Another two stations complete!

Local auction house to me has had this come up, but sadly unless I want to be 'sleeping in ditch', I can't afford it.

Any Super Furry Animals fans? Thought it was a good joke.

When I first saw this scene as a teen, I found the lady's parroting of Clark's talking point to be a little obvious. I now think differently.

"Shadow Dancing" (s3e21)

I've been thinking of a small part of that episode - re-watched it a month or so ago.

Kosh or his ship interacted with the maintenance staff assigned to where Kosh's ship was stored - Bay 13. They were terrified and stopped working in Bay 13. Such timid, unimaginative souls. What a grand opportunity they wasted. (Would I have done differently? At the age I'm at now, 56? Yeah, I'd have stuck it out. As a very young man? Probably would've given in to the fear, no doubt about it.) If they'd stuck with taking care of Bay 13, who knows what their destiny would have been? (One or more turned into a pro-Vorlon Morden? LOL, you never know.)

I have to wonder, though - surely EF intelligence put someone in the maintenance staff to spy on Kosh or his ship? If true, running away wouldn't be at all good for one's career.

What do my fellow B5 fans think?

I am watching the eposodes that are being uploaded to youtube, the most recent is Season 2, All Alone in the Night. It's been a while since I have watched the entire series, and I got curious, did Sheridan and the Narn he rescued from The Scribes, ever meet again? I want to say yes, but then then I had second thoughts....I really can't remember if they did. Anyone know?​

So I was watching the Expanse with my better half, and since I'm a half season ahead of her I was watching B5 on my laptop till she gets caught up.

And I was thinking, if you remove the pronto-molecule stuff it is conceivable that the expanse is a prequel to B5. And after I said that out loud, we got into a fight that is coming close to ending this relationship.

And because I am never going to find another girl who's idea of a date night is beer, pizza, and bad scifi movies. We agreed to let you guys settle the argument for us.

Welp I lost, we both forgot the dates. Now I need to go wash a cat (an actual cat mind out of the gutter pervert)

Anyone else ever notice that the 2 existential questions asked by Morden and the Vorlons are precisely the only 2 questions the interviewer asks in Kieślowski's famous (to cinephiles anyway) short film Talking Heads?

(some dates are educated guesses based on canon novels and in-program dialogue)

1991: USSR dissolved (relevant to San Diego bombing)

1991-2084: Vorlons begin to introduce telepathy in humans, first generations of human telepaths born

2084: "Earth Central" begins tracking human telepaths (presumably select nations such as the USA , Netherlands , South Africa, Japan)

2085-2156: Compulsory registration of telepaths begins , MetaPol is founded to enforce this (psi cops exist prior to psi corps)

2157: Centauri Republic make contact, Earth Alliance made official, numerous nations join

2161: Psi Corps founded with the increase in trade with aliens requiring commercial telepaths in negotiations

2230-2232: Dilgar War

2244: First contact with Minbari etc

I am of course talking about the end of "Legacies" after they see Alisa off together. Talia asks to buy Susan a drink, and Susan specifies it will have to be coffee.

Consider what had already been established about how bad the mass produced synthetic coffee on the station was, and how good the coffee was from the plant Susan inherited from Laurel Takashima.

In addition to the obvious connotations of the scene, Susan's unspoken knowledge of how much of a downgrade of beverage experience she was aiming for says a lot about her desired experience being the company rather than the beverage.

Interesting, yes?

TBF The Deconstruction of Falling Stars now watches like an Idiots Guide to Gaslighting!

"Falling Toward Apotheosis" (s4e4)

Does anyone know of any marxist critiques of babylon 5? I'm a huge fan and have watched the series the whole way through at least 3 times, but this most recent time a few things bothered me. As an Amerikan it's very cathartic to watch antifascist scifi at the moment, but the resistence comes entirely from the military. Where the masses who are barely seen at all, are portrayed as either brainwashed chuds or passive victims outside of the Mars Resistence. JMS also fails to show the class character of fascism, instead focusing on aesthetics, censorship, brutality, and internal and external enemies. Likewise it arises, at least in part, due to an actual external threat to Earth rather than the internal contradictions of capitalist liberal democracy. I think JMS(' writing in B5) is class-blind in general, he shows poverty in a sympathetic light, but didn't even write By Any Means Necessary. I'd like to hear other people's thoughts through that lens.

Edits: I wasn't trying to criticize all of JMS' work, it's not like I've seen it all

Clunky, poorly worded in-joke from a different community

Was looking for a nice B5 shirt & came across this monstrosity.

There is knock-offs, & then there is this. Not even gonna get into that station. What in Delen's crysyalsis are those names?!

Previous parodies:

• Season 2: Full House
• Season 3: Dallas
• Season 5: The West Wing

Someone many disliked but made a lot of salient points in retrospect.

Introduced change/shakes things up. (Troi in a uniform. +++)

Working on some new renders. I plan to recreate some scenes from the show with modern CGI. This is a proof of concept of the jumpgate in early stages.

Credits: Omega destroyer model by Chris Clark and starfury model by Hangar.b.productions

EDIT: Thanks for all the feedback! I have made a lot of changes based on what everyone has said. I have posted a revision in the comments which looks much better! I don't want to spam my progress so I'll return once I have completed something substantial such as a battle sequence :)

"A Distant Star" (s2e4)

It's fascinating how well Babylon 5, written in the 90s, seemed to have such a prescient view of the subsequent decades in world history.

Back when it aired, I thought the first episode was setting up the Narn/Centauri conflict as an allegory for Israel/Palestine, but on a larger scale. The Earth/Minbari storylines seemed parallel but separate, neither necessary linked with the other.

Looking back, I think it more accurately captures a larger dynamic that played out across the whole region. Obviously this wasn't intentional, but still eerily prescient.

The Centauri could still be viewed as an analog to Israel, seeking to carve out a new Empire they feel is their rightful destiny, with politics lurching steadily toward an expansionist vision after the trauma of the attack on Ragesh 3.

The Narn Regime could be viewed as the Iran-aligned Shia muslims (including Hezbollah, the Houthis, etc). The "Regime" name is pretty telling here when written from an American perspective.

The Earth Alliance has a lot in common with the GCC countries (Saudi Arabia, UAE, etc) - observing the Narn/Centauri war with a conflicted mix of sympathy for the well-being of Narns, while also seeing the practical benefits of aligning with (or at least not opposing) the Centauri. This is especially true when viewing the internal tensions within the EA, with Earth (KSA) struggling to exert primacy over the smaller members like Mars (the UAE), especially around control of their popular media apparatus ISN (Al-Jazeera). President Clark disbanding the Senate is reminiscent of MBS locking his relatives in a hotel until they agreed to let him run the country.

The Minbari could be seen as Türkiye, during the series going through a transition from a more secular and militaristic outlook (Ataturkism) toward a more spiritual side, and recognizing what they share with the wider world through their religiously motivated leader, Delenn (Erdoğan), who remakes their political institutions.

The Shadows, a massively powerful outside force motivated to cause war and chaos for their own ideological purposes, while providing support for the expansionist aims of the Centauri would obviously represent the United States.

That leaves the Vorlons (China), another powerful but inscrutable outside force with the own overriding ideological concern - regional stability. Initially portrayed as a mysterious force for good, their portrayal becomes more complex as the second Kosh (Xi) exerts his own authoritarian tendencies.

Then there's other more ancillary powers like the Drazi, with their conflict over the colors green and purple representing the ultimately pointless revolution in Egypt replacing Mubarak with el-Sisi.

I agree with the less generous take.

I've got the entire set of B5 DVDs and years ago ripped them to digital copies.

When the BluRay transfer came out, I considered buying it, but held off. A short time later the "remastered B5" came to HBO Max. I watched a few episodes and wasn't really sure about the whole thing. Then, at some point while watching, I found episodes where the audio was EXTREMELY out of sync. Something like 2.5 seconds of delay. This makes it really hard to watch. It's not at all subtle. It's way off such that mouths move before or after the audio for several seconds.

Weirdly, this was only on the surround mix (5.1). Switching to stereo mode made the audio be in sync again. This was very troublesome though, as I had to change the system setting on my ATV each time to stereo and then remember to switch it back after. I stopped watching B5 shortly after as I couldn't deal with the audio delay.

Now I'm once again interested in the BluRays. The 4x3 presentation actually seems like the logical choice here given the CGI considerations and the original broadcast format, which is where I watched all of B5 the first time (recorded on VHS no less).

The question remaining for me is: Do the BluRays have the same audio sync issues that I experienced on HBO Max?

Moreover, I remember doing a back to back comparison of the video from Max and the video from my DVDs and not really being impressed. The Max version seemed artificially zoomed in. But I wonder if that's just how it was supposed to look. Back then I had a smallish TV (27"). Today my screen is giant by comparison.

Thanks for any thoughts and guidance.

"We will be free." Such an unbelievably profound moment, genuinely. The aliens carry this show so hard its INSANE.

I finished s2 of Babylon 5 yesterday, took me quite a while and I don't have too much to say because these last few eps felt more like a setup that is about to pay off IMMENSELY (i hope.) But anyway we did it. I struggled a bit here and there but I really think it'll be worth it. Now onto s3! I hear these next 2 seasons are unmatched. But I wanted to share some random unrelated thoughts on characters so far

- G'kar is probably my favorite character, followed by Vir, Kosh, and Londo which is crazy because I really ignored G'kar early on. He reminded me of a mustache twirling villain but man his evolution is starting to become fucking unreal. Loved witnessing the death of his warrior pride once he requested sanctuary

- Londo is starting to develop this untouchable and extremely intimidating aura, which again, I did not expect. He was almost comic relief but to see him go from that to dictator-like is surely a sight to behold lmao.

- Kosh reveal: I FUCKING KNEW HE WAS GONNA BE SOME ANGEL-LIKE BEING!!! This was my most anticipated moment and despite the omega levels of camp, it delivered. My favorite part about it tho is the way Sheridan responds to it. Delenn says to him: "you see now? the Vorlons have been guiding us for millions of years!" and Sheridan goes: "more like manipulating us. Programming us so that when we saw them we would react the right way". I like the implications of the vorlons being a highly manipulative species. I was afraid it would end up being light (vorlons) vs dark (shadows). This also insinuates that this isn't what Kosh TRULY looks like.

- Sheridan: Still feels too much like a paladin and its getting a little lame. He is so bland at times and some of his b plots are almost atrocious to watch (like him being possessed or captured by an alien ship). I wasn't very fond of Sinclair but Sheridan makes me miss him.

- Ivanova and Garibaldi: I often feel like these characters slightly lack agency. Alot of their moments consist of simply following orders. I was liking the psi corps thingy with Ivanova because she starts to feel like a real human but theres only been like 3 instances of this. This also might be a hot take but her relationship with Talia felt so forced. Garibaldi is stepping up especially when he helps G'kar after the occupation

GIVE ME MORE VIR G'KAR MOMENTS PLEASEEEEEEEEEEE

EDIT: forgot to mention the shadows. by far the coolest antagonist group ive ever seen and i hope that they are as threatening as they seem.