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

41–50 of 379 posts

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#41

Post by t312227 »

pjmlp wrote: post #15
t312227 wrote: post #14

hello, as always: imho. (!) ah ... babylon 5 :)) this was one of the best scifi shows back in the mid 1990ties. it introduced a lot things which we take for granted today ... together with startrek "deep space nine" which roughly aired during the same time: * telling a "story arch" over multiple seasons * 2 parallel story-lines within episodes * causally show people doing "every-day" life things, like going to the to…

You are missing one important detail, an Amiga alongside NewTek's Video Toaster. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Toaster

you are right, i left this detail out ... but it went somewhat together with the amiga & the lightwave-software :))

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#42

Post by jfengel »

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'…

When I finally decided to watch B5 for the first time, season 1 was so bad that I literally turned it off and stared at the ceiling. (I was stuck in bed due to an injury.)

Eventually, somebody curated a couple of season 1 episodes and told me to skip ahead to season 2. By the time it got to season 4, I felt it had risen to the level of "ok".

I never found any of the characters compelling, despite some game performances. And I never found the plot all that interesting, either, though I can see why others might find it so.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#43

Post by bilegeek »

pjmlp wrote: post #15
t312227 wrote: post #14

hello, as always: imho. (!) ah ... babylon 5 :)) this was one of the best scifi shows back in the mid 1990ties. it introduced a lot things which we take for granted today ... together with startrek "deep space nine" which roughly aired during the same time: * telling a "story arch" over multiple seasons * 2 parallel story-lines within episodes * causally show people doing "every-day" life things, like going to the to…

You are missing one important detail, an Amiga alongside NewTek's Video Toaster. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Toaster

24 Amiga 2000's each with a 68040, 32mb of RAM and a Video Toaster, managed by a 486 server with a 12gb of storage.

[1]https://www.atarimagazines.com/compute/issue166/68_The_makin...

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#44

Post by sillywalk »

bilegeek wrote: post #43
pjmlp wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are missing one important detail, an Amiga alongside NewTek's Video Toaster. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Toaster

24 Amiga 2000's each with a 68040, 32mb of RAM and a Video Toaster, managed by a 486 server with a 12gb of storage. [1] https://www.atarimagazines.com/compute/issue166/68_The_makin...

I just had to add more, because I remember they used DEC Alpha systems at some point.

" Alphas for design stations serving 5 animators and one animation assistant (housekeeping and slate specialist). Most of these stations run Lightwave and a couple add Softimage. VERY plug-in hungry. PVR's on every station, with calibrated component NTSC (darn it, I hates ntsc) right beside.

P6's in quad enclosures for part of the renderstack, and Alphas for the rest, backed up 2x per day to an optical jukebox.

Completed shots output to a DDR post rendering and get integrated into the show.

Shots to composite go to the Macs running After Effects, or the SGI running Flint, depending on the type of comp being done, and then to the DDR (8 minutes capacity on the SGI)."[0]

[0] http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/making/effects.html

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#45

Post by tracker1 »

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 back to 1080p for a final BluRay set. Probably enough people that would do this as a passion project if the studio would let them.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#46

Post by RupertSalt »

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…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_opera

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#47

Post by impossiblefork »

stuxnet79 wrote: post #21
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…

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.

For me, the appeal of DS9 was that certain episodes In the Pale Moonlight etc. are a bit like a play, very self-contained even if they are in a certain setting. Babylon 5 is kind of the opposite, no plays, just parts of a long arc.

I think both have their appeal, but it's easier to timebox the enjoyment of a play. It's also easier to discuss, or think about.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#48

Post by nobody9999 »

jefc1111 wrote: post #36
jeffwask wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I probably agree but my emotional attachment to DS9 keeps it in front. It's also crazy how relevant to modern times the plot of B5 is and how many parallels you see.

I hear this a lot about B5, and I get a _sense_ of it myself, but I'd love to know what people specifically mean. I.e. "X plot line is like Y thing" in real life right now.

>I hear this a lot about B5, and I get a _sense_ of it myself,

The series creator and chief writer, J. Michael Straczynski was explicit about that: The Earth Government story arc is lifted straight from the fascist regimes of the 1930s and 1940s.

A significant amount of which we're seeing rebranded as MAGA in the US and other far-right movements elsewhere.

A good example would be the "anti-alien" frenzy in Babylon 5 as compared with the far-right's ridiculous tropes about the undocumented in the US.

There are a bunch more like Trump's obsession with personal loyalty and lack of any empathy is quite similar to Babylon 5's President Clarke.

As I mentioned, that story arc is based upon the fascist regimes of the '30s and '40s, they even have a "Neville Chamberlain"[0] analog[1] who loudly proclaims "Finally, we will at last know 'peace in our time'."

The biggest difference is that in the Babylon 5 universe, the fascist scum are much more competent than those IRL today.

There's lots more, and I'll echo the plaints of others here that Season 1 is uneven and appears meandering, but many of the plot points brought up in Season 1 end up paying off much later in the series.

I heartily recommend watching the series, not just for the parallels with some of our current circumstance, but because it's a good story with the entire five season story arc fleshed out from the beginning, with good character development and character driven story lines.

It was also the first live-action Sci-Fi series that made use of CGI for the space scenes, which was both very cool, but was also limited compared to today's SFX given that 30 second segments could take hours to render on the Unix workstations of the mid 1990s.

Is it perfect, no. But it's worth the effort to watch it IMNSHO.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neville_Chamberlain

[1] https://babylon5.fandom.com/wiki/Frederick_Lantze

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#49

Post by jefc1111 »

jfengel wrote: post #42
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'…

When I finally decided to watch B5 for the first time, season 1 was so bad that I literally turned it off and stared at the ceiling. (I was stuck in bed due to an injury.) Eventually, somebody curated a couple of season 1 episodes and told me to skip ahead to season 2. By the time it got to season 4, I felt it had risen to the level of "ok". I never found any of the characters compelling, despite some game performanc…

This is what I was referring to in my original comment.

My suggestion is that had you endured S1 fully, you might have felt S4 had risen to a higher level than "ok". That's not to say I begrudge you skipping through S1 ... I'd probably have done the same if I'd come across it in recent years as opposed to however many years ago it was.

I'm not trying to change your mind really, but yeah - I think the value that you hear about in the characters and plot arise from the many small nuances which build up slowly over time.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#50

Post by nobody9999 »

kouteiheika wrote: post #17

I would give my left kidney for either a continuation or a reboot of Babylon 5 under the helm of J. Michael Straczynski with full creative freedom. Or hell, even an entirely different show. In my opinion he's one of the few people in the industry who actually knows how to skillfully write a coherent TV show. And by that I mean: he actually pre-planned the story (spanning multiple seasons!) of B5 right from the beginn…

>I would give my left kidney for either a continuation or a reboot of Babylon 5 under the helm of J. Michael Straczynski with full creative freedom. Or hell, even an entirely different show.

There has been discussion about a reboot over the years, with JMS throwing some cold water[0] (at least for now) on the possibility in January 2026.

There's sort of a "continuation" with Babylon 5: The Road Home[1] from 2023.

There's also Crusade[2] which only ended up with a dozen or so episodes, although JMS had a multi-year story arc planned.

[0] https://www.ign.com/articles/j-michael-straczynski-is-being-...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5:_The_Road_Home

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusade_%28TV_series%29

Post reply on HN