Contains a Babylon 5 spoiler
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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 know what? You convinced me, I’ll give it a try.
It is, wholeheartedly, one of my most favorite shows of all time. It’s one of the ones that shaped me as a human being.
Just try and give the exiting actors and resulting plot hiccups a little mercy. There was a lot happening in the real world for all of them, and some things are more important than television.
Just try and give the exiting actors and resulting plot hiccups a little mercy
Sinclair > Sheridan
Though I get that the actor had mental health issues and decided he would rather quit entirely than stall production and possibly lead to the show’s premature cancellation.
You know the episode of DS9 where Sisko and Garrick commit war crimes?
It’s like that episode, the show.
Only scifi show I can think of to present peace negotiations with the same degree of dramatic tension as they give to the rest of the war.
The first season is pretty bad, but necessary to set up the various arcs.
Season 4 crammed the final two major plot arcs into it because they thought they were getting cancelled. But then they didn’t. Season 5 is almost entirely filler.
In fact, once you finish Season 4, I’d recommend jumping right to the series finale (last episode of S5) and watching that. Then watch Season 5 from the beginning and think of it as a spin-off show that didn’t go anywhere.
This was how I went through my last rewatch of the series a few years ago and it was perfect.
S1 is overall more watchable than I usually give it credit for, but there is some atrocious acting at times. And some of the sets are rough
And maybe just skip the pilot.
The pilot is an odd one. On one hand it does start some story arcs. On the other, the production is a rather large step off.
Maybe it’s one to go back and watch at the end of S1.
It took me a while, so I’ll tell you it starts to pick up steam halfway through first season and hooks you before the first season finale.
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.
“Mom, can we get some Babylon 5?”
Mom:
Love Babylon5, excellent series!
Pretty much every scene involving Londo and G’Kar is solid gold. Although every time Peter Jurasik appears on screen with his very odd accent for Londo, my mind goes like: “Oh, here’s The (space) Count from Sesame Street again!”
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]
It has been a while since my last rewatch.
It was the dawn of the third age of mankind – ten years after my last rewatch.
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.
last best hope for peace was a truck stop
Picture I found of Babylon-5:
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)
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
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
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
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
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.
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.
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 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.
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
