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how do you remake a tv series like babylon 5?
Lenir walked across the sands of vorlon prime, his torn robes and bladed mimbari fighting pike his last posessions in the world. Behind him in the distance, the wreckage of his personal flyer still burned, a column of black smoke rising skyward to be washed away by the weakening dust storm.
I could so see that...
I'm a little leery. I don't see how any aspect of the B5 series can be effectively retold in a 2-hour movie. Unless (as someone suggested on ArsTechnica) he decides to go with 1 movie = 1 season. But that requires that fans line up to see 5 movies without getting anxious for something new.
But then, I don't write movie screenplays and jms does. So maybe he knows what he's doing...
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But that requires that fans line up to see 5 movies without getting anxious for something new.
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It worked for Harry Potter.
Of course, you could basically drop Season 5.
Or do it right...
I'm so weary of the endless parade of reboots and remakes that Hollywood is churning out these days, so it is hard for me to get too excited about this. That said, so long is JMS is at the helm is shouldn't be too bad.
Of course, the pacing and depth of the story--and hopefully more than that--will have to change to work as a movie franchise, but JMS has experience with several different types of storytelling and should be able to pull it off. I actually would like to see a very different take on the B5 story/universe rather than a movie that tries to slave itself to the series too closely.
Well, you're dropping so much anyway to fit into a much smaller timeframe of movies and Season 5 was already the stuff he thought could be cut from the main plot, when it wasn't sure there was going to be a Season 5.Of course, you could basically drop Season 5.Or do it right...
Good point. If anything, it may be the one season easiest to fit into a 2 hour movie...
Are they really goping feature film exclusive with B5? I thought the movie would serve as a pilot for a new series?
WB has the TV rights to B5 and they don't want to do anything. JMS has the motion picture rights, so that's what he's going forward with. Since he thinks its been too long since the show was on, he doesn't think a follow-on to the series makes sense, so he's rebooting it. Whether that's a good or bad idea is open for interpretation.
No thanks. I wouldn't want to watch B5 without Andreas Katsulas. Or Richard Biggs for that matter.
I hope it gets funding, that it's good, and that JMS finds a way to fit so many characters and story development into 2-3 hours.
No thanks. I wouldn't want to watch B5 without Andreas Katsulas. Or Richard Biggs for that matter.
Based on the things that jms has said about Katsulas, I doubt he would do it if he didn't think he could get someone to portray G'kar properly.
Or he doesn't use G'kar.
I would be down for a big budget stand alone-movie using the B5 setting, maybe set a bit further in the future. But yeah, not sure if you can really condense the series, or even a single season, into a coherent movie
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I would be down for a big budget stand alone-movie using the B5 setting, maybe set a bit further in the future. But yeah, not sure if you can really condense the series, or even a single season, into a coherent movie
As I recall babylon's 1-4 met bad ends...he could do preludes. What a series of films? The space stations die in the end.
Forget about Bab 5 as a reboot it had a beginning - middle - end. It's done.
Now, if you want to do something within the Bab 5 universe, I think that would be fine. There were a couple of shows that didn't do well, as I recall because of bad timing, that could do well in the Theaters. One is Crusade. The other of coarse is the Rangers.
If you REALLY need to see the Shadows, I suppose you could tell the story of Bab 4 when it was sucked into the past to fight with the Mimbari.
It's important to note that JMS has raised $200 million for his Studio JMS project and is already working on other films and TV series (most notably SENSE8, his new collaboration with the Wachowskis). So this is actually probably going to happen. The previous attempts fell through due to funding, but JMS already has the means to fund it himself.
Whether it's a good idea or not is another matter. There's part of me wondering if JMS is doing this to get Warner Brothers on board so the film can lead into a TV series reboot, maybe done alongside someone like Netflix to give it the budget it really needs whilst also the time needed to make it work (and B5 might benefit, especially S1-2 and S5, from having only 10-13 episodes per seasons rather than 22). It would be weird for one of the first heavily-serialised TV shows which helped usher in our current 'golden age' of TV to ditch what made it great just to get some shinier VFX.
For some of the same reasons others have mentioned, I'm really not happy with the idea of a reboot, which it seems to be would have to do one or more of these things, all undesirable:
* Alter the original storyline, creating something that long time fans wouldn't recognize as the "story of Babylon 5";
* Rehash some portion of the original storyline at a super-compressed rate, thereby dropping the best part of B5: the character arcs;
* Turn the original characters into pale imitations of themselves due to poor casting or simply the truncation of the aforementioned character arcs.
I don't want to see...
Christian Bale as Cmdr. Sinclair
Cate Blanchett as DeLenn
Johnny Depp as G'Kar
Robert Downey, Jr. as Londo
Scarlett Johanssen as Ivanova
Bruce Willis as Garibaldi
Zac Efron as Zack Allen
Aaron Paul as Lenier
Seems far better to either tell the stories of the first three Babylon stations, with little or no reference to familiar characters; or jump decades forward in the B5 timeline and deal with some completely new challenge. It's silly to assume that the Vorlons and Shadows leaving the galaxy removed all threats to sentient life, or that the end of hostilities between Earth and the Interstellar Alliance creating a permanent galaxy-wide peace.
There have been about 5 Babylon 5 movies already.
Low-budget TV/DVD movies. JMS is talking about a relatively big-budget theatrical release, minimum budget $80 million or twice what SERENITY had.
4 was where the balance of the budget was blown on and 5 never would have been built, if the Minbari hadn't decided to donate to the cause.
It always amuses me how much insanely bigger Babylon 4 (and 1-3 if they'd been finished) was than B5. It was 'only' half again longer but massively wider, so its volume was much greater than B5's.
I'd...see this.Aaron Paul as Lenier
"Faith manages, b+#~@."
There have been about 5 Babylon 5 movies already.Low-budget TV/DVD movies. JMS is talking about a relatively big-budget theatrical release, minimum budget $80 million or twice what SERENITY had.
4 was where the balance of the budget was blown on and 5 never would have been built, if the Minbari hadn't decided to donate to the cause.It always amuses me how much insanely bigger Babylon 4 (and 1-3 if they'd been finished) was than B5. It was 'only' half again longer but massively wider, so its volume was much greater than B5's.
It's was explained that B4 was made up of the surviving parts of B1 thru 3, more material = larger. B5 also was so much smaller because the Babylon project was nearly bankrupt and was forced to make due with a smaller station. It also explains why the grey and brown sectors were nearly incomplete, no money to finish them.
Johnny Depp as G'Kar??? Whoa... That's some good dissonance there.
An action movie will do good in the theaters. That is one reason to do it about Babylon 4.
Another is because you get to do it with new people.
Another is that you are not rehashing an old story.
Finally, it hasn't been done yet.
I suppose the one main problem is that it is Babylon FOUR not FIVE and people won't identify with it. The fans want to see the original series all over again with their favorite characters. But you have to fit a long running TV show into the span of 2 hours (assuming no sequels)
I suppose they could remake that episode and Garabaldi ends up on Bab4 along with other people that shouldn't be there.
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I suppose the one main problem is that it is Babylon FOUR not FIVE and people won't identify with it. The fans want to see the original series all over again with their favorite characters. But you have to fit a long running TV show into the span of 2 hours (assuming no sequels)
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I think I have a solution for this: Have the movie be about the events leading up to and including the construction of Babylon 5. Start where Babylon 4 is just going online . . . and then disappears. EarthGov says "no more", and those in favor of ANOTHER ATTEMPT at the station have to try to change their mind and secure alternative funding. Use flashbacks to tell the stories of the construction of Babylons 1 - 4, including the Minbari's secret reminiscences of what happened with Babylon 4 AFTER it disappeared from the point of view of Earth Alliance, as the protagonists first work to overcome the enormous resistance to spending any more resources on another station, then secure resources, and then work to keep the same fates from befalling the latest attempt. End up with Babylon 5 just opening for business.