RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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J. Michael Straczynski is working on a pilot and developing a full reboot of Babylon 5 with CW. Per his post on FB, he sounds pretty excited to re-do B5 with all of the writing skills he's developed since the original, and has full support and lots of flexibility from CW. Here's hoping that means they'll stay out of his way and let him write it exactly as he wants.
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Its the CW though.
Still here's to hoping.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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Its the CW though.
Still here's to hoping.
JMS's post about this. Considering he's heavily involved, and states "The network understands the uniqueness of Babylon 5 and is giving me a great deal of latitude with the storytelling." I have reason to expect that it will be JMS's show, without network interference. Can this change, sure, but I have faith in JMS. Would it be better on a streaming network without as much restrictions and with a larger budget? Sure, but on CW it's more likely to have longer seasons as well, since they still have 22 episode seasons, which means that there should be plenty of room to tell the story he wants to tell.
Also, think of how epic the crossover with the Arrowverse will be! :)
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Id prefer a new series in the same setting. CW is not great either.
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The CW is the direct descendant of where B5 aired originally, though (PTEN -> The WB -> The CW). It's pretty much the show coming home, except it will still have a lot more money and more time, plus a variable season length that they can work with (having a 13-episode first and fifth season might be good, but 22-episodes for the middle three).
It also sounds like JMS has been given carte blanche to do what he wants with the show in terms of tone and content, which is reasonably encouraging.
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The CW isn't in and of itself necessarily a death knell. It has had some consistently good shows, like Jane the Virgin (which if you've never seen it, is much, much better than you think it would be). And while, as far as genre fiction goes, the Arrowverse has been all over the place, there has been good moments certainly--the first season of Black Lightning comes to mind, and some of the better moments of Legends.
Moreover, the CW does not cancel things because of low ratings (look at Batwoman or the final seasons of Arrow). They are more likely to let a series run its course and trust streaming and merchandising fulfills revenue. So if you want a story to be told in full, your chances are much better with the CW. Plus as Werthead points out, it's basically being on the same network as it was before. Moreover, bearing in mind this is speculation on my part, it's possible Warner holds certain distribution or licensing rights to it so the only way it's possible is via the CW (unless you want it to be streaming only).
All this said... I agree with Orville. Why a reboot? I know we're in a time where Hollywood is in one of its reboot-happy phases, but still. I'm honestly not the biggest JMS fan--Babylon 5 was solidly good, but some other things he's written I've not been so hot on (his comic book run on Wonder Woman comes to mind). Still, he has talent and loads of imagination, so surely he has new ideas he'd want to explore? New worlds to build? Something in the same universe would be awesome, sure. Or even just another space opera but in a different setting. Or something else entirely--just his name would likely bring viewers. Why do over something that, while now dated in looks, largely stands up storywise? I guess perhaps the desire is to make it with contemporary special effects and update some of the concepts. Still...
OTOH, I remember many moons ago, when everyone was aghast at the idea of the Battlestar Galactica reboot, and that thing was f++!ing awesome. I know there are flaws with that parallel but nonetheless sometimes good, new things come out of revisiting old ideas.
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The main reason that J. Michael Straczynski gave for rebooting rather than continuing the series is the obvious one: Too many of the original actors have died.
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That's basically what JMS said. You can't do a continuation if you don't have most of the surviving cast.
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So, Babylon station and the character of Sinlcair or Sheridan are all thats to be told with the entire setting?
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I am not an old-head fan of the show, I just never picked it up but a few of my coworkers are TRUE ride-or-die fans of the show to the point where more than one of them has a tattoo and traveled 500+ miles in order to attend conventions in the past.
They are extremely excited with only a dash of apprehension on the project so my confidence in it is bolstered by their faith that it won't get screwed up but only time will really tell... maybe now is a good time to finally start binging my way through it all.
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The CW is the direct descendant of where B5 aired originally, though (PTEN -> The WB -> The CW).
Mostly correct.
Warner Brothers pulled out of PTEN to create the WB. PTEN then merged with the nascent United Paramount Network, which thirteen years later merged with The WB to create the CW. So it's really (PTEN -> UPN -> The CW.)
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That's basically what JMS said. You can't do a continuation if you don't have most of the surviving cast.
So, Babylon station and the character of Sinlcair or Sheridan are all thats to be told with the entire setting?
This. I don't think anyone in the thread suggested a continuation with the same characters. Rather, a different story about different characters in the same universe.
I have a vague recollection (it's been a Loooooong time since I've watched this show) that at one point Bad Things Happened to a lot of the planets and stations except for B5, but heck, that just opens an opportunity for stories about the survivors. Prequels are also an option, e.g. detailing one of the previous Shadow Wars or the Earth-Minbari war.
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That's basically what JMS said. You can't do a continuation if you don't have most of the surviving cast.
More like there are too few survivors. JMS probably could assemble most of the few surviving cast members.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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I'm hoping and expecting that surviving cast members will show up in either cameos or even playing different but recurring characters, similar to how John Wesley Shipp showed up on the current run of the Flash playing Barry's dad.
Another thing I'm excited about with this being a CW project is that if it is a hit, then CW is very friendly to building out a franchise with spin offs. If the pacing of the story is roughly the same this time around, I could easily imagine a Rangers spin off starting around season 3 for example.
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If there is anything that can get me off my but and get my account working again, after years of being absent, it's talk of B5
Anyway...I was a pretty hardcore fan of the series back in the day...Hell I even have the box set. I am "mostly" stoked about the idea of more B5, even if its a reboot. My only reservation really is the CW, and that is for budget reasons. While I have watched and enjoyed some of the DC shows, you can't exactly say the effects on them have always been that great. I would feel a lot better if this was an HBO max show. Also...CW seems to be angling for a much younger crowd with many of its shows than the crowd that B5 would work best for. So that makes me a bit apprehensive as well
That said, I will be curious as hell how some of the alien races get updated assuming there are better effects. And I will be curious to see how some elements get re-imagined given the world we live in now versus then.
I just hope they keep all the LOTR influences including the Shadows, which were one of my favorite elements.
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The way I read it honestly is this reboot WILL do some of what the old show did, BUT with different actors. Mostly because as JMS said in an interview, the majority of the ACTORS (not the actual characters) are dead.
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I love B5. And because of that, I am leery of a reboot. OTOH IF done right, it could be even better than the original B5. Hell, it might be just like Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood was to Fullmetal Alchemist. There was certainly enough room for improvement because of the network screwing with the show. But I would only say go for it if CW is willing to stick with the show and not meddle too much. The original B5 was a show that had a grand scale and required an investment in the show by the viewer. I am willing to give it a chance. Hopefully CW does too.
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More like there are too few survivors. JMS probably could assemble most of the few surviving cast members.
The irony is that, of the surviving actors, the characters they played are dead/enigmatically missing (Sheridan, Lennier, Morden, Lyta, Londo, Marcus, Talia and Keffer fall into that bracket). That really only leaves Ivanova and Na'Toth as characters you could do new things with, which is very limiting. Maybe Bester, but Walter Koenig is very frail now and probably couldn't do a lot more than a seated cameo.
The actors who have died are (mostly) the ones whose characters are canonically still alive 25+ years later (Delenn, Vir, Dr. Franklin, Garibaldi, kind of Sinclair, most of the family Zathras), and are the characters you'd expect to show up in a sequel.
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Apparently, they're getting so flooded with [url]https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/j-michael-straczynski-would-like-to-politely- remind-fans-not-to-pitch-him-unsolicited]script pitches[/url] for the show they thought it was necessary to put out a tweet that syfi also wrote about that speaks to how this is a bad idea and is unwanted.
So that speaks pretty clearly to how much interest that the show is generating and seems to me to be a good sign of faith in their writing and production team.
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Hey I'm all for whatever they do. It's not like they can screw me over worse than Star Wars has...
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No idea but I'm sure we'll get that back.
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I could say I am cautiously optimistic.
I watched this show first some five-six years ago after growing up on Star Trek and Stargate SG-1.
It hit differently.
There was this element of realpolitic and real people. It captured my attention really well.
It holds a special place in my heart. I just hope they give it justice. Cause it deserves it.
It does indeed deserve it. But if we can get a good to very good Expanse TV show, I'm convinced we can get a good to VERY good B5 reboot.