Where we at with the potentially insultingly bad reboot of a classic show?

[Mike Glyer]

Babylon 5 Is Getting Rebooted, With J. Michael Straczynski at the Helm

Original series creator J. Michael Straczynski will write and produce a reboot of the iconic '90s sci-fi series Babylon 5 for the CW. The show is a "from the ground" reboot of the series about the ambassadors and military officers aboard the titular station.

gizmodo.com

@AntSucks2 comment? Will G'Kar get a knee on his neck? Will Londo and the Centauri be obvious stand-ins for evil whitey? Are white humans extinct in the future?

I hope it's good but the CW....

 

[Cumiace]

Any mil-spec hot bunking?

 

[fenrir]

I loved Babylon 5 as a kid, but I tried watching it again recently and it does not hold up. Bad special effects and hokey acting really hold it back from being a classic.

The only thing it really did well was carry along a larger storyline across multiple seasons. Something hinted at in season 1 would be paid off in season 3, and you felt rewarded for paying attention to those small touches. A lot of shows do that now, but back then it was really unique. It's all the more impressive when you hear about how Straczynski had to drastically change his original storylines over time due actors leaving the show.

A reboot helmed by Straczynski might be interesting, because he might actually get to follow through on his original conception with better CGI and acting. On the other hand he might pull a Lucas and make this guy the new captain:

He's a Jar Jar Binks waiting to happen.

 

[Mike Glyer]

Seasons 1 and 5 are less than great but the middle seasons were amazing, at least for the time, due to the overall storyline/concept and Londo-G'Kar. Also, the make-up on characters like G'Kar is still amazing 20+ years later and most modern shows do much worse with larger budgets. Lots of shit I hate though like psychics. Enough with the psychics in my scifi. Or maybe they just didn't do them in an interesting way.

JMS ended up banging the redhead psychic with the piss poor acting so there's that.

 

[aRTie02150]

Never watched it.

 

[fenrir]

Seasons 1 and 5 are less than great but the middle seasons were amazing, at least for the time, due to the overall storyline/concept and Londo-G'Kar. Also, the make-up on characters like G'Kar is still amazing 20+ years later and most modern shows do much worse with larger budgets. Lots of shit I hate though like psychics. Enough with the psychics in my scifi. Or maybe they just didn't do them in an interesting way.

JMS ended up banging the redhead psychic with the piss poor acting so there's that.

Season 5 was an outlier. The show was supposed to be done at the end of season 4 but then TNT picked it up for another round.

I didn't know Straczynski and Patricia Tillman were an item; that would explain how she got the job. She had been a stuntwoman before Babylon 5 and I don't think she's done any "acting" since.

 

[Coonskin]

Looks like some zoophilia nonsense

 

[Mc.Faggot]

Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality, and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk.”

And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns.

The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality.

And on her forehead was written a name of mystery:

“Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth's abominations.” ...

 

[fenrir]

Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality, and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk.”

And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns.

The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality.

And on her forehead was written a name of mystery:

“Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth's abominations.” ...

 

[Nick_Carpinelli]

Lashana Lynch to be cast as Captain Jane Sheridan. She sides with the Minbari during the war and together they smash the patriarchy on Earth

 

[Chapel]

Jesus fuck! This cunt ripping off Lord of the Rings in space again?

 

[guest]

Is it the old series being remade or a whole new story in the same universe? Hard to imagine there's a story line that could follow the original and a prequel would be gay but I don't want to see the same shit over again either.

 

[wbgreen]

If it's on The CW, it'll be meant for teen girls who were born well after the original series and would be bored to tears by it.

Best to ignore this reboot. Look what they did to Archie and the gang!

 

[Mike Glyer]

Is it the old series being remade or a whole new story in the same universe? Hard to imagine there's a story line that could follow the original and a prequel would be gay but I don't want to see the same shit over again either

New story. Not a sequel or prequel. Reboot.

I'm fine with it since prequels and sequels would just be covering shit they already covered in passing in the old show. Oh, you're doing shit 50 years after the Shadow War? We already know WW3 decimated Earth millennia in the future so whatever, tension gone.

 

[UnPRePared]

Best to ignore this reboot. Look what they did to Archie and the gang!

 

[guest]

New story. Not a sequel or prequel. Reboot.

I'm fine with it since prequels and sequels would just be covering shit they already covered in passing in the old show. Oh, you're doing shit 50 years after the Shadow War? We already know WW3 decimated Earth millennia in the future so whatever, tension gone.

It won't be the same without the 90's CGI aesthetics but I'll remain hopeful that they do it right. Going back to a universe that's already been done and was well received by the fans is risky.

 

[Will Tate]

Look what they did to Archie and the gang!

I'm still dumbfounded that they green-lit a fucking edgy, gritty teen drama based on FUCKING ARCHIE!!! My wife picked up on it on Netflix, it's fucking farcical garbage. Mrs. Grundy was a student-fucking 30-year-old, Moose was a queer, if I'm remembering right Mr. Weatherbee was a spade. Jughead gets to fuck Betty instead of just stuffing his face with burgers. Chick who plays Veronica has those creepy bags under her eyes that mean either her birth was premature or she was raped not long after it. Just terrible.

 

[AntSucks]

Back in the day JMS used to post on Usenet and my little teenage self would go to an internet café and download them all on to my zip drive. You can find them if you google JMS on B5 or go to the lurker's guide which has his comments on every episode. He wrote books on TV writing. He was only fan accessible TV producer our there until twitter came along.

And then twitter came along. He's another person ruined by social media. I don't want to read what he writes anymore because he hasn't made anything good in 20 years

The Babylon 5 spinoffs sucked - Crusade was just awful. Tracy Scoggins character was charisma free and Pat Tomlinson's idea of a strong woman commander. The later movies sucked too. The 10 years later movie sucked. I have zero faith in this being good. I won't even watch it. I won't even read anymore about it.