So Mr Straczynski... it's now 'after April'...
- Thread starter Candlelight
- Start date
Just because you're too lazy to look up some term on Google before you throw it around doesn't negate a worldwide industry.
Just because you're too lazy to look up some term on Google before you throw it around doesn't negate a worldwide industry.
I thought I knew the meaning of the term. I'm not going to look every single fucking meaning for the sake of nerds. Get a fucking life.
^Don't be a prat. Even an old man like me knows machinima is some youtube channel for gamers playing at animation.
Anyway, since we're on the subject JMS did just mention on his facebook page that he's trying to get a spec animation project done out of his own pocket, though he was careful to note it would *not* be B5 related.
Even if they were to try for an animation project I'm not sure it'd be an easy sell. While it's not as prevalent as it used to be, I think it's still a fairly deeply engrained idea that animated series' are primarily children's entertainment and I just can't see B5 appealing to younger demographics while still being recognisably B5. An animated anthology DVD in the vein of Animatrix, Gotham Knights etc. would be nice and very doable, but that kind of thing tends to only be commissioned to support the brand of a larger project (a movie, typically.)
Anyway, since we're on the subject JMS did just mention on his facebook page that he's trying to get a spec animation project done out of his own pocket, though he was careful to note it would *not* be B5 related.
Even if they were to try for an animation project I'm not sure it'd be an easy sell. While it's not as prevalent as it used to be, I think it's still a fairly deeply engrained idea that animated series' are primarily children's entertainment and I just can't see B5 appealing to younger demographics while still being recognisably B5. An animated anthology DVD in the vein of Animatrix, Gotham Knights etc. would be nice and very doable, but that kind of thing tends to only be commissioned to support the brand of a larger project (a movie, typically.)
The latest season of Red vs Blue expanded the art to the use of true 3D animation to simulate gamers playing at animation.
This is part of a big problem I have with, well, almost all of the Babylon 5 spin-offs to date - Thirdspace, Crusade and Legend of the Rangers in particular, however.
One of Babylon 5's strengths as a TV series is JMS has a pretty clear knowledge of the show's metastory, which he reveals over the course of the series. The ancient, half-forgotten history of our galaxy, the cosmic telelogical endpoint for what we once recognized as the human race.
One of the weakneses of Babylon 5 as a space opera universe for future stories, though, is precisely that this metastory has been spelt out. We've seen the universe's old, dark evil, and we literally had them hectored away.
And then, quite frankly, we get all Lensman, by which I mean just throwing other ancient alien powers into the pot to try and keep the universe's ancient history relevant. Trying to still bank on the power of that metastory we get thrown some new ancient unheard of power or other wrinkle that seems a trifle shoehorned in - which, worse, feels a lot like a rehash of what we'd already got.
In no interesting way do the Thirdspace aliens really differ from the Shadows, and the same can be said for the utterly silly Hand.
The sense of past and scope was one of Babylon 5's strong points, but JMS either needs a better twist on it then he's given us in his post-B5 products, or he needs to simply move on from it entirely in any future B5 work.
Sure, the Shadows and the Vorlons have exited stage left and the magic has gone out of the universe. But what was that Delenn said about making our own magic? We've got Minbari, Centauri, Drazi, Narn, humans, pak'ma'ra, Technomages, PSI corps, even the Drakh, I'm sure he could work something out.
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^Agreed. Couldn't have said it better. This was something that annoyed me about the spin offs as well. Why does every enemy have to be old anyway? That was done and done well in B5, let's do something else now.
Indeed. Me too. The B5 universe was a fascinating place with the Shadows and Vorlons, but there isn't much scope to build on it because we know how it ends. And what we're left with is a bunch of races with broadly comparable technologies arguing about borders, resources and trade. Worse than that though, we have trade union episodes in space.
I often felt that B5 could be stirred up a bit by lifting some different alien races ideas from other series and seeing how the Interstellar alliance would handle them:
Borg/Cybermen
Cylons/Terminators
Wraith
Replicators
Predator/Alien types
Not fanwank crossovers obviously, but some threat, consistent with the Physics and Technological allowances of the orinal run that isn't about to sit around the table to negotiate
Funny, in Dr. Who Threads and Stargate SGU threads, their are always posts reminding people how silly there idea of knowing everything and where everything is and who everyone is and not being able to find "a needle in a haystack" because the Universe (and the Galaxy) is inifintely huge. So, why is it we believe there is nothing more to the Babylon 5 Universe than the races we know? The Universe and galaxy are just as Large in Babylon 5 as they are in real life and the other shows. And, let's not forget, there's life in Hyper Space, that we can't possibly know everything about, because we can't tromp around haphazardly in Hyper Space, or we'd never find our way out.
It's an issue of narrative, not plausibility. We've had the big questions about the ancient history of Babylon 5 spelled out for us, and the big questions about the future of the human race spelled out too.
We've also seen that when JMS has dealt with eldritch races again, they feel like rehashes of the Shadows, almost half-thoughtedly thrown into the existing canon. JMS's crutch here is he can't exactly out-epic his TV show on this scale.
Exactly! You beat me to it again. Especially your first sentence: "It's an issue of narrative, not plausibility."
Come on, say something else. Let's see how long I keep agreeing with you.
Thirdspace wasn't a spin-off, it was a one-off. In the case of the Hand, we have gotten hints that they were more the con-aliens of the galaxy than anything they actually claimed. The Shadow/Vorlon thing was hardly the only point of the series either. There's plenty of material existing in-universe to play with.
Right. I really meant Babylon 5 productions besides the TV show itself. Most of these - besides The Gathering and In the Beginning - exist independently of the series' major arcs. Either way, the Thirdspace aliens - like the film - didn't really work. If the Hand were intended as con men, then it was a bit of clumsy misdirection in a pilot that was already pretty weak.
I'd agree with that and said as much upthread. Hell, some of the best stuff in the series was great not because of any sense it tied into the metastory - the Centauri/Narn conflict, for example.
We could definitely have alien fights and struggles that can make for engrossing viewing without being of epochal relevance.
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