Babylon 5 has long been a fan favourite and many had hoped for it to be redeemed.
Indeed, Lost Tales offers such a chance. Of course, surely the point is somewhat missed... B5 was a great show because of characters, story arcs and kiss ass space battles. This seemed to lack... at least two of those. Not only that but it wasn't really a movie but more, two separate episodes.
The first was almost entirely out of character for B5... while religion has played a part of the show in the past, it's never been a focus... here, we suffer some tedious diatribes at the hands of lacklustre Locklear about it in a setting that owes more to The Exorcist than it does to Babylon 5. Making Locklear the main character was a critical misjudgement... she was a one season wonder who had perhaps, two points of interest (neither of which were ineresting) and still she failed... fortunately, she wasn't forced on us like other late comer characters in other show have been.
The second episode, is SHERIDAN... and Galen. It flows a lot more naturally... Galen is a dick, Sheridan is... well, Sheridan. It was a lot more compelling than the first story - which was a lot more relevant. Unlike Locklear's debacle, this played into the general spirit of B5 and, of course... didn't have her horrible acting. Sheridan was solid throughout and the character was... as always, not just a thin excuse for Ivonava (yeah... Locklear wasn't close to being close to being half an Ivonava). While the dilemma this provided was interesting... it really wasn't exciting.
If JMS was doing his best to gain new fans? A lot of money? Well, JMS - you've smoked one too many crack pipes... even HARDCORE fans won't find this that pleasing. It's... at best mediocre. The first tale poor and the second ok... If it's building to something... perhaps it could be good but there's nothing in here to recommend it. It's just so bland... sure, there are some nice touches - quantum space? - like the improved CGI and much, much more detailed model of B5 but really... Pointless.
Showing posts with label Babylon 5. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Babylon 5. Show all posts
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Science fiction has an unfortunate habit... it likes to put humanity on a pedestal. Somehow, we're just this awesomely wonderful race. Special and wonderful and just lovely. What does it mean?
Basically - humanity isn't much. People think that humanity is the greatest thing ever. Destined to heal the universe, ascend to a higher plane and so and so forth. Even Babylon 5 thought that humans were pretty amazing... despite our lack of comparative technological advancement. Not that it really spelt out all that much.
Unlike Star Trek - which went "Oh by the way, Humans are pretty much awesome and will become omnipotent!" and SG-1, which said "Humans are descended from omnipotent beings!" Hell, Star Trek had the stupidest episode ever where an act of immense stupidity - wilful exposure to a deadly virus - was expounded to make humans somehow special... especially stupid, I'd say.
Farscape was better. It liked to point out that humanity was - of the species shown - the shortest lived, the least resilient... just generally not that great. Which is somewhat ironic given the fact that 99% of races in Star Trek lived easily twice as long as Humans. Men in Black also playfully poked fun.
Dr. Who seems to be uncertain - at times, The Doctor is keen on humanity. Lauding humanity for going off and exploring, then going off about how humanity are "the monsters"... Still, given the focus of the show - especially as it is now - he pretty much has to be enamoured with humans... or the show wouldn't work.
Also, human morality - that is to say Judeo-Christian flag waving, truth, justice and the American Way morality - is the best in the universe and superior to all. Realism isn't an object, eh?
Basically - humanity isn't much. People think that humanity is the greatest thing ever. Destined to heal the universe, ascend to a higher plane and so and so forth. Even Babylon 5 thought that humans were pretty amazing... despite our lack of comparative technological advancement. Not that it really spelt out all that much.
Unlike Star Trek - which went "Oh by the way, Humans are pretty much awesome and will become omnipotent!" and SG-1, which said "Humans are descended from omnipotent beings!" Hell, Star Trek had the stupidest episode ever where an act of immense stupidity - wilful exposure to a deadly virus - was expounded to make humans somehow special... especially stupid, I'd say.
Farscape was better. It liked to point out that humanity was - of the species shown - the shortest lived, the least resilient... just generally not that great. Which is somewhat ironic given the fact that 99% of races in Star Trek lived easily twice as long as Humans. Men in Black also playfully poked fun.
Dr. Who seems to be uncertain - at times, The Doctor is keen on humanity. Lauding humanity for going off and exploring, then going off about how humanity are "the monsters"... Still, given the focus of the show - especially as it is now - he pretty much has to be enamoured with humans... or the show wouldn't work.
Also, human morality - that is to say Judeo-Christian flag waving, truth, justice and the American Way morality - is the best in the universe and superior to all. Realism isn't an object, eh?
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Babylon 5... a name that will set the pulse of sci-fi fans the world over racing.
It seems that only a decade later that something has surpassed it - and that's Heroes... which is a wholly different proposition in its attitude, setting and style... so for the moment, let us focus on more "pure" sci-fi. Just why is it that Babylon 5 didn't lead to more "video novel" style shows?
It would be fair to say that the only things that really came close to B5 were Farscape and BSG.
Farscape took a while to get up and running - though, it could be argued that this was the case with B5... but really, even the pilot was setting up plot points for the future - but when it did, it actually became something approaching a serial. Of course, then Sci-Fi went and axed it... despite it being their highest rated show. While the show still had plenty of "oh no! A PROBLEM!" the bit before and after that tended to impart quite a lot of character and drama. It seems clear that there was some kind of envisioned plot... which unfortunately had to be wrapped up rather quickly in Peacekeeper Wars.
The show was certainly esoteric but what made it enjoyable was that the characters - and cast - evolved and changed over the seasons, more than almost any other comparable show... and unlike some shows, where the introduction of new characters felt jarring - a somewhat ironic example being Farscape's own Ben Browder hammered into SG-1 -in Farscape it generally felt natural... but then Farscape seldom conformed to the sci-fi norms. Few other shows have only had one human as a regular character... and TWO weren't even humanoid. Plus, we didn't have any of the "praise truth, justice and the American way!" or "humans are unique and special!" either... In fact, it seemed that the show often went out of its way to point out that humans were pretty rubbish compared to all the other species portrayed.
Still, it had a direction and a continuity that only grew as the show developed. Some have bemoaned it being a soap opera... but really, that's just whinging fanboys who think that any interaction between characters that doesn't involve technobabble or CGI is soap opera and the way the different characters interacted in Farscape was almost certainly what made it such a popular show. Sad that rubbish like Smallville, SG-1 and Voyager gets to run for years and an innovative show like Farscape gets the chop just because it's not cheap... but regardless it maintained a solid narrative that made it a far more interesting proposition than hundreds of cookie cutter episodes.
Battlestar Galactica is interesting... in that it seems to have started out thinking about itself as directed and focused and then lost its way somewhat. Certainly with seasons two and three it felt as if the story episodes had been written and then some generic drama had been introduced. It remains to be seen whether the show can manage to pull itself together to give a more coherent story.
While it may not quite be a B5 or even Farscape in that respect, it does have continuity. It's not a case of Voyager where half the ship is destroyed one week and then next week it's back to normal... resources do tend to be a problem for Galactica and the ship has really taken a pounding. The start of season 3 marked one more or less continuous storyline but then after that it was more... things to be attended to.
Regardless of some of the greatly inferior work that JMS has gone on to do since B5 - and Legend Of The Rangers is enough to make anyone raise an eyebrow - there is little doubt that B5 was all alone until Heroes rolled around... and possibly did the concept of a video novel better than B5 itself.
Still, you have to wonder why no one even attempted it again... certainly, B5 wasn't a massive success but it was good television. It is is quite possible that it was simply the force of will and creativity that JMS represented. Perhaps it is simply the difficulty of the feat. Sad that... because episodic pap like Star Trek just spoils it for everyone.
It seems that only a decade later that something has surpassed it - and that's Heroes... which is a wholly different proposition in its attitude, setting and style... so for the moment, let us focus on more "pure" sci-fi. Just why is it that Babylon 5 didn't lead to more "video novel" style shows?
It would be fair to say that the only things that really came close to B5 were Farscape and BSG.
Farscape took a while to get up and running - though, it could be argued that this was the case with B5... but really, even the pilot was setting up plot points for the future - but when it did, it actually became something approaching a serial. Of course, then Sci-Fi went and axed it... despite it being their highest rated show. While the show still had plenty of "oh no! A PROBLEM!" the bit before and after that tended to impart quite a lot of character and drama. It seems clear that there was some kind of envisioned plot... which unfortunately had to be wrapped up rather quickly in Peacekeeper Wars.
The show was certainly esoteric but what made it enjoyable was that the characters - and cast - evolved and changed over the seasons, more than almost any other comparable show... and unlike some shows, where the introduction of new characters felt jarring - a somewhat ironic example being Farscape's own Ben Browder hammered into SG-1 -in Farscape it generally felt natural... but then Farscape seldom conformed to the sci-fi norms. Few other shows have only had one human as a regular character... and TWO weren't even humanoid. Plus, we didn't have any of the "praise truth, justice and the American way!" or "humans are unique and special!" either... In fact, it seemed that the show often went out of its way to point out that humans were pretty rubbish compared to all the other species portrayed.
Still, it had a direction and a continuity that only grew as the show developed. Some have bemoaned it being a soap opera... but really, that's just whinging fanboys who think that any interaction between characters that doesn't involve technobabble or CGI is soap opera and the way the different characters interacted in Farscape was almost certainly what made it such a popular show. Sad that rubbish like Smallville, SG-1 and Voyager gets to run for years and an innovative show like Farscape gets the chop just because it's not cheap... but regardless it maintained a solid narrative that made it a far more interesting proposition than hundreds of cookie cutter episodes.
Battlestar Galactica is interesting... in that it seems to have started out thinking about itself as directed and focused and then lost its way somewhat. Certainly with seasons two and three it felt as if the story episodes had been written and then some generic drama had been introduced. It remains to be seen whether the show can manage to pull itself together to give a more coherent story.
While it may not quite be a B5 or even Farscape in that respect, it does have continuity. It's not a case of Voyager where half the ship is destroyed one week and then next week it's back to normal... resources do tend to be a problem for Galactica and the ship has really taken a pounding. The start of season 3 marked one more or less continuous storyline but then after that it was more... things to be attended to.
Regardless of some of the greatly inferior work that JMS has gone on to do since B5 - and Legend Of The Rangers is enough to make anyone raise an eyebrow - there is little doubt that B5 was all alone until Heroes rolled around... and possibly did the concept of a video novel better than B5 itself.
Still, you have to wonder why no one even attempted it again... certainly, B5 wasn't a massive success but it was good television. It is is quite possible that it was simply the force of will and creativity that JMS represented. Perhaps it is simply the difficulty of the feat. Sad that... because episodic pap like Star Trek just spoils it for everyone.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Hollywood has always been pretty lax when it comes to adhering to science as we understand it - even out with science fiction. The most obvious things that one can expect to see - as the site Intuitor is often at pains to explain - are sparking bullets, the infinite clip, people able to fall substantial distances or smash through windows without injury, the amazing exploding car and of course
Perhaps the favourite science cliche in sci-fi is that anti-gravity is just about THE first thing a space faring race will develop. Not only that but it can be pumped through a ship like central heating and is a thousand times more robust than everything on the ship - including critical systems like... life support. Just about the only time artificial gravity ever failed were in Star Trek VI - The Undiscovered Country... and very briefly in the B5 TV movie - In The Beginning.
They really ought to try and build consoles with the same technology... because they do explode an awful lot. It's really saying something about your ship when your biggest worry is a computer blowing up in your face, rather than explosive decompression. Probably not a good thing either. Barring Dell's exploding laptops, there is little in the terms of equivalence.
Of course, these are generic sci-fi clichés... like the starfighters acting like they're in an atmosphere or Star Trek space battles being akin to being fought by pick-ups being driven around in a car park, firing nerf at one another... they're just things that are done for dramatic effect and such. However, once every few years there is just a film that is so stupidly idiotic that it shouldn't be bothered with.
Sunshine seems to be the next torch bearer, surpassing The Core. OUR SUN IS DYING! ONLY A BOMB THE SIZE OF KANSAS CAN SAVE US! Where to start... the inaccuracy. The fact our dying sun would consume the Earth rather than go off like a light bulb? The idea that a sun that has depleted its (massive) amounts of fuel can't be "reignited" by a bomb... and even if it could, the Earth is 1/109th the diameter of the Sun. Even though, it's akin to throwing a match on a dead fire. Not that logic ever applied to Hollywood.
Perhaps the favourite science cliche in sci-fi is that anti-gravity is just about THE first thing a space faring race will develop. Not only that but it can be pumped through a ship like central heating and is a thousand times more robust than everything on the ship - including critical systems like... life support. Just about the only time artificial gravity ever failed were in Star Trek VI - The Undiscovered Country... and very briefly in the B5 TV movie - In The Beginning.
They really ought to try and build consoles with the same technology... because they do explode an awful lot. It's really saying something about your ship when your biggest worry is a computer blowing up in your face, rather than explosive decompression. Probably not a good thing either. Barring Dell's exploding laptops, there is little in the terms of equivalence.
Of course, these are generic sci-fi clichés... like the starfighters acting like they're in an atmosphere or Star Trek space battles being akin to being fought by pick-ups being driven around in a car park, firing nerf at one another... they're just things that are done for dramatic effect and such. However, once every few years there is just a film that is so stupidly idiotic that it shouldn't be bothered with.
Sunshine seems to be the next torch bearer, surpassing The Core. OUR SUN IS DYING! ONLY A BOMB THE SIZE OF KANSAS CAN SAVE US! Where to start... the inaccuracy. The fact our dying sun would consume the Earth rather than go off like a light bulb? The idea that a sun that has depleted its (massive) amounts of fuel can't be "reignited" by a bomb... and even if it could, the Earth is 1/109th the diameter of the Sun. Even though, it's akin to throwing a match on a dead fire. Not that logic ever applied to Hollywood.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
What is it with sci-fi shows?
You'd think that lessons would be learned from the likes of seminal works such as Farscape and Babylon 5... Farscape with aliens - in the main cast - who weren't actually humanoid with maybe a funny earring or a stripy face and Babylon 5 with it's masterfully constructed plot and continuity.
It seems that even the refreshing Battlestar Galactica is starting to wilt under the continued expectation of excellence. There can be no doubt that BSG understood that sci-fi is not a genre in the true sense of the word... it's merely a backdrop for stories to play out in.
Indeed, many whinging fanboys frequently bemoaned the fact that too often it was about talking and drama and feelings... things your average whinging fanboy would trade in an instant for hours of mindless Matrix Revolution style action. However, I fear that BSG has lost the plot... very literally. It seems as if Ronald D. Moore hasn't taken it upon himself to co-ordinate these episodes...
Oh, naturally, there are some elements of continuity here and more than you'd get in time fillers like Star Trek's Voyager or Stargate and so on... but it feels very much as if a few writers went off and thought "OK, we're off New Caprica - you take episode four, I'll take five, you take six... we'll meet up later and get some kind of continuity."
In a sense, that's how early Farscape felt... but it was far more natural there. With BSG it feels somewhat forced and of course... we have the perpetual Starbuck/Apollo element... LORDS OF KOBOL please, hear this prayer. STOP THAT LOVE QUADRANGLE. It's rubbish, boring and tedious... As if Lee having some forgotten love that he remembered in one episode wasn't enough - given the fact he never seemed to have a problem shagging Starbuck - this is just irritating. The best way to solve this dilemma is just murdering one or more of the participants... and we all know it's minor characters, women and ethnic minorities first... bye bye Dee!
You'd think that lessons would be learned from the likes of seminal works such as Farscape and Babylon 5... Farscape with aliens - in the main cast - who weren't actually humanoid with maybe a funny earring or a stripy face and Babylon 5 with it's masterfully constructed plot and continuity.
It seems that even the refreshing Battlestar Galactica is starting to wilt under the continued expectation of excellence. There can be no doubt that BSG understood that sci-fi is not a genre in the true sense of the word... it's merely a backdrop for stories to play out in.
Indeed, many whinging fanboys frequently bemoaned the fact that too often it was about talking and drama and feelings... things your average whinging fanboy would trade in an instant for hours of mindless Matrix Revolution style action. However, I fear that BSG has lost the plot... very literally. It seems as if Ronald D. Moore hasn't taken it upon himself to co-ordinate these episodes...
Oh, naturally, there are some elements of continuity here and more than you'd get in time fillers like Star Trek's Voyager or Stargate and so on... but it feels very much as if a few writers went off and thought "OK, we're off New Caprica - you take episode four, I'll take five, you take six... we'll meet up later and get some kind of continuity."
In a sense, that's how early Farscape felt... but it was far more natural there. With BSG it feels somewhat forced and of course... we have the perpetual Starbuck/Apollo element... LORDS OF KOBOL please, hear this prayer. STOP THAT LOVE QUADRANGLE. It's rubbish, boring and tedious... As if Lee having some forgotten love that he remembered in one episode wasn't enough - given the fact he never seemed to have a problem shagging Starbuck - this is just irritating. The best way to solve this dilemma is just murdering one or more of the participants... and we all know it's minor characters, women and ethnic minorities first... bye bye Dee!
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