I watched the first episode of this at a friend's house and it was thoroughly comfy and kino despite the utterly shit CGI. Is the whole thing worth watching if you have only a passing interest in sci fi?
I watched the first episode of this at a friend's house and it was thoroughly comfy and kino despite the utterly shit CGI.
There are worse things you could watch. I'd recommend giving it a shot. It basically turns into Lord of the Rings In Space, so...
Yeah the pay off this series is almost unrivalled as far as sci fi series. The shitty cgi didn't bother me at all it kind of added to the comfy. Deff stick with it.
Why did so many scifi shows have israelites in space?
You didn't think they would just go away in the future did you?
It's about the only show that had a man with a vision make a long term 5+ year complex and branching storyline. And the actors chemistry together later in the show is unmatched.
Its kino
I’m also bumping it in protest of the 10 trillion Snoy Wars threads
It's one of the few shows that regularly shake up the cast and roles of character while rarely losing the story thread. They did an amazing job getting theatre actors to play aliens, since they come off as so odd on camera that it makes them more believable.
Reminder that the Narn started their war with the Centauri at Ragesh III and got exactly what they asked for
DO IT AGAIN BOMBER LONDO
the first season is very rough overall but the highs of the show are pretty extreme imho
Give me more sci-fi shit to watch bros, I got a lot of catching up to do. I only just watched Starship Troopers and now I'm going through Stargate
Farscape
TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT
ds9 might have a worse first season than b5 and its kinda weak in comparison but there is some good stuff there but you have to dig through hours of trash to find it.
That's basically all of Star Trek. There's maybe fifteen hours of genuinely good tv there, but it's under endless days of trash.
Farscape
Stargate
I will warn you, with the exception of Babylon 5, the first seasons of pretty much every scifi series is dogshit. It wasn’t a big deal back when you mostly watches random episodes on TV because thats just what was on, but its a signficant issue in the binge streaming era. Anyway watch Farscape
Farscape
Firefly
It's absolutely kino, and it filters morons hardcore
one thing I noticed when watching the first ep was how utterly sincere and warm it felt. I don't know how to describe it. It just felt well intentioned even with some of the more difficult themes. I don't know why but shows today feel so much more hard-edged and nasty even if they pay lip service to togetherness etc. For instance, the reveal of garibaldi laughing at darkwing duck cartoons was utterly comfy and lovely. I wish we had shows with that kind of aesthetic now instead of mean black ladies telling it like it is
It gets much better after the first season so keep watching. CGI will always stay old, no way around that.
it's DS9 but better in every way
not surprising, since DS9 is itself a ripoff of Babylon 5
it also inspired Mass Effect
I'm actually on my first rewatch after I originally saw it 9 years ago - there's a HD remaster that HBO put out last year that actually looks really good.
I remember the CGI being laughably aged on the dvd version I saw originally, but I know they upscaled some of it for this release and it looks really passable for the mid-90s, and if I remember rightly it gets better with each season as well. This is from early season 2 where I am now.
But yeah, it's got a great payoff - but unfortunately the main plot pretty much wraps up midway through season 4 and season 5 isn't great for the most part.
I'd say skip 5 but you have to kind of persevere with it because you only get the full story arc for the two best characters by following it through to the very end.
Season 5 has Centauri War kino, the ending, and nothing else.
Yeah I don't know if there's a guide of missable episodes for S5, but unfortunately it's essential viewing just for the conclusion of G'Kar and Londo's arcs
The main plot technically wraps up at the end of season 4.
Just a lot of original season5 elements probably got shoved into season 4.
That's exactly what happened. It was planned out to be a 5 season show from the beginning, but they were almost cancelled after season 3, and were convinced they were goin to be cancelled after season 4, so they cut a lot of side stories to wrap everything up in 4. The final episode of the series was actually filmed at the end of season 4 too, that's why there's only passing references to season 5 in it. When it was renewed for season 5 if was a surprise and they scrambled to put together enough material for another season, that's why its so much weaker than the other seasons.
Also, as far as the CGI is concerned, they went with the absolute cheapest they could find on purpose. It was developing so fast at the time that they thought it would be really cheap to replace everything when it was time to make the dvds after the show was over. Turns out that wasn't the case so we're stuck with what we got.
The show has two 'A' plots, and the original plan was to resolve one of the A plots in S4 and the other in S5. When working on S4 they were told it would be the last season, so they reworked it to resolve both A plots, then when they were renewed for S5 they just had to settle for tying up loose ends
This man did nothing wrong
AHHHHHHH!
MY GOOOOORD FRIEND, MR ANON, YES?
He did pretty much everything wrong at every opportunity and as a result he brought doom on himself and his people
There's no show without Londo
one of the best written shows there are, shit acting and shit cgi though but they seriously knew how to use the little they had to great effect
Are the fullHD remasters worth it (torrenting)?
Definitively worth the watch and re-watch. Best sci-fi show overall. They really have to remake this one with modern effects. The cast had spectacular mature actors. Rework could be done for the gay telepaths war and associated cheesy music.
I'd take a new serie too, even movies.
Reboot by JMS is already confirmed in pre production
nice, didnt see that one coming
A reboot of Babylon 5 was announced in September 2021. The reboot is being produced by Straczynski through Studio JMS, and developed by Warner Bros. Television for The CW. As of May 2022, despite several changes at The CW due to numerous cancellations of other shows resulting from the Warner Bros. Discovery merger, the project is still in active development for fall 2023.
Hopefully they wont frick it up in this current context...
While is done by JMS, not sure could he do something as good as Babylon 5 in the current year. He has written a single good movie since end of Babylon 5.
Your fake blind item fails to mention Michael O'Hare. Furst, diabeetus. Katsulas was heavy smoker for decades. Jerry Doyle was alcoholic. Conaway was one of most notorious junkies in Hollywood and he had lot of relapses. Richard Biggs, random heart attack for a relatively young guy. Mira Furlan died to fricking West Nile fever.
Everyone will be black and gay and ugly.
>"Do you know what this is, hmm? No, I can see you do not. You have that vacant look in your eyes that says, 'Hold my head into your ear, and you'll hear the sea.
These types of shoes used to cast legitimate stage actors. Now they cast flavor of the month zoomers and blacks
best star trek captain was black
Even though I’m racist now, I agree. But thats only because Avery Brookes was an intensely disciplined man. He had very specific requirements written into his contract on how his character was portrayed. He did this to set a good example for black men. Nowadays the israelites just want to shove gay homies and gansta homies and rapper homies down our throats.
racistbro, you can have a well written intensely disciplined gay rapper gangsta homie though
Your schnoz is showing, rabbi. Black men need good role models and based black man Avery Brookes knew this
True, I also want to point at the mature and competent actors vs 20 something posers. Its a real plague and it has spreaded far and wide.
uhhh babby bros?
>Is the whole thing worth watching if you have only a passing interest in sci fi?
Greatest scifi show ever made.
It takes a while to get things going, while 1st season is bit weaker than later seasons it still sets up lot of things for much later payoff.
Also threat of cancellation during fourth season forced planned plotlines up to half way thru 5th season crammed into second half of 4th season.As result 5th season is half season stretched to full seasons, it is still worth watching.
Impossible question:
What had the better character arc?
I literally can't choose, I think I slightly prefer G'kar as a character overall, but that's probably because he's generally easier to sympathise with which skews it
G'Kar is based AF.
Giarabaldi is based too, but I can't like an alien species that is born with massive pricks they can move around like a third arm.
I like Garabaldi as a character but I thought Doyle was probably the worst actor on the show, just completely wooden all the time. He gives off the kind of vibes of a guy I would take an instant dislike to if I had met him for real
Right, Londo and G'kar are inseparables and were both awesome.
actors are not known for their longevity
If it's a reboot, he wont have to do much writing.
>If it's a reboot, he wont have to do much writing.
If you look up the interviews he says it will be a similar story arc but more like a reimagining, kinda like what 2004 BSG was to the original series. So will need quite a lot of writing, it's not a remake.
o crap, things can change for the worst
he has to show up
ex-wife Tallman too, she was something
Kinda funny that he’s still alive and Anton Yeltsin is dead. I hope they get him and Boxleitner to show up for some cameos in the new show.
I feel like Boxleitner would love to have a part in it - I managed to struggle through this whole interview with an intensely annoying interviewer and it was worth it just because Boxleitner is so genuine and nice
Peter Jurasik (Londo) is alive too.
And Claudia Christian
She actually might have had the best career post-B5 with all her videogame VA