Babylon 5 vs Star Trek

alfaholic said:
Just finished the first episode... Oh... Soooo Americanized!
There are a few moments when I needed a bucket because I thought I was gonna throw up, but I did not, good for me.
The commander is acting like cowboy with that John Wayne macho face, and everything he said was so pathetic, oh...

But, I will watch further, I hope this will get better.
This suppose to look like future, with more global approach, if I wanted to watch American propaganda, I will watch the news, or some Disney cartoon where all the animals lives American way of life. Sooo bad...
Click to expand...

Yes, I did warn you in advanced that the first season is painful to watch, particularly the performance of Michael O'Hare as Commander Jeffrey Sinclair. However, don't give up after watching three episodes. I suggest that you skip most of the first season episodes and see the following in chronological order: "And The Sky Full of Stars", "Deathwalker", "Believers", "By Any Means Necessary", "Signs and Portents" (this particular episode is very important to see), "Legacies", "A Voice in the Wilderness" parts 1 and 2, "Babylon Squared", "The Quality of Mercy", and the season finale, "Chrysalis", and then see if you want to continue. Give it a fair chance! :)
 
My friend has the same issue. He's off sick at the moment so i've been trying to encourage him into getting into the series by cherry picking a few from the second series so taht he can begin to understand the complexity of the ongoing story and the achievement that B5 represents in story telling. He's getting there. (Started him with the Coming of Shadows and from there he watch Gropos and enjoyed it. I've now recommended The Long Twilight Struggle and Severed Dreams. Hopefully, he'll want to watch it end to end.)
 
Its a shame that you have to cherry pick the episodes in season 1 to make the whole thing watchable. I agree with the list however. Wheras I felt that BSG hit the ground running and died towards the end. B5 was a slow birth and went from strength to strength.
 
Wow!!!

Unless your moderators got RSI weeding out the nut-jobs this is the least "I-picked-my-team-and-I's-Sticking-with-it" forum I have EVER seen when it comes to B5 Vs Star Trek.

The main difference between the shows is the way they perceive Sci-Fi as a genre, and I'll preface my point by saying that I do like both shows, but for very different reasons.

Star Trek has the most perfectly formed 'world' in almost any fiction I have seen, it's just the stories that mostly suck.

We know apartheid was wrong, we don't need to see an allegory of it where Jem'Ha'Dar make the Klingons on their colony sit at the back of the shuttle craft to get it. We don't need a re-telling of easops fables where the crafty Romulan makes the greedy Ferengi sing so he can steal the food. And we never, never, never EVER EVER need to see anyone stuck in a god-damn holodeck ever again. If it wasn't for the holodeck going wrong, and there was some sort of space RAC to tow the enterprise when the engines broke, about a third of the episodes wouldn't even exist.

But on that odd occasion when it was good, it was very good, even some of Voyager. Although that said, there must have only been about five good episodes that weren't two-parters or about the borg across the entire franchise, but damn those two-parters were usually very decent. Ironically, the only two-parter that was awful was about the borg, some kind of a double-negative going on there I think (Unimatrix 0 if you need to ask.)

To the producers, they had the setting, and the ship, and characters that everyone loved (the characters were great, Janeway is one of my favourite characters ever, even though Voyager is the worst trek ever), and they didn't care, thinking sci-fi fans will watch anything with the odd laser-pistol thrown in it, and the fact it made money for so long, even when it was at it's worst, kind of proved them right.

Babylon 5 was an idea that worked, one which revolutionised genre fiction on T.V. (if it wasn't for the story-arc in Babylon 5 proving that it worked to TV execs, never mind not having Galactica re-dux, we wouldn't have even had stuff like the Wire or the Sopranos either.)

B5 is my favourite TV show EVER, for the story and the scripts, and only for the story and the scripts, because lets face it, the aliens, and the spaceships, and the action sequences and stuff were all a bit $**T. I'm talking about their design, not their implementation which easily outstripped Trek.

i.e. Not every Minbari is virtually identical in every single way to every single other one that doesn't want to learn to be more like humans. You can't say that about Klingons, but they don't look like the only kid at school who didn't get their mum to make their Halloween costume and did it themselves, whereas Delen and G'Kar do.

Babylon 5 set out to tell an epic story within a star-trek style universe, and while it did the first bit amazingly well, it never got the universe up to star trek standards, although to be fair trek did have like forty years of working on that behind them before B5 even formed as an idea in JMS's head.

I'm an aspiring Sci-Fi writer myself, and if i only get one of those things right, I'd rather make the next Babylon 5 than the next Stark Trek, but I'd still watch the next star trek.

I'd never pitch a script to them mind, just in case they robbed the whole story arc like they did when they stole/made DS9 :D

Jammill
 
I have to disagree with you in regards to the design of the ships and the space battles. B5 had some of the most incredible ship designs in SF (The White Star? The Shadows? The Omega Destroyers). I also thought that the battle sequences outstripped much SF before it and still rate them pretty highly now. (that's my opinion anyway.)

As for Standards, i feel that's more down to budget than anything. I think that an episode of B5 cost half as much as DS9? That's a lot of effects.
 
Bearing that in mind, even with the state of the art in those days (which was pretty darned good), because they used CGI they were able to keep costs of model-building down to a very manageable level. Unfortunately that didn't leave them with much in the kitty, anyway, as they were already on a tight budget, hence the (compared with Trek) Army-And-Navy-Stores uniforms and bedsheet costumes.

I actually thought they did a mighty fine job with alien make-up, though. No more "funny foreheads and fangs", as were the staple of aliens throughout the Trek franchise, but chins as well! And sometimes the aliens even looked - alien! What's not to love about the Vorlon designs?
 
I think the most impressive thing about Babylon 5 overall is how many of the characters change (or, in some cases, how our views of them change) over the whole span of the show. It demonstrates, in terms of character development, why shows mostly set in one place can be superior to those whizzing about the galaxy (in a ship or via a wormhole): we get to live with the "bad" guys as well as the "good" guys, even when they're incidental to a particular episode's story.

DS9 was able to do this to some extent, but the writers were hampered by the space station's purpose and ownership: it was still a Star Fleet installation, with other species visiting; most of the main species had a permanent presence on Babylon 5.
 
That is very much the major appeal of the series for me. There are many moments of true pathos as characters are hauled through the burning coals. Here is one place you won't find anyone "going back to normal" by the following week's episode.

But authors and screen writers please note: Very rarely is the dramatic twist anything to do with anyone falling in love, getting pregnant, being unfaithful, discovering a long-lost relative, being (or falling under the spell of) a sexual predator, accidentally killing a close friend or relative or any of other domestic crises which, while of undoubted impact in RL, are really, really lame in drama and ought to be left to soaps and the worst of sit-coms. Or Voyager. Or, in a pinch, Shakespeare :eek:
 
I actually thought they did a mighty fine job with alien make-up, though. No more "funny foreheads and fangs", as were the staple of aliens throughout the Trek franchise, but chins as well! And sometimes the aliens even looked - alien! What's not to love about the Vorlon designs?
Click to expand...

And they didn't all come speaking American English as standard on first contact, and breathing Oxygen. Some of the aliens in B5 looked, well, alien. And some of the humans looked, and acted, like human beings. Albeit American TV versions of human beings. Some of them even had credible sex lives - even - gasp! - a homosexual encounter!

The thing that strikes me about B5 is that the writer/s were writing SF and telling the story in a TV format. Star Trek looks for the most part like it was episodic TV written in an SF milieu. They have a superficial similarity but are very different beasties. Like Dr Suess said:

How To Tell A Klotz From A Glotz
Well, the Glotz, you will notice,
has lots of black spots.
The Klotz is quite different
with lots of black dots.
But the big problem is
that the spots on a Glotz
are about the same size
as the dots on a Klotz.
So you first have to spot
who the one with the dots is.
Then it’s easy to tell
who the Klotz or the Glotz is.
 
Rodders - Like I said, it was the design, not the implementation, of the ships that put me off. The sequences were well directed and realistic (momentum, no sounds to make it more interesting), but the designs of the ships were all wrong, far too curvy and sleek and naturalistic, so while they looked cool, they looked wrong and not very realistic (the White Star especially.) With the Vorlons it worked though (as did the 'make-up' effects for the suit) The Human and Narn ships however were just boring.

As for the budget, I think I read somewhere that the feature length pilot for DS9 was about half the budget for the entire first season of B5. Don't quote me on that, I'm not 100% sure it's true, but it sounds and looks like it coulda' been.


Ursa Major/Interference/JunkMonkey - That was my point exactly, those bits were done so great, and so much better than Trek manages on its best day, you can forgive the fact the Aliens looked like the circa 1970's Doctor Who effects team did them, especially because they did try to do some races that were hugely different (even the Narn look less human-like than most Trek races, never mind the Pack'Ma'Ran or whatever they were called, they were very original.) They did get a lot better in the second series, up to 1980's Doctor Who standard in some places :D

And Interference, yes the Vorlons were VERY cool, even from the first episode. When everybody had to wear a suit to go see Kosh, even though he was still in his own suit with breathing apparatus on it just like he was outside his apparently needlessly hermetically sealed room, and I realised it was all just part of the self-created mystique for effect, my interest was piqued, and it never went back down. Hell, the first time I watched the episode 'Interludes And Examinations' I didn't sleep for two days I was that worked up by it, it's what inspired me to try and become a writer.

I can forgive that a lot of it looks cheap, everything did back then apart from Trek, but I'll never forget how good it actually is behind those poor effects.

P.S. JunkMonkey, the lesbian thing was really childish, peripheral, badly worked out and seemed tacked on just to get the 'first gay in space award.' If hadn't have been the butchest woman in the universe who turned gay, or had been a male who wouldn't have titillated the sci-fi crowd as much, it might have worked. I'm sure if anyone could have done it well it would have been JMS, but personally it was the only point in the storyline that didn't work for me.


Jammill
 
It's a while since I saw it but I don't remember it being that childish (or peripheral - I mean we all knew Marcus was barking up the wrong tree from the moment he laid his puppy dog eyes on her).

I remember it being an 'At Last' moment for me. At last, a vaguely Gay, non-comic character in a SF show. Quite a breakthrough - though hard to believe these days. TV SF has grown up a lot since. I mean it seemed to be part of the job description in Torchwood to be flexibly orientated ('alien meat' anyone?), Farscape had two of its characters enjoying a game of 'Hide D'argo's sausage' in the opening credits of one series, and Firefly had a paid courtesan as a central character and an episode which opened on the hero nude. And as for Gaius Balthesar's ménage a trois with two robots...
 
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Hello everyone, again. :)

After my last post I continued to watch Babylon 5 so I am now at the middle of season 3, just watched two episodes about Babylon 4 missing. :cool:

First of all, I would like to apologize to everyone because of my premature reaction, I always need more time than usual to get used to anything new I try.

Yes, it is Americanized a little bit more than my stomach can handle, but not all the time, just from time to time.
Michael O'Hare was sometime like cowboy, Bruce Boxleitner is a little bit better, but now at the middle of the season 3 when I saw them together, they are not so bad.

I like it because I understand it now. The story is very interesting, even without so much of that "Star Trek like" episodes with science, mysteries, and even with boring soap opera themes, religion, and human-alien mental problems, and dilemmas.

Yes, you can see at every corner that they have just a few bucks to make it, some scenes are happening to fast, they look cheap, logos, uniforms, aliens, you can see a big Star Trek influence in the Babylon 5, but still it is good so far.
Actors are new to me, Delain - Mira Furlan is from my country, and I know she is very good actress, and the rest of them are very good.

I will write more after finish all series and movies, now I am enjoying watching Babylon 5, but I will have the real image in my head afeter I finish B5 and watch again Star Trek. :)
Sorry again for my broken English...
 
You should hear how it's sometimes spoken, and see how it's sometimes written, here in England.... :rolleyes:


Don't feel bad about your initial reaction, by the way. Most shows take time to really get going.

And kudos to you for having the patience to stick with it. :)
 
It's nice to see a new fan. Stick with it and i'll be very interested to see how you feel the two compare.
 
Can someone help me with watching order of the series, and movies?

The Gathering
Season 1
Season 2
Season 3
In the Beginning
Season 4 - Episode 8
Thirdspace
Season 4 - Rest
Season 5 - Episode 21
River of Souls
Season 5 - last 2 episodes
Call to Arms
Crusade
 
I personally prefer to watch the Series 1 to 5 first then the movies and then Crudade.

To be honest, (and with the exception of In the Beginning), the movies don't add that much to the storyline.

Crusade turned out to be pretty decent and it's a shame it was pulled after only one series.
 
Babylon 5 through seasons 1-4 is a masterpiece, but I found the films lacking. Gathering bored me, though In The Beginning was interesting but seemed to myself to contain continuity issues with the series.
 
The original plan was for five seasons, but after season three they got dropped by the network and offered one season to tie everything up on a cable channel (i.e. the equivalent in Britain is getting dropped by BBC and making your new series on Dave), so JMS compressed what was going to happen in seasons 4 and 5 into one...

Its amazing he got most of it in, and knowing that season 4 is more impressive, but it turned out so well that he got given another season, with cast contracts to fulfill/pay-off if he didn't take it up, and just had to throw bits together (with a few of the dropped sub-plots that didn't make into the 'new' season 4, now out of context that the war was over)...

I don't think anybody liked season 5, apart from bits showing earth's demise millions of years in the future, and I'm talking about the people who worked on it as much as the viewers in that...


Jammill
 
People shouldn't dismiss season 5 though as there are still a few outstanding episodes to enjoy.
 
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