Babylon 5: The Lost Tales (1 Viewer)

[Patrick Sun]

I'm thinking about re-titling this thread to "B5: The Lost Tails"

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Well, we need something to keep us amused until the discs arrive. Or, to quote my favorite Centauri: "Of all things in life, are females not the finest?"

(He was referring to Centauri dancer Adira Tyree, played by Fabiana Udenio, who went on to play Alotta Fagina in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery:



Hard to argue with Londo's assessment. )

 

[JediFonger]

me2! i hope i receive it today or tomorrow to watch it because i'm going on vacay away from my HT wednesday! i'm so excited. i haven't been so excited while waiting for a SD-DVD for a long time. i really hope the HD version comes out quickly!

joe, you excited?

 

[todd s]

I just got mine today (7/30) in the mail. I had ordered it from Warner home video. They had a discount deal.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Who? Me? Excited? Naaahhh.



My copy shipped today. Happy, happy, joy, joy!

Joe

 

[Patrick Sun]

Well, I've seen the 1st installment of B5: The Lost Tales. My quick thoughts on this return to the B5 universe:

Obviously with the original sets destroyed, re-creating the interiors of B5 would be an expensive proposition, but they went with a lot of green screen, and sparse sets. I think shooting in HD made the green-screen scenes look more obvious (than I remember from the original show). There are some other effects-laden scenes where the money was well spent, and I did like the scenes in space of B5 and of the Furies. It's mainly 2 stories, one with Lochley dealing with something she never thought she'd have to contend with on B5, and the other deals with Sheridan on his way to B5 10 years after his ascension to his presidency and Galen shows up to provide some morsels for Sheridan to chew on. I don't think Scoggins was up to the task acting-wise in some of her scenes as JMS threw a ton of dialogue into both stories. Boxleitner's Sheridan had an odd sense of whimsy in some of his scenes. I did like how JMS dealt with G'kar and Stephen's place in the B5 universe.

Overall, I liked the return to B5, but I fear the budget limited what JMS could have done in the initial installment, but it's understandable if he were rationing the budget for the more effects-intensive stories to come.

 

[JediFonger]

ups attempted delivery today but i wasn't home =(. i coulda' watched it =P. ok, will be here tomorrow =P.

 

[Scott-S]

Patrick (or anyone), after viewing this, do you think it would be important for me to have watched Crusade first? I haven't seen that yet (I am just now renting them via Netflix). Since it sounds like some of the characters from Crusade are in Lost Tales, will I get lost by not knowing them?

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

I don't see how this would be an issue. People were able to watch Crusade itself without having seen Babylon 5, after all, nobody got confused watching the Homicide/Law and Order cross-overs because they hadn't watched the other show, and plenty of people managed to enjoy Terminator 2 without ever having seen the original. All the writer has to do is provide enough information so that you understand the characters in the context of the current story. It isn't like it you need to know all the backstory and previous interactions among characters to follow a plot. If that were true no story would work, because they all rely on events that took place before the story begins.

Besides, the only two characters in TLT who are "from" Crusade (that is featured characters who were in the main titles) are Galen and Lochley - both of whom were established in B5 stories interacting with Sheridan. (Lochley in S5, Galen in A Call to Arms, which was the last original cast B5 TV movie.) Also Galen is a technomage, so if you saw "The Geometry of Shadows" you know an awful lot of what you need to know about him.

None of the characters who was exclusive to Crusade is involved in TLT, and I think it is probably a coincidence that two of the characters JMS chose for the first disc were also associated with that show.

As I noted above, I don't expect JMS to spill the beans about the main Crusade story, so there will probably just be a cryptic reference or two to the series. Apart from that all you need to know is that Galen met both Lochley and Sheridan met 5 years ago, during the preparations for the last "big" annivesary of the Interstellar Alliance, and that's all covered in ACtA, so if you've seen the TV movies, you're all set.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Scott-S]

Thanks Joe. I haven't watched Call to Arms for a long time. Guess I should dust it off and watch it before I watch TLT.

This is going to be a good weekend of DVD viewing for me.

 

[todd s]

I was going to watch it last night. But, I have to take a long plane flight on Friday and figured it would be a good movie to watch on the plane.

 

[George_W_K]

Hope there aren't any snakes.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Oh, now you gave away the surprise big name cameo they had planned for TLT:2.

"Enough is enough! I have had it with these m********ing snakes on this m*********ing space station!"

(You can get away with a lot more when you're going direct-to-DVD. )

Regards,

Joe

 

[George_W_K]

 

[GregC]

Joe,

Thanks for the Lyta pics (he says with a red face after misspelling her name)!

I had just finished perusing the pics you linked and well .... I wasn't really thinking clearly!

But, amends are being made .... Amazon has informed me that my copy of Lost Tails (sic) is in the mail!

Greg

 

[Michael TLV]

Greetings

I just finished watching this disc and it visually looks nice. Certainly not perfect, but more polish than any of the old B5 episodes.

The Sheridan story was more sweeping than the lochley one, but i enjoyed both just the same. JMS deals with religion every so often so the story brought up some interesting ideas.

A wonderful step back into the B5 universe. I do wonder whether future projects will jump back in time and others further forward ... or are we only dealing with 10 years later stories ... aside from the telepath war thing that was more than 5 years ago in B5 time ...

Regards

 

[Dave Scarpa]

Picked up My copy from Best Buy tonight with Comic. Looked as thou they had sold quite a few. Settled down after supper to watch and I have a few comments. Babylon 5 the Lost tales is a Interesting title. WHat would I expect a Movie or Anthology series to be bearing that name. Well I would expect Stories that standalone but still tie to the overall B5 Universe. We get some of that in TLT. The First story could easily fit into Season 5 of the original Series, although that might not be a Complement as season 5 bears some of the weaker episodes of the series. While competent the story of Religion and renewal, while touched upon in the series, still does not tie into it's overall mytholgy. It plays like a two actor play set upon some rather simple and Unconvincing Green Screen. The performances are all fine but I was very eh about this whole tale. It reminded me alot of Thirdspace a B5 Movie I did not enjoy alot. It was somewhat of a weak entry to start this new Direct To DVD series. The Second entry I liked a whole lot better. Not only did it Star one of the main characters of the show, it referred back to and embelished the whole Centauri Cartagia arc, something this new series needs to do. The Effects while still Green Screen were alot more convincing here. Both Boxleitner and Peter Woodward shine returning to their past roles like we have'nt skipped ahead by 8 years.

If I'm going to plunk down my $20 bucks every Year or so revisting the B5 universe this is more of what I want to see. Give me some adventures with Garibaldi or Marcus that are critical to the B5 Timeline, I'm sure there are a lot of fill in the blank episodes that we could see. Give me a Ivonova mission after she was promoted. And I won't scoff at an odd space battle or two. Or how about this , Give Crusade a Proper Ending. My Hope is that viewers made it past the 1st Hour to enjoy the second and for the series to continue.

 

[Sam Favate]

I won't get to see this until next week, but you have me anxious with anticipation. I sincerely hope the sales are good enough to continue the series -- a "Lost Tales" with Marcus or Ivanova or Londo or Lennier would be great.

 

[NeilO]

My copy arrived yesterday and I agree for the most part with your assessment. Some of the green screen was incredibly obvious (and slightly distracting because of that), but in some scenes it worked quite well. I think the budget hurt matters, but maybe with good sales they'll get a bigger budget for another release.

I really did like the mentions of G'Kar and Stephen Franklin.

One note regarding Ivanova or the lack thereof. In the opening flashes we saw G'Kar, Mollari & Vir, Delenn and Lennier, Kosh, and I think for the humans we saw Sheridan, Garibaldi, Franklin and Lochley, but not Ivanova. This lends more thought that stories for her are far from JMS' mind (or they couldn't even come to an agreement to use her image).

Neil

 

[Scott-S]

Ever since this title was announced and put on Amazon, it has been in the top 15 (usually top 10). I would have to think a title that stays ranked top 10 on the "top sellers" page must be doing pretty good.

Because the industry refuses to allow sales numbers to be public information, we will never really know how well it sold. We will only know the title did well if or when we read the announcement that they are doing another one.

It makes you wonder what they industry is hiding when they keep sales numbers secret. I think it is just another facet of the "creative accounting" that the studios are know to do.