Subject:
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Re: Not the right way to exit?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.geek
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Date:
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Wed, 21 Jul 2004 20:48:25 GMT
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Viewed:
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1964 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.geek, David Laswell wrote:
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
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Three factors have always prevented me from enjoying the series. First, I
can’t stand most of the cast (Flounder and Tron and the woman from
The Hidden, et all). Second, I
really really really don’t like the CGI graphics, which to me always looked
like a sub-par game demo. And third, I was never really into the story,
inasmuch as I was able to get a handle on it.
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How much of it did you watch?
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Admittedly, not much. I caught bits of episodes here and there (which, I grant,
is not the best way to get one’s teeth into a longterm space opera). I saw a
good bit of the pilot, one episode with Checkov, and a chunk of the finale.
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I know that good CGI would have upped the cost per episode, but if you can’t
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do it at least as well as the then-current Star Trek series, you’ll really
look lame by comparison. Also, I know that fans of the show adore the
conceived-as-a-whole storyline, and if you’re into that, then it’s fine.
But it just never appealed to me.
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The first two seasons were basically perched on the edge of then-current CGI
capabilities. The only computers that were able to handle the rigorous
demands of their SFX department at that time were Amigas. That was about the
point when someone realized that there was a real market for a
state-of-the-art PC version of the Video Toaster and actually developed and
sold something better than the dinosaur systems they’d been using until that
point. The SFX improved greatly through the course of the five years, but
there’s no way even a Star Trek budget could have produced the series with
physical effects, and these guys were doing it on quite a bit less. And they
were sharing that tiny budget with a make-up crew that put the entire ST
franchise to shame, with a diversity and quantity of background aliens that
would have been right at home in a Star Wars movie.
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I don’t mean to begrudge them their budgetary shortfalls--I suffer from those
same constraints in real life! But I’ve gotten spoiled by other contemporary
SFX, and B5 suffered as a result. Regardless, I commend B5 for having a better
menagerie of non-humanoid aliens, which are much more interesting than Star
Trek’s generic-alien-with-head-prosthetic.
On the other hand, there was a scene in the finale in which Tron was floating
through some big space-fighter fracas in a spacesuit, while one of the
bone-headed people watched from some kind of monitoring station on B5. The CGI
of Tron in his suit was terribly weak, with bumpy transitions between facial
closeups and wide-angle shots of the whole scene. And the monitoring room
looked like nothing so much as a person sweeping her gaze back and forth in
front of a weatherman’s bluescreen. So this was the finale, presumably the last
blast of the SFX they were able to showcase, and it came across as a jarringly
executed CGI test run. Again, I understand the problems of budget, but it you
can’t do it right, then you don’t want to do it wrong, either.
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I also know that fans point to the real-world treatment of physics re:
spaceship flight etc., and I admit that that’s a good touch (nicely echoed
in the recent Battlestar Galactica miniseries). Out of curiosity (and
because I can’t remember), did the Starfuries make a noise while in space?
I’m not dissing them if they did, because almost all SF does it, too.
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Honestly, I can’t remember. If they did, Franke’s music (original
compositions tailored to every episode) probably covered most of it up. I do
remember that the Shadow ships sounded similar to TIE Fighters, but I believe
that was supposed to be a telepathic scream that you wouldn’t actually
“hear”.
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Ah, the spectre of technobabble rears its head in B5-world as well as in Star
Trek! Still, I guess that’s better than spaceborne sound reaching the listener
at the same time the enemy’s ship is seen exploding in the distance.
Dave!
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Not the right way to exit?
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| (...) Heh. Even hard-core fans are amazed at the comparatively low technical quality and such of the premiere movie after having watched the full series, but to be fair, I believe it had an even lower budget than the individual episodes, and that (...) (20 years ago, 21-Jul-04, to lugnet.off-topic.geek, FTX)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Not the right way to exit?
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| (...) How much of it did you watch? I'll admit that Bruce Boxleitner's portrayal of Sheriden was pretty cheesy coming out of the gate, but one of JMS's commentary tracks reveals that he specifically requested it be that way for the first few eps of (...) (20 years ago, 21-Jul-04, to lugnet.off-topic.geek, FTX)
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