#Babylon 5
22 messages in this thread
So who saw Babylon 5 and what do you think?
I took 2 points off in the first 5 seconds for "swoosh" ("In space nobody can
hear you swoosh"). I was prepared to take another 2 points off for spaceships
moving like airplanes, but to my surprise and delight, it wasn't necessary. I'm
a little confused about the gravity situation – they are using spin to simulate
gravity in the gardens/farms and the living rings, but the "bridge" was also
under gravity, and it seemed to me to be located in a non-rotating part of the
station. I'm going to watch the tape in detail to be sure. Other than that, I
detected no major technical/scientific faux-pas.
I liked the effects (done on 8 Amigas with 32Mb RAM and Video Toaster boards in
a network with another Amiga with 64Mb RAM and a Gigabyte disk acting as a
server). I especially liked the Vorlon ships, and the fact that they travelled
in flotilla.
The acting was a bit wooden, but I'm willing to give them a chance to grow into
their characters. The Ambassadors especially have a lot of potential – the
slimy Norn, the ascetic Mimbri, the dissipated Centauri, and the mysterious
Vorlon. (Ascetic? Well, maybe not so – "There was a man from Nantucket…")
Gary
Gary,
Taped & then watched Babylon 5. Sorry I did. Graphics were OK, but the
acting, plot and pace were horrible. I don't think they'll grow into their
parts. I think it was originally intended as a pilot for a series, but I doubt
it will make it to a series, given the tremendous similarities to Star Trek
Deep Space Nine.
Kevin Krell – Computer Support Associates
Kevin;
The graphics were the reason I posted the message in this forum. If you
consider Bab5 in relation to The Last Starfighter, you will notice a trend.
Last was rendered on a Cray X-MP, and looked really artificial, with no shadows
or surface textures. Bab5 was rendered on networked Amigas with shadows and
surface textures; it's not perfect, but a vast improvement over Last, and for a
whole heck of a lot less money.
Also, the stated intention of the Bab5 production team is to include computer
generated characters in future episodes (if any).
If the trend continues, as I'm sure it will, within five years you should start
to see "home movies" capable of competing with Star Trek.
Gary
I thought they _did_ use computer-generated characters. Those couldn't have
been _human_ actors. <g>
– Jack
Jack;
Nah, they just used standard "audio-animatronics", ie: puppets.
Gary
Gary: I thought that Babylon 5 was OK, but nothing spectacular. I've read a lot
about the computer based effects and the fleet of Amigas, but I thought that
the models **looked** like they were done on a computer, which is bad news. The
surfaces were too smooth and uniform to be completely realistic. I looked at
the view of the Enterprise on next generation this week and you could see that
the surfaces weren't uniform or smooth. Some panels stuck out, some stuck in,
and the windows are reset. Of course, the Enterprise is a physical model and
not animated for the most part.
The best example I can think of was the Milennium Falcon – one old, ratty,
rusty vehicle, and a lot of what made it look real was the imperfections.
I also noticed the gravity on the non-spun parts of the station. The other
thing that bothered me was the little circle of lights on the floor that chased
each other around on the "bridge" Why…?
In general, I thought that it was watchable, but I wouldn't miss DS9 to watch
it.
Chris
Chris;
Well, I guess it comes down to a matter of taste. I thought the graphics were
at least the equal of Star Trek's, and the design of the station far better
than DS9. Right from the first episode of the original Star Trek I've thought
the Enterprise a ridiculous design, and have absolutely hated the way it moves
– like an airplane, not a spaceship. The Millenium Falcon and all the Star Wars
ships share this fault – in fact, much of the space battle footage in the Star
Wars movies was copied wholesale from The Battle of Britain.
Upon re-viewing the tape, I managed to sort out the "bridge" gravity problem.
The "bridge", or more accurately the "tower" because its main function is "air"
traffic control, is located under the main docking port, in a rotating section,
with its floor further from the axis of rotation than its ceiling, thus giving
it "gravity" simulated by centripetal acceleration. It is closer to the axis
than most of the station, so "gravity" should be lower, but I can forgive them
for not trying to simulate that.
Gary
Gary: To be fair to Star Wars, they did study a lot of air combat films when
they designed the motion of the small ships. I think that a large part of this
was to tie into a visual language that everybody is already familiar with –
**everybody** has seen the same film clips of airplanes from WW II (I don't
know how many times I've seen the same Japanese airplane pich over and go into
the ocean!)
"Real" spaceship motions would certainly be more accurate but for a lot of
people they would look wrong. They did some of this in "The Last Starfighter" –
the ships still moved a lot like airplanes, but they would rotate around their
center of gravity when they got hit by something solid like a missile.
I've never been partial to the Federation's maximum surface area design either
– I like the new Romulan ships the best. Of course, I've noticed that all of
the larger warp capable ships seem to have open space between the warp engine
nacelles. This is consistant in Federation, Klingon and Romulan design, at
least. My point with the Enterprise and Millium Falcon was that they are
**not** simple, clean, repetitive surfaces. There are lumpy spots and, on the
Falcon, rusty spots that make the whole thing look more real. **That** is what
bothered me about Babylon 5 – the texture maps look like texture maps and were
awfully shiny.
Chris
Chris;
I understand your point about giving people images they can relate to, but I
think in the long run, they are doing people a dis-service by spreading false
information. Also, I think people are familiar enough with the way objects move
in free fall from watching TV broadcasts from the shuttle that they would
accept it without even noticing. And again, look at 2001 A Space Odessey – one
of the all time great SF movies, and (with one minor mistake) everything moves
exactly right.
The thing that irks me is; if Clint Eastwood rode into town, faced the
black-hats on the street, pulled an Uzi from under his poncho and cut the
baddies in half, the audience would get up en masse and leave. Just because the
audience doesn't know that it's BS doesn't give film makers the right to feed
them heaping bowls full of it. Glaring inaccuracies and inconsistencies destroy
my "willing suspension of disbelief".
Movie SF is at about the same stage written SF was in the thirties and forties
– very little real "Science", mostly just Space Opera.
As for "shiny" – hey, c'mon, it's NEW after all.
Gary
Gary:
IMHO, internal consistancy is more important to suspension of disbelief than
conformance to whatever our current conception of reality is.
For instance, in ST:TNG, Jordi's visor is supposed to pretty much show him all
EM spectrums — a heck of a lot of information to process, not to mention it
would give you a heck of a headache. In fact in one show, he states that he
can always tell when someone is lying (the "clone" planet episode) because of
their IR emmissions, or something. But then he's never been able to tell when
someone was lying since. How 'bout the recent show where he falls for the gal
accused of murder?
It's kinda like how Troi is never around when her empath powers would solve a
problem too easily, or how the transporters just "happen" to be on the blink,
etc. When consistency gets in the way of the story, it seems to go out the
window. _THAT'S_ what gets me.
Dave
Right on!
I could come up with dozens of examples of internal inconsistencies in Star
Trek just like the ones you mention. Another irritating aspect of the show is
that they never explore the implications of their own inventions – how about a
transporter failure that produces six dozen Picards for instance? Or a
deliberate attempt to use transporter technology to produce an army of perfect
soldiers?
I definitely agree about conformance to conceptions of reality too. I'm just as
happy reading Sword & Sorcery as hard core Science Fiction – as long as the
author states his rules plainly and then plays by them.
Gary
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the "Ninja Rollercoaster" restraints for the
shuttle that travels thought the middle of B-5…
-MM
BTW, How about that copy of "Universe Today" newspaper that the person was
reading in the bar? When I saw that, I was impressed. Any show willing to laugh
at itself is OK with me.
-M Ex-Moonlighting Fan M
Yeah, the "Universe Today" newspaper was one of the highpoints for me, too. But
I groaned at the end with the line, "Have you ever heard of…nanotechnology?"
It may be unknown to most TV viewers in 1993, but it's a heckuva lot closer
than spaceships, that's for sure.
John "still-don't-understand-the-white-specular-highlights" Dowdell
Boy! Do I agree. I've been reading sci fi since I was in jr. hi (a long time)
and those kinds of errors are annoying in the extreme. A while ago the captain
on ST:TNG was rendered young by a transporter. At the end (all willy-nilly, as
usual – that also bugs me) they restored his correct age by manipulating his
DNA. Well, the obvious conclusion to any capitalist is that they'd just
invented controlled immortality, but was it pursued at all? No-o-o-o. They
should have Greg Bear as a consultant. He's never afraid of taking a concept as
far as it will go.
IMHO
David Taffet
Yeah, I agree with you and Gary about them not exploring technology
"discoveries". What about when the one nervous engineer gets made a genius and
discovers how to send the ship across the galaxy in a second. Of course, he
conveniently can't remember, but the ships logs ought to, not to mention that
the weird rasta-cyclops who was responsible was supposed to be sharing info and
tech. with them. Why does the existence of the Q (one of the best things about
ST:TNG — besides Troi's outfits) and their abilities not make them question
their perceptions of the nature of reality more? What about the "traveller" guy
who can make the ship travel thru vast amounts of space and tells the Captain
about Wesley's special abilities? I won't even mention the episode where the
Bajoran and Jordi get turned into "ghosts" who pass right through matter (like
the walls and side of the ship) but use the turbo-lift to go up and down.
And while we're griping (and I still _like_ the show), Dr. Crusher and Riker
are the BIGGEST violators of the Prime Directive I've ever seen. They have
_no_ respect for other cultures. (ie the episode where Worf wants to die due
to injury and Riker _shames_ him into doing the "human" thing — Picard is the
only one who understands/supports Worf).
Dave
I completely agree! Emphatically! I, too, like the show, but I wish they spent
a couple more dollars on consulting with real sci fi writers. Ideally, they
should get sparse outlines of good plots from real sci fi persons and then have
the staff of Hill Street Blues write the scripts and direct the actors. I mean,
jeez, if it wasn't for Picard's terrific stage voice, the show would *really*
limp! And about your comment regarding Q: I must agree there, too. So many
things are not thought out at all, it p*sses me off. The way Q behaves you'd
think a little Tom Sawyer style mind manipulation could get him to do all sorts
of good things (even leave the folks alone). And why hasn't that girl raised on
Earth, who turned out to be Q, too, come back and done all kinds of wonderful
stuff for humanity (like make the Borg friendly or something). And, on a more
mundane level, can't one or two of those aliens at least have an ACCENT or
something. Gawd, they all speak perfect 20th century California English. Even
if they all have to stay guys in suits, instead of *alien* species,
puh-LEEEZ… Oh, well. Off the soapbox. Do you know of an address where one
could lodge these complaints with the producers?
D {secretly always on a soapbox} T
And I didn't even bring up that if the Q could make "our" manifestation of Q
human as punishment (no to mention the ability to make Riker a Q), then why
couldn't they have done that to the girls parents, and/or the girl instead of
killing them?
A friend of mine used to be a staff writer/intern on ST:TNG whilst he was at
USC film school — he might know who to write — I'll see if I can't dig up his
CIS ID. In fact, David Gerrald, the guy who wrote "The Trouble With Tribbles"
is on CIS (it was thru him my friend got the job), you could do an ID search
thru GO DIRECTORY.
Dave
Gary: I tend to agree with you about wanting accuracy in SF films, but I think
that I can see the filmmaker's side of it, too. In both Star Wars and Star Trek
(and especially in Star Trek!) the ships are the vehicle for telling a story,
not the primary object of the story. If you distract the audience from the
story with the effects **even if they are accurate** then you work against the
primary objective of the whole enterprise. Most of the Star Trek stories are
about people and are just set in space. (The science fiction setting lets them
handle issues that they couldn't get away with on a "normal" show.)
In fact, if you think about it, using single seat fighters as dogfighters in
space dosen't make a lot of sense. It seems like you might need completely
different tactics – larger ships like the Star Trek starships or the Star Wars
star destroyers with weapons that you could traverse quickly and had near zero
time of flight.
I actually think that most people **wouldn't** know that the X-wing fighters
don't move right.
Chris
P.S. What was the mistake in 2001?
Chris;
<<most of the Star Trek stories are about people and are just set in space>>
"If you can replace the word `robot' with the word `dog', it isn't Science
Fiction."
As to what makes sense… That depends on the exact technology involved, and
getting a grip on exactly what technology is involved in Star Trek is like
juggling jello. I don't think single seat fighters would _necessarily_ be ruled
out. Also by <<near zero time of flight>> I assume you mean light-speed or near
light-speed weapons such as lasers and particle beams. This is a consideration
on earth, but in space I suspect battles would be fought at light-second or
light-minute distances, not the ship-length distances used in Star Trek. Yes
yes, I know, if the ships were light-seconds apart, you wouldn't be able to get
both of them in the frame at the same time – but that's part of what I'm
complaining about – they do the effects, then try and explain them away
afterwards.
The "mistake" in 2001 – when Heywood Floyd is on his way to the moon, he is
sipping his free fall "dinner". When he stops sucking on the straw THE LIQUID
LEVEL GOES BACK DOWN!!! How's that for pickiness?
Gary
There might have been lower pressure in the container… how do you know? 🙂
Why does toothpaste often recede back into the tube?
Gary: I don't agree entirely with your replace robot with dog quote. Many of
the episodes about Data are really stories that use his innocence and lack of
emotion to explore relationships between people. These are pretty basic themes,
but Star Trek uses the starship, the Federation, and the rest as a way to
explore them in ways that are all but impossible with other shows in other
settings.
My fighter comment refers directly to dogfighters, like the fighters in Star
Wars. If you had a laser or a phaser or a blaster, you probably wouldn't let
the other guy get within dogfighting range. The Enterprise has, at least, the
24th century equivalent of a turreted weapon in the main Phaser battery. That
makes a lot more sense on a large ship than a set of fixed weapons.
Of course, the WW II warships had antiaircraft guns in turrets and aircraft
were pretty spectacularly effective against them. That is why I want the light
speed weapons – nothing else has a chance to make a hit on a ship at long
range, and nothing else is as effective against small, fast ships at close
range.
I never noticed the liquid in Floyd's dinner in 2001. The scene that always
bothered me was the low level flight on the moon on the way to the TMA.I don't
remember if they had vertical thrusters running all the time or whether they
were supposed to be in a **really** low orbit. It seems like the logical way to
go point to point would be a parabolic trajectory.
Chris