Speculation about Babylon 5's upcoming 20th anniversary
By
Atomic_Saint,
Posted on: 2012-05-07 09:20 in Comic and Hero-Villain Culture
Honestly this is one series that should be left alone. Don't get me wrong. I loved Babylon 5. I printed the "Lurker's Guide " spoilers dutifully every week before it was aired. I cried like a baby at Sleeping in Light.
But... It was as some would say, a "fixed point in time." We've seen the characters 20 years out. We know what happens to them. This was truly a story with a beginning, middle, and end.
And lets be honest, the spin offs weren't all that hot. The only TV movies that were any good in my opinion were In the Beginning and a Call to Arms. The Legend of the Rangers suffered terribly from Dragonball syndrome. And Crusade, although having some potential, was killed in one of those TNT wars that were unwinnable.
To sum up, I would say run a marathon. Have a retrospective. maybe some cast interviews. Release a directors cut. But the story itself has been told. It was great, but it doesn't need a sequel.
56 attempts later, Master of the Keyes Island Reactor. Bite Me, Anti Matter.
Quote:
Yeah like I implied before at this point anything "new" for Babylon 5 would pretty much have to be a reboot with an entirely new cast. But unlike something like Star Trek which was mainly episodic in nature the "story" of B5 has already been told so it doesn't really need to be told again.|
Originally Posted by Atomic_Saint
To sum up, I would say run a marathon. Have a retrospective. maybe some cast interviews. Release a directors cut. But the story itself has been told. It was great, but it doesn't need a sequel.
|
I suppose at some point someone might try the Battlestar Galactica treatment on it but in some ways I think the new BSG worked only because it had been long enough since the original show from the late 70s for that to finally need an update. Maybe B5 just needs to wait another 10 or 20 years before someone tries it again.
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Of the TV movies I enjoyed The Gathering, IN the Beginning, Thirdspace and Call to Arms. River of Souls was nice as it brought back the Soul Hunters and gave us a glimpse into how they think and operate. Legend of the Rangers was mediocre. |
Originally Posted by Atomic_Saint
Honestly this is one series that should be left alone. Don't get me wrong. I loved Babylon 5. I printed the "Lurker's Guide " spoilers dutifully every week before it was aired. I cried like a baby at Sleeping in Light.
But... It was as some would say, a "fixed point in time." We've seen the characters 20 years out. We know what happens to them. This was truly a story with a beginning, middle, and end. And lets be honest, the spin offs weren't all that hot. The only TV movies that were any good in my opinion were In the Beginning and a Call to Arms. The Legend of the Rangers suffered terribly from Dragonball syndrome. And Crusade, although having some potential, was killed in one of those TNT wars that were unwinnable. To sum up, I would say run a marathon. Have a retrospective. maybe some cast interviews. Release a directors cut. But the story itself has been told. It was great, but it doesn't need a sequel. |
Crusade: network vs. JMS killed that series. Too bad to, it had much to offer.
Quote:
JMS has stated that if WB wants to talk to him about big cinema treatment for B5 he'd be interested, so a movie reboot isn't out of the question. |
Originally Posted by Lothic
Yeah like I implied before at this point anything "new" for Babylon 5 would pretty much have to be a reboot with an entirely new cast. But unlike something like Star Trek which was mainly episodic in nature the "story" of B5 has already been told so it doesn't really need to be told again.
I suppose at some point someone might try the Battlestar Galactica treatment on it but in some ways I think the new BSG worked only because it had been long enough since the original show from the late 70s for that to finally need an update. Maybe B5 just needs to wait another 10 or 20 years before someone tries it again. |
However I'd still like to see movies or a series about Babylon 4 and Valen. We know that Valen drives the Shadows away for another 1000 years, but did Valen figure out the same answers that Sheridan did and knew that he couldn't just tell the Vorlons and Shadows to get lost as that might upset history? Per the book of G'Kwan as G'kar read it: "the darkness let loose a terrible scream that destroyed the mindwalkers, and their children and their children's children. But the darkness was driven away by G'kwan and the last surviving mindwalkers." So we can infer that the Shadows were using Narn like they wanted to use Centauri Prime, but there was basically a Shadows vs. Narn Telepath War.
Plus the question of the Vorlons of that era scanning Valen/Sinclair's mind and thus learning of the future and thus deciding to make sure the future happens or else all may be lost. In the comic miniseries "In Valen's Name" we see that Valen very much wanted to leave Delenn a warning message that would have averted the Earth Mimbar war, but a Vorlon appeared to him and they had a telepathic arguement and in the end Valen reluctantly realized that he must fulfill the future but can never change it. Without that war there would be no Babylon project which means no Babylon 4 and thus no Valen.
But what else did the Vorlons do, thanks to the future knowledge that Sinclair/Valen had? Did they study Earth more as a result? Did they take steps to ensure that the Sinclair family line would survive so that Sinclair is born in the future? Did they somehow give Delenn a mental "nudge" to get her to choose Sinclair's fighter to be brought in for examination and interrogation of Sinclair during the Battle of the Line? Was it Sinclair's future knowledge that made them go to Earth and adjust humans to produce telepaths?
Plus how difficult it must have been at first for Valen to be accepted by the Mimbari, much less stopping the internal caste conflicts and forming the Grey Council and creating the Rangers.
Many stories to be told of the Babylon 4 era.
Even the creation of the machine of Epsilon 3 for that matter......
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Originally Posted by Nericus
I believe you can watch it on WB's site and on Hulu.
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sadly not all the seasons are up on Hulu....
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The complete seasons range from 15 bucks to 25 bucks on amazon, so there's that.
I
56 attempts later, Master of the Keyes Island Reactor. Bite Me, Anti Matter.
Quote:
The scripts for the next 3 episodes were available for a limited time, but I can't find them. Apparently, there was supposed to be an episode where the crew dealt with the secret Earth organization that helped build those Shadow/Earth hybrid ships.
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Originally Posted by Nericus
Crusade: network vs. JMS killed that series. Too bad to, it had much to offer.
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I'll be celebrating the 20th anniversary by going to Redemption 2013, the best SciFi con in the multiverse.
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If memory serves, Galen was there to aid them in seeking a cure but also to keep Shadow tech out of Earth hands and there was going to be a conspiracy arc about that. |
Originally Posted by starphoenix
The scripts for the next 3 episodes were available for a limited time, but I can't find them. Apparently, there was supposed to be an episode where the crew dealt with the secret Earth organization that helped build those Shadow/Earth hybrid ships.
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Also the cure was to be found midway through season 2, and then the series would focus on what happened to the Captain's ship that was destroyed while he was EVA, and an overall larger conspiracy. Plus I think JMS wanted the Captain killed for a bit only to be revived by that "Apocalypse Box" that he had.
I turned my DVD subscription back on with Netflix and have been (re)watching B5 with my daughter. We're just about through with season 1.
I was reading some of the B5 wiki pages and was reminded there is a B5 ranger named Marcus Cole! I wonder why CoH never got in trouble for using that name?
We don' need no stinkin' signatures!
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Probably because Marcus Cole and Statesman are very clearly two entirely different people.|
Originally Posted by Suspicious_Pkg
I turned my DVD subscription back on with Netflix and have been (re)watching B5 with my daughter. We're just about through with season 1.
I was reading some of the B5 wiki pages and was reminded there is a B5 ranger named Marcus Cole! I wonder why CoH never got in trouble for using that name? |
Now if Statesman wore brown robes, spoke with a british accent, fought with a stick and kept on talking about The One, then there'd be an issue.
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