Babylon 5 - is this all I need?

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Discussion

Rich_W

12,548 posts

213 months

Wednesday 8th February 2012
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Not a Sci Fi person by any means. But B5 was very good and held my intrest.

Not sure I'd have bought the box set on a whim mind.

chris watton

Original Poster:

22,477 posts

261 months

Wednesday 8th February 2012
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Rich_W said:
Not a Sci Fi person by any means. But B5 was very good and held my intrest.

Not sure I'd have bought the box set on a whim mind.
I am going to Italy for three weeks at the end of next week, so have a couple of very boring weekends and evenings. It has snowed badly, so no chance of getting anywhere so I anticipate I'll be in my hotel room quite a bit after work - hence the rush to buy and back up onto HD a few series. smile

In any case, spending less than £20 on what amounts to 24 DVD's containg 4 episodes each isn't what I'd call frivolous...

Edited by chris watton on Wednesday 8th February 19:51

Happy82

15,077 posts

170 months

Wednesday 8th February 2012
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Just for you Chris Watton hehe

He was exceedingly irritating, was quite glad when the time travelling paedo took him away to 'expand his horizons' laugh

Rich_W

12,548 posts

213 months

Wednesday 8th February 2012
quotequote all
Happy82 said:


Just for you Chris Watton hehe

He was exceedingly irritating, was quite glad when the time travelling paedo took him away to 'expand his horizons' laugh
Don't worry. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wil_Wheaton

He has a Blog you can read! laugh

http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/

nono

chris watton

Original Poster:

22,477 posts

261 months

Wednesday 8th February 2012
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My God!

hehe

rhinochopig

17,932 posts

199 months

Wednesday 8th February 2012
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Interesting B5 fact: The CGI was done on the Commodore Amiga using a video toaster biggrin

Twincam16

27,646 posts

259 months

Thursday 9th February 2012
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Happy82 said:


Just for you Chris Watton hehe

He was exceedingly irritating, was quite glad when the time travelling paedo took him away to 'expand his horizons' laugh
He was, although he wasn't as irritating as plots which revolved entirely around theoretical physics.

In Kirk's era, warp drive was an engine that made a spaceship go really really fast, so they could get from plot twist to plot twist more quickly. The transporter was a dramatic device to get into the action quickly (and avoid having to use the shuttle again, which apparently cost a lot to film). If anything went wrong with it, lots of sparks and smoke came out of the consoles and Scotty got more and more exasperated. Then he'd go to 'fix it' with a toolbox. You didn't need to know how it worked, mainly because it was all made up anyway and acted as a dramatic device in the story, but also because that would cause the story itself to grind to a halt.

But in TNG - oh dear. Entire plots would revolve around something on the ship breaking down. Geordi would pop up from the engine room and come out with a stream of theoretical physics meaningless to anyone who doesn't work with Stephen Hawking on a regular basis, and whole chunks of the plot would revolve around the act of repairing it, rather than the repair becoming a race against time in relation to something else.

It was that which regularly pissed me off when watching TNG. I'd far rather watch Scotty saying 'she cannae tekkit anymooore' while the Enterprise rushed to stop a planet exploding than watch characters faff about with computers and bang on about things like 'warp phase coils', 'Heisenberg compensators' and 'lossy transportation algorithms'. Those episodes (and there were many) were about as interesting as the conversation I had with IT support this morning regarding my email system not working.

Marvindodgers

734 posts

217 months

Thursday 9th February 2012
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Happy82 said:


Just for you Chris Watton hehe

He was exceedingly irritating, was quite glad when the time travelling paedo took him away to 'expand his horizons' laugh
WHEATON!!!

toasty

7,512 posts

221 months

Thursday 9th February 2012
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B5 > BSG IMHO

Odie

4,187 posts

183 months

Thursday 9th February 2012
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Space, Above and Beyond. Anyone?

Mr E

21,734 posts

260 months

Thursday 9th February 2012
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rhinochopig said:
Interesting B5 fact: The CGI was done on the Commodore Amiga using a video toaster biggrin
Only for the first series I think.

And Mr Wheaton is a proper geek who doens't take himself very seriously. I rather like him.

Halb

53,012 posts

184 months

Thursday 9th February 2012
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B5 started from series one ep 1 last week on FX. I have watched a few, I find it hard going. I have ffed through a few. I wanna keep with it because so many on here say it's good. I shall keep the faith. It seems more procedural at the moment.


I think BSG is the best, I like Star Trek (not of that modern stuff though, just Kirk and crew), and enjoy sci-fi on a larger level...if it is quality.

Don Veloci

1,936 posts

282 months

Thursday 9th February 2012
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Odie said:
Space, Above and Beyond. Anyone?
Amazed that it has never been picked up by one of the many channels we have these days (Has it?) for regular repeating.
Cannot understand why it was victim to obscure and inconsistent scheduling when I first dicovered it (BBC 2 was it?).


Odie

4,187 posts

183 months

Thursday 9th February 2012
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Don Veloci said:
Odie said:
Space, Above and Beyond. Anyone?
Amazed that it has never been picked up by one of the many channels we have these days (Has it?) for regular repeating.
Cannot understand why it was victim to obscure and inconsistent scheduling when I first dicovered it (BBC 2 was it?).
iirc it was around 2001-2002 when I first saw it, I was working the twilight shift (finishing at Midnight) it was on at about 12.30/1am on BBC2, I used to get in, get changed, get a glass of juice and a pastrami and cheese sandwich and watch it. Its a pretty obscure series but with some really good plots, character per episode plot style similar to alot of modern american stuff.

I think the obscurity is to do with the darkness of it, with it tackling issues of slavery, genoside, some of the episode where very dark for their day. It a bit like starship troopers, that was trying to glorify genoside but make you think by putting you on the side of evil. Im not even sure that was picked up in the mainstream.

Edited by Odie on Thursday 9th February 10:43

Mr E

21,734 posts

260 months

Thursday 9th February 2012
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Halb said:
B5 started from series one ep 1 last week on FX. I have watched a few, I find it hard going.
As discussed, season one is patch (very patchy).

Matt_N

8,905 posts

203 months

Thursday 9th February 2012
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I'm an avid BSG fan and like you recently bought all 5 series of B5, I've had them for a good few weeks now and watched...8 episodes.

I just can't get into it and whoever told you the effects were good was wrong, very wrong. I wouldn't even class them as good for the time, TNG, DS9 and Voyager all have better effects than B5 imo.

freecar

4,249 posts

188 months

Thursday 9th February 2012
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Matt_N said:
I'm an avid BSG fan and like you recently bought all 5 series of B5, I've had them for a good few weeks now and watched...8 episodes.

I just can't get into it and whoever told you the effects were good was wrong, very wrong. I wouldn't even class them as good for the time, TNG, DS9 and Voyager all have better effects than B5 imo.
You've seen 8 out of 110 episodes and now are an expert judge on the special effects?

Do yourself a favour, don't spout off from a perspective of ignorance. Once you've seen more of it you'll realise how silly that statement was, you've already had many people acknowledge season one being terribly filmed in comparison to the rest.

You've still got some truly cringeworthy effects coming too, season one truly is like a low budget version of 60s doctor who!

vxr8mate

1,655 posts

190 months

Thursday 9th February 2012
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You could almost miss the entire 1st season and just skip to the 2nd. Its later on they start referring back to what happened in the first season and then there’s not much of a reference.

chris watton

Original Poster:

22,477 posts

261 months

Thursday 9th February 2012
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vxr8mate said:
You could almost miss the entire 1st season and just skip to the 2nd. Its later on they start referring back to what happened in the first season and then there’s not much of a reference.
I shall skip the 1st season then, and start at the 2nd. I can always watch the 1st if I need to at any point...

Edited by chris watton on Thursday 9th February 16:43

freecar

4,249 posts

188 months

Thursday 9th February 2012
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chris watton said:
vxr8mate said:
You could almost miss the entire 1st season and just skip to the 2nd. Its later on they start referring back to what happened in the first season and then there’s not much of a reference.
I shall skip the 1st season then, and start at the 2nd. I can always watch the 1st if I need too at any point...
Agreed, season one is not needed!

I've just finished the second to last episode of season four (the second to last episode of real story) and I've been on tenterhooks for most of the last six or seven episodes! It really is good!