I rewatched about 5 years ago and it’s just as great as I remembered it. Really thoughtful writing and performances. And old TV series seemed to give everything more time. With 20+ episodes in every season seems like they could let things marinate more. These shorter 8-12 episode seasons make everything feel too condensed to me.
Thats one of the things the SAG strike is angry about. Seasons are too damn short and get cancelled way too early.
Yeah, I never really thought about how the shift effects actors too, but Michelle Hurd explaining they’ve gone from work for most of the year, every year when it was seasonal, to a few months each year in the prestige format was an eye opener.
Personally I am missing longer episodic seasons. I rarely even start shows anymore as I don’t want to commit to having to see all of a series of what get as far story wise as the two hour pilot used to.
I already have the series on AppleTV, but seriously, if you’re never seen it, do yourself a favor. This is some of the best sci-fi ever made for tv. Also, new animated B5 is coming out soon!
Oooh, didn’t know about an animated one. I’ve always been curious but 110 episodes works out to some 70+ hours of tv which would take me forever to finish.
It is a decent amount of watching, but well worth it. I wasn’t even that into it to begin with. I just started watching because my wife was watching it. Then we ended up watching the whole thing in less than two months because we couldn’t wait to see what happened next.
Does anyone want to buy a B5 DVD set? I apparently won’t need it anymore.
Its a collectors item
Maybe someday, but Amazon is still selling them. For less than I paid at the time I believe.
You see that, CBS? Warner figured out how to remaster and release their serialized '90s science fiction drama set aboard a space station on Blu-Ray. Surely doing the same for your serialized '90s science fiction drama set aboard a space station is not too tall of an order.
With the WGA and SAG strikes shutting down all production of new content, there’s never been a better time to put your editors and vfx artists to work remastering an old classic.
Eh, sorta. It’s possible that the CGI files may have finally been located, but I’m not sure. As far as I know, the Blu-Rays will be 4x3 instead of the originally-intended 16x9 aspect ratio. The show was filmed in 16x9 and J. Michael Stracznski intended to have the CGI re-rendered at some point when it could be done faster and cheaper, but the files were lost before that could be done.
Yeah, the DVDs kinda were widescreen, but that’s because they were cropped from 4x3 to 16x9.
Remastered CGI and 16:9 would be nice, but I’ll be plenty happy with the original 4:3 presentation. Assuming this release is cut from the new masters made for streaming (and I can’t imagine why it wouldn’t), it will look pretty damn good.
Later DS9 seasons were also shot for 16:9 with a 4:3 safe zone, but I would still be fine with keeping that whole show 4:3 as well.
The expanded frame wouldn’t add a whole lot to the experience, because they still shot to capture everything in the viewable 4:3 area. I doubt much effort was put into actually composing the shots for widescreen beyond making sure crew and equipment were not visible in frame.
The problem CBS has with DS9 is the extensive use of CGI throughout live action scenes (like Odo shapeshifting). It’s a lot easier to get away with just upscaling old CGI when most of the relevant shots are 100% CGI and don’t need to be composited back in to the original photography.
And so it begins (again)
Et Tu Kosh?
This is exciting! I never watched it when it first came out, aside from it being on in the background.
Well that’s good that it’s already been fully re-mastered for streaming and this is just a formal physical release of those remasters. Whenever I see a new Blu-ray release for SD content these days I worry that they’ll just run it through an AI upscaler and try to sell that. Or worse, they’ll “re-master” it like they did on Buffy and and Angel.
Yeah I have the webdl of it and its pretty damn nice. They did a good job on the CGI upscaling it really looks good, even if its still a bit dated.
I have the DVDs of Buffy and Angel — what did they do to the remasters?
They made seasons shot for 4:3 into widescreen, puting things into shots that were not supposed to be there. They just plain didn’t do color correction for some scenes. There’s videos on YouTube highlighting how it was kind of a disaster. Unfortunately it’s also the only way to stream it these days.
@asperoth Also many of the special effects were not re-done, but simply scaled up from the regular versions to HD. As you can imagine, that’s not a good look.
Amazing news. I will take any excuse to watch B5 again, especially if it’s an improved version!
I think a “Take My Money” meme is appropriate here!
When looking into this show awhile back I heard something about how the CGI effects were done in 4:3, but then a latter release was in 16:9 so all the CGI was stretched because they couldn’t re-render the CGI. Are they implying that this is going to be resolved with this release?
They say the bluray is in 4:3
Well that solves that problem then. Sounds cool. I recently started this show, but now I might as well wait.
Did they ever settle out the problems between Foundation Imaging and Netter digital so the CGI could be re-rendered?
I wouldn’t mind the space exterior CGI being completely redone from scratch. It’s awful in a way that’s distracting, not charming.
The Star Trek TOS CGI was controversial, mostly because of how few exterior shots are in the show and how the shots are mostly for framing, but it is an illustrative example of restrained CGI that makes itself non-flashy and is non-disruptive to a first time viewer if you aren’t looking for it. Babylon 5 could do with a similar treatment.
For anyone wondering it is no longer ger on HBO as of this year. I found it on tubi
Babylon 5 is so great. At the very end, unfortunately, I find it a bit confused. I missed what became of the host in the sealed vessel, for Sheridan’s child. Instead, at some point in an episode before, the evolution of humanity is seen (with the red eyes, downloading data from earth), before the Sun/Earth explodes. That should have been at the end.
Techpriest is a B5 fan that watched “The Gathering” when it premiered. I complained loud and often about how long the studio took to release the series on DVD and have all the B5 shows and movies and what there was of Crusade. I don’t fanboy often but you young-uns now have a homework assignment to watch Babylon 5.
Yes, sir!
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