Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

cordcuttersnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 379 posts

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#181

Post by georgeecollins »

uxcolumbo wrote: post #162
nephihaha wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is good evidence that DS9 was (ahem) inspired by Babylon 5. However, Babylon 5 succeeds in its philosophical ambitions a lot of the time while DS9 turned into soap opera.

What's the evidence? Star Trek came out before B5 and in the ST universe there were several deep space stations. Do you mean they copied characters or story lines? And how is DS9 a soap opera? I associate soap operas with sh!t acting and not really exploring deeper philosophical topics. DS9 had amazing actors, character development and story lines. Take Garak for example, amazing character.

Hollywood is a company town, even more then because there was way less international production. B5 was pitched to every studio long before the first episode of DS9. The executives deciding to greenlight DS9 would know about BS5 even if the showrunners didn’t. Lots of people worked on both shows.

That said, two people have the same idea all the time. B5 really pioneered the idea of a show with a multi season arc that was planned up front. In a time where shows more or less reset continuity after every episode. Shows like Lost pretended they knew where they were going but really made it up as they went along.

Deep Space Nine had a similar multi season arc, which is why I think the poster said soap opera.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#182

Post by moron4hire »

Telemakhos wrote: post #152
nephihaha wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's let down by its effects which even appeared ropey at the time. However, some good storylines.

Having been alive at the time, I can tell you that the effects were amazing then. B5 was one of the first shows to use computer graphics and partially-virtual sets. It wasn't limited by the number of times you could re-composite a handful of models together, so it showed whole armadas of ships. Windows didn't open onto a black felt field of stars but a green screen that allowed ships to pull up right outside the wind…

Having also been alive at the time, I can tell you I thought the effects looked hokey and cheap.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#184

Post by georgeecollins »

potamic wrote: post #62
jeffwask wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rewatched it last year during an old sci-fi binge, I had watched bits as a kid but never got it. I grew up on TNG and DS9 was my favorite, so I was probably biased. It's probably now number 2 for me behind DS9. I watched it again a few month later to catch all the foreshadowing I missed the first time. You are spot on that season 1 is a slow burn that ramps up to the amazing seasons 3 and 4. Best part, it has a cle…

Can someone who is new to Star trek start with DS9 or need to watch earlier series for context?

I went on this journey with my son during COVID.

Watch a handful of classic trek to get the idea. Balance of Terror, city on the Edge of Forever, maybe Mirror Mirror or Trouble with Tribbles. They will seem very cliched.

Start TNG in the third season and just focus on the best episodes, the ones that are 8s or 9s on IMDB. Be sure to see The Best of Both Worlds I and I, the original season finale climax.

Skip a lot of the first season of DS9. Low IMDb will tell you which ones. But watch almost all of the later seasons.

Then play Star Trek Attack Wing!

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#185

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

eafkuor wrote: post #74
jefc1111 wrote: post #6

If you decide to watch Babylon 5 for the first time, I suggest giving it a chance to get under your skin. There is quite a lot to get in the way of that such as mediocre acting, cringey humour, low budget fx (all particularly prominent in season 1). But the pay off in seasons 3 and 4 is huge if you take the time to let affection grow for the characters. Babylon 5 was my first 'favourite series' that 'changed my life'…

> But the pay off in seasons 3 and 4 Having to suffer through two mediocre seasons is a dealbreaker in 2026 to be honest.

"Suffering" would be putting it a bit strongly.

Unfortunately, there's some very important episodes that set up major plot arcs that you don't get to appreciate until later on, so maybe it's worth just watching the best episodes of season 1 if you're impatient. Season 2 is better than mediocre.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#186

Post by danaris »

RobotToaster wrote: post #143
danaris wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And sadly, so many of the main cast are no longer with us—far more than one would expect from their ages. I know that some of them, indeed, died due to substance abuse issues; I don't know the circumstances of all of them. They will all be greatly missed.

The curse of Babylon 5 https://www.imdb.com/list/ls056207990/

Indeed—and Mira Furlan died just a few years ago, at 65.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#187

Post by tracker1 »

tracker1 wrote: post #45
tomkarho wrote: post #30

Those who come to this magnificent piece of Sci-Fi for the first time, a word of advice: Pay attention. There are things set in motion in season 1 that are resolved multiple seasons later and there's a lot of foreshadowing (pun very much intended) both subtle and overt. Oh and, enjoy the ride. It's a good one.

I just found the acting in the first season really, "soap opera" like. I'm not sure how to describe it better. It's still one of my all time favorite shows. I wish they'd do a corrected bluray release with even a bit more effort... when they did the upscaling for HD release on HBO Max, they messed up a couple episodes. Maybe AI upscale to 4k, with training data for newer ship models, actor photos, etc then reducing b…

Honestly if it were some with live models even at SD it wouldn't be so bad... I just find it's from a time that's kind of painful to watch... Much like Transformers: Beast Wars.

I enjoy the story, but the FX are IMO literally worse than pre-60s serial Sci-fi content. The blurry, low res CGI just detracts from the show today. I'm not asking for a reboot or change of the material marathon... Just the special effects and CGI to what it should have been at the time.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#188

Post by layer8 »

pupppet wrote: post #66

For those who have watched both Babylon 5 and Star Trek TNG- which did you like better?

TNG, because it’s about the future, about science, rationality, open-mindedness and new perspectives, whereas B5 is really about the past (and present), about politics, recurrence and mysticism. It’s a bit like which do you prefer, science-fiction or fantasy? Much of B5 could have been done in a pure fantasy setting.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#189

Post by pimeys »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #158
stuxnet79 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a DS9 fan myself I felt like B5 was the better show. DS9 had greater variance throughout its run, the standout episodes were phenomenal but also lots of weak episodes & filler. If there was tighter editorial control over the episodes & at least 30% of them got cut then it could be a contender.

I watched all of TNG, Voyager and DS9. To me DS9 will always be behind the other ST series. I felt like it was a bit too much of the social stuff, maybe because it plays mostly on a station instead of an exploration vessel, but I guess that is exactly what people like about it. The characters and their development and so on. I liked the Garak character for example, but disliked Zisko being some chosen one for the wor…

We recently watched all the 80's and 90's Star Trek for the first time. So it's really interesting to compare the series' from the modern perspective.

TNG is a classic, with the classic crew and after the first hiccups is some of the best scifi of all time. Absolutely great actors and amazing writing.

DS9 is the weird one. I do really enjoy the trajectory of many of its characters: Sisko, Odo, Bashir, Dax (one of my favorite characters in all ST), O'Brien, Quark, Kira, Worf, Dukat, Garak, Damar... The list of great characters in DS9 is the best part of this series. The last season was a definite letdown for me though, and I didn't like the ending at all.

Voyager was the surprising one. I expected a lesser series after reading the old discussion about the three Treks of the 90's. But wow. It's banger episodes right from the start, one of the most badass captains in all of Trek and in the fourth season arrives my favorite scifi character: Seven of Nine. There's a lot of great episodes here, and some filler. I didn't like how some characters never went anywhere. But there is more good here than mediocre. As a series I like it more than DS9, I just wished the other characters were up to the writing of Janeway, Seven and Doctor.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#190

Post by tracker1 »

TiredOfLife wrote: post #99
tracker1 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just found the acting in the first season really, "soap opera" like. I'm not sure how to describe it better. It's still one of my all time favorite shows. I wish they'd do a corrected bluray release with even a bit more effort... when they did the upscaling for HD release on HBO Max, they messed up a couple episodes. Maybe AI upscale to 4k, with training data for newer ship models, actor photos, etc then reducing b…

> when they did the upscaling for HD release on HBO Max, they messed up a couple episodes. Those were not upscales.

They definitely aren't 1/4 SD (DVD) though... The original series was SD, shot in SD for the early seasons with 1/4 res CGI.

The HBO Max release was 1080p with some wife screen usage... The extra pixels came from somewhere.

Post reply on HN