Babaylon 5

[AngeloMichael]

I take it AngeloMichael is a fan of the show.

Babylon 5 was my favorite show when it was airing. I got seriously hyped for it when new episodes aired and huge events happened. It still holds quite a fond place in my heart.

 

[QuickDuck]

What do you want?

 

[John Doe]

Babylon 5 was my favorite show when it was airing. I got seriously hyped for it when new episodes aired and huge events happened. It still holds quite a fond place in my heart.

I watched it too, but then and now my opinion of it is pretty much what Liar said:

It's a bit silly, although it tries very hard not to be.

I liked DS9 better at the time and still do even though it spent too much time on the Dominion for me, especially in the last two seasons.

 

[lovetoread]

What do you want?

The winning numbers of the lotto please.

 

[KingOrfeo]

It's Space Opera for the screen, like Star Trek and Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica.

Space Opera:

A space opera is a work set in a far future space faring civilization, where the technology is ubiquitous and entirely secondary to the story. It has an epic character to it: The universe is big, there are lots of sprawling civilizations and empires, there are political conflicts and intrigues galore. Frequently it takes place in the Standard Sci Fi Setting. In perspective, it is a development of the Planetary Romance that looks beyond the exotic locations that were imagined for the local solar system in early science fiction (which the hard light of science revealed to be barren and lifeless) out into an infinite universe of imagined exotic locations.

Space opera has a lot of romantic elements: big love stories, epic space battles, oversized heroes and villains, awe-inspiring places, and insanely gorgeous women.

Expect to see a dashing hero cavorting around in sleek, cigar-shaped Retro Rockets, Green Skinned Space Babes, Crystal Spires and Togas civilizations full of Space Elves, Wave Motion Guns capable of dealing an Earth-Shattering Kaboom on a daily basis, and an evil Galactic Empire with a Standard Sci-Fi Fleet, including an entire universe full of beat-up mechanical objects capable of being resurrected with Percussive Maintenance.

Note that this is quite different from the original definition of space opera, which was derogatory. It arose from a long line of similar terms for substandard genre fiction: 'horse opera' was bad Western fiction and 'soap opera' (so named because soap operas began as hour-long ads for soap) was hackneyed drama. The phrase was coined in 1941 by Wilson Tucker to describe what he called "the hacky, grinding, stinking, outworn space-ship yarn". (It's said that before 1975 or so, the only author who ever intentionally set out to write a space opera was Jack Vance, who wrote a novel about an opera company in space.) Weirdly, this means that many works which were originally touted as examples of 'serious' science fiction, such as the Lensman series, are today held up as prime examples of Space Opera. As more authors and writers came to embrace the space opera style, the term came to lose many of its negative connotations. Assisting that process were writers who regarded all tales of action and adventure in space as bad, and so tried to pejoratively label it all "space opera"; they succeeded with the label, but not with keeping it pejorative.

Planetary Romance is an older variant, which is basically Heroic Fantasy In Space — or on a Dying Earth of some sort. While works such as John Carter of Mars and various fantasy novels set on a planet are Planetary Romance, characters like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon essentially codified the Space Opera concept in the popular imagination by the late 1930s.

Star Wars is probably the most famous modern example of space opera. (Indeed, The Empire Strikes Back was an important moment in changing "space opera" from an insult to a more neutral genre descriptor, due to the involvement of writer Leigh Brackett.) In Star Wars, technology is either magic (the Force) or slightly faster versions of today's gadgets (blaster rifles, hovercars, space ships) and the characters would be right at home in a fantasy novel (evil emperor, farmboy, princess).

The genre is useful for long story- and character-arcs but also expensive to film. Unless you do it in animated form, like dozens of anime series.

The opposite of Space Opera would probably be Hard Science Fiction. In recent years, however, there has been a trend towards incorporating hard sci-fi elements into space opera, as in Starship Operators, the 2000s Battlestar Galactica, Firefly or especially Revelation Space — in fact, "New Space Opera" has gained some currency as a term referring to works that combine fast-paced adventure plots with some degree of hard SF rigor.

See also Two Fisted Tales, Pulp Magazine, and Wagon Train to the Stars. In many ways, this is the science fiction equivalent of High Fantasy.

Note that while many more famous space operas go to the "ideal" side of the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism, more recent ones are harder and more cynical: Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica and Firefly being most prominent in Live-Action TV.

 

[KingOrfeo]

What do you want?

Charlemagne Bolivar: The usual. Hundreds of grandchildren, utter domination of known space and the pleasure of hearing that all of my enemies have died in terrible, highly improbable accidents that cannot be connected to me. And you?

Tyr Anasazi: [Laughs] The usual.

-- Andromeda (different Space Opera)

 

[duckandbunny79]

Ended

 

[QuickDuck]

The winning numbers of the lotto please.

I will email them to you

 

[LitEroCat]

No they didn't. The series was written to run four years. The entire story line was complete before the first take of the first episode. As far as I'm concerned the big mistake they made was season five. It was so popular at the time the dumb ass executives tried to stretch it out, but found they couldn't.


It was written as a five year arc and if left to run as planned would have have the first four years about the same, but year five would have been very diff.

JMS had the entire story 'outlined' on 3x5 cards, in a binder on his desk the whole time. He kept encrypted storylines for each year much more secure.

Joe's 5th year had to change drastically from his plan for 3 reasons:
1- The cards for year five were trashed at a Wolf Con and Joe had to recreate what he could.

2- Claudia screwed B5 when she refused to sign her contract on time. Joe already had several scripts ready to go, but trashed them instead of just trying to plug Tracy Scoggins into her role. There's a long story behind this. See the archives for details.

3- TNT said the show was definitely canceled just before the last few eps of S4 were shot. Joe moved ep 501 to replace 422. at the last minute, TNT picked up S5. Series contrived finale, 422, DOFS was put back in its slot.

Joe had told the whole cast AND CREW that there would never be a B6 - the series ended with 522. He had to remind them of this a few times near the end.

There was more drama with SciFi channel when TNT spitefully refused to license S5 at a normal price. Pride!! :-((

 

[LitEroCat]

It's Space Opera for the screen, like Star Trek and Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica. Either you like that sort of thing or you do not like it. They're all a bit silly sometimes, Space Opera is an inherently silly thing. At any rate B5 certainly deserves to be ranked in that exalted company, it equals any of them in production quality, acting, directing, writing, and scale-and-grandeur of concepts. And outshines them sometimes in concept-technology. The Starfury is the result of some writer having a rush of brains to the head and thinking, "So, if it's a one-person fighter-spaceship moving in three dimensions in microgravity, why should it look like an airplane? And why does the pilot even need to be sitting down?"

If watched earnestly, B5 ranks as THE best DRAMA ever done for TV, IMHO!

Space Opera is often silly. B5 examined REAL political, religeous, personal and spiritual issues. Several colleges created courses on the philosophy of B5; on the writing style and infulence in the real world. Several of G'Kar's outstanding speeches can be found on several religeous websites; have been used in weddings and funerals and one man, dieing in hospital, asked friends for audio copies of the speeches and litened to them over and over until he went to sea.

Warner's rejected B5 since 'theres's only room for one space show on TV'. They saw the story and rushed DS9 into scripts and production before B5 could air so it looked like B5 was copying DS9. The reverse is true. Space station; diplomats; single commander, female XO; major mall; unique ship designed; near portal/jump gate; older race as enemy; leader becomes religeous figure (Sheridan rose from the dead) etc etc etc

JOE created the Starfury design with some help. He took it to NASA for comments and they asked if they could use his design in REAL future fighters. He gave it to them as long as they agreed to call the line STARFURY! He consulted with NASA scientists and astronaughts to be sure his physics and portrayal wer correct. B5 was first to accurately show space launches and trajectories.

BTW, the pentagon and CIA called JMS about who his spay was! He avoided high tech and babble, yet he created devices that were similar to some black ops hardware! The earpiece B5 security used predated Blutooth by a year!

Once the CIA was convinced he wasn't stealing secrets, they sent him the newest red-stripe confidential document covers and he put that in the show.

The Pentagon asked if he would send some tapes of the show before they aired because soldiers in the desert front looked forward to them and they raised morale. He sent them a case of each new tapes and they sent him lots of military swag and consults!!

 

[Sean]

If watched earnestly, B5 ranks as THE best DRAMA ever done for TV, IMHO!
!

Do shut up. The acting is awful. The dialogue is awful. It may have a great story arc, I couldn't bear it past the first six eps to find out.

 

[islandman]

If watched earnestly, B5 ranks as THE best DRAMA ever done for TV, IMHO!

You must be an uber-fanboi to make such a statement.

 

[LitEroCat]

... That was the original outline anyway.

I read that outline in the script books too. It was only a possible plan, though Mike loved the fishing part. (Didn't SG1 end that way?) I never heard of JMS saying the MOH was mentally ill. Near the end of S1, the network wanted a more dynamic actor. JMS defended him and reminded them that he was ACTING the tortured role of the character he wrote. He would have resisted the change, but he saw that Sinclair had too many plots to carry and he and MOH agreed that a sudden departure with secrets would better serve the story and the planned twists.

JMS said from before the pilot that he had trap doors built in just in case real life got in the way- eg. the XO who left after the pilot; Pat Tallman; the doctor; the underworld insect boss; Bester becoming a major char; and even MOH leaving for two years. When Claudia broke her foot, he touched up some episodes to include her problem instead of writing her out.