Any chance of a Babylon 5 DTV??? (1 Viewer)

[Holadem]

I am really impressed that it is ahead of Casino Royale. Hi-def hasn't enough penetration to serve as a legit benchmark in this context. If anything, the showings of these hi-defs disks are impressive in their own right.

But Casino Royale... damn.



--
H

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

The entire film was shot in HD. There'd be no point in doing the live action on HD-video and then the CGI in SD - and even less in doing the reverse. Besides, they mostly used virutual sets on the shoot, so even the "live action" is mostly CGI/composite.

As was mentioned further up the thread, the film will be released day and date in HD on the XBox 360 download service - one of the first two Warner Bros. release to arrive on XBox. I suspect that after some sort of exclusive HD window for XBox the film will arrive on hi-def disc, either HD-DVD and Blu-Ray or TotalHD. (This would probably be a good title to help introduce that format.)

Regards,

Joe

 

[nolesrule]

I meant Book of Lost Souls. It just came out of my fingers wrong.

 

[JediFonger]

yesh, sorry about the misnomer but it is the book of lost souls. very interesting themes in it.

aaanyway. from the descriptions it sounds like *most* of the B5 cast won't be back and the replacement captain in s5 will be here+galen. what happened? i bought the bruce willis guy was going to be back?

 

[MatthewLouwrens]

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

There seems to be some confusion on what TLT was meant to be, in many quarters, so let me try to clarify:

This is one direct-to-DVD movie, made up of two stories. It is not the start of a new TV series. God and Warner Bros. willing, this will lead to a series of mini-movies, a kind of B5 anthology consisting of smaller, self-contained stories that will each focus on one or two of the original characters. It was never intended as some kind of relaunch or the show or reunion movie for the whole cast.

(Although if these discs sell well enough, a feature film that would use the whole surviving cast is certainly possible.)

Regards,

Joe

 

[Dave Scarpa]

I like this format, it's a chance to focus on characters, some underused on the series, in side stories that take place within, outside of the 5 year Arc. Great opportunity to resolve Crusade and I a way we could set some of those characters back, especially I hope Gary Cole as Gideon. I really don't want a new series, or for that matter a Feature Film. I consider B5's story closed. The show did everything it need to do and had a satifying conclusion to the story. I wish Paramount would consider going this route with Trek instead of one film every 3 years or a series. There so much gold you could mine in the Trek Universerse, so many characters you could focus on. Imagine seeing Sisko come back, or a Sulu story, or an adventure of the U.S.S. Titan.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

The main story - about how the station served as the focus for the defeat of the shadows, a pivot for two civil wars and led to the founding of an Alliance that would literally last a million years, has been told. But, as you say, there are plenty of side stories and unexplored areas. (Some, the ones likely too expensive to film, have been handled in the authorized trilogies.)

The main untold story, the one the all of the the other spin-offs and sequels have carefully written around is the Telepath War - which is also the last big story that could involve all of the original cast. I think JMS has been saving that for a feature film since the beginning, and as soon as he feels emotionally ready to write the script in the absence of Rick Biggs and Andreas Katsulas, he'll tell Warner Bros. "OK, it's time" and they'll get to work.

(WB originally approached JMS about a feature film last year, and because he wasn't ready to face the loss of G'Kar and Franklin, he proposed The Lost Tales - actually a revival of an old idea, the anthology series he had offered TNT in lieu of a 6th season of B5 - instead.)

Regards,

Joe

 

[Scott-S]

A little off topic, but you guys would know:

I have only watched the 5 seasons of B5. Was there 2 other spin-off series that I should watch to prepare for The Lost Tales?

I have heard of Crusades, but wasn't there another one?

Is "The legand of the Rangers" to be watched before of after Crusades?

Who is Galen? Was he in Crusades?

 

[tjguitar85]

Actually Joseph, it's not out of the realm of possibilities that if these discs sell well, that their could be another spin-off. That is, unless JMS doesn't want to do one.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Never said it was. There isn't a whole lot that's completely outside the realm of possibility. I just said that this wasn't the plan for TLT. (In fact, at least one network expressed an interest in airing TLT and perhaps subsequent releases as a series of TV movies a la Columbo back when the project was first initiated, and I can only assume that potential TV buyers are looking at the completed film even as we speak. Just because WB planned it to turn a profit just on DVD sales doesn't mean they would turn down a chance to sell it to a network as well.)

A lot of people seem to think it is a new series, and that isn't the case.

Scott-S:

The sequel series was called Crusade, not Crusades. Legend of the Rangers was the pilot film for another possible spin-off series, produced for The Sci-Fi Channel, but it was not picked up of soft ratings and because WB and Sci-Fi could not come to terms. (Sci-Fi wanted to own a piece of the show, WB wasn't interested. SFC probably would have taken the show anyway if the pilot had been a ratings monster, but it wasn't.)

Galen was a regular character in Crusade (as was Capt. Lochley), but he was introduced in the last original cast B5 movie, A Call to Arms.

Chronologically the Rangers pilot (2265) falls between "Objects at Rest" (Episode 521, Dec 2262) and A Call to Arms (Dec 2266) The Crusade series proper opens in January 2267, shortly after the attack on Earth depicted in A Call to Arms.

Knowing JMS I'm quite sure that no one will need to have seen Crusade or Rangers (or even B5) to follow the essential plots of the two stories in The Lost Tales.

For more on Galen see the Technomage Trilogy by Jeanne Cavelos, one of three trilogies authorized and approved by JMS that cover aspects of the story not shown in the series. (The others are the Psi Corps trilogy by J. Gregory Keyes, which traces the history of telepaths from their first emergence around 2100 until the death of Alfred Bester - but which skips over the Telepath War [see above] - and the Centauri trilogy, which follows the life of Londo Mollari from his ascension to the throne until his death. (Which follows the framing story from In the Beginning and is seen in "War Without End".)

Regards,

Joe

 

[Dave Scarpa]

Scifi is always starving for content my guess the Movies will wind up there at some point, that way they don't need to air another run of The Nutty Professor!

 

[Sam Favate]

I always thought that this was the most compelling story of B5 that hadn't been told. I'd love to see it as a movie (or a DVD) someday -- of course, that's a lot harder now without G'Kar. Still, I felt that there were too many threads left unresolved here - the gift given to Sheridan's son, Londo's fight with the Drakh, etc. That would be my first choice for a feature.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Those stories aren't really unresolved even within the series. In "Sleeping in Light" David Sheridan is a Ranger and Vir is the Emperor of a free Centauri Republic which is once again on good terms with the Alliance. (A Ranger is admitted to the royal bedchamber and Vir is welcome as a guest in Sheridan's home.) Obviously David made it past the urn and the Drakh are gone. The details of how this happened weren't shown, but the fact the stories were resolved happily was made clear enough.

Londo, of course, struggled in his own way against the Drakh, but he never really fought them openly, since to do so would lead to the death of millions of Centauri. His method of fighting them was to get Sheridan agree to help his people, then giving his life to help Sheridan escape ("War Without End Part 2") all of which is narrated in detail in Peter David's novels.

Regards,

Joe

 

[RogerH]

I'd love to get them books but they are very hard to get now especially the last one of the Centauri Trilogy.

 

[Sam Favate]

Ah, but it's the how that makes us watch the show. We knew, week in and out, that Kirk and Spock would triumph, but we tuned in because they were compelling characters and how they found their way out of a situation was the very heart of the story.

In any event, I don't have any regrets with the way B5 was executed - I even liked the vast majority of season 5 (which many fans don't seem to). But I recall watching the final episodes for the first time and wondering when the matters above would be resolved.

Looking forward to Babylon 5: The Lost Londo Tales!

 

[Dave Scarpa]

I don't think a B5 film could succeed to a non Fan, Trek Did just because everyone at some time saw some incaration of Trek, not true of B5 where it often played at 2 am when it was in first run syndication, a few might have seen the TNT or Sci Fi airings. If Fireflycould not succeed at the Box office I don't think B5 could. I think this current plan of mini films on first run DVD is an excellent venue for telling stories no mainstram movie could. I'd love Trek to take the same approach

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Movies succeed or fail based on what is in them, not the source material they're based on. Sure, everybody had been exposed to Star Trek because it became a part of the popular culture. But 90% of them didn't didn't like it or watch it or have any interest in it. Same with The X-Files. The film X-Men and Spiderman films have been big hits and most of the people who saw them either never read the comic books or hadn't looked at them in 15 or 20 years.

An active fan base can "open" a movie, bringing in lots of bodies on opening weekend. But after that it is word of mouth that makes a film a success, and if something fails as a film the word of mouth is going to suck. That's why the Trek films the did best were the ones that were most accessible to a general audience that wasn't steeped in Trek-lore. (Mostly II, IV and First Contact) Khan may have derived its backstory from the series, but everything the audience needed to know to follow the adventure story was right there in the film. You could enjoy it if you'd just arrived from Mars and had never heard or Kirk, Spock or the Enterprise.)

To argue otherwise is to argue that any SF film that isn't based on a pre-existing property can't succeed. Star Wars refutes that idea.

Firefly proves nothing. I haven't seen the film myself, but movies, even good ones, flop for all sorts of reasons - lousy advertising, competition at the box office, even real-world events that change the way people perceive a film. (Films succeed for that reason, too. The China Syndrome was a cheesy little little thriller with little in the way of suspense that didn't thrill critics or audiences. It was turned into a monster hit by the coincidence of the Three Mile Island incident happening during its opening it week.)

Regards,

Joe

 

[JediFonger]

http://babylon5.warnerbros.com/
trailers out. click on main menu, then click on lost tales tab in flash.

 

[Dave Scarpa]

I love B5 but seriously the CGI here looks just like it did on the show in 1994, not sure if that's a good or bad thing.