Contains a Babylon 5 spoiler
See, that was their problem. Their last best hope for peace was a truck stop? That is not where you get peace. That is where you get the opposite of peace. They could have only done worse if it were a space waffle house.
To be fair, while “truck stop” is a fairly accurate term for DS9 and its location along a major trade route, the primary purpose of Babylon 5 was really just being a neutral location for political relations and whatnot. Though maybe there are important meetings that are conducted at Waffle House, idk
Tbf their first attempt resulted in the near extinction of humanity…
Recently did another marathon but this time in in-universe chronological order and goddamn, late delivery from Avalon hits so much harder (delenn’s reaction) if you watched In the Beginning first
Ds9 was a truck stop, the babylon stations were UN convention centres with bazaars did you even watch the show
The Centauri: “You call this a convention center? I would not host my second cousin’s baby shower here; it stinks of commoners.”
(which is to say, i watched it two decades ago)
last best hope for peace was a truck stop
Picture I found of Babylon-5:
space waffle house
Stop everything else, this is the show I want. Let’s see a strung out avian fist fighting a drunk grey across the counter, while a little green man twerks in the background.
Okay yeah but… that sounds like a lotta work.
So here’s Homer Simpson eating a waffle, wrapped around a stick of butter. Bonus: it’s fried:-P
When I think of Walter Koenig, I think of Bester, not Chekov.
To be blunt, whenever I watched Trek I never got the impression he was particularly good. But then when I saw him in B5, I thought "Damn he can act. Why didn’t the Trek show runners take advantage of this?!"
Bester was supposed to be a one-off villain! They brought him back because he was amazing!
Bester is also still a unique character, and Koenigs delivery is unique.
S4 is a really interesting watch given the current political climate in the US. I just embarked on a re-watch this month. Agree G’kar and Londo scenes were great. My favorite duo in the show.
God, this. This fucking show was absolutely prophetic. I wish more politicians watched it in the 90s and got the fucking hint.
Is there a Babylon 5 Lemmy community? If not, can someone please create one? Thanks.
There is an animated spin off? How is it?
I thought it was pretty bad. I got together with some friends to watch and we barely made it through. It was just boring.
Nah it was the latest film, done in animated form
It’s just a one-off film from 2023, not a series. And it is also not really a true “spinoff” like Crusade, as it does focus on the same main characters from the series, just during an unexplored time period that had been glossed over before the series finale.
As for how enjoyable it is, I thought it was fine, but I am no film critic. Taken from Wikipedia:
On Rotten Tomatoes it has a score of 83% based on reviews from 6 critics.[12] Tara Bennett of IGN Movies rated it 7 out of 10 and wrote: “J. Michael Straczynski’s script stridently wears its heart on its sleeve, which will likely land for nostalgic old-timers but play a little cloying for those without prior investment.”[13] Rob Owen of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review wrote: “As stories go, The Road Home is pretty meh, standard sci-fi fare with a sappy, humanistic overlay.”[14]
G’Kar was the wrong character to show for the prosthetics poke. The Narn prosthetics are actually shockingly good with a surprisingly high degree of articulation allowing for lots of emoting and facial expressions. Some of Delenn’s head bone prosthetics, on the other hand, are just terrible.
G’Kar can’t even turn his neck. Reminds me of how the Cardassian prosthetics pull me out of the realism and make me painfully aware that I am watching TV.
Why must an alien species have developed the ability to turn their head?
That’s just a guess as to one reason why these types of alien prosthetics are so immersion-breaking
Given the budget that Fox gave them to film this, I’m not going to whine about it when I’ve watched community theater productions and enjoyed them. If the visual realism is a hard sticking point, then unfortunately, you just kinda have to sigh and live with it. Enjoy the story, and maybe try making fandom cosplay and give it a try for yourself.
That isn’t a dig, btw. Being able to make costumes of similar (but lesser) quality made me appreciate the hard work that goes into this more. And being involved in it helped me learn willfull suspension of disbelief. Or course you can see the seams in the costume. The actor is ignoring them and doing their damn best for a good script. I think that effort deserves a little grace.
Optic Nerve won a damn Emmy for their prosthetic work on B5, not sure what op’s on about with that one…
Shoulda gone meta with the drazi and the human mask
I’d love to watch it (I only caught a few episodes when it was first on TV), but I haven’t been able to find a cheapy DVD boxed set nor a useable copy on the dodgy streaming sites :-/
It’s available for free with ads, though thankfully the ad breaks are where they are supposed to be, on Tubi
Thanks for the tip, unfortunately tubi isn’t available in my country and when I’ve tried going through a proxy I’ve run into problems :-(
They say piracy is an access/service problem, not a price problem.
https://www.amazon.com/Babylon-5-Season-1/dp/B000I5SYHS
Here. If you want it legally, at least. Believe it or not, Pirate Bay has the fandom-produced 1080p upscale. It looks really good, whoever did the render really put some love into it.
It looks like there is an official 1080p Blu-ray. Is the fandom version better, or is it just that it came first?
Blu-ray is way better. I checked.
Yes, the new bluray version is the one to get. It is based on the original analog film which is high definition (heard it was closer to 2k ish). This is the same as the version that was available on HBO a few years back. The old DVD version was a cropped (and stretched) version of the tv broadcast version which was cropped from the original source. Anything based on that will look pretty bad.
The only thing that is lower resolution in the bluray version are the scenes where actors and CGI are mixed. They lost the original 3d models so there were no cheap and easy way to fix those.
I can also recommend the Lurkers Guide viewing order. There are also some tips on episodes that can potentially be skipped.
Thanks, unfortunately the shipping on a boxed set from the US would be brutal :-/ (and the last thing I bought direct from the US got “lost” at customs)
I’m not able to torrent stuff because I live in the middle of nowhere and use my phone for internet … the dodgy streaming sites have been a godsend TBH, since I can nibble lower res copies of things one episode at a time without the expectation of seeding :-)
goofy hairstyles
Look how they massacred my boy Londo.
First real character I remember in sci-fi. He’s a highfalutin blowhard from a noble house, who’s fucking broke and has to lose two of his wives.
Then he picks the one that treats him the worst because she lies the least.
Then he goes on to sell his soul to make his planet great again which of course if goes all monkey paw on him.
The dude is a walking pile of contradictions. There’s nobody like him in star trek sadly.
The way he gained a soul the hard way just to trade it, fucking amazing journey
And the show blew me away with how it showed exactly how Londo would die in the first season, and his death was both exactly, and nothing at all, like it was foretold.
You had me at “20th century understanding on how eye contact works in a video call”.
I came to write exactly this, I laughed out loud at it
Star Wars is so much worse on that than anything Trek-like… so much that some times people mention it. But yeah, I’ve never seen anybody mention it about Star Trek or B5.
It’s how its shot. Star Trek (and anything modern I guess) is green screen and the second person edited in later. The actors are talking to nobody
B5 uses CRTs, both actors are sitting in different parts of the set talking to each other live, because they could record that.
The difference it makes is crazy. So much conversation is so much more natural due to it. Wish shows would make it happen again somehow
I think that The Expanse did a great job at leveraging the green screen thing for comms. Because they don’t have FTL, the less conversational feeling really works because, in-universe, they’re basically never speaking in real-time.
I assume the logistics are entirely different with a hologram compared to a 2D viewscreen. Or are there viewscreens in Star Wars as well?
EDIT: Oh, this question probably does a good job summarizing the type of inconsistencies you are talking about
https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/108609/how-do-star-wars-hologram-communications-work
Starting at 2:46 in Clones Wars season 2 episode 7 we see both ends of a hologram communication. I’ve always wondered how people somehow manage to maintain eye contact while using holograms to communicate since often, as in this case, each are viewing images of the other that greatly vary in size. Obi-wan Kenobi and Ki-Adi-Mundi are in a large room looking down on a 2-3 foot image of Luminara Unduli.
Master Unduli however is holding a mobile jedi holoprojector looking down at 1 foot images of Kenobi and Mundi.
How can they both be looking down at projections less than half the height of an average humanoid while still maintaining eye contact with the person on the other end?
Stranger still, at 3:16 when Anakin Skywalker enters the room, joining the other two Jedi, we see the 2-3 foot image of Unduli in the center of the room turn her entire body about 90 degrees to face Skywalker.
Then Mundi speaks up at 3:25, prompting the small Unduli image to do a 180 degree turn to face Mundi.
However we then immediately see at 3:29 that she never needed to turn since they’ve only been two little images in her hand all along.
It makes no sense for Unduli to turn right and left to face people she’s essentially holding in her hand. Curiously, Skywalker’s image is absent from Unduli’s mobile holoprojector even though we saw her turn to face him. Did he race out of the room the nanosecond he finished talking?
Daaaaaamn, a real nerd! Got the screenshots for it too!
This is actual praise, holy hell, I did not expect to see this kind of effort for a comment. I fucking love Lemmy, I hope it stays this good for as long as possible.
This was one of the issues they ran into early in the Clone Wars. In my head, I justified it as a more advanced version of modern video chat software filters. The ones subtly shift your pupils to look like they’re looking at the camera instead of the screen. I think in later episodes, I remember seeing holograms scaled to eye level, and communicators being held at eye level as often as feasible.
But this is obviously retrospective justification, and the reality is probably “idk, it just looked better to the one or two animators who worked on this shot.”
Maybe the holograms aren’t really 1:1 “images” but, instead, like avatars. This would also help to explain what the problem holographic communicator is able to get the whole body, including the back.
There are viewscreens in star wars:
Ohhh I forgot about this! And somebody said Andor broke the bible with their 2D video
That is something that has bugged me since I started watching sci-fi (yes, I am relatively new to the genre), and I don’t think I have ever seen anybody talk about it.
One of the wonderful little details from B5 was the holographic recording Londo made for [REDACTED] where he’s making his grand speech about how and why he’s having him [REDACTED]. The recording is constantly looking in the wrong direction, pointing accusingly at the wall, moving through people, and just obviously not lining up with the room it’s being played in because it’s just a recording.
Then the gospel choir kicks in and the episode officially becomes my all time favorite.
An account created three months ago, named after a Babylon 5 character, and your very first comment is under this post about Babylon 5. Checks out.
You forgot fighting against fascism
Kirk fought literal Nazis. Sheridan fought future Nazis. Why did you get downvoted for this comment?
Obviously for bringing politics into a discussion about my beloved politics show
Probably Dukat’s account downvoted.
He’s probably still salty he didn’t get his statue on Bajor.
Don’t forget Archer fighting literal Nazis
I think Archer and his crew were the only ones who fought literal Nazis. Everyone else was fighting some other organization that had just adopted some of their philosophies.
Well, I guess the Nazis Kirk fought weren’t humans from Earth from the 20th century, but I recall they wore exactly the same uniforms and had the same symbology.
This was one of the shows that taught me what it looks like and why I should fight like my life depends on it.
Fuck. I have to start another rewatch of the series now.
Came for the interspecies sex, stayed for the drug addicts.
I don’t have a stim problem. They’re legal. I have it under control.
RIP Garibaldi
Dude, the way that show handled not one but two addiction arcs. In the 90s.
I have always wanted to like b5, I have tried to watch it multiple times over the years. I get 3 or 4 episodes into it and lose interest. Maybe it is time to try it out again
Get to episode 8, “And the Sky Full of Stars.” If that doesn’t grab you, then rest assured that the show is just not your thing.
First season? Yeah that one is a bit rough. But the payoff is worth the setup.
From what I remember it start a little slow, but it starts to pick up around half way of the first season and it’s pretty consistenly great after that. It has been while since I rewatched it though
Hmm give this one a go
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0517627/
While it’s not quite the style of the show, it still a fun way to see the whole station and get a taste of the over arching plot stuff.
It definitely blends action, drama, politics, and philosophy like Stat Trek does, but leans far more into drama/politics. I can understand why one might lose interest early on.
I feel this. Sometimes I have to remind myself it took, like, 5 tries on Breaking Bad to get past Walter standing in a desert in his tightie whities.
I think B5 is the one where the test pilot goes too fast and winds up on a big alien spaceship?
I think B5 is the one where the test pilot goes too fast and winds up on a big alien spaceship?
That almost sounds like Farscape
I had the bonus watching Breaking Bad, of being from NM but living in Maryland when I watched it. I was enjoying seeing all the stuff from home.
And yup that is Farscape, another really great sci-fi show.
Like OP said, that’s Farscape, sort of an antithesis to B5. Farscape is action in a ship. B5 is politics in a station.
“Mom, can we get some Babylon 5?”
Mom:
Familiar Faces
G’Kar and Tomalak
General Gauge and Admiral Layton/V’Las
Captain Braxton and Major Ryan
I did not grab the character names when I had made this chart, but here is a list of Babylon 5 actors who appeared in Star Trek. Data sourced from IMDb
table
Actor Star Trek 1 Star Trek 2 Star Trek 3 Star Trek 4 Star Trek 5 Majel Barrett Star Trek Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Star Trek: Enterprise Star Trek: The Next Generation Star Trek: Voyager Eric Pierpoint Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Star Trek: Enterprise Star Trek: The Next Generation Star Trek: Voyager John Fleck Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Star Trek: Enterprise Star Trek: The Next Generation Star Trek: Voyager Thomas Kopache Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Star Trek: Enterprise Star Trek: The Next Generation Star Trek: Voyager Vaughn Armstrong Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Star Trek: Enterprise Star Trek: The Next Generation Star Trek: Voyager John Vickery Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Star Trek: Enterprise Star Trek: The Next Generation Michael Ansara Star Trek Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Star Trek: Voyager Phil Morris Star Trek Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Star Trek: Voyager Christopher Darga Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Star Trek: Enterprise Star Trek: Voyager Jeffrey Combs Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Star Trek: Enterprise Star Trek: Voyager John Schuck Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Star Trek: Enterprise Star Trek: Voyager Aric Rogokos Star Trek: Enterprise Star Trek: Picard Star Trek: Voyager Patricia Tallman Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Star Trek: The Next Generation Star Trek: Voyager Ron Canada Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Star Trek: The Next Generation Star Trek: Voyager Glenn Morshower Star Trek: Enterprise Star Trek: The Next Generation Star Trek: Voyager Bruce Gray Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Star Trek: Enterprise Erick Avari Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Star Trek: Enterprise Robert Foxworth Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Star Trek: Enterprise Walter Koenig Star Trek Star Trek: Picard Malachi Throne Star Trek Star Trek: The Next Generation Julie Caitlin Brown Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Star Trek: The Next Generation Katherine Moffat Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Star Trek: The Next Generation Roy Brocksmith Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Star Trek: The Next Generation Tricia O’Neil Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Star Trek: The Next Generation Andreas Katsulas Star Trek: Enterprise Star Trek: The Next Generation Brian Cousins Star Trek: Enterprise Star Trek: The Next Generation Mark Rolston Star Trek: Enterprise Star Trek: The Next Generation Gerrit Graham Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Star Trek: Voyager J. Patrick McCormack Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Star Trek: Voyager Jeff Austin Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Star Trek: Voyager Leigh McCloskey Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Star Trek: Voyager Marshall R. Teague Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Star Trek: Voyager Patrick Kilpatrick Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Star Trek: Voyager Bill Blair Star Trek: Enterprise Star Trek: Voyager Christopher Neame Star Trek: Enterprise Star Trek: Voyager James Parks Star Trek: Enterprise Star Trek: Voyager Keith Szarabajka Star Trek: Enterprise Star Trek: Voyager Louis Ortiz Star Trek: Enterprise Star Trek: Voyager Nathan Anderson Star Trek: Enterprise Star Trek: Voyager Tucker Smallwood Star Trek: Enterprise Star Trek: Voyager Carel Struycken Star Trek: The Next Generation Star Trek: Voyager Carolyn Seymour Star Trek: The Next Generation Star Trek: Voyager Dwight Schultz Star Trek: The Next Generation Star Trek: Voyager Henry Darrow Star Trek: The Next Generation Star Trek: Voyager Josh Clark Star Trek: The Next Generation Star Trek: Voyager Judson Scott Star Trek: The Next Generation Star Trek: Voyager William Morgan Sheppard Star Trek: The Next Generation Star Trek: Voyager Jeff Corey Star Trek Victor Lundin Star Trek Adrienne Barbeau Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Art Chudabala Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Bennet Guillory Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Bernie Casey Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Bill Mumy Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Blair Valk Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Christopher Michael Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Clayton Landey Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Harry Hutchinson Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Jack Kehler Star Trek: Deep Space Nine James Black Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Julia Nickson Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Juliana Donald Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Kitty Swink Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Mary Kay Adams Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Mike Genovese Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Rosie Malek-Yonan Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Stephen Macht Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Tony Rizzoli Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Tracy Scoggins Star Trek: Deep Space Nine William Dennis Hunt Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Donovan Brown Star Trek: Discovery Brian Freifield Star Trek: Enterprise David A. Kimball Star Trek: Enterprise Diane DiLascio Star Trek: Enterprise Geoff Meed Star Trek: Enterprise Guy Siner Star Trek: Enterprise Jane Carr Star Trek: Enterprise Kate McNeil Star Trek: Enterprise Kris Iyer Star Trek: Enterprise Mark Ginther Star Trek: Enterprise Robert Rusler Star Trek: Enterprise Steven Lambert Star Trek: Enterprise Vince Deadrick Jr. Star Trek: Enterprise Warren Tabata Star Trek: Enterprise Merrin Dungey Star Trek: Picard Tamlyn Tomita Star Trek: Picard Beth Toussaint Star Trek: The Next Generation Clive Revill Star Trek: The Next Generation David L. Crowley Star Trek: The Next Generation David Sage Star Trek: The Next Generation David Warner Star Trek: The Next Generation Jim Norton Star Trek: The Next Generation John Christian Graas Star Trek: The Next Generation John Snyder Star Trek: The Next Generation Katy Boyer Star Trek: The Next Generation Ken Jenkins Star Trek: The Next Generation Lenore Kasdorf Star Trek: The Next Generation Marie Marshall Star Trek: The Next Generation Mark Bramhall Star Trek: The Next Generation Michelan Sisti Star Trek: The Next Generation Paul Winfield Star Trek: The Next Generation Reiner Schöne Star Trek: The Next Generation Robin Curtis Star Trek: The Next Generation Stephen Lee Star Trek: The Next Generation Theodore Bikel Star Trek: The Next Generation Andray Johnson Star Trek: Voyager Anthony Crivello Star Trek: Voyager Anthony De Longis Star Trek: Voyager Beverly Leech Star Trek: Voyager Bill Miller Star Trek: Voyager Brad Dourif Star Trek: Voyager Bruce McGill Star Trek: Voyager Christopher Curry Star Trek: Voyager Daunette Saunders Star Trek: Voyager David Anthony Marshall Star Trek: Voyager Don McMillan Star Trek: Voyager Ed Trotta Star Trek: Voyager Eric Steinberg Star Trek: Voyager Grace Harrell Star Trek: Voyager Greg Poland Star Trek: Voyager Ian Abercrombie Star Trek: Voyager Jean-Luc Martin Star Trek: Voyager Jim Portnoy Star Trek: Voyager Joey Sakata Star Trek: Voyager Joyce Lasley Star Trek: Voyager Justin Williams Star Trek: Voyager Kerry Hoyt Star Trek: Voyager Lou Slaughter Star Trek: Voyager Marie Chambers Star Trek: Voyager Marjorie Monaghan Star Trek: Voyager Marva Hicks Star Trek: Voyager Mel Winkler Star Trek: Voyager Michael Bailey Smith Star Trek: Voyager Michael Kagan Star Trek: Voyager Michael N. Fujimoto Star Trek: Voyager Mirron E. Willis Star Trek: Voyager Musetta Vander Star Trek: Voyager Pablo Espinosa Star Trek: Voyager Paul Williams Star Trek: Voyager Peter Wick Star Trek: Voyager Richard Chaves Star Trek: Voyager Robin Sachs Star Trek: Voyager Russ Fega Star Trek: Voyager Sam Alejan Star Trek: Voyager Simon Billig Star Trek: Voyager Susie Stillwell Star Trek: Voyager Tami Peterson Star Trek: Voyager That listing was just off the top of my head. Though the funnier connection is Hague (Robert Foxworth) “died” in B5 because his agent double booked him on DS9 as Layton so they brought in Ryan (Bruce McGill). There is even a funny outtake where McGill references it. Even funnier is the producers intended to get Everett McGill but got names mixed up and got Bruce instead
If they were asked to find ‘that McGill guy’ nowadays they might have turned up Bob Odenkirk or Michael McKean.
Missed opportunity to make the first column “Jeffery Combs as:”
Don’t forget Brad Dourif as a creepy murderer and Brad Dourif as a creepy murderer
Brad Dourif as a creepy murderer
