Concept: Babylon 5 - Recast?

[chrisspringob]

^^^

Well, you could try to change the story arcs a bit. For instance, what about the Earth Alliance as "agents of chaos" for the Shadows? Instead of turning isolationist, the EA becames increasingly militarist and expansionist. Or mybe the Vorlons and Shadows have a different history or a slightly different motivation.
Just some random examples which come to my mind...

Unless you do a complete overhaul of the story (to the point where it's not really the same story anymore), it wouldn't work. Writers are just not going to want to spend that many years of their lives retelling what is essentially someone else's story, but with some new twists thrown in. (And there's no chance of JMS himself redoing it, based on his public statements on this over the years.) And viewers are just not going to be as into a heavily arc driven show which is a retelling of a story that's already known (and that's already been told in the exact same medium), as they would be for something original.

Again, this is a very different situation from BSG. BSG78 had the iconic characters and the premise of "Cylons destroy the colonies and Galactica leads a fleet of survivors away to freedom". That is basically all there was to it. There wasn't really an overarching story arc to the show beyond that sentence, and that's really all that Moore reused. The story arc of nBSG was completely new, once you get past the miniseries. Do you think BSG would have been nearly as popular if everyone pretty much already knew how the story was going to play out from the beginning, before we started watching, and we basically already knew the answers to the mysteries?

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

^^^

I admit that you've got a point here. However, I still think that a re-imagination could be doable in some way. For instance, those story arcs doesn't necessarily have to end the way they did in the original series. NuBSG's Pegasus arc certainly had an entirely different outcome than original BSG's Pegasus arc. Some elements of the old series were also ignored entirely (the Eastern Alliance/Terra arc for example).

This would of course turn "nuB5" into a wholly different series. But then again, that's the point of a "re-imagination", isn't it? And of course there's a chance that a B5 re-imagination could suck big time.

 

[Mr Light]

That's why you have to wait a quarter century, so that when the remake comes around 90% of your audience is unaware of the original. I've never seen O.G. BSG, but apparently Moore used a lot more than just the original premise; the Pegasus and Cain, the skinjobs, Starbuck discovering Earth, was all from the original as I understand. Apparently they only thing they didn't use was Count Iblis and the Ship of Lights (which I've only read of).

 

[Mr Light]

If I was going to remake B5, I would first of all have more off-station action traveling to other planets (with modern CGI this is much easier to accomplish). I would have it be Sheridan all the way through (maybe Sinclair could be the S1 XO and then Ivanova replaces him in S2?). I would introduce Marcus in S2 and keep the silly bastard. There would be a lot more emphasis on the Shadow War, which wouldn't resolve until the final season. Earth and the Centauri would be full on allies of the Shadows. Basically the "Z'ha'dum" attack just puts the Shadows into retreat briefly, and then in S4 they can do the Earth & Minbari Civil Wars, so that in S5 when the Shadows return the races are united to stand against them. The Centauri S5 story would take place at the front of S5 or in S4 with the Shadows involved. And no Byron!

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

That's why you have to wait a quarter century, so that when the remake comes around 90% of your audience is unaware of the original. I've never seen O.G. BSG, but apparently Moore used a lot more than just the original premise; the Pegasus and Cain, the skinjobs, Starbuck discovering Earth, was all from the original as I understand. Apparently they only thing they didn't use was Count Iblis and the Ship of Lights (which I've only read of).

Humanoid Cylons did not appear until "Galactica 1980"... although the Colonials of Galactica 1980 were certainly surprised that "the Cylons look like us now". IIRC, Larson had also planned to introduce human-looking Cylon infiltrators for the scrapped second season of oldBSG.

Starbuck didn't discover Earth either, Apollo did discover a planet called Terra which they thought to be Earth.



Episode plots from the old series used for the new series (although in a heavily modified form):

Saga of a Star World = Miniseries
(Cylons annihilate the Colonies in a sneak attack, a rag-tag fugitive fleet is formed around the last surviving battlestar in search for Earth)

The Lost Planet of the Gods = Kobol's Last Gleaming and Home
(The Colonials accidentally re-discover Kobol and they start looking for information regarding Earth's location there.)

The Long Patrol, The Young Lords, and The Return of Starbuck (Galactica 1980) = Act of Contrition and You Can't Go Home Again
(Starbuck is missing after his/her Viper was damaged in a fight with the Cylons and subsequently crashed on an unknown planet).

The Living Legend = Pegasus and Resurrection Ship
(The Fleet meets the Pegasus, which also survived the Cylon attack on the Colonies. Adama and Cain have heavy disagreements. Both battlestars work together in achieving a significant victory against the Cylons.)

The Hand of God = The Hand of God
(Adama decides that its time to quit running, when a opportunity arises to go into the offensive against the Cylons for a change.)

However, from the end of Season 2 onwards nuBSG hasn't really adapted any stories from the old series anymore as far as I can recall. Particularly the whole Final Five thing seemed to be based on RDM's idea.

 

[TheMasterOfOrion]

Part of the question at its core is whether or not a recasted series/film would even be a worthwhile idea.

I hate the idea of re-imaginings, remaking Alien Vs Predator, remaking V, remaking BSG, remaking Bionic Woman etc it just sucks. Some of them start out good and entertain for a spell but 95% of all remakes fall flat on their face. S2-S4 of Babylon5 was near perfection, it should not be re-done for at least 20 years.
I hate the fact everything is getting rebooted, why can't the modern culture go out and rent an old movie and what's wrong with watching the damn original!?
Remakes just another example of intellectual laziness,
surely Hollywood can summon up one original idea for a change.

The Hand of God = The Hand of God

I loved S1 of BSG but though Hand of God was a Starwars rip off, I was half expecting some voice over to tell JarJarAdama to "use the force"
Of course all the Ginoids, Frakheads, RonMoorons TOSsers etc constantly deny BSG ever 'borrowed' anything from StarWars

I think there should really be a 25 year minimum period on remakes in general.

Maybe longer, that FlashGordon reboot was horrific

 

[CorporalClegg]

And no Byron!

And that's all I took away from all that...

 

[Stone_Cold_Sisko]

I'll bite. Let's hope my casting choices don't. Going for a total recasting...

Sheridan - Ben Browder
Delenn - Zooey Deschanel (she's old enough for the role; she just looks young)
G'Kar - William Fitchner
Dr. Franklin - Harold Perrineau
Marcus Cole - Henry Ian Cusick

These ones stuck out to me as great choices. Fitchner as G'Kar is an interesting one in particular.

 

[chrisspringob]

That's why you have to wait a quarter century, so that when the remake comes around 90% of your audience is unaware of the original. I've never seen O.G. BSG, but apparently Moore used a lot more than just the original premise; the Pegasus and Cain, the skinjobs, Starbuck discovering Earth, was all from the original as I understand. Apparently they only thing they didn't use was Count Iblis and the Ship of Lights (which I've only read of).

There were no skinjobs in the original BSG. Pegasus showing up is an example of redoing a particular episode, which is a lot different from redoing an entire long term story arc. BSG78 didn't really have ongoing story arcs. Pegasus showed up for a 2-part episode, and then it was gone.

What I'm trying to get at is that, in the case of BSG78 or original Trek, the draw for fans.....the reason why they were chosen to be remade.....was the premise and the characters, not long term story arcs, because those shows didn't have long term story arcs.

With B5, OTOH, you have a show for which the primary draw is the overarching story......both the fact that the show's creator actually managed to weave together what is basically a novel for television and the content of that particular story. So you'd have to think carefully about what a "reimagining" would actually entail.

By way of analogy, I suppose you could compare BSG78 and ST:TOS to, say, superhero comics. It's widely understood that with a character like, say, Superman, you've got the character and his origin story, but, once you get past the setup of getting him to Earth and donning the Superman cape, there are any number of different places you can go with the story. Rebooting the Superman franchise with a new series of comics doesn't seem strange in the slightest.

But redoing Babylon 5 with the same basic story but a bunch of new twists thrown in seems more like someone trying to rewrite "War and Peace". What's the point? Would you really go to that much work to redo a story that isn't your own? I mean, yes, I know that people redo movies all the time, retelling stories that aren't there own. But this is an order of magnitude more complex than that. It involves writing thousands of pages over five years. Are there really that many TV writers out there so in love with the B5 story that they'd be willing to do that?

Also, would a long term story arc-heavy show really work if people already knew how the story turns out? Part of the genius of the B5 story is how the stakes gradually ramp up over the first three years. From the outset, it looks like the station isn't that significant in the grand scheme of things, but it gradually becomes the most important place in the Galaxy. Mysteries like who the Shadows are and why they're doing what they're doing are revealed gradually.

If people already knew about that stuff in advance, it wouldn't have nearly the same impact. And it doesn't really matter how many years you wait, in order to get an audience that'll have had less exposure to the original show. With the internet, all the answers will be readily available.

 

[Lindley]

I'm not going to recast characters like Sinclair and Lochley who were either replaced or invented because of recasting in the first place.

Or they could be brought in from the start. Imagine if Sheridan were a recurring character during Sinclair's time in command, and if the show had the budget to continue following Sinclair as he starts drumming up the Rangers even after Sheridan takes over on the station.

You could tell essentially the same story while coming at it from a radically different angle if you had a mind to. The only question then is whether or not you should go for the same ending......would it be worthwhile when the audience already knows what's coming?

 

[diankra]

You know, personally, my feeling is that B5 has told its story. There's really no need to go back and revisit it. It's a great story and very rewatchable.

I feel very similar about nuBGS. I adore that show. But I feel that it's story is really coming to a close, and that's good. I wouldn't want them to go back there (that's why I think it's a good thing "Caprica" has a very different setting although it's set in the same universe.

Essentially, I feel that the original BSG left enough space for a re-imagining. The setting provided great potential that the original ever only barely tapped into, I feel. So when nuBSG came along, it really had a reason to be there.

B5 was great. I don't think it really leaves any room for a re-imagining. It did what it did and it did it very well, I think.

No show's perfect. But then that's another discussion completely .

P.S.: I know it's kind of uncool to answer a thread by saying, well, I wouldn't do it in the first place. But that's just the way I feel about it. I can't really go much farther from there myself.

Like he said. The original Galactica was a great idea which reached the screen as puerile pap, and was therefore well worth redoing. Babylon 5 is a great idea which, due to production pressures, wasn't quite as good as if perhaps might have been, but came close. A redo would never be as interesting, as the mysteries over Sinclair's missing 24 hours, and the nature of the Vorlons and the Shadows, etc, were what made it intriguing. To match that, you'd do better to make something new, with new mysteries.
As for recasting characters within additions to existing B5: no. The big story is told, so any new B5 episodes or movies should be small stories within that universe (which can be equally shocking an engrossing - Season 1's Believers would be the model to match), and they don't have to include every character - and therefore don't have to include characters whose actors are no longer around.