I feel like we skipped a caste and an ambassador in the episode, but otherwise I liked it. Also the ombuds scene and the line about "your grandfather abducted my grandfather" because my day job is a lawyer and thr implications of all that would be fascinating and possibly hilarious, and I love that someone thought of it and included it on this episode.
This is the final episode of initial seven episode production block. Richard Compton shall never bore us with his boring camera work again. In fairness, this episode did seem to pass quickly. It's at least well paced.
Comedy music. Sigh. Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of Christopher Franke's B5 scores in general. He's too on the nose, punctuating action scenes and effects shots with cheesy 90's orchestra hits. Like in any space battle where a ship is hit, or punches, or the flash of energy when a ship crosses the hyperspace threshold... Ugh. It the series finale there will be a beautiful, emotional scene, and he'll ruin it with an over the top cue... He does well with his themes for Minbari and the "Requiem for the Battle of the Line," but... Yeah. I'm one of the people who much prefers Evan Chen's music on Crusade.
JMS has this to say about "comedy music." "After 'Grail,' we had a discussion with Chris about funny music. We do not anticipate further discussions. (In a full season of music for B5, this is the only discussion we've had of a critical nature, which is extraordinary for any series; he's done a lot of wonderful work for us . . . .)"
So... Plot wise, yeah, there's some wonky, like Jinxo running right into Sinclair. There's a HUGE continuity error regarding the Minbari - Minbari have THREE castes; Worker, Warrior, Religious. Changed premise, maybe? It's an early script, and we will never hear "cycles" used as a unit of time again.
Still, there's actually a lot to like in this episode. It's rare, and quite nice, indeed, to see David Warner play a benevolent man, rather than a sneering villain. His work is excellent. With Warner's villains, he's often louder and speaks with an ultra-precise cadence, so his naturalistic delivery and quiet, velvet tones are just so warm.
I'll disagree with Simon on the Aldus/Jinxo relationship feeling unearned. It's fast, but I'll buy it. We have Aldus, a man who felt he lost everything, finding a kindred spirit in the despairing Jinxo. The line about Jinxo being a good and selfless man, because he stays on B5 due to a need to protect the station - even at the cost of his own life - says it all. As far as Jinxo goes, he's a man who has been mocked for years with that nickname, without a job, living on the edge of existence, facing threat over loans (which he probably needed for food)... And here comes a man who is NICE to him who treats him with respect who has his back... Yeah, I've lived through similar situations, and I still remember a day when a man who is now a lifelong friend looked at me and said, simply, "You're not alone any more."
The Jinxo/Aldus relationship is a thing of beauty.
The trial scene at the beginning is quite funny. The human suing the alien is B5 DP John Flynn in a cameo. We'll see him again at least once more.
The Ombuds and trial scenes in general are nice backstory for how the station's justice system works.
The mystery of B4 gets a refresher.
Lennier is awesome every time he's on screen. How can Bill Mumy so effortlessly draw attention by quietly under playing everything? And he's always opposite the incredible Mira Furlan, so, credit to Mumy!
Deuce's use of the feeder - keeping it in a fake encounter suit, and convincing people it's the Vorlon is brilliant. Why does this scheme work? Oh, maybe because Garibaldi wants to "clear out" Downbelow, so the Lurker's don't trust Garibaldi to help them out!
Garibaldi gets some layers in this script. On one hand he's an intolerant asshole who wants to arrest poor people for being poor, or be a total dick to Londo and Vir by scaring them at the end of the episode, yet on the other, he's sorrowful over the deaths of Miriam Running-wolf and Aldus.
The false encounter suit is well done. Turn off the lights, remove the breathing apparatus from the chest, remove the aperture of the helmet eye, drape some cheap netting off the shoulders, and the extant prop is redressed effectively.
I'm going to largely disagree with Simon on it being "cheesy." OK, the acting and processing on its dialog sucks, but we have a nasty, nasty creature, capable of fast movement, and draining minds. That's pretty damn terrifying.
Visually, it's a frigging masterpiece. Seriously. Foundation worked a real miracle with that creature on a tiny budget.
Boring tech shit Simon will get, while other's mileage may vary: a Video Toaster had 2 megabytes of memory. This had to hold the OS, Lightwave, the geometry, textures and animation data. Textures are 256x256 256-color bitmaps. UV mapping hasn't been invented yet. Neither have normal maps. We don't have physics based BDRF rendering. We don't have muscle layers with physics. We don't have translucency and subsurface scattering. We don't even have inverse kinematics! Imagine having to animate that walk cycle from "shoulder" to tip, and having to keep those tentacles on the ground in the same location as the body bobs. No IK means you can't pin the tentacle tip to the floor and have everything move around it.
Now, all that said, here's Foundation doing a non humanoid organic creature. Besides the tentacle animations it's freaking head pulses and deforms. It's got spiracles dilating as it breathes. This animation is insanely complex.
It's lit really well. There are gobos all over the place to match the set lighting. The shadows it casts are properly diffused and value graded to match the shadows of the actors (damn right I went back and freeze framed it). How about the feeder coming around the corner where we first see it by the shadow on the wall? Amazing!
Yup, those super harsh, super dark, "fake looking" shadows in space shots are an artistic choice AND and accurate representation of how light would work in vaccum without air and particulates to spread light and soften shadows.
And, to top it off, in some shots with the feeder are 100% CG... Yup, virtual sets. The image I'll link below has a virtual set.
Yeah, the motion dynamics are a bit off on some shots (most obviously when they shoot the shit out of it), and the shot where it sneaks up behind the security officer has some bad chromakey fringe and wobble on the officer's hair, but that shot ALSO has a virtual rack focus, and the fake lens blur between the elements... Well, if the officer's hair hadn't been rippling, the rack focus would have totally sold the shot.
Yeah, I have nothing truly bad to say about the feeder execution. In 1993 it was mind blowing. In 2024, it's still pretty good. The feeder should have won the VFX Emmy that year. It would be the better part of a decade before a TV show topped that for CGI creatures, and it even beats out some big budget Hollywood movies from that decade. I'm looking at you, "The Scorpion King."
Seriously, go look at it - and remember this image was captured from the DVD, which means it was captured from an NTSC source render which had been converted to a different pixel resolution and pixel aspect ratio for PAL, then reconverted back to NTSC, cropped vertically and horizontally, then blown back up to fill the frame. In short, this is a crappy capture... But, given all the limitations mentioned in this post, seriously study this image. This hideous creature is really a thing of miraculous beauty.
Hmmmm... The implied theme of alien interference in Earth religions. That'll pay off nicely in the second season finale when we learn the Vorlons basically programmed everyone to see them as angels-or-equivalent.
Too bad they couldn't bring Jinxo's actor back for a cameo in War Without End 2. But I guess it's not THAT important to see him running for the shuttle with Major Krantz. Although there's another continuity glitch with Grail. If Jinxo was on one of the last shuttles off B4 he lived through the time jumps, and that should be part of his story. Let's say, in universe, he either left that out so Aldus wouldn't think him crazy, or he repressed those memories. That's more fun than the boring production reasons of War Without End being rejiggered after Michael O' Hare's breakdown, moving it from series finale to mid season 3, and Grail scribe Christy Marx not having all of JMS's story notes.
Still not as bad as the "two" Minbari caste error. Oof.
Final note - I REALLY like Aldus's duster. That is a cool coat.
I feel like we skipped a caste and an ambassador in the episode, but otherwise I liked it. Also the ombuds scene and the line about "your grandfather abducted my grandfather" because my day job is a lawyer and thr implications of all that would be fascinating and possibly hilarious, and I love that someone thought of it and included it on this episode.
Non spoiler stuff.
This is the final episode of initial seven episode production block. Richard Compton shall never bore us with his boring camera work again. In fairness, this episode did seem to pass quickly. It's at least well paced.
Comedy music. Sigh. Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of Christopher Franke's B5 scores in general. He's too on the nose, punctuating action scenes and effects shots with cheesy 90's orchestra hits. Like in any space battle where a ship is hit, or punches, or the flash of energy when a ship crosses the hyperspace threshold... Ugh. It the series finale there will be a beautiful, emotional scene, and he'll ruin it with an over the top cue... He does well with his themes for Minbari and the "Requiem for the Battle of the Line," but... Yeah. I'm one of the people who much prefers Evan Chen's music on Crusade.
JMS has this to say about "comedy music." "After 'Grail,' we had a discussion with Chris about funny music. We do not anticipate further discussions. (In a full season of music for B5, this is the only discussion we've had of a critical nature, which is extraordinary for any series; he's done a lot of wonderful work for us . . . .)"
So... Plot wise, yeah, there's some wonky, like Jinxo running right into Sinclair. There's a HUGE continuity error regarding the Minbari - Minbari have THREE castes; Worker, Warrior, Religious. Changed premise, maybe? It's an early script, and we will never hear "cycles" used as a unit of time again.
Still, there's actually a lot to like in this episode. It's rare, and quite nice, indeed, to see David Warner play a benevolent man, rather than a sneering villain. His work is excellent. With Warner's villains, he's often louder and speaks with an ultra-precise cadence, so his naturalistic delivery and quiet, velvet tones are just so warm.
I'll disagree with Simon on the Aldus/Jinxo relationship feeling unearned. It's fast, but I'll buy it. We have Aldus, a man who felt he lost everything, finding a kindred spirit in the despairing Jinxo. The line about Jinxo being a good and selfless man, because he stays on B5 due to a need to protect the station - even at the cost of his own life - says it all. As far as Jinxo goes, he's a man who has been mocked for years with that nickname, without a job, living on the edge of existence, facing threat over loans (which he probably needed for food)... And here comes a man who is NICE to him who treats him with respect who has his back... Yeah, I've lived through similar situations, and I still remember a day when a man who is now a lifelong friend looked at me and said, simply, "You're not alone any more."
The Jinxo/Aldus relationship is a thing of beauty.
The trial scene at the beginning is quite funny. The human suing the alien is B5 DP John Flynn in a cameo. We'll see him again at least once more.
The Ombuds and trial scenes in general are nice backstory for how the station's justice system works.
The mystery of B4 gets a refresher.
Lennier is awesome every time he's on screen. How can Bill Mumy so effortlessly draw attention by quietly under playing everything? And he's always opposite the incredible Mira Furlan, so, credit to Mumy!
Deuce's use of the feeder - keeping it in a fake encounter suit, and convincing people it's the Vorlon is brilliant. Why does this scheme work? Oh, maybe because Garibaldi wants to "clear out" Downbelow, so the Lurker's don't trust Garibaldi to help them out!
Garibaldi gets some layers in this script. On one hand he's an intolerant asshole who wants to arrest poor people for being poor, or be a total dick to Londo and Vir by scaring them at the end of the episode, yet on the other, he's sorrowful over the deaths of Miriam Running-wolf and Aldus.
The false encounter suit is well done. Turn off the lights, remove the breathing apparatus from the chest, remove the aperture of the helmet eye, drape some cheap netting off the shoulders, and the extant prop is redressed effectively.
Kosh has one scary line. "Good."
The Na'ka'leen feeder gets its own post.
Let's talk about the Na'ka'leen feeder.
I'm going to largely disagree with Simon on it being "cheesy." OK, the acting and processing on its dialog sucks, but we have a nasty, nasty creature, capable of fast movement, and draining minds. That's pretty damn terrifying.
Visually, it's a frigging masterpiece. Seriously. Foundation worked a real miracle with that creature on a tiny budget.
Boring tech shit Simon will get, while other's mileage may vary: a Video Toaster had 2 megabytes of memory. This had to hold the OS, Lightwave, the geometry, textures and animation data. Textures are 256x256 256-color bitmaps. UV mapping hasn't been invented yet. Neither have normal maps. We don't have physics based BDRF rendering. We don't have muscle layers with physics. We don't have translucency and subsurface scattering. We don't even have inverse kinematics! Imagine having to animate that walk cycle from "shoulder" to tip, and having to keep those tentacles on the ground in the same location as the body bobs. No IK means you can't pin the tentacle tip to the floor and have everything move around it.
Now, all that said, here's Foundation doing a non humanoid organic creature. Besides the tentacle animations it's freaking head pulses and deforms. It's got spiracles dilating as it breathes. This animation is insanely complex.
It's lit really well. There are gobos all over the place to match the set lighting. The shadows it casts are properly diffused and value graded to match the shadows of the actors (damn right I went back and freeze framed it). How about the feeder coming around the corner where we first see it by the shadow on the wall? Amazing!
Yup, those super harsh, super dark, "fake looking" shadows in space shots are an artistic choice AND and accurate representation of how light would work in vaccum without air and particulates to spread light and soften shadows.
And, to top it off, in some shots with the feeder are 100% CG... Yup, virtual sets. The image I'll link below has a virtual set.
Yeah, the motion dynamics are a bit off on some shots (most obviously when they shoot the shit out of it), and the shot where it sneaks up behind the security officer has some bad chromakey fringe and wobble on the officer's hair, but that shot ALSO has a virtual rack focus, and the fake lens blur between the elements... Well, if the officer's hair hadn't been rippling, the rack focus would have totally sold the shot.
Yeah, I have nothing truly bad to say about the feeder execution. In 1993 it was mind blowing. In 2024, it's still pretty good. The feeder should have won the VFX Emmy that year. It would be the better part of a decade before a TV show topped that for CGI creatures, and it even beats out some big budget Hollywood movies from that decade. I'm looking at you, "The Scorpion King."
Seriously, go look at it - and remember this image was captured from the DVD, which means it was captured from an NTSC source render which had been converted to a different pixel resolution and pixel aspect ratio for PAL, then reconverted back to NTSC, cropped vertically and horizontally, then blown back up to fill the frame. In short, this is a crappy capture... But, given all the limitations mentioned in this post, seriously study this image. This hideous creature is really a thing of miraculous beauty.
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/babylon5/images/b/be/Nakaleenfeeder.jpg
HERE BE SPOILERS.
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Hmmmm... The implied theme of alien interference in Earth religions. That'll pay off nicely in the second season finale when we learn the Vorlons basically programmed everyone to see them as angels-or-equivalent.
Too bad they couldn't bring Jinxo's actor back for a cameo in War Without End 2. But I guess it's not THAT important to see him running for the shuttle with Major Krantz. Although there's another continuity glitch with Grail. If Jinxo was on one of the last shuttles off B4 he lived through the time jumps, and that should be part of his story. Let's say, in universe, he either left that out so Aldus wouldn't think him crazy, or he repressed those memories. That's more fun than the boring production reasons of War Without End being rejiggered after Michael O' Hare's breakdown, moving it from series finale to mid season 3, and Grail scribe Christy Marx not having all of JMS's story notes.
Still not as bad as the "two" Minbari caste error. Oof.
Ivanova is right. There's always a boom tomorrow.