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posted
Bastard.
No, but it is peculiar (JMS not being his usual hypercommunicative self, that is), and so I wanted to pass on The Message, at least.
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted
I think some people have been just a little too hard on 'Legends of the Rangers', sure the acting was wooden, the characters were two dimensional, the score was poor compared to the B5 we all know and love and the plot was slow and uneventful...but has anyone gone back and looked at 'The Gathering' lately? That sucked, even for a pilot and at the time it really put me off watching the show for a while, until I caught it around the end of the first season and saw what a great show it had become.
Still, my personal preference would be to continue with Crusade although I know that won't happen.
posted
I recently sat down and watched all the Crusade eps again. I'm still totally ambivalent about the whole thing. So I tried to work out what I liked and didn't like - after all, many shows' pilots are judged that way, and evolve accordingly into the show proper - and after four years, eps 1 through 13 of Crusade could only ever be a guide to whatever new show came along, you couldn't carry directly on with the show as it was.
THE IDEA - The show's plot, the concept, that is. Fine so far as it goes, especially since JMS repeatedly told us that things were going to change over the 5 years of the projected run, and it would be a very different show at the end. So you can't really say what was going to happen. There were indications that the Excalibur and her crew would become fugitives from EarthGov, which to me smacks a little too much of B5 s3 and s4. And presumably the Apocalypse Box would have played a part in things to come.
If there's one thing I'd change. . . I don't think it should have been a totally EarthForce mission. There should have been Rangers involved. Whether on a Ranger ship, or with some of the crew Rangers, I'll deal with in the following sections.
THE SHIP - I've never been convinced by the Excalibur. I disliked the Fighter launching method, and that landing bay with the force fields. Those stupid transit tubes. Even the corridors seemed wrong (although they're wide just like on Minbari ships, which may be the point). Both variants of the uniforms were wrong: the grey ones did look like bellhop costumes; the black ones were just wrong, they should have been proper EarthForce uniforms.
As for the design. . . not EarthForcey enough. Something with more traditional EF ship features might have been better, mixed with Minbari elements. That said, we got exactly that with the Valen in B5:LOTR and that was just plain awful.
CAPTAIN MATTHEW GIDEON - Gary Cole was great, or as good as he could be with JMS' agonising dialogue (lines like the one about the perfect example of a complete idiot - good idea, poorly executed). Problem is, he's not an EarthForce captain, who were for the most part useless twits; granted we only ever saw one other Explorer-ship captain. . . He should have been a Ranger.
LT. JOHN MATHESON - I'm a big Daniel Dae Kim fan, he should be doing a lot better than playing a barely-recurring character in Enterprise. And he's perfect here. If Gideon had been a Ranger instead, Matheson could have been the most senior EarthForce officer on the expedition: it'd have ben interesting to see what developed. More could have been made of his being a telepath.
GALEN - Ugh, ugh, ugh. Could still work, but serious recasting is needed. Peter Woodward obviously inherited his father's lack of acting ability.
DUREENA NAFEEL - Likewise. At least recast, if they didn't lose the character altogether. Lyta Alexander might have worked in this character's place, if she hadn't been unceremoniously killed offscreen during the Telepath War. Hang on, wasn't there a "Na'Feel" in B5:LOTR?
MAX EILERSON - Another brilliant character, well played. Cynical, unconventional, likes weird alien porn. I liked the fact that while working for IPX and therefore not totally trustworthy, he managed to not trust his employers either.
DR. SARAH CHAMBERS - I'm undecided here. I'd sooner have Dr. Franklin any day, but Marjean Holden wasn't too bad, I guess. She just needed time to develop.
CAPTAIN ELIZABETH LOCKLEY - Tracy Scoggins suffered in B5 s5 for not being Claudia Christian. Here she might have been able to redress the difference. . . But I get the impression they hadn't quite worked out what the point of her being there was.
So, there. Redesign the Excalibur, make the crew a mix of Rangers and EarthForce, get a different Technomage. Rinse and repeat. 8)
posted
I agree with most of what you've pointed out but the main peoblem with the show was always the script. Terrible at times. Gary Cole still makes the show worth watching and some of the episodes are great eye-candy. If you've seen American Gothic you know what Gary Cole is capable of but never got the chance to do on Crusade.
My big gripe is the ship. It doesnt look like a blending of technologies at all. It looks so much like a Technomage design.If they had dome some backstory with Galen sectetly tweaking the Mimbari/Earth design to help the the quest (he could have "forseen" the need or something), I could accept the design. The ship is simply too damn big. It's over half the length of B5 but looks like a fighter for pete's sake! The "wings" need to go.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
I agree the series simply can't be restarted, it's just sad it was axed before it had a chance to really grow.
As far as the characters go, I actually liked Dureena and Galen quite a bit, acting aside they were my favourite characters. Galen had a dead pan delivery that always makes me smile, he was mysterious but not to the extent of being a cycloptic jukebox who answers every question either 'yes' or 'good'. As for the bad acting, I took that as being part of his character. Dureena was just funny and cool in a badass kind of way (Ivanova meets Sarah Conner), something that usually comes off as irritatingly cliqued, but somehow it work for me.
Max was someone that I really didn't like to begin with (especially in 'Warzone') but towards the end I think he started to grow as a character in a way I really didn't expect. I would be interested to know what JMS had in store for him down the road.
Gary Cole of course was a great Captain, I really enjoyed his performance in American Gothic and equally appreciated his performance in Crusade. For some reason though I never really bought the bit about him being a squaddie during President Clark's stint in Earthdome. Maybe I just misremembered the time separating the two series.
The Doctor was a fairly disposable character unfortunately, not that it was anyone's fault it's just her character didn't get much to do in those 13 episodes. I think Franklin was more memorable because he was something of a renegade as demonstrated by his behaviour in believers. Ironically I think they had initially intended his successor to be the Crusade doctor, I forget her name. Which reminds me, wasn't the same woman who played chambers in 'A Call to Arms' as one of the Excalibur's bridge crew?
As for the ship it never really bothered me, although I thought the weapon's sound effects were a bit weak. As for it's non-EarthForcey looks I think that was down to a greater leaning to a Mimbari and Vorlon aesthetic, the ship was originally meant to be the ISA's new front line warships, not the Earth Alliance's. As for the Valen's looks, it was supposed to look ugly, that was the point. Mind you I was quite impressed when it landed, it gave a sense of weight not common in CGI vessels.
The show's music was also a little wishy washy, but I suppose you can't blame them for trying something different.
posted
Gideon's near-meteoric rise from Ensign to Explorer-ship captain in about 8 years is problematic. The only hint of an explanation is that he obtains the Apocalypse Box while he's languishing on Mars after the incident with his ship going boom; presumably the AB has something to do with his subsequent success.
Marjean Holden was in "A Call to Arms" as someone else, which has probably biased me against her, given her immediate reappearance as another character.
You're right of course, the Victory-class were meant to be the new ISA ships. Which is why they should have had Rangers on board. In fact, really when you think about it Sheridan shouldn't have needed Tony Todd's EF crew to fly them in A Call to Arms, as head of the Rangers he should have been able to get all the personnel he needed.
posted
So what exactly was the "Apocalypse Box"? Possibly some kind of Shadow doo dah? They did havea base on Mars after all...and their ship buried there had no "mind" so mabye the Shadows removed the ships brain, saved it in the box in a kind of stasis and intended to re-install it when they retrieved their ship?
Sound plausable?
Mabye?
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Eh? A Shadow ship "brain" is just a living guy. Some random dude in a box, even is stasis probably wouldn't be giving out very useful advice, if they were even coherent in the first place. Anna Sheridan wasn't exactly all there, and that was with special coaching. Without giving away too much, it probably wasn't any form of Shadow technology. Galen would have been sensitive to it if it was. (Refer to the technomage trilogy)
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Vorlon, perhaps? Something like that sure wouldn't trust Valen for various reasons explained in the Technomage trilogy. It could also be a Drakh distraction, but their tech is Shadow-based.
-------------------- "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
Mabye Gideon was just nuts? It's possible....although he's have had to learn those planet's coordinates from somewhere.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Which Ep introduced the Appocalypse Box? I vaguely remember something about it, but I only saw one or two eps. It's certainly a cool sounding concept. But then, Crusade itself sounded like a cool concept.
Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
So he IS nuts! THAT would have been a cool concept to run with: the crew have to remove him somewhere in season four and continue without him.... Coulda worked.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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