Babylon 5 Movie through Studio JMS

[Looney]

Well I don't think the reboot should be "as different as it wants to be." If anything I want a reboot to look and feel like the original (sets, costumes, CGI), but I don't mind if JMS tells a whole new story that isn't related to the original. I hope he does relate the story to the original, but I really want the visuals to connect. It is his story so he should tell the tale he wants to tell, but I want it to exist in the visual Universe the entire team created for the original show, if that makes sense.

[alpha128]

I've seen the show on DVD on a fairly big screen a few times and most of it holds up quite well.

Speaking as someone in the process of a rewatch on a fairly big screen, the effects in the first five minutes of "Midnight on the Firing Line" do not look good. They look blocky and pixelated. Conversely, the Walker effects in Season 3's "Voices of Authority" look quite good. I'm not sure if it's improved effects or improved DVD mastering. Perhaps a bit of both.

[Jonas]

Speaking as someone in the process of a rewatch on a fairly big screen, the effects in the first five minutes of "Midnight on the Firing Line" do not look good. They look blocky and pixelated. Conversely, the Walker effects in Season 3's "Voices of Authority" look quite good. I'm not sure if it's improved effects or improved DVD mastering. Perhaps a bit of both.

Well, as I said earlier in this thread, the first five minutes of Midnight really are particularly terrible. And the effects just get better as the show goes. The strides that were being made in CGI technology back then were tremendous, even on B5's tiny budget.

[Ubik]

Well I don't think the reboot should be "as different as it wants to be." If anything I want a reboot to look and feel like the original (sets, costumes, CGI), but I don't mind if JMS tells a whole new story that isn't related to the original. I hope he does relate the story to the original, but I really want the visuals to connect. It is his story so he should tell the tale he wants to tell, but I want it to exist in the visual Universe the entire team created for the original show, if that makes sense.

I'm with you to an extent... there should definitely be some visual continuity, but perhaps in the same way new Trek shows always maintain key visual elements of TNG and TOS. Then again, DISCO broke a lot of conventions and it didn't do it that much harm. To me it was the most enjoyable iteration since TNG, but I'm getting off topic a bit here. It's perhaps a useful comparison though. I'm not into nostalgia for the sake of it, too much of that these days.

[Hypatia]

I look at The Watchmen (2009). I know that graphic novel was VERY acclaimed, but does that mean people outside comic circles had ever heard of it? Someone convinced a studio to put major money into marketing and making a big movie. Positive word of mouth about the quality of the graphic novel spread and a successful ad campaign convinced all kinds of people to go see it.

I fit that description. And not being a huge graphic novel follower, I have seen some film adaptations that I've liked and some I have not. The Watchmen is the best graphic novel adaptation I've seen. But did it make enough money to be considered a success?

[Hypatia]

Honestly I think if you took the original series and released it today, by today's standards it would be GIGANTIC. (Maybe if you released it as is it could be huge if people would just choose to watch it.) I say this because now people like me who missed the first season could pick up with season two and go back and watch season one through various means.

That is a point that completely escaped me. It sure would have made catching up a lot easier for those of us who joined the series later. But the flip side of that coin is that I'd have hated having the choose not to binge-watch the entire series each time it became available. I think for my brain it is best to have longer series spread out a bit. But if it were on Netflix, it would have been cut to fewer episodes and there would be digital options that could make it feel a lot more up to date. Do you think the ancient races and the god-posing would hit people the same way today?

[Ubik]

I fit that description. And not being a huge graphic novel follower, I have seen some film adaptations that I've liked and some I have not. The Watchmen is the best graphic novel adaptation I've seen. But did it make enough money to be considered a success?

Please, for the love of god, read the comic. It will make you realise just how much Snyder doesn't understand the comic at all. I wish it had been given to someone with a bit more nuance. He does adhere to the comic fairly slavishly, sometimes almost panel for panel, so there are some good moments in there. I thought Manhattan's scenes on Mars nailed it. However, Synder somewhat misses the point that film and comics and are two different mediums.

Worldwide gross was $185,258,983, so I think it did okay!

I think one of my fav comics adaptations is Persepolis, but then again, that's animated. So it's a slightly different proposition.

[Morden]

In retrospect it was a lot of big talk, with very little action thereafter. Even Studio JMS seems to have faded into obscurity with him winding up the comics end of things which were meant to generate material for possible development in other media (TV, Movies, etc).

[...]

I occasionally get a bit tired of his own hyperbole around his work, too much "never been done before", when a lot of the time it has been done before.

That's what bothers me most, sadly. Thank you for pointing that out, this summarizes a big problem around JMS' PR-talk around a possible B5-reboot and the prehype of Sense8.

About the future and status of Studio JMS, I am really worried. The FB-page and the Website have been dead for a long while now.

[Looney]

But did it make enough money to be considered a success?

Good question

Please, for the love of god, read the comic. It will make you realise just how much Snyder doesn't understand the comic at all. I wish it had been given to someone with a bit more nuance. He does adhere to the comic fairly slavishly, sometimes almost panel for panel, so there are some good moments in there. I thought Manhattan's scenes on Mars nailed it. However, Synder somewhat misses the point that film and comics and are two different mediums.

Worldwide gross was $185,258,983, so I think it did okay!

And a good answer that I would add that I did read the Graphic Novel first and I did see the film. I think the Graphic Novel is excellent and while I agree with some of what UBIK said I still think that had I not read the graphic novel I would have thought the film was amazing on its own. I think it is Snyder's best work, but I can see how having read the graphic novel could raise criticism. I am glad I can separate the two and enjoy them separately because I think it is a hell of a movie.

And speaking to its success one need only look to the fact that you can still walk into most stores that sell Blu-Rays and DVDs and find it stocked on the shelves. Add to that the fact that they keep coming up with new packaging and incarnations for home media releases.

About the future and status of Studio JMS, I am really worried. The FB-page and the Website have been dead for a long while now.

Something that has always troubled me about Studio JMS is that from the beginning the website has been VERY poor. I don't understand it at all because JMS has always seemed to be very internet savvy. It really makes no sense to me. I can only assume that he didn't see it as a high priority so he didn't hire the proper staff to maintain it and make it what it should/could have been. I mean seriously, we should be having these discussions in a Forum on that site. The site could have been a REAL way to connect him to his fans. I know that is kind of what Facebook accomplishes so maybe he didn't think the site was that necessary, but I am just not a fan of Facebook. LOL

And circling back around to what Hypatia said about binge watching. I have to admit it took me awhile, but I got it under control. I mean Netflix wants you to binge watch the entire show the weekend it goes up, but I just can't do it. You have to learn to pace yourself because it can be an extra long time between seasons, especially with Netflix - as if a year isn't long enough. I mean I am no saint, I might watch two episodes at a time, or even three if it is a half hour comedy or something, but burning through a whole season can make for such a long wait, or worse - the wait is so long you forget about the show. Seriously how many people thought West World was canceled and may still not know there is a Season 2. I mean I didn't think Jessica Jones would really get a Season 2 - and I don't honestly know why it did - but look 3 years later and it is here.

And no I don't think the "ancient races and god-posing" would have the same effect because too many shows and movies have used that concept since. The same year Babylon 5 started there was a big Hollywood movie that put the concept out there and it turned into a huge franchise called Stargate.

[Jonas]

Given how closely the Watchmen film recreates the comic, it's amazing that Snyder clearly didn't understand anything at all about the original story.

And no I don't think the "ancient races and god-posing" would have the same effect because too many shows and movies have used that concept since. The same year Babylon 5 started there was a big Hollywood movie that put the concept out there and it turned into a huge franchise called Stargate.

I don't think the concept was particularly original in B5 at all, even at the time. This is not a criticism. But it was a really common trope in science fiction, and was even widely spread in popular culture via Erich von D

[Jonas]

Given how closely the Watchmen film recreates the comic, it's amazing that Snyder clearly didn't understand anything at all about the original story.

And no I don't think the "ancient races and god-posing" would have the same effect because too many shows and movies have used that concept since. The same year Babylon 5 started there was a big Hollywood movie that put the concept out there and it turned into a huge franchise called Stargate.

I don't think the concept was particularly original in B5 at all, even at the time. This is not a criticism. But it was a really common trope in science fiction, and was even widely spread in popular culture via Erich von Daniken's highly successful but pseudo-scientific Chariots of the Gods, which in turn was largely lifted from H.P. Lovecraft. (Do umlauts break the forum? Had to remove the one from Daniken.)

What makes B5's depiction of gods and religion so unusual is that it demythologizes its religious figures to such a degree. That's something you don't see much of on TV.

[Jan]

(Do umlauts break the forum? Had to remove the one from Daniken.)

The forum gets moody and doesn't like punctuation sometimes. Doesn't have to be anything more exotic than an apostrophe, from what I can tell. DougO has been trying to find a fix for ages.

[Looney]

The forum gets moody and doesn't like punctuation sometimes. Doesn't have to be anything more exotic than an apostrophe, from what I can tell. DougO has been trying to find a fix for ages.

I do hate it when the Forum gets in one of those moods. ' ' ' '

[Hypatia]

It must be an organic website.

[sense8ional]

For those that missed it, JMS tweeted just last week that it's been very difficult to get a studio committed to making the movie without also having access to the TV rights (my addition: and I'm sure game, comic book, etc. rights).

https://twitter.com/straczynski/stat...10640652554240

Warners controls the TV and all the other rights but not the movie rights, I have those, but without access to the TV rights it's been very difficult to get anyone at another studio to want to commit anything; they want all of the rights under one roof.

Makes sense that they might be apprehensive in spending serious $$$ into something that can't be expanded into a full blown franchise.