Babylon 5 Direct-To-DVD Project In Production

ajs writes "As previously announced, 'Babylon 5: The Lost Tales' is a direct-to-DVD project based on the popular series from the mid-1990s. Lost Tales first DVD, titled 'Voices of the Dark' has now begun production. As usual, J. Michael Straczynski and Doug Netter will be running the show with Straczynski directing. The characters, President John Sheridan (Boxleitner), Captain Elizabeth Lochley (Scoggins) and the technomage Galen (Woodward) are returning. The Lost Tales is an anthology series of sorts with two movies (previously three) per DVD starting in 2007. Straczynski has commented on Usenet that a more CG-intensive installment is coming in the next batch, featuring the character of Michael Garibaldi (Doyle)."

Firefly?

If it's good enough for Bab5, it's good enough for Firefly!

You can't take the sky from me!

Success!

Lets hope this will be as big of a success as one of Mr Straczynski's earlier projects, Captain Power and the soldiers of the Future. [wikipedia.org]

Babylon 5's time...

Babylon 5's time has come and gone. That's not to take anything away from it. It represented a age where only Star Trek existed. All of the Sci-Fi series that have started to get traction sense, in particular Firefly, Stargate and Firefly have benefited from it leading the way. Even some of the more mainstream series like LOST, which has the actress Mira Furlan who played Delenn on B5, are in it's footsteps to some degree.

But we have also moved past that story into new and interesting stories with much higher production values. I hope for the series, but I think that when you go back and look at B5, you have to appreciate what it did, rather then what it is now (which is dated, and a bit cliched).

Not that I won't buy it anyways I suppose.

Re:Babylon 5's time...

All of the Sci-Fi series that have started to get traction sense, in particular Firefly, Stargate and Firefly have benefited from it leading the way.

But what about Firefly? You forgot about that series.

Re:Babylon 5's time...

Traditionally television has been more about taking excerpts from people's lives and showing them as they happen. Today in court, the lawyers did X, Y, and Z, the doctor saved 3 people, and the family down the street had this most comedic run-in with the mail man. These shows are safer for networks to produce because you don't need background to get into them. If I watch an episode of Law and Order, I can get 95% of it without any need for background.

Babylon 5 helped to establish that a TV show with a defined story arc could be successful. If you walked into Babylon 5 during season 3, you'd be completely lost. Yet because of the defined arc, those who did follow it followed it very loyally. The real struggle though was if you didn't start from the beginning it was hard to catch up.

Well since they broke that ground we've seen the advent of two things that make such shows possible:

1) Season by season DVD releases of TV shows
2) ITunes

With Lost, for example, I heard good things about it all during the first season but never got around to watching it. AS the second season approached I decided to give it a try. After watching two episodes I was totally hooked. A friend of mine just finished the season one DVD's in a marathon and is now eagerly awaiting netflix to deliver season 2. Then for season 3, they can catch up via Itunes.

But ultimately Babylon 5 is what broke this ground and whatever may be said about it's production values, it did make for some great televison that even now is relevant. Go back and watch Intersections in Real Time as a prime example. This is the episode where Sheridan is tortured to get him to turn against his friends in favor of the government. Now go and read about waterboarding and some of the crap that's legal for our government to do to people right now and it's just chilling.

Re:Babylon 5's time...

There was one interesting post [google.com] in rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5 by JMS about Karl Rove and President G.W Bush watching Babylon5.

I suppose Karl Rove is avid fan for character Mr. Morden :-)

Re:Babylon 5's time...

>>I suppose Karl Rove is avid fan for character Mr. Morden :-)

One day can i have Rove's head mounted on a pole as a warning to the next few generations that twisting the truth only gets your head twisted off. so i can smile and wave at it?

bab5 pivotal

B5 was one of the pivotal sci-fi series of my teenage life, because it was real drama and didn't treat me like a child (star trek, tut tut).

'the very long night of lono mollari' has to rate as one of the greatest and most evocative sci-fi episodes ever made.

I'm not sure if it's such a great idea to revive the series though, in any way. other opinions?

Shucks!

I can't pre-order on Amazon yet! This is truly good news for those fans who miss the show and wish it continued through to the end of JS's 5 year plan.

Tastes like beef

So I gather JMS has an issue with SFX magazine. What's that about?

This is the best I've found via google:

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.tv .babylon5.moderated/msg/88b1ea53e7879c63 [google.com]

Best of breed.

Some people don't like B5 because you can't drop into it. Unlike star trek with it's closed episodes, the B5 story spans 4 seasons (with some expansion in a fifth season).

I consider B5 to be one of the best sci-fi series ever made, and its long term story is one of the reasons for that.

I think that some other sci-fi series may have had a chance to come close to B5 (eg firefly) but never got the chance to last long enough.

Its a shame that it came to such a conclusion it was (would be) difficult to continue it. The creators do keep coming back to it, but never something quite so epic, and I had hoped that one of the spins offs (eg crusade) would have lived longer.

Anyway B5 will always remain as a definitive series for me.

Straight to video!!

"Bargain buckets on standby"
"Aye aye, captain!"

CGI and Garibaldi

They could give him some CGI hair. Maybe a mullet.

I guess they can't bring back Ivonova.
From her statements on the DVD set commentary, she plumped up like Jabba the Hut.

Re:CGI and Garibaldi

It's been a while since I heard about it at a convention in 98, but by what I remember, the dispute is why Claudia wasn't in the 5th season (except the final episode that was actually shot during the 4th season). She was saying the reason was due to some mis communication and JMS really didn't add much to the conversation. The impression most people got was that she or her agent had said she was busy, so they moved on to find a replacement for her role in the 5th season. She did want to be in it, but by the time she tried to talk to JMS, they had already brought in the new actor. JMS and Claudia were clearly not happy with each other at this convention as they stayed away from each other.

She was involved in some of the TV movies though made after this, and on the commentary tracks of the DVDs, so I doubt that old issue would cause her to be skipped in these direct to DVD shows. The only two characters that I know of that won't be shown are Dr. Franklin (Richard Biggs) and G'kar (Andreas Katsulas), as sadly both actors have passed away.

This explains...

...why Mira Furlan got very pissy with me when I asked her at DragonCon this year if she was looking forward to the possibility of her returning in the upcoming productions of B5. I was very nice to her, but she turned into a rather hateful person in less than .2 seconds after I asked the question. I felt like she would kill me on the spot if she could have gotten away with it, judging by her expression & body language as well. It was a very disappointing experience meeting her, for I admired her work on the show, and thought better of her.

I can only assume that either she asked for too much money to return, or she ticked somebody off during her time on the show. After seeing a glimpse of her temper, and her almost insignificant parts on other shows since B5, I think I know the answer.

I am glad to see the series revived somewhat though, for it was a decent sci-fi show. I do not think they will regret the decision of producing the direct-to-DVD shows. It will do well, just as the past DVD releases have I'm sure.

Re:This explains...

I can only assume that either she asked for too much money to return, or she ticked somebody off during her time on the show. After seeing a glimpse of her temper, and her almost insignificant parts on other shows since B5, I think I know the answer.

I can imagine her response in words:

"Only one human has ever survived asking me that question. He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your life... be somewhere else."

Technomage?

Crap. The one character I just HATED as painfully boring, stupid, empty, annoying, useless, etc. Is he maybe coming back so he can be killed in the first 5 minutes like a Police Squad Cameo?

Interesting Business Model

I have always wondered how big a production budget the Direct-to-DVD model could support. In principle, an enormous number of small groups around the world have the resources and potential talent to at least produce one-off movies. With distribution such as Netflix, it is not difficult for consumers to find niche productions that may appeal to relatively small audiences. Unfortunately, this may also reduce the size of the production budget that can be supported.

Can anyone point me to articles where this is discussed, especially with an eye towards small productions? All of us filmmaker wannabes are dying to know.

I hope the DVD packaging is purple

It would look *stunning* in purple.

I hope they further explore that mystery that every civilized species has a form of 'Swedish Meatballs'. That can't be a coincidence!

Um... no thanks...

"and the technomage Galen (Woodward) are returning"

Oh, nevermind then.

I liked the series Babylon 5. I really liked it. But the franchise took a nosedive since the end of the series, and between Crusade and the post-series TV movies, the only change is that the fall has accelerated.

I'm about ready to put B5 in the same category as Star Wars, the one labelled "Should have known when to stop writing."

Drop the D&D/Kung Fu in space, drop the "technomage" and give me back my Garibaldi, Bester and Vir.

Too many Woodwards

and the technomage Galen (Woodward) are returning.

That's Peter Woodward [imdb.com] who played Galen, as opposed to the more famous Edward Woodward [imdb.com] (of Wicker Man fame), who also played a technomage (Alwyn, of the Golden Dragons) in the episode The Long Road [imdb.com]

iTunes and HD

Hey Warner Bros, this will/would undoubtedly sell well on iTunes. It would sell even better if you sell it on iTunes in High Def.

Hey Apple, selling this on iTunes in HD would be a great way to pioneer and promote mass distribution of HD content and would also work well at selling/promoting your new set-top box (the iTV thingy). So please convince Warner Home Video that you both stand to make a lot of money with this, not to mention the amount of buzz (read, free publicity) that this would create.

Thanks.

I'M I THE ONLY ONE?

That thinks B5 is more a religious and philisophical experience than simply watching a "show" ? But then again the "Thief" video game series is also a religious and philisophical experience than simply playing a "game" to me.

B5

B5 is about the creation of a Leviathan, of speculation on future technology, on the role and forms of religion picking things from Mircea Eliade, and also a look into Wilsonian and Post WWII American Idealism, also dwelling on System/Community/Society views of organizing politics, a view on war in the world and social relations in America, the limitations and errors of men and women that abuse alcohol, do drugs, make mistakes, have doubts, and an attempt to question the times, while the wall had collapsed and everything seemed possible... ... and all of this and much more wrapped up in glorious CGI space battles (in this it was a pioneer) and funny looking camp space aliens, great soundtrack, with the plus of some great scenes by Peter Jurasik and Andreas Katsulas, with a story arc that would put you on your toes week after week. That's great television, a really wonderful series, but I have my doubts Straczynski can bring the magic back this time, another context, another time, we'll see.

It's Like Citizen Kane

You know, just recently, within the last year, I finally watched Citizen Kane. When I saw it, I thought, meh, it's an ok movie, but I'm not sure why it's so highly regarded. Then I investigated and learned and how groundbreaking that movie was. In terms of camera angles, sets (first to show a room's ceiling for example) and plot. It didn't seem special because all the movies since have copied it.

It's the same with B5 and scifi on TV. Ignore firefly, stargate, lost, the new BSG, farscape, and any of the recent stuff. B5 was a defining sci fi TV series in soo many ways, technical, plot, scope, etc. It really set the stage. Besides that, it was just a damn good show.

Good, fun, sweeping galactic concepts, but ...

... the thing that hooked me was the illustrations of how media fools the population. Those fake news shows were spot on perfect - maybe even a bit better, more professional, than any of our current newscasts.

It was prophetic. If our government were to ever go evil, this is how we should expect our broadcasters to cover for it. Just as they have these recent years.

one of the best sci-fi series ever!

If you go to Z'ha'dum you will die!

A Good Story Doesn't Grow Old

I think the enduring quality of B5 is not in the production values, which for the time were outstanding, but in the telling of a coherent story arc spread out over 5 seasons. And from that perspective I think B5 has all Star Trek series, Firefly, Stargate and any other long running Sci-Fi series I can recall beat. If you view all five seaons and then go back and look at pretty much any main story line episode in B5 you see how well it maintains canon. And the story is a good one too. So for my money, I'll be first in line to pre-order the new Direct-To-DVD productions of B5. Go MJS!!!!!!!!!!!

Re:I never saw the appeal of this series

The first half of the first season is a bit slow. Keep in mind that B5 is basically a 5-season long story arc, so season 1 sets up for the meat of the series. There are a few key episodes in that season, particularly the finale, that are important to the plot. The rest could probably be skipped.

Re:I never saw the appeal of this series

The rest could probably be skipped.

In particular, God kills a kitten every time someone watches TKO [midwinter.com].

Re:I never saw the appeal of this series

...but does god kill said kitten using the sacred alient art of MU-TAI?!

Re:I never saw the appeal of this series

The problem with the first season is that it is slow and it contains probably 40% of the worst episodes in the whole series, but you cannot skip it. There's just too much going on there in the background even in the early episodes. Even TKO, which was a steaming pile, has a lot of important character development for Ivanova (the death of her father). For someone with a low tolerance for the worst episodes, the first season can be a steep climb.

I would still say that any sci-fi fan who has not watched the first four seasons of the series has missed out on something unique. It is no longer the series that you have to measure up to, but it used to be, and many of the later and in many ways better sci-fi shows owe a lot to this series. Nowadays writers and their vision for a series is trusted more and maybe, for some part, B5 helped pave the way.

Re:I never saw the appeal of this series

It took a fair while to warm up, and it was arc heavy so it doesn't look good unless you stick with it for a while. Its worth the effort though.

Re:I never saw the appeal of this series

Well, the acting was often terrible. Let's get that out of the way. That wasn't it.

For me, the big appeal was that things of significant scope actually happened and the story progressed and changed with time. At the point that Babylon 5 came out, I was really fed up with the Star Trek franchise: Good acting and effects, but a horribly pedestrian and smarmy humanism seemed to infest most of the writing. It also pulled far too many punches. B5 made the universe seem strange and mysterious again, even if the acting was strictly community theater sometimes. War seemed dangerous, instead of a stageset for some belabored morality tale. It's dumb to say it was better than Star Trek, but B5 really spoke better to the sorts of stories I wanted to hear at that time.

Re:I never saw the appeal of this series

Agreed, when B5 came out it was going head to head with Star Trek DS9 for the title of "best series about guys on a space station."

The thing was, the early seasons of D29 followed the old Star Trek formula of pressing the "reset" button after every episode, while B5 went off on its arc, with massive plot elements changing from episode to episode. After a few seasons, it was clear that B5 was going somewhere, while DS9 was still mostly about some guys hanging out in Quark's bar. Cheers in space. Fun, and I watched it, but not great stuff.

But then, in the later seasons, even DS9 made itself a nice little plot arc, which I always saw as a late admission that the Babylon 5 way had something going for it.

Re:I never saw the appeal of this series

There were changes in the production staff, including bringing Ron Moore onboard in the second season, and promoting him to co-executive producer for the last few seasons. As in Battlestar Galactica Ron Moore.

Battlestar Galactica is awesome, but it's not like Ron Moore wasn't a heavy-weight in the Star Trek universe before the second season of DS9. He was a producer in TNG and have you seen the list of Ron Moore-written TNG episodes?:

• Yesterday's Enterprise
• Sins of the Father
• Family
• Redemption, parts 1 and 2
• Ethics
• Chain of Command, part 1 (ok, the meat was in part 2)
• Tapestry
• Descent, part 1
• All Good Things... (eh...not very good for a series finale, but it wasn't a bad episode by any stretch of the imagination)

The above isn't an exhaustive list. And it doesn't count episodes where he has credit as "Story Editor" which includes Best of Both Worlds. Honestly, I have no idea how much a "story editor" is really responsible for the story, so I won't argue for that. Either way, he's responsible for some of the best of TNG.

The acting

>Well, the acting was often terrible.

And often not. Some of that Eastern European talent was first rate.

Some of what looked like terrible acting wasn't. Sinclair seemed aimless, wooden, forced -- and that was a precise and workmanlike portrayal of the character, a purposeless man who wasn't sure why he was alive, was numbed by PTSD and survivor guilt, and pushing himself through the motions of being a diplomat. G'Kar didn't seem like much in the first season, but when the character grew enough to give Andreas Katsulas scope for his ability, he shone.

Re:I never saw the appeal of this series

The appeal of Bab5, in a nutshell, was a solid and engaging story with interesting characters. Too many of the Star Trek series devolve into episodic "interstellar anomaly" of the week doldrums, which in my opinion gets boring very quickly. While Bab5 did feature its share of one-off episodes that didn't advance the plot, in general it was a serial show that kept you watching to see what would happen next...

Much like the current crop of popular tv shows such as Lost, Heroes, Jericho, 24, Prison Break, etc.

That said, it DID start off really slow in the first season. But the later seasons were some of the finest sci-fi I've ever seen on television.

[OT] Firefly?

Now can we have direct-to-DVD Firefly?

Please?

Pretty please?

Re:I never saw the appeal of this series

a war is fought on the grandest scale I have ever come across in a sci-fi epic

And it ends with Sheridan saying "go away" and the warring factions just get up and go. After waiting through three seasons that was the biggest let down I have known in TV...ever. B5 was great for the first couple of seasons but after a while it really started to drag. I'm still working on finishing season 5...

Re:I never saw the appeal of this series

You didn't give it a chance. Which isn't surprising. It required quite a lot of commitment. The dialogue was ropey, the acting from many of the actors was wooden, and a lot of the individual earlier episodes were a little uneventful out of context with the big picture.

But there was a very strong backstory, a lot of really quite clever political stuff, and was generally a lot more daring than other shows - especially science fiction shows - of the time. Characters developed. There was no big plot reset button. There was often no right or wrong answer. A lot of the episode conclusions were far from ideal.

Re:I never saw the appeal of this series

I'm currently re-watching it, as I initially caught it very late at night on C4 in the UK, and I think I meandered in some time in season two, and started really paying attention in season three.

Anyway, I think anyone wanting to see what all the fuss is about should watch 2x14: And Now for a Word" [midwinter.com]. It's a classic Bringing In the Newbies episode, has a good mix of all the elements that go into the show (political machinations, space battles, dark humour in places), showcases most of the characters pretty well (especially the late great Andreas Katsulas as G'Kar) and will give you a pretty good idea whether you like the show or not.

Personally, this season is blowing me away.

Re:I never saw the appeal of this series

Nothing. Bad acting, worse writing.

I'll say one thing, though; Babylon 5 is the best argument for BitTorrent as a 'try before you buy' there ever was. Downloaded five seasons. Got three episodes in before my eyes and ears started to bleed. Deleted the whole crop. Try returning DVDs like that.

Re:Deep Space Nine better than B5 or vice versa?

It was my understanding that B5 was pitched to all the major studios even before TNG came out. I liked both shows but it was clear that DS9 and Voyager were taking whole plot points from B5 towards the end. Not that I minded, I felt it really helped DS9 to have inter-galactic war arcs.

Re:I never saw the appeal of this series

The more you watch, the better it gets.

When I saw the first season in reruns after having seen the rest of the series, I could have sworn the acting and writing had improved between the first showing and the rerun. Knowing the context made that much difference. Dialog that seems unimportant the first time around becomes poignant or prophetic in hindsight.

It's a great nerd show. Little things are done right, like space fighters that fire thrusters when they turn instead of swooping like airplanes. Then the overall structure is a single intricate unit, with a coherence and scale that could compete with some of the classics of the software world.

The characters are fully realized people but it takes a while to see them defined.

Straczynski summarized the series as being about "choices and consequences". That's invisible at the scale of a single episode.

It's worth putting on your Netflix list.

Re:I never saw the appeal of this series

You probably just didn't give it enough time. B5 had this whole "Blade Runner" vibe going. The future is a dark, often dangerous place. Yet, it was also an exciting, technologicaly advanced place. The appeal for me was that the future was presented in a more realistic approach. The station was often dark, even in open, friendly places. It just had this "edge" to it. This wasn't a nice clean Star Trek set. There was a seedy underbelly with lurkers and areas of the station pretty much abandoned. But at the heart of it all were humans, still being humans. Curious, courageous, loving, brutal, sadistic and often times wise. The aliens looked like aliens. You had compelling species and interstellar diplomacy. You had lots of political intrigue. An emperor falling in love with the wrong woman could send shockwaves throughout the galaxy. You never really get this "grand scale" with other sci-fi.

B5 just seemed to play on a grander stage. Other sci-fi is concerned with a small group, and the "powers they be" are often abstracted. How much do we know about the United Federation of Planets anyway? What are the member worlds? Who are their representatives? What are their meetings like? Do you often time have conflicts among member worlds? What about Starfleet Academy? Who runs it? How did they get that job? What are their motives? This were all questions that B5 jumped right into.

Re:Bab 5 Sucks

I wasn't going to reply to this one but I just couldn't stop my fingers. Each series (ST & B5) has its good points and bad. I just got sick and tired of the reset button each week that ST still did with the Enterprise series. I don't think you should generalize who the people are that like B5. I loved B5 more that ST but I also liked ST as well. I'm a huge Sci-fi nut and never watched those day time soaps. It sounds like you did but knowing that a luke and laura were possibly getting married. I enjoyed the campy feel that B5 had and the special effects I thought were way better than ST. I also don't understand why people can't join the b5 series mid stream cause thats what I did and was able to figure out what was going on. I just went back and watched the ones I missed later.

Re:Speaking of stupid characters

DONE, 2,000 years ago - ANYTHING ELSE?

Re:I never saw the appeal of this series

You didn't watch enough episodes.

Babylon 5 is not like most sci-fi shows that came before it or even after it. It is not a bunch of daily stand on their own stories. It is one contiguous story.

The reasons fans love it so much is because this is not as clear in the beginning but as you later progress thru the series it becomes more so. As fans discover seemingly innoculous episodes in the first season or two were in fact significant plot preps and more come seasons 3,4, & 5. Seasons 3 & 4 are by far the strongest. 5 was weakened by doubt of financing.

Prattlestar Galactica is one of the few sci-fi series that has really tried to take the epic story arc approach. However, I feel that most of the episodes really lack much substance. Often I walk away feeling like there was only 15 minutes of story. And I am left wondering if the Prattlerstar Galactica writers even know where they are going.

Babylon 5 weaves those layers deep. It doesn't need numerous flashbacks to fill in what wasn't before because it was thought out ahead of time. Even with a few major character changes, things were in place so that alternative flows could be implemented in case of the lost of a major or minor character.

Watch the first two seasons of Babylon 5 (in sequence)...if you have a mind you'll likely find yourself hooked. By season 3 & 4...drooling.

Re:Deep Space Nine better than B5 or vice versa?

JMS had gone to Paramount first with B5. They told him they were not interested. He then went to Warner Brothers. Paramount then happened to launch a series about a station, including a conquered race that had only recently regained it's freedom, it even had a shapeshifter (a character in JMS' original story design that was later dropped before production).

There was so much similarity that there is little doubt that Paramount is guilty of idea theft.