My dream for Babylon 5

[Solo]

Well, Solo did admit in the original post that it was only a dream, not anything s/he actually ever thought might happen.

Solo, when was the first B5 run in Norway? The first reference to it I can find in the archives is in 1996.

Jan

Yes, the run of B5 was a little special here in frosty Norway.

I believe Norwegian TV2 got hold of the rights in '95, and started airing early '96. As far as I can remember, they purchased the right to air the whole thing twice - and only twice. What they did was air the "new" episodes each Sunday at around 16:00 (IIRC), and the reruns started a few weeks later, on Saturdays (around 12-13:00). This meant that Babylon 5 aired twice each week here, first the "old" (two-three weeks) episodes on Saturday, then the new ones on Sundays.

However - the only break that was made, IIRC, was a very short one between seasons 4 and 5. Other than that, they aired continuously from '96 (season 1, two years behind the US) to '98 (season 5, one or two weeks behind the US). I once mailed TV2 to ask if they could broadcast it again, but then they informed me that they had only bought the rights to broadcast each episode two times.

Anyway - back to my "dream". I see there are certain.... "reservations", shall we say?... to my idea. Now, as far as I can figure, a re-render of all the CGI in B5 wouldn't even scratch the lower end of the costs to make a movie. Remember, the scripts are already there, no actors need to be cast (or paid), no wardrobe, no sets, no director, no lighting, no cameras, FFS... Besides, a lot of the CGI in the episodes were "stock", and to be perfectly blunt, the amount of different models for the space-ships were not massive. With that said, I perfectly understand that one would want the original effects, for reference, and, I suspect, for nostalgic reasons. Be assured that if this had been the original DVDs, I'd be 100% opposed to throwing out the effects already there.

Now, however, we have the original effects (well, two thirds of them, due to the cropping... *sigh*) on DVD. I'm talking about a "High-Definition Special Edition". But until I get the money to get it done......

Solo

[therichieboy]

Actually, I was watching an episode yesterday on a bigger screen than my TV and I have to say those effects shots are REALLY disappointing. I'm starting to think I could be more convinced by Solo's dream.

[Jan]

Hard to imagine anybody not finding them dated by now, any more than people find the effects of ST: TOS lacking. When you think about the state of the art back then, though, and remember what your expectations were back then, what was done was pretty decent.

From Volume #2 in the intro to A Voice in the Wilderness (Parts 1 & 2)"

In fairly short order we would be hitting the Shadow War, so it was essential to start pushing the software to discover what it could and couldn't accomplish in a period of time acceptable for a television series. In season one, the CGI Department was still working on Amiga home computers and the CGI render time was often as much as one hour per frame. If you consider that there are 24 frames per second and add up all the time spent on CGI in this episode, the figures quickly go off the deep end. But this would be nothing compared to what was coming at us further down the storyline, so we had to make sure it would work.

I understand how things get more disappointing as screen size increases. Things never meant to be seen are suddenly in your face. I remember seeing a Band-Aid on some colonial type the first time I saw something on a really big-screen TV and it threw me completely out of the story.

I think, all in all, even if we could have an additional release of B5 with new and improved effects, I don't think I'd be interested. I can never re-experience the first time watching the show, but watching it in it's original form will do for me.

Jan

[Towelmaster]

BTW : My dream is that they appoint Joe as the new head of the SciFi-department at Paramount Productions...

[rallytbk]

In fairly short order we would be hitting the Shadow War, so it was essential to start pushing the software to discover what it could and couldn't accomplish in a period of time acceptable for a television series. In season one, the CGI Department was still working on Amiga home computers and the CGI render time was often as much as one hour per frame. If you consider that there are 24 frames per second and add up all the time spent on CGI in this episode, the figures quickly go off the deep end. But this would be nothing compared to what was coming at us further down the storyline, so we had to make sure it would work.

I understand how things get more disappointing as screen size increases. Things never meant to be seen are suddenly in your face. I remember seeing a Band-Aid on some colonial type the first time I saw something on a really big-screen TV and it threw me completely out of the story.

I think, all in all, even if we could have an additional release of B5 with new and improved effects, I don't think I'd be interested. I can never re-experience the first time watching the show, but watching it in it's original form will do for me.

I totally agree with JanÆs statementà I wouldnÆt want to change any of the effects or improve what is already been done with the current B5 series. While it works for some movies, i.e. Star Wars (not), to an old faithful audienceà IMHO things would get mucked up in the process.

If the effects were acceptable when they first came out, then improving them or replacing them all together may not improve the viewing experience (not to mention any suggested changes by a producer or graphic artist)à and thatÆs where re-casting and re-imaging comes in, lol.

By the way, I still have two Amiga 500 in working condition at home, great machines for its time. I played with Lightwave 3D and Deluxe Paint III for yearsà Ah, the old daysà

[Capt.Montoya]

I do think it could be nice...
But I don't really need new FX.
In any event, the new CGI models would have to be created from scratch since the original files were lost (not impossible as the B5 themed game mods show), so it would be a long process.

What I think would be nicer would be the option to have the SFX shots at the original aspect ratio, not the cropped "widescreen" versions.
But that's just another daydream that is not essential to enjoy B5.

[therichieboy]

I do think it could be nice...
But I don't really need new FX.
In any event, the new CGI models would have to be created from scratch since the original files were lost (not impossible as the B5 themed game mods show), so it would be a long process.

How do you lose CGI models? Were the disks they were saved on erased of physically lost? Did they not back them up?

[Jan]

How do you lose CGI models? Were the disks they were saved on erased of physically lost? Did they not back them up?

See the last two messages in this thread for the answer to what happened to the CGI files.

Jan

[rallytbk]

WB had literally lost all the CGI archives we gave them every season. All we were able to get, at the very last moment, was a copy of the ship files we had given Sierra for the B5 game. That's it.

JMS

I still think that the lost CGI archives and the canceling of the Sierra game were done to kill Babylon 5, as a competition to Star Trek. The people wanted more and ôsomebody i.e. Paramount?ö didnÆt want to give it. I was very disappointed when I heard both stories, but this is now and that was thenà

What could have been????

[Jan]

I still think that the lost CGI archives and the canceling of the Sierra game were done to kill Babylon 5, as a competition to Star Trek. The people wanted more and ôsomebody i.e. Paramount?ö didnÆt want to give it. I was very disappointed when I heard both stories, but this is now and that was thenà

Except that the CGI files were lost by WB. Paramount couldn't possibly have had anything to do with either situation unless you suspect that they paid somebody off at WB *and* Sierra which seems pretty extreme to me. After all, much as we might love it, B5 isn't really any competition for Star Trek economically speaking. Trek's been a license to print money for decades now.

Chances are, the lost CGI files are simply a matter of a lousy file system. I don't imagine that they have much call for CGI files for shows that have been off the air for a few years.

Jan

[David Panzer]

Losing material is a common element in some areas of entertainment. I remember reading in a Monty Python book about how 2 of the members were surprised when they found "The Complete and Utter History of Britian" in the BBC archives. It was mistakenly placed in the "History" section of the archives instead of the "Comedy" section, a majority of which was erased.

In regard to this thread, I'd have to see a side by side comparison so I could I decide whether an "updated CGI" B5 would be good.

My dream is buying a ticket for the B5 feature film, and then later sitting down with a copy of the B5 graphic novel, and afterward reading the new B5 novels. My dream is multi-faceted.

[Dr Maturin]

There was chatter in the 90's about doing such a thing with ST: TOS. They actually did some models of the title object in "The Doomsday Machine." The way I see it, it's better to look ahead, not to look back. Once you go back, you won't be able to stop. Look at the Star Wars films.

[Garibaldi's Hair]

The other problem with WB handling the CGI files was, of course, that they had never had to deal with over a hundred episodes of CGI stuff for a TV series before. Different storage methods are required than when you have shot your models onto film or video (which WB had loads of experience in storing).

This is not in any way meant to excuse them, but it was something new and their trial and error method of coming up with the best way to archive them was pretty much "error" whichever way you slice it.

Having said all that, a multi-national, multi-billion dollar company should be able to come up with a secure storage method for stuff like this without trial and error ... assuming of course that they didn't just decide that they were never going to be needed again.

I sometimes wonder if some guy will one day pick up a cheap PC from a refurb shop, take it home, fire it up and discover B5's CGI files stuck in an obscure directory of that FAT16 partition lurking in a deep dark corner of the HD.

[rallytbk]

By the way, I still have two Amiga 500 in working condition at home, great machines for its time. I played with Lightwave 3D and Deluxe Paint III for yearsà Ah, the old daysà

I sometimes wonder if some guy will one day pick up a cheap PC from a refurb shop, take it home, fire it up and discover B5's CGI files stuck in an obscure directory of that FAT16 partition lurking in a deep dark corner of the HD.

Ahh! Again Wishful thinking...

[Jan]

Ahh! Again Wishful thinking...

Wonder who got the computers when the Netter Digital stuff was auctioned off....

Jan