Good episode. Lots going on. It's never specified if the Streib are independents, or collecting data for the Shadows. Thoughts? (JMS says independent. Thus, reality kills the fun thought experiment.)
The whole abduction plot is enjoyable. The few shots with pure CG or CG set extensions are very well done. As are the new shots of Sheridan in his Starfury from the outside POV.
The sets in the Streib ship are pretty effectively creepy until Sheridan and the Narn escape. Then the floor ends up being way too smooth. The blue lighting kills the painting on the floor. The Streib makeup - we never get a good look at it. JMS notes they had red, slit-pupil eyes.
The fight between Sheridan and the Narn is better performed than the fight between Sheridan and the Narn. Marshal Teague is a martial artist, stuntman, and former special forces military. The actor playing the Drazi is one of the "Alien Rep Company" actors. Obviously one of them was better with fight choreography. With several years of martial arts training and a couple years of fencing, kendo, and stage combat training myself, I will note it's not easy. Especially when having to reset for camera and do multiple takes from multiple angles all day.
If anyone is curious, the hardest part of stage combat, and where most injuries occur is being the person hit. Let's say you are "punching" me. You just need to throw your hand in the general direction of my face (depending on camera/audience angle your hand might not even be within 6 inches/15 cm of me). *I'm* the one who sells the move by snapping my head back and falling over. It can be a lot of fun, but, in my day I've been in fight sequences gone wrong. I've had cracked ribs, a cracked jaw, been thrown THROUGH a wall (grips set the stage wrong so we were out of position), and have a dueling scar from a foil which came within about an inch (3cm) from taking out my eye. When I occasionally compliment or critique B5's fight scenes, it's with respect, because it's a very difficult task to choreograph, rehearse, and film on a 90's TV schedule with 6 production days (5 in s5) to get it in the can.
The ship design for the Streib is lovely. Beautiful asymmetrical design, a mixture of mechanical and organic elements (It's got a claw!), and an impressive optical illusion: The hull looks like it has a pebbled surface, which, on a low poly model would normally be done with a bump or normal map. Lightwave didn't have those yet. Yup, that hull texture comes from a carefully created specular map driving highlights.
A few spectacular Starfury shots, too. A new establishing shot of B5 near the end of the episode with Starfuries flying past the camera comes to mind.
While there are a lot of solid performances in the episode, it's Lennier who stands out. Delenn herself brings it up in the episode - how much Lennier has changed since the top of season 1. He also gets the line of the episode.
Delenn: Have I told you recently how much I... appreciate you, Lennier?
Lennier: No. But it will give us something to discuss on our journey.
S1 Lennier could never crack that joke.
Ramirez: Sigh. Yes, yes, I get that plot requirements wanted to make sure no squad leaders were available so Sheridan would fly the mission, but his other comments about flight pay, and his nerves about Hague are enough to justify him going anyway. Which means we could have had KEFFER in this episode.
Yes, readers of my comments all know I'm not a fan of Keffer, but, instead of random pilot who immediately dies after hanging with senior staff, we could have given Keffer the bet (and some personality), still had the radiation leak - just not terminal (and some heroism), and basically given some worth to a useless character. Bye, Ramirez. We hardly knew ye.
Neroon on the Gray Council can never cause complications. At all.
Also, have I mentioned how awesome Lennier is in this episode? What a stalwart white knight! What a true friend! It's somewhere around this episode he became my favorite character.
Yeah, there are so many opportunities to develop Keffer’s character in s2 which are missed. I know JMS didn’t like the character but it still seems n odd decision: Keffer was on the show, like it or not, so really should have been incorporated properly.
B5 is terribly underrated and under appreciated. Quirky and campy at times, but overall a ground or maybe space breaker. What subsequent movies/shows did it influence? What, if anything, has been its lasting effect? Amazon’s The Expanse seems to have some shared DNA.
There's a huge list of shows and movies B5 had influence on. An incomplete list:
Star Wars: Lucas visited Foundation Imaging (VFX for the first three seasons of B5) during pre-production of season 3 and had long talks with Ron Thornton (head of Foundation). After seeing what Foundation was doing on a miniscule budget, Lucas decided what he had announced in 1983 had happened. Technology caught up to his vision. Shortly after, Lucas began the "Special Editions," which were a good way for Lucasfilm to do a bunch of R&D for EP I.
Star Trek: B5 inspired the Trek team to move off motion controlled models and onto CG. Ironically, once Foundation was maneuvered off Babylon 5, Foundation ended up on DS9 and Voyager.
Fan Films: the Star Wars fan film "Troops" was largely done by Foundation personnel. It was the first time a fan film actually had good VFX work.
The Expanse: Abrams and Franck have admitted Babylon 5 was an influence on The Expanse - of course, so was all of Larry Niven's "Known Space" stories. Niven and JMS are good influences to have.
Heroes, Lost, BSG: the showrunners of all of them spoke with JMS before beginning production. All about the logistics of approaching a multi-season TV arc. Reboot Galactica also had former B5 artists on their CG teams. Foundation CG artist Mojo Lebowitz is why the new BSG Vipers have RCS thrusters - it's a steal from the Starfury. Additionally, the style of BSG space battles - that shaky handheld look - is a direct outgrowth of work done on the B5 episode GROPOS. Gropos was the first time someone animated a CG scene to look "handheld."
ILM/VFX/CGI in general: Foundation artists developed many techniques which varied artists took to other VFX houses. B5 pioneered mixing 2D and 3D elements for matte paintings and set extensions. In fact, the creators of Lightwave added many features specifically for the B5 team. Light Wrap is a specific VFX effect created for Foundation Imaging under the guidance of Mojo. Overall, you'll see more and more TV shows in the 90's and early 2000's shifting to digital art over models and optical compositing. It's not really an exaggeration to say the fundamental render/composite pipelines developed by the teams working on B5 became the standard workflow for the next 25 years. Only virtual set volume production and AI have shaken up the industry enough since then to start changing workflows.
Unions: there was an IATSE strike during production of B5 season 2. JMS and producer John Copeland were union men and sided with their workers. They were involved in negotiations. The production contract used for union TV shows budgeted at under $1 million per episode is the "Babylon Contract."
So B5 literally influenced (almost) everything to come after.
That's just off the top of my head. There are many other examples. As a silly one, the Hunter/Killer robots in Terminator: Genysis were designed by Steve Burg, who also designed the Starfury. The HKs are built around the shape of a Starfury cockpit module.
While B5 doesn't have the long term audience recognition it should have, it's had a LOT of influence on the industry, and the industry knows it.
Gosh, is that all? ;-) Friend, you need to write a book. Tons of interesting connections and influences to cover, especially if that is, as you say, an incomplete list. Thanks for the amazingly detailed reply.
I pulled my information from books written by others. *Shrug* I've studied the Lurker's Guide , read all the interviews with production teams on B5 scrolls... Back in the early 00's the company b5books published all the B5 scripts, with author's commentaries. They even compiled 15 years of JMS's online postings. I have the entire series, along with every other book on the making of B5 ever published. Except one... The editor of B5 Books has been working on a new volume on the making of B5 for several years. It's supposed to be done this fall.
I’d say your compiling, interpreting, and expounding on the work of others. That ain’t nothing. It’s what most historians do. Few have lived what they’re studying and they do exactly as you have done, build on the work of others.
I don't think I caught any Markab references in this one. I'd forgotten about the Stribe guys and for a minute that they were working with the Shadows. Guess not.
Neroon is such a sneering bastard here through season 3 his heroic death in season 4 becomes a satisfying surprise.
Bill Mumy told JMS he believed Lennier was madly in love with Delenn. JMS asked him if he was SURE. Mumy confirmed. I think this may be the first script written after that conversation, as here it's obvious Lennier is carrying not a torch, but a flamethrower for Delenn. Sigh. Over 25 years later and I'm still pissed about Lennier's moment of weakness in "Objects at Rest," and his subsequent disgrace. My favorite gets one of the shittiest endings to his arc.
The Streib are NOT related to the "Shadow Surgeons" we will see in seasons 3 and 5. Still think they should have been the same race. Kidnapping random people, placing control implants in them, their obvious organic technology, and their testing of alien races all make the Streib SEEM like Shadow servants.
Hague was supposed to return again in s3, but Foxworth booked himself onto Deep Space 9 AFTER he'd booked Babylon 5, and blew off B5 for DS9. "Sorry," he told JMS, "maybe next time."
So JMS killed Hague off.
Sheridan's dream: Not touching that. There are varied analyses online from fans and scholars, none of which agree with the others. Only JMS knows. He's not talking. I will say I don't think the dream is well shot. There are scenes where Sheridan wears a Psi Corp uniform... All shot too close to recognize the uniform. One shot has the badge - and it's cut off by the bottom of the frame. All we can say for certain is Kosh has forged a mental link with Sheridan.
I can't even tell you if the "man in between" is Justin, Lorien, or someone else.
In my joke "Babylon 5 drinking game," a rule is "drink when you don't know what Kosh is talking about. If he makes sense, STOP DRINKING, YOU'RE DONE!" Well, I ain't never been drunk enough to parse that dream...
Finally, the last thing I forgot in non-spoiler. The moth flying around Neroon in the Gray Council chamber is damn distracting. John Vickery (lovely man) is spitting venom and I'm watching the speck flying around in his god-spot.
Haha! That moth really thought this was its big moment. I’ve never noticed it before — one of the benefits of the blu-ray transfer?
Glad it isn’t just me confused by the dream sequence: it feels like something that I should ‘get’, having watched the show multiple times, but it’s so obtuse it may as well not be there.
Of course this is the episode which, for first time viewers, recontextualizes Sheridan. Sheridan retains his humor from here on, but it's less "Smilin' Sheridan and his OJ" and more "Serious Sheridan doing the tough job."
The Streib spacing the captives is just cold... This time is the first I noticed the bodies have limb animation. Yeah, a few struggle and writhe as they die. Ugh.
We finally see an Omega in action. Here I refer to the interviews on B5scrolls.com. B5 NEVER shows the true firepower of the Omega. Foundation was maneuvered off the show after s3 and the replacement team from Netter Digital didn't know the Omega's design specs. That big laser we see here is a medium weapon. The gaps at the bottom of the "hammerhead hull?" GIGATON yield mine launchers and the MAIN PLASMA CANNON. All the rectangular panels on the side? Hatches for the nuclear missiles. While some episodes show Starfuries launching from the front of the ship (first time was time reasons which the VFX team justified as emergency launch from ships still being serviced) it's real launch bays are at the ends of the centrifuge. The Omega's designer was sorry he was never able to do the "hull scraper" shot where 'Furies are spiraling out of the centrifuge, then the entire ship is wreathed in smoke and flame as the missiles launch. That front laser we see in this episode isn't the Omega's most powerful weapon.
Cor, that description of the Omega is great. I’m imagining it with Expanse-level VFX, looking more like the Rocinante firing interceptors, and the Omega looking like something straight out of hell.
Here is the exact quote from Omega designer Paul Bryant as found on b5scrolls.com
Yes, I can confirm that I ‘lifted’ the centre section off the Leonov in 2010 for the centrifuge of the Aggie. I paid close attention to the actual geometry of the centrefuge to get it right - that's why the profile is exactly the same. I was feeling mischievous, so I added this little nod to the design. I thought someone would spot it immediately but no, it was years before anybody called me on it (it would have been an easy fix to change the profile)"
"On the centrifuge, if you look closely in some shots, you can see sealed Starfury launch bays. I wrote a whole tactical description of how Starfury flights were deployed in battle. If the launch was defensive then, as the centrifuge rotated, the 'Furies' were deployed evenly around the ship by releasing them at regular intervals. If it was an attack then they were released at the specific degree of rotation closest relative to the target"
"Those little red doors are for the missile silos. The detail was designed for a 19th century broadside effect. You know, camera scraping down the side of the Aggie as all the hatches open sequentially just like every swashbuckling movie you've ever seen. Then open to a wide shot as the entire ship's side erupts in flame and missiles."
"The Aggie was designed to be really impressive.. There were the Starfury launch bays, the missile silos and finally the dual Big Ass Cannons under the ship’s return bay that were supposed to launch gigaton class mines.. The turrets on each forward cheek were just there to get your attention, they were the 'light' weapons. "
Non Spoiler.
Good episode. Lots going on. It's never specified if the Streib are independents, or collecting data for the Shadows. Thoughts? (JMS says independent. Thus, reality kills the fun thought experiment.)
The whole abduction plot is enjoyable. The few shots with pure CG or CG set extensions are very well done. As are the new shots of Sheridan in his Starfury from the outside POV.
The sets in the Streib ship are pretty effectively creepy until Sheridan and the Narn escape. Then the floor ends up being way too smooth. The blue lighting kills the painting on the floor. The Streib makeup - we never get a good look at it. JMS notes they had red, slit-pupil eyes.
The fight between Sheridan and the Narn is better performed than the fight between Sheridan and the Narn. Marshal Teague is a martial artist, stuntman, and former special forces military. The actor playing the Drazi is one of the "Alien Rep Company" actors. Obviously one of them was better with fight choreography. With several years of martial arts training and a couple years of fencing, kendo, and stage combat training myself, I will note it's not easy. Especially when having to reset for camera and do multiple takes from multiple angles all day.
If anyone is curious, the hardest part of stage combat, and where most injuries occur is being the person hit. Let's say you are "punching" me. You just need to throw your hand in the general direction of my face (depending on camera/audience angle your hand might not even be within 6 inches/15 cm of me). *I'm* the one who sells the move by snapping my head back and falling over. It can be a lot of fun, but, in my day I've been in fight sequences gone wrong. I've had cracked ribs, a cracked jaw, been thrown THROUGH a wall (grips set the stage wrong so we were out of position), and have a dueling scar from a foil which came within about an inch (3cm) from taking out my eye. When I occasionally compliment or critique B5's fight scenes, it's with respect, because it's a very difficult task to choreograph, rehearse, and film on a 90's TV schedule with 6 production days (5 in s5) to get it in the can.
The ship design for the Streib is lovely. Beautiful asymmetrical design, a mixture of mechanical and organic elements (It's got a claw!), and an impressive optical illusion: The hull looks like it has a pebbled surface, which, on a low poly model would normally be done with a bump or normal map. Lightwave didn't have those yet. Yup, that hull texture comes from a carefully created specular map driving highlights.
A few spectacular Starfury shots, too. A new establishing shot of B5 near the end of the episode with Starfuries flying past the camera comes to mind.
While there are a lot of solid performances in the episode, it's Lennier who stands out. Delenn herself brings it up in the episode - how much Lennier has changed since the top of season 1. He also gets the line of the episode.
Delenn: Have I told you recently how much I... appreciate you, Lennier?
Lennier: No. But it will give us something to discuss on our journey.
S1 Lennier could never crack that joke.
Ramirez: Sigh. Yes, yes, I get that plot requirements wanted to make sure no squad leaders were available so Sheridan would fly the mission, but his other comments about flight pay, and his nerves about Hague are enough to justify him going anyway. Which means we could have had KEFFER in this episode.
Yes, readers of my comments all know I'm not a fan of Keffer, but, instead of random pilot who immediately dies after hanging with senior staff, we could have given Keffer the bet (and some personality), still had the radiation leak - just not terminal (and some heroism), and basically given some worth to a useless character. Bye, Ramirez. We hardly knew ye.
Neroon on the Gray Council can never cause complications. At all.
Also, have I mentioned how awesome Lennier is in this episode? What a stalwart white knight! What a true friend! It's somewhere around this episode he became my favorite character.
Yeah, there are so many opportunities to develop Keffer’s character in s2 which are missed. I know JMS didn’t like the character but it still seems n odd decision: Keffer was on the show, like it or not, so really should have been incorporated properly.
B5 is terribly underrated and under appreciated. Quirky and campy at times, but overall a ground or maybe space breaker. What subsequent movies/shows did it influence? What, if anything, has been its lasting effect? Amazon’s The Expanse seems to have some shared DNA.
There's a huge list of shows and movies B5 had influence on. An incomplete list:
Star Wars: Lucas visited Foundation Imaging (VFX for the first three seasons of B5) during pre-production of season 3 and had long talks with Ron Thornton (head of Foundation). After seeing what Foundation was doing on a miniscule budget, Lucas decided what he had announced in 1983 had happened. Technology caught up to his vision. Shortly after, Lucas began the "Special Editions," which were a good way for Lucasfilm to do a bunch of R&D for EP I.
Star Trek: B5 inspired the Trek team to move off motion controlled models and onto CG. Ironically, once Foundation was maneuvered off Babylon 5, Foundation ended up on DS9 and Voyager.
Fan Films: the Star Wars fan film "Troops" was largely done by Foundation personnel. It was the first time a fan film actually had good VFX work.
The Expanse: Abrams and Franck have admitted Babylon 5 was an influence on The Expanse - of course, so was all of Larry Niven's "Known Space" stories. Niven and JMS are good influences to have.
Heroes, Lost, BSG: the showrunners of all of them spoke with JMS before beginning production. All about the logistics of approaching a multi-season TV arc. Reboot Galactica also had former B5 artists on their CG teams. Foundation CG artist Mojo Lebowitz is why the new BSG Vipers have RCS thrusters - it's a steal from the Starfury. Additionally, the style of BSG space battles - that shaky handheld look - is a direct outgrowth of work done on the B5 episode GROPOS. Gropos was the first time someone animated a CG scene to look "handheld."
ILM/VFX/CGI in general: Foundation artists developed many techniques which varied artists took to other VFX houses. B5 pioneered mixing 2D and 3D elements for matte paintings and set extensions. In fact, the creators of Lightwave added many features specifically for the B5 team. Light Wrap is a specific VFX effect created for Foundation Imaging under the guidance of Mojo. Overall, you'll see more and more TV shows in the 90's and early 2000's shifting to digital art over models and optical compositing. It's not really an exaggeration to say the fundamental render/composite pipelines developed by the teams working on B5 became the standard workflow for the next 25 years. Only virtual set volume production and AI have shaken up the industry enough since then to start changing workflows.
Unions: there was an IATSE strike during production of B5 season 2. JMS and producer John Copeland were union men and sided with their workers. They were involved in negotiations. The production contract used for union TV shows budgeted at under $1 million per episode is the "Babylon Contract."
So B5 literally influenced (almost) everything to come after.
That's just off the top of my head. There are many other examples. As a silly one, the Hunter/Killer robots in Terminator: Genysis were designed by Steve Burg, who also designed the Starfury. The HKs are built around the shape of a Starfury cockpit module.
While B5 doesn't have the long term audience recognition it should have, it's had a LOT of influence on the industry, and the industry knows it.
Gosh, is that all? ;-) Friend, you need to write a book. Tons of interesting connections and influences to cover, especially if that is, as you say, an incomplete list. Thanks for the amazingly detailed reply.
I pulled my information from books written by others. *Shrug* I've studied the Lurker's Guide , read all the interviews with production teams on B5 scrolls... Back in the early 00's the company b5books published all the B5 scripts, with author's commentaries. They even compiled 15 years of JMS's online postings. I have the entire series, along with every other book on the making of B5 ever published. Except one... The editor of B5 Books has been working on a new volume on the making of B5 for several years. It's supposed to be done this fall.
So, I'm just quoting the work of others. 🙂
I’d say your compiling, interpreting, and expounding on the work of others. That ain’t nothing. It’s what most historians do. Few have lived what they’re studying and they do exactly as you have done, build on the work of others.
I don't think I caught any Markab references in this one. I'd forgotten about the Stribe guys and for a minute that they were working with the Shadows. Guess not.
Spoilers
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Neroon is such a sneering bastard here through season 3 his heroic death in season 4 becomes a satisfying surprise.
Bill Mumy told JMS he believed Lennier was madly in love with Delenn. JMS asked him if he was SURE. Mumy confirmed. I think this may be the first script written after that conversation, as here it's obvious Lennier is carrying not a torch, but a flamethrower for Delenn. Sigh. Over 25 years later and I'm still pissed about Lennier's moment of weakness in "Objects at Rest," and his subsequent disgrace. My favorite gets one of the shittiest endings to his arc.
The Streib are NOT related to the "Shadow Surgeons" we will see in seasons 3 and 5. Still think they should have been the same race. Kidnapping random people, placing control implants in them, their obvious organic technology, and their testing of alien races all make the Streib SEEM like Shadow servants.
Hague was supposed to return again in s3, but Foxworth booked himself onto Deep Space 9 AFTER he'd booked Babylon 5, and blew off B5 for DS9. "Sorry," he told JMS, "maybe next time."
So JMS killed Hague off.
Sheridan's dream: Not touching that. There are varied analyses online from fans and scholars, none of which agree with the others. Only JMS knows. He's not talking. I will say I don't think the dream is well shot. There are scenes where Sheridan wears a Psi Corp uniform... All shot too close to recognize the uniform. One shot has the badge - and it's cut off by the bottom of the frame. All we can say for certain is Kosh has forged a mental link with Sheridan.
I can't even tell you if the "man in between" is Justin, Lorien, or someone else.
In my joke "Babylon 5 drinking game," a rule is "drink when you don't know what Kosh is talking about. If he makes sense, STOP DRINKING, YOU'RE DONE!" Well, I ain't never been drunk enough to parse that dream...
Finally, the last thing I forgot in non-spoiler. The moth flying around Neroon in the Gray Council chamber is damn distracting. John Vickery (lovely man) is spitting venom and I'm watching the speck flying around in his god-spot.
Haha! That moth really thought this was its big moment. I’ve never noticed it before — one of the benefits of the blu-ray transfer?
Glad it isn’t just me confused by the dream sequence: it feels like something that I should ‘get’, having watched the show multiple times, but it’s so obtuse it may as well not be there.
Non spoiler 3 (look, it's been a busy day):
Of course this is the episode which, for first time viewers, recontextualizes Sheridan. Sheridan retains his humor from here on, but it's less "Smilin' Sheridan and his OJ" and more "Serious Sheridan doing the tough job."
Non spoiler part 2.
The Streib spacing the captives is just cold... This time is the first I noticed the bodies have limb animation. Yeah, a few struggle and writhe as they die. Ugh.
We finally see an Omega in action. Here I refer to the interviews on B5scrolls.com. B5 NEVER shows the true firepower of the Omega. Foundation was maneuvered off the show after s3 and the replacement team from Netter Digital didn't know the Omega's design specs. That big laser we see here is a medium weapon. The gaps at the bottom of the "hammerhead hull?" GIGATON yield mine launchers and the MAIN PLASMA CANNON. All the rectangular panels on the side? Hatches for the nuclear missiles. While some episodes show Starfuries launching from the front of the ship (first time was time reasons which the VFX team justified as emergency launch from ships still being serviced) it's real launch bays are at the ends of the centrifuge. The Omega's designer was sorry he was never able to do the "hull scraper" shot where 'Furies are spiraling out of the centrifuge, then the entire ship is wreathed in smoke and flame as the missiles launch. That front laser we see in this episode isn't the Omega's most powerful weapon.
Cor, that description of the Omega is great. I’m imagining it with Expanse-level VFX, looking more like the Rocinante firing interceptors, and the Omega looking like something straight out of hell.
Here is the exact quote from Omega designer Paul Bryant as found on b5scrolls.com
Yes, I can confirm that I ‘lifted’ the centre section off the Leonov in 2010 for the centrifuge of the Aggie. I paid close attention to the actual geometry of the centrefuge to get it right - that's why the profile is exactly the same. I was feeling mischievous, so I added this little nod to the design. I thought someone would spot it immediately but no, it was years before anybody called me on it (it would have been an easy fix to change the profile)"
"On the centrifuge, if you look closely in some shots, you can see sealed Starfury launch bays. I wrote a whole tactical description of how Starfury flights were deployed in battle. If the launch was defensive then, as the centrifuge rotated, the 'Furies' were deployed evenly around the ship by releasing them at regular intervals. If it was an attack then they were released at the specific degree of rotation closest relative to the target"
"Those little red doors are for the missile silos. The detail was designed for a 19th century broadside effect. You know, camera scraping down the side of the Aggie as all the hatches open sequentially just like every swashbuckling movie you've ever seen. Then open to a wide shot as the entire ship's side erupts in flame and missiles."
"The Aggie was designed to be really impressive.. There were the Starfury launch bays, the missile silos and finally the dual Big Ass Cannons under the ship’s return bay that were supposed to launch gigaton class mines.. The turrets on each forward cheek were just there to get your attention, they were the 'light' weapons. "