I watch it on Tubi
Babylon 5
- Thread starter Kail
- Start date
Is that available in the US, and what kind of cost does it have?
Tubi is available in the US and is free (with ads).
I finally watched Legend of the Rangers and Lost Tales. Two that I had never gotten around to because they looked like shit.
Legend did not hold my interest in the slightest (and was somehow much cheesier than B5 ever was?), but am I crazy for saying I didn't mind Lost Tales? I know it was a micro-budget production, but I almost kind of liked that about it? Like, he wrote a story that could be told using three actors and a greenscreen instead of overreaching.
Honest question, should I even bother with Crusade? At this point I don't think I will, but it's worth asking.
Oh, and the TNT movies? They're all so boring! The only one worth really watching was In The Beginning, and that's only because it's a gap-filler story. (As BSG later did with The Plan.) They all feel twice as long as they need to be. A Call to Arms was a little better than Thirdspace and The River of Souls because there was slightly more going on, but the backdoor pilot-ness of it kinda weakens it further.
Also watched The Road Home. It was okay. My biggest problem is that there's nothing really new to it at all. It kind of felt like a Flash-jumps timelines movie with the B5 characters slotted in if I'm honest. The only real pluses are seeing characters again, and that's not enough. Still, a weak thumbs up from me but I was expecting more.
Legend did not hold my interest in the slightest (and was somehow much cheesier than B5 ever was?), but am I crazy for saying I didn't mind Lost Tales? I know it was a micro-budget production, but I almost kind of liked that about it? Like, he wrote a story that could be told using three actors and a greenscreen instead of overreaching.
Honest question, should I even bother with Crusade? At this point I don't think I will, but it's worth asking.
Oh, and the TNT movies? They're all so boring! The only one worth really watching was In The Beginning, and that's only because it's a gap-filler story. (As BSG later did with The Plan.) They all feel twice as long as they need to be. A Call to Arms was a little better than Thirdspace and The River of Souls because there was slightly more going on, but the backdoor pilot-ness of it kinda weakens it further.
Also watched The Road Home. It was okay. My biggest problem is that there's nothing really new to it at all. It kind of felt like a Flash-jumps timelines movie with the B5 characters slotted in if I'm honest. The only real pluses are seeing characters again, and that's not enough. Still, a weak thumbs up from me but I was expecting more.
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Crusade is fine.
Incomplete and out of order, but Gary Cole... Hey, did Gary Cole and Gary Coleman ever work together?
I'm genuinely surprised that the response to Legend is so universally negative as I thought the characters kind of saved it. I'm actually less keen on Lost Tales, but a lot of that is due to the overtly supernatural story. Well, that plus I don't like the new Babylon 5 station model.
Crusade will give you no closure and personally I found that the soundtrack and increased reliance on rushed CGI really dragged episodes down, but you're still getting 13 new stories by the producers of Babylon 5. All of them season 1 quality! If you've already seen Legend and Lost Tales I'd say you're in deep enough to see the rest of it through, though you do have to watch the Call to Arms movie first. And find a watch order to fix the continuity.
Actually I may as well give you my order, though there are certainly alternatives online:
- War Zone
- The Long Road
- The Path of Sorrows
- Ruling from the Tomb
- Appearances and Other Deceits
- Racing the Night
- The Needs of Earth
- The Memory of War
- Visitors from Down the Street
- Each Night I Dream of Home
- Patterns of the Soul
- The Well of Forever
- The Rules of the Game
(I have forgotten everything!) There's three unproduced Scripts. Do you think any of those three should have been there inserted into the first 13 slots?
If one of them featured the laundry disaster, then yeah that would've been absolutely crucial for continuity!
What bugged me about LotR (heh) was that it sets up Yet Another Ancient Enemy, as though JMS had become a one-trick pony in that regard as far as the B5verse went. I guess I don't know what his actual plan would have been if the movie had launched a series.
Then there's the weapons system, which is...uh...creative.
Even the appearance of G'kar lands a bit short for me, as Katsulas seems hammier than usual. It was fun in short doses on the main series, but never as compelling as when he was being serious.
As for the movies, I concur that ItB and CtA are the best two, with ItB being easily the best of the four. I understand why JMS wanted a new music feel for the new series, but Evan Chen(?)'s stuff is just awful to me.
My biggest issues with TrH are the things that are obvious changes from moments seen in the original series (granted, some of that's beyond anyone's control), the weird changes to the Shadows' behavior, and that, for me, the alternate timelines shown (particularly the last one) raise a ton of questions that go unanswered or even raised.
The Centauri trilogy novels would seem less intense if you couldn't guess what Galen was up to on the Excalibur, whenever he wasn't with Vir trying to overthrow the Republic.
I would watch CRUSADE. The soundtrack is definitely different and takes some getting used to, but it does help give the series another way to be distinct from B5.
I really liked CRUSADE, and was quite sad we only got 13 episodes. The characters are good and there are some interesting twists. The Apocalypse Box was quite interesting, and I wanted to see what else it had going on.
Certainly a worthy addition to the B5 universe.
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I also agree that Crusade is worth watching. I don't remember what my preferred watching order is (and honestly, there is no perfect one). A quick look at Ray's looks right but it's been years since I last I watched.
As for conclusion, there are three unfilmed scripts out on the Internet that help set up the next conjectory of the show (including the fabled Bester episode)...but it ends on a cliffhanger. There are also outlines what the ultimate intention of the show but I don't think there are any formal releases on that point (unless there was a JMS blog post on that matter; others like Jan can better address that point).
Regardless of those issues, I think the show is worth it for the characters, particularly Gideon and Galen. Plus, getting to know Galen gives you an entry point to the The Techno-Mage Trilogy (which is a great, bonkers read) and plays a supporting role in The Centauri Trilogy, which is a must-read tapestry of Londo's, G'Kar's, and Vir's fates.
As for conclusion, there are three unfilmed scripts out on the Internet that help set up the next conjectory of the show (including the fabled Bester episode)...but it ends on a cliffhanger. There are also outlines what the ultimate intention of the show but I don't think there are any formal releases on that point (unless there was a JMS blog post on that matter; others like Jan can better address that point).
Regardless of those issues, I think the show is worth it for the characters, particularly Gideon and Galen. Plus, getting to know Galen gives you an entry point to the The Techno-Mage Trilogy (which is a great, bonkers read) and plays a supporting role in The Centauri Trilogy, which is a must-read tapestry of Londo's, G'Kar's, and Vir's fates.
A Call to Arms sets up Crusade. It is sort of a shame that show didn't get continued. Babylon 5 itself didn't hit its stride into the second or third year (depending on who you ask), with the first season being rough at times, but later episodes bringing some things into context. That the Excaliber was on a five year mission to save Earth is not lost on anyone who grew up with Star Blazers/Space Battleship Yamato. Has a super weapon that depowers the ship for a minute and has a captain named Gideon. However, if the plot outlines are correct, the "save the Earth" plot line gets resolved fairly quickly and leads into the actual problems. Much like the early problems on Babylon 5 turn on their heads once the Shadows get involved. The "Narn threat" gets turned 180 by the Centauri. Earth becomes a problem. And the stakes raise to galactic saving pretty quickly once the War in Heaven starts.
I think part of my problem was the Squarejaw McGraw lead. He just seems so...'90s TV to me. Like he's out of a show set in the '90s as opposed to the B5 universe somehow?
Thanks for the watch list. It didn't take much prodding from y'all, I ordered the DVDs just now.
Though I am usually quite averse to cancelled shows with no resolution. Grumble.
It's hard to understand why they didn't put the kibosh on it at some stage of production. It's awful.
I worked out my own order for "Crusade," and quickly realized that even having both switches in it didn't make it possible to have the episodes line up correctly, there are still too many gray uniforms that have to take place before black uniforms that have to take place before gray uniforms. I just ignored the costuming, they wear what they wear.
The story is that it was a parade of kiboshes that led to its final form. Here's what Chris Wren said in his B5Scrolls interview. The whole thing reminds me of something I once heard about reading accident reports, it's like watching a horror movie, you know how bad everything is going to go, but you can't stop it.
I have to ask, the Liandra’s gun pod, what the hell was going on there? : )
The gun pod went through a lot of conceptual changes, some creative and some forced by budget (sometimes right on set). Originally the script called for a complex chair attached to an armature, suspended in the middle of the spherical holographic room which Myriam’s character would sit in. It would move in all directions, track eye movement and respond to gestures as well as vocal commands. The room itself would be something similar to those seen in the Minbari cruisers during B5, but as it was a small self contained unit housing a single gunner the holograph would completely surround her for optimal viewing.
You mentioned budget and creative pressures to change the concept!?
It soon became clear this single prop/set would be more difficult and time consuming to design and implement than many of the full standing sets in the show. But the concept was also an extremely difficult sell at the time, not only to the network but some of the artists and crew as well. Today of course, the idea of someone sitting in a chair and manipulating complex weapons systems is commonplace (Atlantis) but way back in the year 2000 it was thought the audience would find the scenario boring and confusing!
It’s interesting how that compares to those behind the original B5 pilot telling jms not to write to a budget – they’ll find a way to do it – and even conspired to exceed what was asked for in the scripts. Who came up with the idea of having her floating around?
* (After the interview I found some old pages on LoTR confirming the chair thing.
As I recall, Joe's initial script did involve the articulated chair. As the production company basically put the kibosh on that idea he also came up with the tractor/gravitational field in an overnight re-write. The solution seemed for Myriam to ‘float’ suspended in a tractor field that kept her suspended in the room, but gave her enough physical resistance so that she could spin, roll, and move in any direction with just a little bit of physical effort. Like the use of holograms this made sense (in the context of the B5 universe) as Minbari technology seems to include a more or less total mastery of manipulated gravity fields. Basically the tractor field would "feel" a bit denser than water.
When this conceptual change happened, it affected the whole idea of how Myriam would behave when inside the gun pod. The idea was that not just anyone could use the pod effectively. It required special training, but also a natural instinct, a "relationship" of sorts with the ship itself, and a natural visual acuity and coordination. Unfortunately, here some confusion set in and there were some conflicting ideas about how the pod would be used.
So how did she end up having a bit of a fit with fireballs shooting out her extremities? 
With the chair gone, one camp saw Myriam using the pod as a very Zen sort of situation. She would have an almost cold, unnatural calm as she fired and engaged the ships belonging to ‘The Hand’. Not quite like "using the force" but the idea was that her movements would be graceful, elegant, almost ballet like. The other vision wanted her to be more dynamic, aggressive, her movements more like martial arts. That's the idea that won out in the end, and that's part of the reason the Minbari beams got replaced with the energy bullets. Personally I would have preferred if the production had stuck with the traditional Minbari weapons, but it was thought the image of beams shooting from her hands during these more violent movements would be confusing to the viewers.
The idea that "back in the year 2000" people wouldn't get a person sitting in a chair to fire weapons.
All that wasted VFX budget for an absolutely awful idea.
If it had been me to solve the problem and if the non-standard interface was a mandate, I'd have saved heaps of money by giving her a section of the bridge to stand in that was all for her (with a high intensity light shining down on her) where she physically moved to control the weapons. It would cost nothing, and look less stupid than what they did.
All that wasted VFX budget for an absolutely awful idea.If it had been me to solve the problem and if the non-standard interface was a mandate, I'd have saved heaps of money by giving her a section of the bridge to stand in that was all for her (with a high intensity light shining down on her) where she physically moved to control the weapons. It would cost nothing, and look less stupid than what they did.
I did a minor dive into the multiple orders and found one I think I may go with if not Ray's version. It ignores the uniforms altogether once the new ones are introduced, just assuming/pretending that both are in use at the same time. It's hard to find a proposed order that you prefer before even seeing the show and without spoiling stuff, but I think I managed it.
I think the main point of focus on the order should be with the Apocalypse Box and I think something else (i forget what, something to do with Ellison, maybe?). Like I said, it's been awhile.
The uniform issue is something that cannot be worked around. The best thing to do with that is to come up with some head canon, much like how to handle TNG having multiple uniforms going on (DS9, too, but it was less glaring except that one episode with an admiral...).
The uniform issue is something that cannot be worked around. The best thing to do with that is to come up with some head canon, much like how to handle TNG having multiple uniforms going on (DS9, too, but it was less glaring except that one episode with an admiral...).
In Star Trek TNG they were hitting targets as small as a dime from 30 thousand kilometers, which is why fighters are a dumb idea unless the fighters have shields as strong as a capital ship, which they literally can't unless they are using superior technology centuries ahead of the Federation.
In Babylon 5 the fighters use dog fighting rules from WWII, so you can't hit anything unless you are close enough to see it, but Minbari stealth technology beats Earth Force Capital Ship sensors, so Earthforce Capitol Ships must expect to hit moving targets, in space, to which they don't have a line of sight, or they are too far away to be seen, with massive beam weapons or nukes.
Imagine that you can generate hundreds of explosive death blooms with 12 km diameter spheres of unremitting murder, but miss hitting the target which your space radar insists is in a precises local right in front of you.
In Babylon 5 the fighters use dog fighting rules from WWII, so you can't hit anything unless you are close enough to see it, but Minbari stealth technology beats Earth Force Capital Ship sensors, so Earthforce Capitol Ships must expect to hit moving targets, in space, to which they don't have a line of sight, or they are too far away to be seen, with massive beam weapons or nukes.
Imagine that you can generate hundreds of explosive death blooms with 12 km diameter spheres of unremitting murder, but miss hitting the target which your space radar insists is in a precises local right in front of you.
I really liked Captain Gideon a great deal. Gary Cole played him very well. Only a few years before, he played the lead on AMERICAN GOTHIC, another underrated show. He was great there, too.I think part of my problem was the Squarejaw McGraw lead. He just seems so...'90s TV to me. Like he's out of a show set in the '90s as opposed to the B5 universe somehow?
Thanks for the watch list. It didn't take much prodding from y'all, I ordered the DVDs just now.
Though I am usually quite averse to cancelled shows with no resolution. Grumble.
It's hard to understand why they didn't put the kibosh on it at some stage of production. It's awful.
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