posted
I seriously doubt TNT's "more sex & violence" edicts would have altered the fundamental plot ideas of Crusade, which are STILL the same as everything else JMS has done on TV.
And no, I'm not questioning the acting of the principal characters at all - they very often managed to change a lousy monologue into something quite eloquent. It's the dialogue, pacing, and blocking that annoyed me so damn much. Remember this scene?
[Somewhere on B5, a PRIMARY character talks with a group of extras and the ONE GUY who speaks for them.]
One Guy: We think this, and we ain't changing our minds!
Primary: Oh yeah? Well, you should think this instead, because of this, this, and this, and don't forget this, and of course there's this, and these things too, and my pappy always told me to wash my own socks because it might serve as a barely relateable analogy to the current situation someday. So, to recap, you should do this instead, because of this, this, and this, and don't forget this, and of course there's this, and these things too, and my pappy always told me to wash my own socks because it might serve as a barely relateable analogy to the current situation someday.
One Guy: Okay, fine. But we insist on these conditions.
Primary: Sure. I'll put down a favorable condition of my own, then I'll tell a short joke to my subordinate who's been silent this whole time and we'll all walk away. Cool?
One Guy: We agree. Until next time.
[Exeunt]
What REALLY, REALLY gets me though, is that all too often, the one guy who's speaking for all the extras speaks, and makes decisions for the ENTIRE GROUP, WITHOUT EVEN CONSULTING THEM! And very frequently, the one guy won't even look at his buddies or acknowledge their say. Go ahead and check, you'll see it happens ALL THE TIME. JMS apparently subscribes to the "one guy has a telepathic link to all the other guys, precluding the need for them to do anything but nod" school of scriptwriting. It just plays out so awkwardly and unrealistically, that I fast forward through them these days when going through the DVDs. It certainly doesn't help when they get a mediocre, non theatre-trained actor to be the one guy, and it wrecks the whole scene.
posted
Okay, Galen is a technomage. If you don't think technomages are awesome, you need to go read "The Passing of the Technomages" trilogy. You will learn.
quote:Each one had a deceptive early plot that gave way to a deep dark major plot arc that always involved some previous evils or whatever.
Well, in all fairness that's the basic nature of a lot of epic stories. There's a war, usually a repitition of a past war, against an enemy that was defeated but not destroyed. There's a prophetic hero, who starts the story in an everyday but in some way unsatisfying setting, and who eventually bears some wound or mark from an encounter with evil. There's the mystic figure that sets the hero on his quest, but is removed from play so that the hero can come into his own. Babylon 5, The Matrix, Harry Potter, The Wheel of Time, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and even Final Fantasy all share many of those elements. Yes, Straczynski likes his epics. That's not necessarily a bad thing.
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
That's what I'm saying. There's nothing wrong with it, and that's why B5 works save for the lousy dialogue. But when all you get from the guy after that is exactly the same thing, it runs out, as it has. QED.
posted
Aah, a philosophical warrior vagabond with cranial protrusions. Fulfilling the legend, if you will, of his achievments as known in the present by his people.
Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
I can see this going either way in regards to quality. Legend of the Rangers gets a bit of an unfair bashing since it was supposed to be a pilot. While it wasn't 1st class entertainment by any stretch of the imagination, it was at least as good/bad as The Gathering, which is all but unrecognisable from the show that followed.
As far as Crusade gose, I agree with Mark that TNT's interference wouldn't have made the dialogue any less pedantic or the plots any less familiar, but as with B5 I think the problems inherant with any JMS show would have been overcome, largley by an engaging plot, well performed characters and a slightly naive sense of overblown epic drama.
I think the same is possibly true of this new project, but of course only time will tell. The main obsticle, in my mind, is that while B5 was (arguably) the best Sci-fi on TV at the time (in several ways) it has since been superceeded by the likes of Galactica, Farscape, Firefly and I suppose Lost. Now they're either going to try and compete with those later shows and be critisised for "not staying true to it's roots" (we all know fans abhor change) or do what they've done before over and over and end up being dismissed as out dated.
Can we say Kobayashi Maru?
P.S. Based on that AICN post, the fact that Woodwood is back as Galen is enough to get me watching this. He was always the most interesting character/performance out of the Crusade cast.
"That's what I'm saying. There's nothing wrong with it, and that's why B5 works save for the lousy dialogue. But when all you get from the guy after that is exactly the same thing, it runs out, as it has. QED."
So, you seem to be saying that, if someone does the same thing that has been done by other people hundreds of times before, it can be great. But as soon as that same person repeats the theme, it becomes crap. Not because it's been done before, but just because that person has done it before.
Registered: Mar 1999
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Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
posted
Or Dan Brown novels. Notice there hasn't been anything since Da Vinci Code? Know why? Because everyone went out, read his other 3 books, & found out he used THE EXACT SAME FUCKING PLOT in ALL of them. Even the exact STRUCTURE is the same. Now that he's famous...shit, can't use the same gig.
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
First shots of the new B5 cgi! Link Well ok, ONE shot that's oddlyfamiliar and a title card. But still....pretty nebula and Epsilon 3 finally has some sense of scale.
Speaking of scale, are Mimbari War Cruisers really that HUGE compared to Centauri Battleships?
posted
Sweeeet! Nice to see they've got some new models to play with, since many of the originals were lost.
As for scale, I was going to use merzo.net, but their B5 sizes are all screwed up. But yeah, that looks to be a bit much.
Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
The Sharlin was always supposed to be really big.. More than a mile high, right?
Anyway, I'm glad to see some VFX material after all these years. The "Rangers" stuff was really more of the same stuff from the early 90s - improved, but not my much. That, and IMO I've never much liked all the crazy background they use. It may be NASA imagery, but it's all false-colour, post-processed stuff that was altered to look pretty! In real life, it's not even visible like that!
posted
Sure, but I thought the Centauri cruiser was bigger by comparison. Perhaps it's just the way the old CGI was composed, the true scale of those old meshes is harder to judge than the newer footage. BTW, anyone know that JMS is using the same effects house that works on Galactica & Atlantis? Bodes well methinks. As for the VFX on LotR, it looked a little too 'crisp' for B5 type effects. Can't put my finger on it but there was something not quite right about the effects on that movie, more like a computer game FMV somehow. Though the Grey council hologram bit looked really good, even if the space photography stuff wasn't quite strictly realistic, it was more convincing than the old photoshopped Hubble images.
Many of my B5 figures were taken directly from the official charts released by the VFX company; they used to be on ISNnews.net, but they've apparently been taken down. When I get back home tonight, I'll try to find a few more of my old sources. (Edit: The old charts are still found in the Internet Archive.)
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
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posted
I've always like the Brakiri cruisers the most. Even though they are smaller than the Sharlin and blow up all the time they look so nice, like a B-17 bomber wing in space. And minbari girls are cute. I don't know why I think that, with the baldness and ridges, but they just seem so unobtrusive and content.
Registered: Aug 1999
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