W. Morgan Sheppard as the Soul Hunter was brilliant in that role: the way he delivered that speech as he sensed the death of that con man coming, bad acting of extras aside, that was epic. The burial scene hit hard for me too; Ivanova's prayer felt very moving.
Yeah, it's why the bad acting from the extras is such a shame - the scene has the potential to be a proper classic, but is badly undermined by all the gurning. That it works at all is largely due to Sheppard's delivery!
The usage of "alien" brought to mind the observation from the Klingon Azetbur in "Star Trek VI" around our language. "You talk of 'inalienable' rights. Listen to yourselves." (I'm paraphrasing, but not by much.)
I see it as part of "Humans have difficulty playing nice with other species because we're stuck in old mindsets." We can get away from Terra, but we bring Terra with us wherever we go.
It's the difficulty of seeing things from a completely different point of view. Something children and teenagers apparently have difficulty doing due to parts of the brain not yet having developed. I feel like going into space resets all humans back to being like toddlers.. :)
Let's get this out of the way first: the "grapple" sequence in Act I establishes the Starfury as the coolest fighter in Sci-fi. It's a rare thing for something to look "cool," AND have clear function to its design. Visually, the Starfury does contain deliberate nods to the Gunstar from "The Last Starfighter," and a coincidental resemblance to a "Star Wars" X-wing, but the pylons on a Gunstar are to hold the DEATH BLOSSOM ordinance, while the X-wing doesn't actually have any logic to its S-foils opening, other than looking cool (and any purpose given is retcon from fans)...
The Starfury is built like it is to place vectored thrust engines around a center-of-mass cockpit. And the physics are fun to watch, from how the fighter launches via centripetal force (powering engines up 100m away from the hull of B5), to the pilot basically "lying flat on their back," (think about acceleration vectors) to - well, this grapple scene! Later episodes will show Starfury pilots of varying skill making attack runs in unique ways. We'll come back to that point later, but right now I'm thinking a specific sequence saved for the SPOILER section of this post.
W. Morgan Sheppard is amazing in this episode. His unblinking stare, and odd speaking cadence very much gives the feeling of an alien (yeah, we'll come back to that) unused to English.
Sheppard was one of the final three actors in the running for G'Kar, and we will eventually see him play Narn. Spoiler? Simon brought it up first in a photo caption.
I'm not going to get into the central philosophical core of this episode, other than to note avowed atheist Straczynski does quite well at treating such questions with respect and ambiguity. Here one can speculate that - by not having a "stake in the game," he's able to approach such things without a personal preference sneaking in. Unlike, say, Lord of the Rings, where writings like "The Simarillion" blatantly bring the theology of Middle Earth absolutely in-line with Tolkien's Catholicism. All we can say for certain is Soul Hunters certainly take SOMETHING. Soul, personality engram, whatever - it's ambiguous.
It's interesting how Sinclair, Franklin, Delenn, and both Soul Hunters are absolutely doing what they think is right. One can even see the "mad" Hunter's "logic."
Let's talk "aliens." Sci-fi still uses the term, and I'm inclined to think this use is intended as it's Latin root meaning of "outsider," not as a pejorative. The "alien sector," we know is set up to allow species which can't survive in an Earth atmosphere to have somewhere they don't have to wear environment gear (and, while not currently discussed on the show, quarters in that sector are also offset along the station diameter to allow for variation in gravity, above and below Earth-normal.
So, do we need another word? "Alien," and "non-human" have the same syllable count, but one is a lot easier to type. "Extraterrestrial" doesn't work - the word means "from anywhere off planet Earth," and any Earth colony would also be "extraterrestrial."
Here, I think we just need to ascribe economy of terminology, not veiled racism on the part of the writer or characters.
"She is Satai!" What a tantalizing hint to the larger arc! First time through that line generated debate... Not to mention, "You would *plan* such a thing? You would *DO* such a thing?
Simon mentioned the cast members who have passed away... Well, the director of this episode, Jim Johnston, passed away in November of 2023. Johnston directed more episodes of B5 than any other director, and, while not my favorite director for the series (that would be Mike Vejar), Johnston's work was always solid.
HERE THERE BE SPOILERS:
It's early days, and, to a certain extent the show is still throwing things at the wall to see what sticks.
Franklin in this episode, and "Believers" comes off as an atheist. Of course, in season 3 we'll discover he is Foundationist. I'll leave it to the reader to search out that religion on any Babylon 5 Wiki, but Franklin is a bit snarky in regard to non-human theology in season 1. I think being Foundationist is a changed premise.
On other things, franchise media tends to create a myth around a creator. Said creator ends up with waaay more credit than they usually deserve. "Star Trek" is built as much my Gene Coon and Dorothy Fontana as Roddenberry. Stan Lee took credit for a lot of Jack Kirby. George Lucas damn well did NOT start "Star Wars," with a mythical plan for 6, 9, or 12 movies (depending on the year Lucas made the claim). J. Michael Straczynski didn't exactly create everything about Babylon 5. Script editor (seasons 1 and 2) Larry Ditillio did a lot of backstory on Centauri and the League of Non-Aligned Worlds, and the "grapple" sequence?
Early script drafts had a "tractor beam." Much of physics-based tech for Earthforce came from Ron Thornton and the VFX team and Foundation Imaging. They are the people who designed the mechanisms for launching Starfuries, and insisted on vector thrust (animator Mojo is why BSG reboot Vipers have vector thrust).
In fairness to JMS, he did have ultimate approval of everything, so, yay for listening to your people, but, over the years he has been known to take credit for someone else's ideas.
There are alien - yeah, I'm gonna keep using that word because it's easier to type) oddities all over season 1. The non-humans seen won't stabilize until season 2. But that's more a discussion for next week.
"The Fall of Night," the season 2 finale, features a battle between Babylon 5 and a Centauri warship, and it's this battle which I was thinking of, above. Zeta squadron performs a strafing run on the Centauri. One pilot - less skilled - advances in a straight line, PPG fire making a line down the Centauri hull. One - obviously better - pilot kicks in RCS thrusters, turns sideways, and groups shots narrowly while arcing around the cruiser. A third pilot - even better - taps his top thrusters and spins that 'Fury end over end, and places every shot into the same bit of hull. I haven't seen the episode in a while, so I'm not up on the nose art, but let's say the really good pilot is Keffer, giving him one moment of usefulness before he dies.
"You would plan/do such a thing?" JMS has confirmed that's referring to the chrysalis... And, oh, what's that sitting on Delenn's table in "Midnight?" A Minbari Jigsaw puzzle? No! It's the chrysalis machine! She'll be building that all season...
Think this is the first time we hear the name of "Dukhat," as well. Shame "In the Beginning" won't show the "wall of bodies," but, realistically, there's no budget for W. Morgan Sheppard and a bunch of other Soul Hunters for the scene. At least the Soul Hunter ships are shown and noted, so continuity is preserved.
W. Morgan Sheppard was an incredible Soul Hunter. Martin Sheen... Not so much.
A lot of JMS' writing, especially outside of B5, has a heavy dose of magic realism, or just plain magic. If it can be used to explore an interesting idea, it doesn't have to make logical sense. On B5 he treads a bit more carefully and ambiguously, but there are still heavy fantasy elements throughout, despite the show's presentation as 'serious' scifi.
While B5 was "hard sci-fi," he did pull a lot from myth - and, of course, I think there's some "Clarke Tech" ("sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic").
It's not something I ever really picked up on as a kid, which I think is partly why I can't quite decide if it's deliberate or not now. Obviously the show does address this kind of bigotry more head-on in various ways later on, but the casual prejudice in the main crew's vocabulary is really interesting. Is it clever writing, or accidental writing?
W. Morgan Sheppard as the Soul Hunter was brilliant in that role: the way he delivered that speech as he sensed the death of that con man coming, bad acting of extras aside, that was epic. The burial scene hit hard for me too; Ivanova's prayer felt very moving.
Yeah, it's why the bad acting from the extras is such a shame - the scene has the potential to be a proper classic, but is badly undermined by all the gurning. That it works at all is largely due to Sheppard's delivery!
The usage of "alien" brought to mind the observation from the Klingon Azetbur in "Star Trek VI" around our language. "You talk of 'inalienable' rights. Listen to yourselves." (I'm paraphrasing, but not by much.)
I see it as part of "Humans have difficulty playing nice with other species because we're stuck in old mindsets." We can get away from Terra, but we bring Terra with us wherever we go.
It's the difficulty of seeing things from a completely different point of view. Something children and teenagers apparently have difficulty doing due to parts of the brain not yet having developed. I feel like going into space resets all humans back to being like toddlers.. :)
Let's get this out of the way first: the "grapple" sequence in Act I establishes the Starfury as the coolest fighter in Sci-fi. It's a rare thing for something to look "cool," AND have clear function to its design. Visually, the Starfury does contain deliberate nods to the Gunstar from "The Last Starfighter," and a coincidental resemblance to a "Star Wars" X-wing, but the pylons on a Gunstar are to hold the DEATH BLOSSOM ordinance, while the X-wing doesn't actually have any logic to its S-foils opening, other than looking cool (and any purpose given is retcon from fans)...
The Starfury is built like it is to place vectored thrust engines around a center-of-mass cockpit. And the physics are fun to watch, from how the fighter launches via centripetal force (powering engines up 100m away from the hull of B5), to the pilot basically "lying flat on their back," (think about acceleration vectors) to - well, this grapple scene! Later episodes will show Starfury pilots of varying skill making attack runs in unique ways. We'll come back to that point later, but right now I'm thinking a specific sequence saved for the SPOILER section of this post.
W. Morgan Sheppard is amazing in this episode. His unblinking stare, and odd speaking cadence very much gives the feeling of an alien (yeah, we'll come back to that) unused to English.
Sheppard was one of the final three actors in the running for G'Kar, and we will eventually see him play Narn. Spoiler? Simon brought it up first in a photo caption.
I'm not going to get into the central philosophical core of this episode, other than to note avowed atheist Straczynski does quite well at treating such questions with respect and ambiguity. Here one can speculate that - by not having a "stake in the game," he's able to approach such things without a personal preference sneaking in. Unlike, say, Lord of the Rings, where writings like "The Simarillion" blatantly bring the theology of Middle Earth absolutely in-line with Tolkien's Catholicism. All we can say for certain is Soul Hunters certainly take SOMETHING. Soul, personality engram, whatever - it's ambiguous.
It's interesting how Sinclair, Franklin, Delenn, and both Soul Hunters are absolutely doing what they think is right. One can even see the "mad" Hunter's "logic."
Let's talk "aliens." Sci-fi still uses the term, and I'm inclined to think this use is intended as it's Latin root meaning of "outsider," not as a pejorative. The "alien sector," we know is set up to allow species which can't survive in an Earth atmosphere to have somewhere they don't have to wear environment gear (and, while not currently discussed on the show, quarters in that sector are also offset along the station diameter to allow for variation in gravity, above and below Earth-normal.
So, do we need another word? "Alien," and "non-human" have the same syllable count, but one is a lot easier to type. "Extraterrestrial" doesn't work - the word means "from anywhere off planet Earth," and any Earth colony would also be "extraterrestrial."
Here, I think we just need to ascribe economy of terminology, not veiled racism on the part of the writer or characters.
"She is Satai!" What a tantalizing hint to the larger arc! First time through that line generated debate... Not to mention, "You would *plan* such a thing? You would *DO* such a thing?
Simon mentioned the cast members who have passed away... Well, the director of this episode, Jim Johnston, passed away in November of 2023. Johnston directed more episodes of B5 than any other director, and, while not my favorite director for the series (that would be Mike Vejar), Johnston's work was always solid.
HERE THERE BE SPOILERS:
It's early days, and, to a certain extent the show is still throwing things at the wall to see what sticks.
Franklin in this episode, and "Believers" comes off as an atheist. Of course, in season 3 we'll discover he is Foundationist. I'll leave it to the reader to search out that religion on any Babylon 5 Wiki, but Franklin is a bit snarky in regard to non-human theology in season 1. I think being Foundationist is a changed premise.
On other things, franchise media tends to create a myth around a creator. Said creator ends up with waaay more credit than they usually deserve. "Star Trek" is built as much my Gene Coon and Dorothy Fontana as Roddenberry. Stan Lee took credit for a lot of Jack Kirby. George Lucas damn well did NOT start "Star Wars," with a mythical plan for 6, 9, or 12 movies (depending on the year Lucas made the claim). J. Michael Straczynski didn't exactly create everything about Babylon 5. Script editor (seasons 1 and 2) Larry Ditillio did a lot of backstory on Centauri and the League of Non-Aligned Worlds, and the "grapple" sequence?
Early script drafts had a "tractor beam." Much of physics-based tech for Earthforce came from Ron Thornton and the VFX team and Foundation Imaging. They are the people who designed the mechanisms for launching Starfuries, and insisted on vector thrust (animator Mojo is why BSG reboot Vipers have vector thrust).
In fairness to JMS, he did have ultimate approval of everything, so, yay for listening to your people, but, over the years he has been known to take credit for someone else's ideas.
There are alien - yeah, I'm gonna keep using that word because it's easier to type) oddities all over season 1. The non-humans seen won't stabilize until season 2. But that's more a discussion for next week.
"The Fall of Night," the season 2 finale, features a battle between Babylon 5 and a Centauri warship, and it's this battle which I was thinking of, above. Zeta squadron performs a strafing run on the Centauri. One pilot - less skilled - advances in a straight line, PPG fire making a line down the Centauri hull. One - obviously better - pilot kicks in RCS thrusters, turns sideways, and groups shots narrowly while arcing around the cruiser. A third pilot - even better - taps his top thrusters and spins that 'Fury end over end, and places every shot into the same bit of hull. I haven't seen the episode in a while, so I'm not up on the nose art, but let's say the really good pilot is Keffer, giving him one moment of usefulness before he dies.
"You would plan/do such a thing?" JMS has confirmed that's referring to the chrysalis... And, oh, what's that sitting on Delenn's table in "Midnight?" A Minbari Jigsaw puzzle? No! It's the chrysalis machine! She'll be building that all season...
Think this is the first time we hear the name of "Dukhat," as well. Shame "In the Beginning" won't show the "wall of bodies," but, realistically, there's no budget for W. Morgan Sheppard and a bunch of other Soul Hunters for the scene. At least the Soul Hunter ships are shown and noted, so continuity is preserved.
W. Morgan Sheppard was an incredible Soul Hunter. Martin Sheen... Not so much.
A lot of JMS' writing, especially outside of B5, has a heavy dose of magic realism, or just plain magic. If it can be used to explore an interesting idea, it doesn't have to make logical sense. On B5 he treads a bit more carefully and ambiguously, but there are still heavy fantasy elements throughout, despite the show's presentation as 'serious' scifi.
I think it works well.
True enough.
While B5 was "hard sci-fi," he did pull a lot from myth - and, of course, I think there's some "Clarke Tech" ("sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic").
SPOILER COMMENT
Not to mention techno mages.
The bigotry in the human dialogue is one of the show’s nicer details. They never got over the Minbari War, and that’s important.
It's not something I ever really picked up on as a kid, which I think is partly why I can't quite decide if it's deliberate or not now. Obviously the show does address this kind of bigotry more head-on in various ways later on, but the casual prejudice in the main crew's vocabulary is really interesting. Is it clever writing, or accidental writing?
Maybe I'm subject to the JMS hype, but I see it as wordbuilding. He seemed to have a plan from the outset, and that kind of bigotry plays a part.