My dream for Babylon 5

[David Panzer]

In B5, the actors and actresses had others to act off of. They had actual sets, actual props, and so on. It wasn't shot on a green set with the actors having to react to nothing, and then CGI inserts characters, sets, and other items.

[Ranger1]

Effects are used to make a movie seem more real, not turn it into a 2 1/2 hour video game.

Funny, i used to get that a lot from those who hate B5, i guess its all in the eyes of the beholder.

[David Panzer]

I never said "the new Star Wars sucks". I stated why I don't like the so-called "special editions" or whatever they're called now- In some cases, Lucas had the chance to include some aspects when he originally filmed them. He didn't. 20 years later, he goes back and tinkers with them. Why? Having a character fire first isn't a "technological limitation". It's because in 20 years, he's changed as a person and was uncomfortable with a cold-blooded killing.

The only film he directed of the Original trilogy was Star Wars. Empire and Return of the Jedi, despite being Lucas' story, were directed by Irvin Kershner and Richard Marquand, respectively.

Effects are used to make a movie seem more real, not turn it into a 2 1/2 hour video game.

[Ranger1]

I heard that countless times, come on: "Han shoots first! the new Star Wars sucks!!!11!"

I for example can never go back to watch the originals, so boring.

I go even more extreme than that, i hope that one day Lucas will take the entire original movies (ok ok, the remastered ones), and replace the motion control parts of the movies (space battles, creatures etc...) and replace those with all new state of the art visual effects done by computers (i wont touch ANY of the live action when it comes to actors tho, the clone troopers in episode 3 still looks gay and stiff).

I can definitely see the entire Battle of Hoth done in CGI, never liked the motion control of the AT-AT's.

And there's a little hope for me, in the bonus disc of episode 3, there's a replacement of Yoda from Episode 1 (the puppet) with a CGI version (the part when he goes "Fear is the path to the dark side...").

[David Panzer]

The major gripe I have with the "remastered versions of Star Wars" is the worn-out "Greedo shoots first scene".

George Lucas had the ability back in '75 or '76 whenever that scene was shot to have Greedo fire first, then Han. Lucas didn't.

20 years later, Lucas goes back and changes the scene.

[Stunning_in_Purple]

I don't mind that they went in and cleaned it up. What bothers me is he added extra, pointless scenes that we really could have done without. And extra effects that were really unnecessary. However, there is just something really nostalgic about watching as it originally was.

[spikey thing]

I always thought Art was never finished, only abandoned.

The same as B5?

[Laiden]

I'm with Ranger1 on this:

I haven't seen any problems with re-mastering or adding extra effects shots to a film. its like putting up a painting on your blank white wall. the painting is original and it looks great, but you would like to add things on the same wall around that original work to make it look beautiful.

TNT's "The Gathering" Special Presentation was a complete Re-Work of the film and everyone seems to enjoy it.

[Ranger1]

But the remastered version of Star Wars (and B5 - The Gathering for example) still have the same story.

I don't get why so many people are against the Remastered version of Star Wars, same story, looking much better... so they added few extra effects? whats wrong with that?

[Stunning_in_Purple]

You know, my husband and I own both versions of the Star Wars Trilogy (original and remastered) and we never watch the remastered version. We don't really care for it. The same for B5. If there ever was a remastered version, I don't think we'd watch it. I mainly just care about the story. And along with what Garibaldi said, I'd rather see a theatrical film.

[WorkerCaste]

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.

You might be surprised. With absolutely no official basis to any of this, , here's some possible analysis. JMS has said that the budget needed to be balanced between sets, guest stars, and F/X. The couldn't get all three in an ep unless some other eps were streamlined to bank some budget. Stock F/X would fit nicely into this. Also, one of the big drawbacks to selling B5 seemed to be effects cost. You can also see the cost of effects when someone like Joss Whedon talks about only being able to afford 3 shots with the generator complex in "Serenity". Given all this, I might guess that effects accounted for perhaps $200,000 per "hour" of the series. At 120 hours, including the movies, that's $24 million dollars, and that was to do it for 4:3 in resolution appropriate for TV. Then there's editing and creating the new masters. That, I think is well on the way to a movie budget. The afore mentioned "Serenity" was $35 to $40 million.

[Garibaldi's Hair]

It's another question if it needs to be done.

Or, more importantly, if someone is prepared to pony up the cash to do it ... not likely I don't think. Even George Lucas didn't re-create all the SFX in their entirety for the Star Wars SEs, just tweaked and "improved" what had been done before.

[Zoltan]

I think this is the right moment to stop lurking and step out from the shadows.

There have been B5 fans back in the time of the first run of show who made 3D models and made them available for other to use create artwork.
The community can be found on BeyondBabylon, and there's a quite active community with artwork and models on LWG3D.

I used those models to create some animations, that can be found here.

And I'm an amateur.

So, I think it is possible to recreate the CGI.

It's another question if it needs to be done.

[Garibaldi's Hair]

Given what JMS has always said about this stuff being handed over to WB at the end of each season, I would imagine that FI were required to hand over everything they had when they didn't get the contract to continue after S3. If certainly wouldn't have made sense for WB to allow FI to disappear into the night retaining copies of B5 ship models etc. when they were no longer working on the show.

In the case of Netter Digital, they may have been able to "squirrel some stuff away" as the main show was finished, but there was still the possibility of other spin-offs happening.

And to be fair to WB, requiring contracted parties to hand over IP designed, effectively, on their behalf is not unusual.

Just a pity they couldn't look after it.

[Joe Nazzaro]

I was going to be a real smart-ass and point out that the first three seasons were done by Foundation Imaging until I realized that they in fact went out of business recently as well. I bumped into Ron Thornton last year while he was CG supervisor on the new Captain Scarlet series in the UK, and I got the sense it wasn't a happy experience. So who knows where all the B5 stuff is now?