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Babylon 5 Theatrical Movie Falls Through
duck2ducks writes "According to a post from JMS, the Babylon 5 feature film has been cancelled. This is sad news indeed for all fans of one of the best sci-fi stories ever produced." From Straczynski's post: "In the end, however, the deal could be put together, and it did not
look as if that was going to change at any point in the foreseeable
future. So the option has reverted, and to all intents and purposes,
the project has dead ended."
Around here it aired at 12:05 am on tuesday nights/ wednesday mornings.
I loved it, too-clean spaceships and cheap-looking interiors and all, until I saw the secret of the Vorlons, and I just didn't want to be watching a show about space angels. Good makeup though, and the psy sidestory was quite enjoyable.
But did they really have a good enough story for a feature film, or were they banking on fanboys alone?
You can't take the sky from me...
A friend of mine has loaned me B5 on DVD, and I keep at it, but I'm not entirely sure why.
The most interesting thing about it is the long story arc. There's a lot good to be said about it, though I've seen others do it better. The costuming and sets are nicely done.
But other than that I just can't find anything to like. The acting is generally incompetent; it looks for all the world like the actors are only barely off book. Or maybe it's because the dialogue is so stilted nobody could make it sound good. A few of the regulars manage to carry it off; one or two even mange to look good.
But many of the regulars, nearly all of the non-famous guest stars, and even a few very talented guests sound completely incompetent. I just watched an episode with the hugely talented Michael York, and he chewed his way through the scenery as though it were chocolate.
I'm an actor and director myself. It's hard to separate out blame in the finished product without being on set, but it seems to be the fault of the writing and directing even more than the actors themselves. But I've heard people praise Straczynski's writing to the high heavens. I just don't get it. I don't care about the cheesy CG effects or corny music; it's the parts between the interstitials that set my teeth on edge.
Yeah, I already skipped through most of the first season. I'm now well into the third season, which was supposed to be pretty good. If it weren't for the fact that I'm trying to figure out why it's so important that it makes the front page of Slashdot, I'd long have given up.
So I don't believe I'm trolling when I ask: can somebody explain to me why I shouldn't consider the failure of this to become a movie anything other than a benefit to mankind?
The nice thing about Babylon 5, was that it had a complete story line before the first movie was even made. That means a completely intermixed story. The exact opposite from most other sci-fi shows that were out there at the time. Something that happens in the first episode actually means something, in one of the last episodes. (Londo's dream of how he will die.) And that is just the most obvious link. I for one had hoped that Crusade would have picked up where B5 left off, but it died a rather quick death. The movies were always good and it would have been great to see a new addition to the line.
I loved the B5 series and miss it. But given the [poor] quality of the B5 spinoff series (Crusade) and telemovies (Call to Arms, Legend of the Rangers), is this really so bad? Sorry, but this had to be said.
What's a sci-fi movie geek to do??
Ok, we got Episode III coming out, but I don't think I'm alone in saying that my expectations for Star Wars have been decidedly jaded in recent years.
I guess it'll have to be all about stuff like War of the Worlds, which I personally have very high hopes for after seeing some preview stuff, and moreover, Hitchhiker's Guide, which will either be the greatest sci-fi comedy since Space Balls (if not, dare I say, better?) or else it will be despised and insulted to levels of previously untold fury. I mean, it's the same problem faced by Peter Jackson for LotR. You have such a truly great literary work, and you have to turn it into film, carefully balancing the unwashed masses who've never read the book on one side, and the die-hard purists who've memorized it line-by-line on the other.
... it's understandable, it's 2005 now, B5 is OLD. So much has come after it. In a world that contains Farscape and Firefly, B5 does look childish, dated and a bit hackneyed. However, you have to remember that when this first came out it really was groundbreaking sci-fi. Most of what came after owes it a big debt.
So, you probably won't get it now. It's too late. If you'd watched it in 1994, you'd get it.
"The dew has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning"
Since Richard Biggs is dead, any new Babylon 5 production wouldn't quite have the same aura as the TV series. Dr. Franklin was a strong supporting character, whose presence would be sorely missed.
Granted, that doesn't ensure everyone will read it just as carefully...
Having been previously burned by the Start Trek:Next Generation movies (ie, they sucked enormously) I have trouble getting excited about a B5 movie, no matter how great the original TV series may have been.
A typical 1 hour TV show minus commercials is about 42-45 minutes. And a typical movie is around 90 minutes. So, A B5 movie would be approximately the same length as a 2 part TV episode. So what is the point of 2 more B5 episodes?
Now, if he was trying to put together a 6-8 part TV mini-series, that would be pretty cool. With a TV series you can take your time and develope a story over several episodes, and if one of those episodes sucks, so what, you just move on to the next one.
But a B5 movie is pretty much guaranteed to suck simply because they have to try to cram as much as possible into this one movie, since there's no telling when there might be another one.
I've heard people praise Straczynski's writing to the high heavens. I just don't get it. I don't care about the cheesy CG effects or corny music; it's the parts between the interstitials that set my teeth on edge.
...followed by the statement:
Yeah, I already skipped through most of the first season. I'm now well into the third season,
So... you didn't see most of the first season, and aren't even finished with the third. B5's story spans all five seasons and is the best thing about the show that casual and diehard fans name time and time again. The story, which you have seen less than two-fifths of, and so it gets a passing mention of...
There's a lot good to be said about it
though I've seen others do it better.
You haven't even seen the whole story - how can you say for sure that someone else has done it better? You don't even fully know what it is that you're comparing!
Then you expound on the acting for a while after that. Yes, there is an acknowledged inconsistent quality in the acting.
I'm an actor and director myself.
In the IMDb, are you? Not that this means everything, but honestly, anyone can be "an actor an director." Whether you've made anything worth a damn to anyone but yourself is a totally different story.
I've heard people praise Straczynski's writing to the high heavens. I just don't get it.
Of course you don't. You haven't even finished half the story.
can somebody explain to me why I shouldn't consider the failure of this to become a movie anything other than a benefit to mankind?
Because you've barely seen anything of the series and therefore cannot make an informed judgment. Is that a good enough explanation?
The coolest voice ever.
So, how about more truly NEW stuff
;-)
Well, there was Firefly...
But the problem with new stuff is it's a risk. Old stuff has brand recognition, wich means a garanteed return on the investment. How else would a hack like Berman manage to keep producing crap like he's done for years if not hrough sheer inertia?
The Matrix was a nice new take on things, Battlestar Galactica is cool, but part of me is tired of the 'hoping to find earth' theme that Voyager beat into the ground.
The Matrix killed itself by replacing some nice cyberpunk post apocalyptic sci-fi with trite pseudo religious handwaving magic.
Like, seriously, way to blow your franchise, dumbasses.
Galactica has high quality production values coming out of it's ears, but no originality whatsoever. What with being a remake and all. Still, it's nice to have shiny evil space robots being shot at by babes on TV, makes life seem more worthwile
You can't take the sky from me...
Also, the getting rid of the commander at the end of the first season wasn't planned. And, as far as I know, Delenn and Sheridan hooking up wasn't planned at first. (Delenn was originally supposed to be voiced by a man, after all...)
So, a lot of people insist that it had a complete 5 year story arc that was set in stone from the beginning, but they changed it around a lot as production progressed. I don't dislike the show, but I think the people who rave about the perfection of the story arc are over stating how impressive it really was.
Believe it or not, Slashdot is a forum where readers are occasionally allowed to disagree. :-)
To appreciate "Babylon 5", it perhaps helps to have been there when it first aired. This was ten years ago, when ST:TNG was an uncategorical success by any measure, ST:DS9 was well underway with plenty of funding, and studios were jumping on the sci-fi bandwagon left and right.
After several years of ST:TNG, we get B5 -- a somewhat gritty, dirtier version of the future which resembles our present world a heck of a lot better than Roddenbery's universe. The aliens are more alien. The technology follows the known laws of physics (well, aside from hyperspace). And the effects? Well, they may look substandard today, but at the time that was cutting-edge CGI and it was being used on a weekly television program. In fact, JMS was proud of saying that his show would come in consistently under budget because of the cost savings over model-based special effects.
It was a breath of fresh air for sci-fi fans who were tired of the sanitized Star Trek universe and wanted something more realistic now. On top of that, it employed a multi-season story arc which, despite the kinks thrown in by actors leaving and the fifth season almost getting cancelled, worked incredibly well and was a radical approach to television. (To look at it another way, of course, is to say the departing actors and near-death of season 5 illustrates exactly why television shows usually approach each season open-ended.)
And what a story -- it looked like just aliens fighting it out diplomatically and Earth getting caught in the middle. Instead we get galactic-scale alien civilizations stretching millenia back into time, alien religious prophecies coming true, a conspiracy to take over Earth's government and implement fascism in its stead, telepaths running their own plan for controlling everything, all while this little tin can orbiting Epsilon 3 at the @$$-end of space is dealing with union strikes, budgetary constraints, refugees from alien wars, and the occasional drug bust.
Simply put, it was the kind of thing we knew we'd never see in Star Trek. DS9 came close to it (partly because it was, intentionally or not, borrowing heavily from JMS's ideas), but B5 was there first. Roddenberry's edict was basically that Starfleet and humanity in general appear pristine and perfect to project hope for the future; JMS declared that humans in the future would be just like humans today, and despite that (or because of it) we'd still grow to be masters of the galaxy in the millenia to come.
Oh, and there's also Ivanova. Regardless what you think about the acting, it's impossible not to like Ivanova.
Oh, and as a postscript: despite what I said about respecting others' opinions, and regardless of your experience in the field, if you think Andreas Katsulas as G'Kar is an ineffective actor, you're just not paying attention.
No, it's not.
It's not like I didn't get the whole Aliens planting the idea of angels story, it'ms that I think it is quite lame. Slight difference.
I might have felt different if the aliens didn't see them as angels with bumpy foreheads.
Er... This pretty much seals it for me - you really *did* miss the point.
Suppose you're engineering a way for other races to see your race as beings of light and goodness. Do you:
(a) Create your perceived image of light and goodness such that it's totally alien to all the races you wish to manipulate into revering you, or
(b) Create a template that puts forth the appearance of light and goodness, and apply that template to each race such that they see essentially a member of their own race, yet bursting forth with light and goodness?
It makes *sense* that the Drazi see the Vorlon-in-angel's-clothing as one of themselves, forehead adornments and all, because it means they will be far more likely to accept the Vorlons for what they wish to be seen as.