enjoyment dropping to far.
So was TNG. And yet, ships looked real. They had proper shadows and matte/semi-gloss finishes. B5 paled in comparison. I know, TNG did use some models, but they transitioned off of them later on. So there was something that B5 had not upgraded... or, it was the limitation of the artists on the job.
I think it was a combination of different factors, mainly time, techology and money.
You're thinking of DS9 and VOY. TNG used models throughout its run. The only time the Enterprise-D was CGI was in some shots of GEN.
And the closing shot of "These Are the Voyages".
What are you talking about? Nothing of the sort happened. If you mean that Sheridan addressed the Shadow/Vorlon problem before the Earth civil war - it's a matter of priorities. When you have two races rampaging around destroying entire planets and capable of destroying all the rest, yeah, you try to attend to that before going to one insignificant planet with internal problems.
I believe that you meant to write "Season 5 wasn't to my taste." Because to me, having the conclusion of the Londo/G'Kar arc and some of the best stand-alone episodes of the entire series made it eminently worthwhile.
Jan
Funny, I could have sworn I read otherwise... Something about how the Enterprise D looked a little less "real" after abandoning the model for CGI. Maybe they mixed up the details with GEN.
I do know that DS9 and VOY had models... at what point did they transition to CGI exclusively?
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