Niners Unite...around Babylon 5! - The Lost Threads

Discussion in 'Star Trek: Deep Space Nine' started by Neroon, Aug 20, 2007.

  1. dregj

    dregj Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

    Joined:
    Mar 5, 2016
    of course there all that stuff about how the ds9 team got hold of the b5 pilot
    picked the elements they liked
    and made ds9 with it
     
  2. kkt

    kkt Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Aug 3, 2014
    Location:
    Seattle
    Not very likely. More like the DS9 team watched a bunch of Westerns and adapted them to the Star Trek universe.
     
  3. Kevin Wolff

    Kevin Wolff Captain Captain

    Joined:
    Aug 26, 2016
    I found this someplace. I've read similar reports in the past and possibly in some B5 DVD extras (not sure):

    "For years, speculation has existed that Paramount stole aspects of Babylon 5 for the premise of Deep Space Nine, owing to the fact that B5 was pitched to Paramount before being picked up by Warner Bros"

    JMS doesn't trash Trek or the production staff and says he believes they didn't steal the idea themselves, but he wondered if the development people (Paramount) steered them to it.
     
  4. DigificWriter

    DigificWriter Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    May 20, 2001
    Location:
    West Haven, UT, USA
    I love both DS9 and B5, but have never bought the conspiracy theory notion that one is a 'ripoff' of the other, because aside from their both being set aboard a space station, the two shows are very different.

    DS9 is essentially a "classic Western" transposed into space and given a Sci-Fi and mythological bent, whereas B5 is more a mixture of "hard Sci-Fi" and High Fantasy, being most reminiscent of stuff like Dune, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and The Lord of the Rings.
     
    Qonundrum likes this.
  5. dregj

    dregj Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

    Joined:
    Mar 5, 2016
    i honestly cant remember my source now
    but some fella seemed to confirm it
    a couple of years ago
    it was on all the sci fi sites
     
  6. WB2

    WB2 Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

    Joined:
    Aug 19, 2016
    To be honest, there are way too many similarities to be coincidental but as they both evolved diffeen't I'm happy about it.
     
  7. soornge

    soornge Commander Red Shirt

    Joined:
    Sep 26, 2016
    forst question is b5 available for stream habent seen it on netflix or hulu? 2 just a statemnt re teying ds9 didnt like it when it first came out but revisiting it with an open mind
     
  8. JoeD80

    JoeD80 Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Oct 1, 2008
    Location:
    Los Angeles
    The only streaming service Babylon 5 is currently available on is Vudu (that's Wal-Mart's streaming service, and I believe only available in US). You either rent or pay for episodes.

    Most of the episodes in the collection are the original fullscreen version rather than the redone wide-screen that is on the DVDs.
     
  9. guyute03

    guyute03 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Feb 27, 2003
    Just finished re-watching all of the TNG blu-rays and now starting up all seasons of Babylon 5 on DVD. Watching on a 55 inch 4K TV with an Xbox One S. Hope the quality is improved because I hold even less hope that this show will ever be remastered on blu-ray.
     
    Shaka Zulu likes this.
  10. Aurora-7

    Aurora-7 Ensign Red Shirt

    Joined:
    Oct 16, 2014
    Location:
    Connecticut
    Such a common discussion theme. Beyond the idea of having stories around a space station with multiple races, I didn't see a lot of similarities. While B5 was more epic in the scope of it's story telling, it was not as sophisticated in its execution of stories and characters (though I really liked Peter Jurasik's Londo). I think that's evident in DS9 having more staying power with fans over the years, though maybe being part of the Trekverse helps that.
     
  11. UnknownSample

    UnknownSample Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Aug 10, 2004
    Location:
    Earth's surface
    The acting was a real problem in B5 at the start. Guest actors sometimes walked through their parts woodenly, not taking them seriously.
     
  12. mlbach

    mlbach Captain Captain

    Joined:
    May 27, 2017
    Location:
    Minnesota
    They both had space stations and they both had stable wormholes. Oh, and they both had good guys and bad guys. Other than that, there was almost nothing they had in common. I think B5 ultimately suffered from it being the creative vision of just one person, but it was an interesting show. And the LotR allusions were fun.
     
  13. Tenacity

    Tenacity Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 14, 2016
    Location:
    Tenacity
    According to Gene Roddenberry, Star Trek was the creative vision of just one person.
     
  14. mlbach

    mlbach Captain Captain

    Joined:
    May 27, 2017
    Location:
    Minnesota
    Seriously? Hmmmm...

    Well, almost all of the B5 episodes were written by JMS. Star Trek, not so much.
     
    Last edited: Oct 15, 2018
    Shaka Zulu likes this.
  15. Bad Thoughts

    Bad Thoughts Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jun 19, 2013
    Location:
    Bad Thoughts
    It probably wasn't the first time he was wrong.
     
    Sci and Shaka Zulu like this.
  16. Shaka Zulu

    Shaka Zulu Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Mar 28, 2013
    Location:
    Bulawayo Military Krral

    I'll go further and say that B5 was the precursor to TV shows like The Man In The High Castle and The Handmaid's Tale, showing that a novel could be adapted for television as several seasons of a TV series.
     
    Last edited: Jan 27, 2018
    Yanks likes this.
  17. Butters

    Butters Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Nov 18, 2008
    Location:
    Elsewhere
    The first I saw of B5 was the trailer for The Gathering on a VHS and my original impression was of a low cost rip off of the Undiscovered Country. Galaxy at a cross roads, dignitary attacked, brink of war stuff.

    I soon saw it was a lot more than that, and after a few episodes of DS9, it was easy to imagine that Paramounts response to a competitor show about a space station next to a portal was a show about a station next to a portal, with a bigger budget and existing brand recognition. There doesn’t need to be a conspiracy, or anything underhand.

    Wasn’t there some possibility that what Became DS9 started as a non trek project?
     
  18. psikeyhackr

    psikeyhackr Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

    Joined:
    May 28, 2008
    I didn't find that until page 60.

    Shocking!!!
     
    Yanks likes this.
  19. Yanks

    Yanks Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Jul 6, 2011
    Location:
    NX01 Bridge
    I love them both also, but I don't know that you can compare BAB5 to anything else. It's unique like FarScape is.
     
  20. psikeyhackr

    psikeyhackr Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

    Joined:
    May 28, 2008


    I thought someone was ripping off somebody in the first year of watching them, but I assumed B5 was a rip off of DS9. Since I liked both of them I really didn't care that much.

    But DS9 is too different from previous Treks and Roddenberry's naive utopia. Having religion as a major theme in the show after ignoring or making fun of it before and since. Yeah, B5 seems like the source of inspiration but they plagiarized it well enough.
     
    Yanks likes this.