Babylon 5 announced by Warner (1 Viewer)

[TheoGB]

I don't believe the X-Files sets come with commentary. Buffy does. Spaced is the best tv-series DVD I've yet seen (though probably League of Gentlemen is getting in there too).
Theo

 

[Jeff Cooper]

There are a few X-files episodes that have commentary. Just not on every episode.
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-Jeff Cooper
"Curse you inspector Dim! You are too clever for us naughty people."

 

[TheoGB]

Oh. None of the sites I've seen list the X-Files as having commentaries. Buffy gets it listed, however. I don't even remember seeing it on the back of the box. I might have considered buying some of the series had I known.
Which ones get commentaries in each season?
Cheers
Theo

 

[Mark Leiter]

WOW! B5! I remember when I was lucky enough to discover this show about half way through the first season. I was totally hooked. Easily the absolute best SI-FI series ever created!!! (and this from a Trek fan) maybe best series ever? And now heading for DVD? where's my credit card.
For those of you just starting on this wonderful show let me just say this, don't cheat. Start at the pilot and stay true to the series episode line. The first season IS a little campy, but the pay off for seasons 3-5 is fantastic.
I been reading litle bits about a possible follow-up series to B5. Is there any truth to this???
Mark
petition #7251
[Edited last by Mark Leiter on September 07, 2001 at 01:06 PM]

 

[Qui-Gon John]

What I'd really like would be for them to release each season in a box set, like Sopranos.

 

[Holadem]

Mark, a spin off show aired on TNT last summer I think, but it was nixed before it was completed. It has only 13 episodes, its called Crusade. Something about some quest to find the cure of some planetwide epidemic...
I can't wait for the B5 DVDs myself. It is my favorite TV show of all time.
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Holadem

 

[Mark Leiter]

Holadem,
Yes I remember Crusade and the controvirsy surrounding the way it ended before it really got started. Very dissapointing.
What i'm talking about is a new series that is supposedly being devloped for broadcast on SI-FI. Based on the Rangers and taking place about 3 years after B5 ended.
Thanks for the repose though.
Mark
[Edited last by Mark Leiter on September 07, 2001 at 01:28 PM]

 

[Simon Massey]

A TV movie has been shot called Legend of the Rangers (I think that is the title). It will act as a pilot for a potential series, should the movie be successful when aired

 

[nolesrule]

The actual title for the TV movie is To Live and Die in Starlight. The working title was -- and the probable name for the TV series is -- Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

A couple of points:
1) The folks who posted earlier were right, only the series pilot, The Gathering, was shot for the standard TV aspect ratio of 1.33:1. The rest of the episodes and TV movies were shot on Super35, not "in widescreen", however. So both the 1.33:1 and 1.77:1 versions are "cropped" in different ways. The CGI was produced only in 1.33:1, to save time and money, but was designed from the beginning to be trimmed to 1.77:1 (nothing vital is ever placed in the top of bottom of the frame.) To my eye, the SFX shots look better trimmed, the way photographs often do when cropped (at least when zoomed-in on my widescreen TV. ) I keep noticing details that were simply too small to see in the 1.33:1 version.
2) When Sci-Fi picked up the show and requested the widescreen version, Warner Bros. had to create brand-new 1.77:1 masters from the original film elements. Unfortunately, they farmed the job out to a third party, and there were some slight communication problems. For one thing, they pulled the 1.33:1 source material for those seasons, and simply cropped them to 1.77:1 (hence the chopped chins and foreheads the first couple of times some of these episodes aired. It isn't that the shows weren't meant to be widescreen, it is that the new transfers were messed up.)
They also missed places where the final effects work hadn't been added to a given print, resulting in blank monitors and missing pieces of virtual sets. (And in one case a member of the production crew sitting in full view eating a sandwich at the margins of a widescreen shot. )
In the very first episode, the digital editor dropped a few seconds of live-action footage from later in the same show into a spot where a CGI shot was supposed to go. So when the station commander is sitting in his fighter and tells his wingman that he's looking for a command and control ship that "Looks just like THAT!" we don't see the dramatic reveal of the ship coming out from behind an asteroid - instead we see a teapot sitting on a table in someone's quarters.
As of the most recent run of the show, all of these problems seem to have been corrected, and JMS took time summer to review all the master tapes, so I think we're in good shape, finally.
3) According to the specs provided to dealers by Warner Home Video, In the Beginning is presented in anamorphic widescreen, which should bode well for the episodes when they finall come.
4) Crusade ran on TNT in the summer of 1999, about six months after production was halted. (Time flies, doesn't it?) Sci-Fi reran the 13 existing episodes in primetime this past Spring, and is running a 13-hour marathon starting at 7 AM (ET/PT) on October 8th, Columbus Day (Observed.) If you're off that day, or have somebody who can change tapes for you, you might want to grab a copy while you can.
Although visibly compromised by TNT's interference (production was halted 5 episodes into shooting so that TNT Atlanta could offer "notes" on upcoming shows, then resumed) you can see the potential the series had. JMS has said that Sci-Fi might consider reviving Crusade if the possible Rangers series does well enough. If they don't, he plans to deal with some of the Crusade plot threads in Rangers itself, once the new series "catches up" to Crusade in the B5 universe chronology. (I think he deliberately set Rangers a couple of years earlier than Crusade exactly so that he could have the option of either bringing the earlier show back or continuing some of the story in a new series.)
5) The official title of the upcoming TV movie is (deep breath): Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers, "To Live and Die in Starlight." Since it is both a TV movie and a "backdoor" pilot, it carries both the series name and the title of the individual "episode." JMS just finished the final producer's cut on the movie and packed it off the the suits at Sci-Fi. The movie is supposed to debut in January. Sci-Fi told the TV Critics Association meeting in May that it was going to debut January 2, 2002. (A Wednesday.) JMS just confirmed this date yesterday on the newsgroup. But I just got an e-mail from a friend who met with some Sci-Fi Channel folks earlier this week, and she was told that it would air later in January, on a Saturday night. We'll have to see.
They could approve a series based on the finished film, or they could wait for the ratings when it airs. The main reason the series wasn't given the green light before this is that Sci-Fi likes to own a piece of any series it originally airs. Warner Bros. doesn't like to share ownership of anything. So both sides are trying to assess the potential value of the property before they start haggling over how to split up the pie.
6) Yes, X-Files has commentary tracks on selected episodes beginning with S3. JMS said that Warner Home Video didn't seem to be interested in extras, at least for the first two movies. About commentaries in particular, their attitude seemed to be if you can't do it on all the episodes, you shouldn't do it on any of them. I hope that a combination of seeing what they did with The X-Files and pressure from the fans will change their minds about this. (I've already sent a letter to Mike Saksa of WHV listing the episodes that I think absolutely must have JMS commentaries - fewer than a dozen out of 110 - and some that I think that actors, directors and other writers could contribute tracks for. I'd love to hear D.C. Fontana or David Gerrold talk about their scripts, since both are entertaining speakers. And there has to be some way to get a commentary out of Creative Consultant Harlan Ellison. )
It is unlikely that the full gag reels will ever - legally - see the light of day. Most of the actors are on record as objecting to the idea, the studio would have to negotiate the rights for each performer and other person seen in them, and the music rights would be expensive. (All five seasons are set to popular songs of the day.) Maybe they'll be able to use some brief clips, of the kind featured on those Dick Clark "Bloopers" specials. I'd also love to see them include screenplays for the episodes as a text feature, but that's just me.
And yes, full-season boxed sets, by all means.
If you'd like to tell Warner Home Video exactly how you'd like your B5 (and remember, most studios pay more attention to snail-mail than to e-mail or the internet), here's the address:
Mike Saksa
Vice President, US Marketing
Warner Home Video
4000 Warner Blvd.
Burbank CA 91522
Regards,
Joe

 

[TheoGB]

Joseph, you appear to be THE MAN.
I do have a question regarding the filming thing. Super35 is surely a film method? Now from the Lurker's Guide I seem to remember that B5 was filmed digitally. One of the S3 episodes had a sequence involving a Narn slave who looked to have been killed.
JMS stated that he was sure the scene was in there where she was freed. Then he checked and said it wasn't there and that it must be gone for good because of the digital filming nature.
Also, the widescreen cropping seems odd considering that the credits definitely show more in their w/s frame than the episodes.
From the earliest days it was always stated that B5 was filmed to be seen in widescreen but that nothing special was on either side. Channel 4 once cut an episode in this country by moving G'Kar's self-wounding of his hand off frame. Finally I remember around the time of S2 or S3 it was stated that Laser Disc boxed set of B5 S1 in widescreen would be/was available. It sounded cool. Did anyone every own this.
Cheers
Theo
P.S. Having watched the Super35 segment of the T2:UE I understand that the wide and 4:3 versions are not necessarily of the same area so if that's what you meant, fair enough, but it didn't seem to match up to what I previously heard.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Theo:
I think you're misremembering something from "The Luker's Guide" To the best of my knowledge no U.S. television show was shooting with digital cameras between 1993 and 1998, when the series was made. (Hell, they just got good enough and affordable enough to start using in the last year or so.)
There are two things "digital" about B5: One, it was edited digitally. The actual film was cut to match what they assembled on the Avid digital editing system. So if an extra few seconds showing the live Narn got dumped by mistake at the Avid stage, it wouldn't have made the final cut on film. Or he might have meant that he couldn't check the scene concerned when he was answering the usenet post becasue the editing file had been dumped from the Avid, and he didn't have a film or video copy available to look at. Two, the show made use of virtual sets and other CGI shots. The actors would be filmed in front of a green or blue screen, sometimes with a partial set around them, and the rest would be added as CGI. So it is possible that something got masked wrong and something was covered by CGI that shouldn't have been.
But the series itself, like 99% of U.S. dramas and an increasing percentage of sitcoms, was shot on film.

Finally I remember around the time of S2 or S3 it was stated that Laser Disc boxed set of B5 S1 in widescreen would be/was available.

No such set ever existed. When JMS made that comment about the laserdiscs, DVD didn't exist yet, so he assumed that LD would be the highest quality format anyone could own the show on for the foreseeable future. (He was a big LD fan at the time, now an equally big DVD fan. ) When Warner Home Video finally got off its butt and licensed the series to Image Entertainment, Garrett Lee, the president of Image specifically asked for the widescreen version. The WHV rep told him, "There is no widescreen version." When Lee told him that the show had aired in widescreen overseas the rep told him, "They just cropped the 1.33:1 down to 1.77:1. The show was not shot in widescreen."
Apparently the WHV rep, who had never been involved in the release of a TV series, simply assumed that no one would shoot a mere TV show for widescreen, and didn't bother checking his facts. JMS didn't even become aware that WHV was talking to Image about an LD release until it was too late to do anything about it. (The only existing widescreen masters were PAL, and WHV refused to pay for a PAL-to-NTSC conversion, much less brand-new masters for a "old" show that they were licensing, not even releasing themselves.)
So the LDs were released at 1.33:1, on individual 2-episode (or 1-movie) discs. Long before the whole series was released, WHV cancelled the project on both VHS and LD, because of declining sales. The declining sales were largely due to a public comment made by a WHV Vice President to the effect that the show was going to be released on DVD, probably in 1999.
Regards,
Joe

 

[TheoGB]

Woah! Did you say the only Widescreen masters are in PAL? Blimey! We've already had total B5 box set overload over here (HMV had exclusive ones going for only 65 quid for 11 tapes) so we can hope that WB will realised widescreen is the only way to guarantee a big sale of B5 DVDs.
Fingers crossed...
Cheers, it must have been the editing I was thinking about. I remember being surprised to hear that JMS had been able to make the new version of The Gathering as someone on an NG (I believe) discussed how the extra footage was lost or something. Maybe they meant the effects stuff or something.
The episode I was thinking of was Sic Transit Vir but JMS as you say, makes no suggestion the footage is lost for good. Ho hum, maybe he'll get that corrected on this release (ha!).
Theo

 

[Nigel McN]

no he said 'were'

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

I remember being surprised to hear that JMS had been able to make the new version of The Gathering as someone on an NG (I believe) discussed how the extra footage was lost or something.

Some footage was lost. Rats had gotten to the film cans containing the original negative and nibbled parts of it away for ever. But they had enough alternate takes and "B" roll footage to assemble all the scenes they wanted to put back in, even if they didn't have as many takes to choose from in the editing room as they would have liked. Since the FX were all CGI, they could be recreated from scratch if necessary. (And some were, while others were improved as far as the budget allowed.)
The PAL widescreen masters were used for a boxed sets of the TV movies over there, but never for the episodes AFAIK. I hope they're not used for the R2 DVDs, though, as they couldn't be used to produce anamorphic discs. With any luck they'll take the new digital masters and use them as the source for anamorphic PAL DVDs.
Regards,
Joe

 

[Simon Massey]

They have released a box set of all the TV movies over here in the UK in widescreen, probably to test sales.
However, some of the movies were widescreen, but some had been cropped from the full frame version to 1.77:1 (can' remember which ones). I just hope they don't do this with the DVD

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

The widescreen U.K. VHS release was almost two years ago. Not to "test sales" just an additional release in a market that is receptive to widescreen VHS.

However, some of the movies were widescreen, but some had been cropped from the full frame version to 1.77:1 (can' remember which ones). I just hope they don't do this with the DVD

I've seen vicaps from all of the films, and I'm quite sure you're wrong here. None of the widescreen releases has a "full frame" version. They are either cropped to 1.33:1 or to 1.77:1 from the oversized Super35 frame. With Super35 the "standard" version has more picture at the top and/or bottom, while widescreen loses of of that image area while adding to the sides. The CGI is matted to 1.33:1, because that's the way it was created, but it was designed with this matting in mind. So certain "virtual set" scenes where most of what is on-screen is CGI are matted. But none of the films were 100% cropped from a 1.33:1 source.
Regards,
Joe
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