I know there's not a lot to go off of yet, but I'm interested to hear people's thoughts on whether there should even be a reboot and speculation on what could be different and what could be the same.
Be warned that there will probably end up being spoilers for the original series in this thread, so if you haven't watched it yet (which you really should, it's absolutely brilliant) I'd stay away from this thread.
Personally, I'm in favour of the reboot. I believe the last official piece of Babylon 5 media was The Lost Tales, which is 15 years old at this point. And with so many of the original cast dead, it would be difficult to make a continuation. It would be possible to go down the route of Star Trek: The Next Generation and have a new crew, but I feel that, compared to Star Trek, Babylon 5 has a bit more of a narrow focus. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but Star Trek has a more broad purview, whereas Babylon 5 is about, well, Babylon 5. So I think a reboot's the way to go. And with JMS at the helm hopefully it won't be as polarising as some other reboots.
As for what I think could be different or the same, here's the official description from The CW, the channel that's making the reboot:
In a from-the-ground-up reboot of the original series, John Sheridan, an Earthforce officer with a mysterious background, is assigned to Babylon 5, a five-mile-long space station in neutral space, a port of call for travelers, smugglers, corporate explorers and alien diplomats at a time of uneasy peace and the constant threat of war. His arrival triggers a destiny beyond anything he could have imagined, as an exploratory Earth company accidentally triggers a conflict with a civilization a million years ahead of us, putting Sheridan and the rest of the B5 crew in the line of fire as the last, best hope for the survival of the human race.
A lot of this sounds very similar to the original, but there're a few things that stand out to me. The biggest is that the reboot seems to be starting out with Sheridan and completely skipping Sinclair. It's possible Sinclair will still be in the reboot in some capacity, a bit like Pike in the J. J. Abrams Star Trek films, but we'll have to wait and see. The second thing is that Sheridan is described as having a 'mysterious background.' I don't recall this being the case in the original, so I'm interested in where they're going with this. The 'exploratory Earth Company' is almost certainly a reference to Interplanetary Expeditions and the Icarus, but I wouldn't really say they were the direct cause of the war with the Shadows. They woke them up, certainly, but they didn't start fighting immediately. They prepared in secret for a while before openly attacking, so this may be a departure from the build-up of the original series, or it may just be advertising to draw people in with action and fighting.
I'm interested to hear other people's thoughts on this and ideas on what you think should be kept or changed.
Edit: Sorry, I've just found the other Babylon 5 thread. It didn't turn up when I searched the forums for Babylon 5. I'll take down this thread if the mods want me to, but hopefully it's alright to keep it up since this one focuses on the reboot and the other one is more of a general discussion thread for the show.
Be warned that there will probably end up being spoilers for the original series in this thread, so if you haven't watched it yet (which you really should, it's absolutely brilliant) I'd stay away from this thread.
Personally, I'm in favour of the reboot. I believe the last official piece of Babylon 5 media was The Lost Tales, which is 15 years old at this point. And with so many of the original cast dead, it would be difficult to make a continuation. It would be possible to go down the route of Star Trek: The Next Generation and have a new crew, but I feel that, compared to Star Trek, Babylon 5 has a bit more of a narrow focus. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but Star Trek has a more broad purview, whereas Babylon 5 is about, well, Babylon 5. So I think a reboot's the way to go. And with JMS at the helm hopefully it won't be as polarising as some other reboots.
As for what I think could be different or the same, here's the official description from The CW, the channel that's making the reboot:
In a from-the-ground-up reboot of the original series, John Sheridan, an Earthforce officer with a mysterious background, is assigned to Babylon 5, a five-mile-long space station in neutral space, a port of call for travelers, smugglers, corporate explorers and alien diplomats at a time of uneasy peace and the constant threat of war. His arrival triggers a destiny beyond anything he could have imagined, as an exploratory Earth company accidentally triggers a conflict with a civilization a million years ahead of us, putting Sheridan and the rest of the B5 crew in the line of fire as the last, best hope for the survival of the human race.
A lot of this sounds very similar to the original, but there're a few things that stand out to me. The biggest is that the reboot seems to be starting out with Sheridan and completely skipping Sinclair. It's possible Sinclair will still be in the reboot in some capacity, a bit like Pike in the J. J. Abrams Star Trek films, but we'll have to wait and see. The second thing is that Sheridan is described as having a 'mysterious background.' I don't recall this being the case in the original, so I'm interested in where they're going with this. The 'exploratory Earth Company' is almost certainly a reference to Interplanetary Expeditions and the Icarus, but I wouldn't really say they were the direct cause of the war with the Shadows. They woke them up, certainly, but they didn't start fighting immediately. They prepared in secret for a while before openly attacking, so this may be a departure from the build-up of the original series, or it may just be advertising to draw people in with action and fighting.
I'm interested to hear other people's thoughts on this and ideas on what you think should be kept or changed.
Edit: Sorry, I've just found the other Babylon 5 thread. It didn't turn up when I searched the forums for Babylon 5. I'll take down this thread if the mods want me to, but hopefully it's alright to keep it up since this one focuses on the reboot and the other one is more of a general discussion thread for the show.
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