Season 4 DVD Goof

[Kevin]

I *just* noticed for the first time, about 10 seconds ago, that the Season 4 intro title on the DVD set is incorrect for about 15 of the 22 episodes; they don't include the correct version listing Zack as the Security Chief and Garibaldi as just a regular citizen.

Anyone else notice this or am I the only slow one? Seems like a really weird mistake to make, since all of the original broadcasts were correct. Course then again they keep on misprinting the cast listing in the little pamplet with the DVD box, listing Ivanova still as a Lt. Cmdr ;P

[Omega]

I don't think it's so much a mistake as simply being consistent with how we see the characters in the story.

I've no doubt that perhaps this detail was debated in the past when the shows were actually being put together! It's not a mistake in the DVDs, that's how the original shows portrayed it.
The simple debate being: "How much would we be giving away in story and plot by altering who they were in the credits?"

Personally, I have no problems having the credits remain the same, because those are the characters we are used to having them as...Despite the changes they may be going through.

Last, but not least...I think you can just assume they get away with it because the rule is, you don't change your intro credits mid-season? That's who they were at the start, and who they are afterwards is reflected in the next.

[Kevin]

Originally posted by Omega
how the original shows portrayed it.

That's NOT how it was originally aired, as my post above states. I have the tapes of the grand majority of the series from their original airings, although some are from reruns, but *all* of them list Zack as Security Chief and Garibaldi as simply Michael Garibaldi, starting with Illusion of Truth. You can also find the same information reaffirmed on Lurker's Guide and a variety of other places...

Which is why I brought this up in the first place, to see if anyone else noticed it, because I've never seen it, retail tape, rerun or otherwise, have this error before.

[Radhil]

Oddly enough, I think it may be a mistake.... or that for some reason, they had to reassemble most of the episodes, and just used whatever stock opening footage they had.

I remember reading on the omniscient Lurker's that Claudia had to be removed from the credits of Deconstruction of Falling Stars, since she had left the show for season 5, the ep was shot on season 5's contracts, and because it would have triggered fees and such.

Yet, on the DVDs, the credits are the same as they've seemingly always been. I also remember similar "errors?" with Delenn (who was still in her chrysalis, and wasn't being shown to hold the suprise) at the beginning of season 2...

[Kevin]

Whoa, they don't have the first two episodes credits showing her pre-crysallis? I don't have the Season 2 DVDs (only set I'm missing at the moment), so I hadn't seen that... I would notice that in a heartbeat :P

[Joseph DeMartino]

This is a mistake, but it is not "DVD mistake" and it only appears to affect the R1 and R4 (NTSC) releases.

When the series was remastered in widescreen for broadcast on the U.S. Sci-Fi Channel, the credits had to be recreated from the original film elements because the change of aspect ratio would have left the original credits running off the screen. This was expensive and time consuming. The subcontractor who prepared the new hi-res widescreen masters (from which the NTSC broadcast masters, NTSC DVDs and PAL DVDs would later be derived) used the same main title squence for every episode within each season, wiping out several changes.

Why this happened is unclear. The subcontractor may have just assumed that the credits were the same for all the episodes, as they typically are for most series, and WB may not have told them otherwise. The studio may have tried to save money by not redoing the variant episodes. (The way they did it, they paid for 5 redone titles. To deal with the other changes would have nearly doubled their cost in this area.) Or someone may have just screwed up. But I think that either cost of a lack of the original film for some of the changes is the real reason, because the problems were never fixed even after they were noticed during the Sci-Fi Channel run. (Whereas a number of other errors, like the infamous "Midnight on the Firing Line" teapot were corrected when JMS brought them to WB's attention.)

It may be that they weren't able to fix all the "alternate credits" episodes (like the pre-Chrysalis Delenn if the film were missing) and therefore decided not to fix any of them rather than fix some and not others. (Since that would generate as many complaints as not fixing any of them.)

The titles on the PAL sets seem to be correct, from what I've read, probably because WB Europe had access to the widescreen PAL masters that had been created for the series years before for syndicated reruns in some countries. Either the U.S. techs working on the NTSC widescreen version were not aware of the earlier PAL effort (which is very possible given the way Warner Bros. is structured) or the quality of the credits after a PAL to NTSC conversion wouldn't have been good enough for the DVDs.

Anyway, the "bad" credits have been there since the first run on Sci-Fi in 2000 and they're unlikely to be changed in the future. (Unless there is a HD-DVD release five or ten years from now and WB pours money into it fixing up all the flaw in the original prints and redoes all the CGI. Which may happen if there is a series of successful B5 feature films in the interim, but which seems unlikely otherwise. )

Regards,

Joe

[Kevin]

Well now... looks like I'll still be cherishing a variety of my tapes for some time then

Tis a shame, I remember getting rather excited when they changed, one of the few times on the show when the changes of the characters were spelled out right there for you

[Radhil]

Whereas a number of other errors, like the infamous "Midnight on the Firing Line" teapot were corrected when JMS brought them to WB's attention.)

What the frell was that..... that's a new story for me, not quite so infamous.

Anyway, thanks for the info on the credits.

[Kevin]

Now that I'm home and can view that clip... all I have to say is... wow! Not only because it's so weird, but also because I *know* I saw the first airing on Sci-Fi... in fact I *tapped* the first episode airing on Sci-Fi, and never noticed it. Must have gotten up to get a drink or something at the time... but man, I'm going to have to see if I can locate that episode (While I know I've record about every episode with only a few exceptions, I'd say about 20% of my tapes aren't labeled, and that version of Midnight is on one of the unlabeled ones) and watch that... weird stuff

Kinda cool to think I have it recorded though... just never knew there was something weird worth watching it for Course I'd personally rather have a recording of the original airing of Chrysallis... now there was one major mix up ;P

[Thaddeus]

Re: The Teapot, you can see the error here:

http://www.speakeasy.org/~xyzzy/b5/narn_cnc_teapot.mpg

And am I in the minority when I wish that this wasn't an error?

[Lord Refa]

Originally posted by Joseph DeMartino
[B]This is a mistake, but it is not "DVD mistake" and it only appears to affect the R1 and R4 (NTSC) releases.

lucky for me I decided to buy R2 versions. But one thing: isn't R4 PAL?!? I have a vhs tape of B5Rangers from Australia which I ordered because it was PAL, and I can't play NTSC tapes.

Anyhow: this is one major mistake from Warner Brothers. One mistake out of many, so many others. They don't seem to care about the quality of the products they make. Maybe because of their monopoly on Babylon 5, they know they get away with it. It's not like we can buy the dvd's from another manufacturer.

Anyway, the "bad" credits have been there since the first run on Sci-Fi in 2000 and they're unlikely to be changed in the future. (Unless there is a HD-DVD release five or ten years from now and WB pours money into it fixing up all the flaw in the original prints and redoes all the CGI. Which may happen if there is a series of successful B5 feature films in the interim, but which seems unlikely otherwise. )

I am gonna make a wild guess: fixing up all those mistakes by WB will probably cost as much as filming a complete season. It will never happen, unless you start editing some private copies for yourself

[Joseph DeMartino]

But one thing: isn't R4 PAL?!?

Yes, but most PAL televisions are actually multistandard and can handle NTSC as well. (Remember, PAL has more lines of resolution than NTSC, and it is fairly easy to display a signal with fewer lines on a set designed for more lines. The opposite, is, of course, not the case. You actually have convert the PAL signal to NTSC in order to get it to display properly.

For some reason just before the time that the original double-feature In the Beginning / The Gathering discs were released Warner Bros. started flagging certain NTSC discs as R1 and R4 and shipping the same discs to the North America and to Australia and New Zealand. Itb/TG was one of these, but it wasn't just a matter of the studio tyring to save a few bucks, as I originally suspected, because articles I was on ANZ sites also complained about WB theatrical releases being issued only in NTSC versions Down Under. I believe the same has been the case for the DVD full-season sets, but I'm going by memory here.

Regards,

Joe

[matthewt]

Originally posted by Joseph DeMartino
ANZ sites also complained about WB theatrical releases being issued only in NTSC versions Down Under. I believe the same has been the case for the DVD full-season sets, but I'm going by memory here.

Hi,

Yer in NZ I got a copy of itb/TG and it was just a R1 NTSC disc made R4. Strange but they must of seen a demand to of sent it out in NSTC rather than convert it to PAL. But at the end of the day 95% of DVD/TV setup would be able to cope with it.

As for the B5 DVD box sets they have been converted to PAL for R4 release. Because of this we are about 1 season behind the states on the release dates (S3 came out 19-dec).

[B5_Obsessed]

"Between the Darkness and the Light"

So far, I'm the only one who's brought up Garibaldi's mysteriously reappearing hood at the start of the episode. I know that was different the first time around.

[Kevin]

I noticed that as well the other day when I poped that episode in to watch the final 4. But... I don't know if that's a new error or an old one. I'll have to see if I can't dig up that episode in it's VHS form.

I do disctinctly remember something being wrong with that scene, which is why I don't think it's a new error at the moment...