Babylon 5

[wcw43921]

 

8 minutes ago, dmjalund said:

elsewhere I suggested Nathan Fillion

 

Yes, Fillion is a good actor, but to my knowledge he has not appeared in any Star Trek movie or TV series.

[Tjack]

    Bester needs someone who can pull off dry wit, and a strange likeability while being dead eyed cold and totally ruthless. Ladies & Gentlemen, boys & girls I give you..........Marc Sheppard.

    He’s already played characters with all these traits in Supernatural and Leverage.   Look him up on IMDb.

[dmjalund]

 

[Ninja-Bear]

I’m going to wait to see. It’s nice that JMS is doing the series but even the words reimagining has me cringing..

[Pariah]

There's been a lot of sturm und drang online about the new Babylon 5 series being "too woke" because it's on CW. In response, someone pointed out that the original series was essentially the story of an interracial couple fighting fascists in space.

[Bazza]

As someone who has never watched B5, how much of a big deal, if any deal, really, was made that the leading couple was interracial? 
 

Or, was it just accepted that the actor & actress were the best for their roles and by point of comparison, they had different melanin levels within their skin/eyes/hair/etc. 

[Pariah]

They were from two different races who had engaged in a genocidal war only a decade before the show began.

[Greywind]

Delenn got the worst of it from her own people that knew the truth about Valen.

[Spence]

13 hours ago, Pariah said:

JMS's full Twitter statement. - "To answer all the questions, yes, it’s true, Babylon 5 is in active development as a series for the CW.

--snip---

 

And this is where my optimism comes from. 

 

I loved the original BSG for all of its 70s camp.

I loved the first seasons of the BSG reboot before they went off the rails to mysticism. 

 

B5 is still one of my favorite series and I still watch it on disc. 

 

With the original on-board and with control I am very optimistic.  If it is all true on the creative control front.

 

[Spence]

4 hours ago, Pariah said:

There's been a lot of sturm und drang online about the new Babylon 5 series being "too woke" because it's on CW. In response, someone pointed out that the original series was essentially the story of an interracial couple fighting fascists in space.

 

Having a great cast from a wide diversity and including a wide variety of views in miles, thousands of miles away from the toxic hate that is "woke".  Though the woke try to say they are just being diverse and ry to say they are like old Trek and stuff.  "Woke" is the deliberate arbitrary swapping based not on fit for a role but to just meet a check list while actively villifying and spreading hate against others. 

 

BSG changed Starbuck from male to female in a way that was completely believable and Sackoff carried off the role very well. 

 

The current crop of "woke" contaminated shows just swap things out arbitrarily and then haphazardly try to paste on some kind of story. 

 

But the big problem issue is from the toxic bigoted hypocrites of the world camouflaging themselves behind the regular non-hateful ones.  

 

For TV and movies spreading the casting net as wide as possible to find the best performer for the part is the object. 

To demand the selections be based on a predefined list of acceptable races/genders us plain evil regardless of who is on the list. 

 

 

 

 

[unclevlad]

11 hours ago, Tjack said:

    Bester needs someone who can pull off dry wit, and a strange likeability while being dead eyed cold and totally ruthless. Ladies & Gentlemen, boys & girls I give you..........Marc Sheppard.

    He’s already played characters with all these traits in Supernatural and Leverage.   Look him up on IMDb.

 

That's assuming the Psi Corps plotline even is included in the reboot.

 

You're providing a great argument for why the plot lines WON'T be.

2 minutes ago, Spence said:

Having a great cast from a wide diversity and including a wide variety of views in miles, thousands of miles away from the toxic hate that is "woke".  Though the woke try to say they are just being diverse and ry to say they are like old Trek and stuff.  "Woke" is the deliberate arbitrary swapping based not on fit for a role but to just meet a check list while actively villifying and spreading hate against others. 

 

 

And this is an even stronger argument.  Mostly different characters and storylines should preclude any such debate from even arising.

[Spence]

2 hours ago, Bazza said:

As someone who has never watched B5, how much of a big deal, if any deal, really, was made that the leading couple was interracial? 
 

Or, was it just accepted that the actor & actress were the best for their roles and by point of comparison, they had different melanin levels within their skin/eyes/hair/etc. 

There wasn't any deal.  Everyone I knew that saw the show just accepted it as the show.  The only time I can remember anything is recently with the advent of social media with people claiming "they remember" and it is always a routine "toxic male story" or some such.

 

But I can't remember ever seeing anything. Like Worf and Dax.  Fans of the show thought it was cool.  Non-fans didn't watch any way.

[Tjack]

15 minutes ago, Spence said:

But I can't remember ever seeing anything. Like Worf and Dax.  Fans of the show thought it was cool.  Non-fans didn't watch any way.

    One of the best things about Science Fiction TV is how nobody ever seems to look beyond the make-up.   A point is being made here that Sheridan and Delenn are two separate races when they’re actually both “White” but nobody ever blinked an eye at Michael Dorn and Terry Farrell being in love scenes together.  The ‘90’s were better about race issues than previous eras, but there was never anything about the subject other than as a Klingon/Trill relationship.

   Star Trek has always been a forerunner in racial issues within the show,but it’s nice to see how it plays out in the real world.

[DShomshak]

Likewise, hopeful but wary.

 

I think when JMS said, "No children or cute robots," he meant as ongoing characters. I hope he sticks to that: There are children on the station, yes, but the same child is not turning up week after week, inexplicaly involved in the serious business of competent adults.

 

Especially, please, no Magic Genius Kid character, a la Wesley Crusher.

 

In the same vein, let any robots be practical machines serving practical purposes, not comic relief. Goodness knows one can tell plenty of serious stories about robot characters, and I wouldn't mind seeing JMS do so, but B5 already has so much to do there would scarcely seem to be room. I suppose, though, a new series could give glimpses of issues and events going on elsewhere.

 

OPn a more frivolous side, remember the ep where Delenn appeared in a dream doing a Tarpt reading? I'd already designed a B5 Tarot by then, and I know I'm not the only person to have done so.

 

EDIT: I revised the B5 Tarot as seasons passed.Here's the final version:

 

THE BABYLON-5 TAROT

 

The Fool Zathras

The Magician Kosh

The High Priestess Delenn

The Empress Ivanova or Lockley

The Emperor Sheridan

The Hierophant Valen

The Lovers Shadow and Vorlon

The Chariot Marcus

Justice Garibaldi

The Hermit Mr. Sebastian, his cane glowing

The Wheel of Fortune Londo

Strength Lyta

The Hanged Man G’Kar

Death Bester (riding over William Edgars)

Temperance Franklin

The Devil Mr. Morden (with Londo and Anna Sheridan in chains)

The Lightning-Struck Tower Whitestar crashing on Z’Ha’Dum

The Star Lennier

The Moon Talia Winters

The Sun Vir

Judgment Lorien

The World Babylon-5, superimposed on Draal in the Great Machine

 

Dean Shomshak

[archer]

I really liked the Centauri mode of dress. That's one thing I really hope carries over into the reboot.

 

It gave a sense of "old world" charm mixed with comic opera which the actors for Londo and Vir pulled off flawlessly.

 

And there's not reason for alien cultures to not dress fancy when compared to most Earth cultures. There's certainly endless alien cultures in TV and film who all wear military paraphernalia or uniforms of some sort (even when not in a military).

 

I also really liked the physical appearance of the Narn's head and eyes. I don't know how expensive or uncomfortable that was for the actors but it looked like believable skin.

 

(On the far end of that spectrum was the appearance of Delenn in the first episode where they made her nosepiece too large and she spent most of her scenes cross-eyed trying to see past it.)

[dmjalund]

4 hours ago, DShomshak said:

The Fool Zathras

Not Zathras, Zathras!

[Pariah]

4 hours ago, DShomshak said:

The Moon Talia Winters

The Sun Vir

 

Shouldn't Vir be The Moon ... as in, "What do you want, you moon-faced assassin of joy?"

[Greywind]

[death tribble]

That might just work

[Pariah]

2 hours ago, Greywind said:

 

That isn't the real cast; they're just The Visitors.

[Jhamin]

10 hours ago, Bazza said:

As someone who has never watched B5, how much of a big deal, if any deal, really, was made that the leading couple was interracial? 
 

Or, was it just accepted that the actor & actress were the best for their roles and by point of comparison, they had different melanin levels within their skin/eyes/hair/etc. 

 

It wasn't front and center in-universe, but it is important to remember that the couple was interracial in the sci-fi sense of the word.  Her people were from another planet & sci-fi stuff caused her to become sort of a mixed human/alien but both actors were Caucasian.  

 

Now we get to how forward thinking the creator wants to be in his re-imagination: His original concept for these two characters was that one would be human and the other alien but both would start out identifying as MALE.  The Sci-Fi stuff that was always intended to make the alien into a half alien/half human was also going to change their gender.  As the plan was that the character would be female for a majority of the series they wanted to cast a woman to play the role and digitally alter their voice during the seasons they were going to be male.  (They were going to have a bunch of Alien makeup anyway so the appearance part was going to be handled there)  Apparently they just couldn't make it non-cringy with mid-nineties era technology on a TV budget.

 

So if he is re-imagining the series, do they go back to plan A?

 

*that* is the kind of stuff that could make a "reimagining" worth watching.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

His original concept for these two characters was that one would be human and the other alien but both would start out identifying as MALE.

 

First I've heard of this theory, sounds like Rowling's retcons of her Harry Potter stories.

[Jhamin]

25 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

First I've heard of this theory, sounds like Rowling's retcons of her Harry Potter stories.

 

Straczynski has been fairly open about this for at least 15 years, so if it is a retcon it's an old one.  The makeup from the pilot movie sort of supports the idea that this was a plan at one point

 

She got a lot more feminine in the series.

 

 

As much as was made of "the plan" (The idea of a series long story, before that was cool) being more or less intact as the show went on JMS has said over the years that while the plot more or less happened as planned thematically, lots of arcs changed as actors came and went or as other actors really made roles their own. 

 

Example: The 1st season time-travel episode had a visibly older main character appear, then when the series got to the "other side" of that time travel story it was revealed that the character had artificially aged because of all the timey-whimey going on.  JMS has said that had the actor stayed with the show the "other side" story would have taken decades later in the timeline and he would have gotten that age the old fashioned way.  Rather than bouncing back and forth in time they would have gone back and accelerated the station forward in time and stayed there.  They weren't going back to help in the last war, they were going forward to help in the *next* one!  That would have *completely* changed that character's fate, but JMS says that was the original plan.  Maybe he is making it up, but that hasn't been his MO or his personality.

 

I'm really kind of curios if this is the stuff that makes it into a reboot.

[dmjalund]

Today's Challenge: create potential Babylon 5 episodes inspired by Abba Songs

[Bazza]

SOS is almost a given. As is Knowing Me Knowing You