Text 16726, 261 rader
Skriven 2007-08-03 16:43:39 av Mac Breck (3203.babylon5)
     Kommentar till en text av rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Ärende: Re: Lost Tales: My Review (SPOILERS, obviously!)
========================================================
"Brian Harvey" <bh@cs.berkeley.edu> wrote in message
news:f8rvnv$r0p$1@agate.berkeley.edu...
> Gregory Weston <uce@splook.com> writes:
> > The second half redeemed it for me.
>
> Not me.
>
> The biggest problem, for me, was how artificial the plot situation
was.
> Galen wants to kill this Centauri prince, and he has the ability to
cause
> malfunctions in the Starfuries.

You're taking the whole thing on face value.  Maybe it's not that
simple.  Galen is a technomage, after all.  They *are* known to subtly
manipulate people.  Duh!


>  So, why monkey with *Sheridan's* ship?

Maybe the whole thing was a way of getting Sheridan to take the prince
under his wing, to head off future events, either known or probable.
Maybe if he would have come straight out and told Sheridan that the
prince needed guidance to prevent future events, it wouldn't have come
across as well from Sheridan.  This way, Sheridan thought of it, and he
probably doesn't think Galen guided him to it.


> Why not just blow up the prince's ship?

Indeed.  Galen could have taken care of that himself, without
*anybody's* help, *with a thought*.  Hence, there's more to this than
appears on the surface.


> Involving Sheridan in this way is
> just begging for conspiracy theories, and a general weakening of
Sheridan's
> position -- some people will never believe he wasn't firing
deliberately,
> no matter what the Warren Commission decides.  The malfunction might
make
> the weapons fire, but it'd be quite a coincidence that they were
pointing
> in just the right direction to hit such a small target.
>
> And if I can think of that, why didn't Sheridan?  That is, why didn't
he
> raise the question with Galen in the first place?

I'm betting that Galen was counting on Sheridan to *not* kill the
prince.  Hell, *I* never thought Sheridan would go through with it.
Couldn't you feel it in your gut?



> And, by the way, after they land, does Sheridan drop a hint to someone
in
> maintenance that there might be something wrong with the Starfury he
was
> using?  If so, there's the risk that the whole story will come out.

Where a technomage is involved, don't you think it might be
self-correcting, and would cover its own tracks?  Remember Burrell's
computer demon?



> For that matter, just how exactly does the symbolism of having
Sheridan
> arrive on B5 in a fighter rather than a civilian transport help the
goals
> of the IA?

Unknown, but it could just be that he wanted to fly one again, to take
one out for a spin.



> Also, this whole business of Galen's prediction of the Centauri attack
is
> pretty dubious.  Technomages are good at spying, and so they often
have
> privileged access to information about what's happening now and what
happened
> in the past, but they can't see the future,

  Who says it's Galen or another human technomage who actually *saw*
these future events?  He could be getting his info. from somebody
capable of seeing the future, a Centauri who dreamt it, or a Centauri
like Lady Morella.



> and people (even Centauri) are
> too complicated to allow for Foundation-style psychohistoric
predictions.

> We know more about chaotic systems now than we did back when Asimov
thought
> up that idea.  So Sheridan should have been more skeptical about
Galen's
> prediction in the first place,

Remember Londo's dream he told Sinclair about in "Midnight on the Firing
Line"?  Remember what he told Sinclair.  Sooner or later, they'll end up
strangling each other, Londo & G'Kar.  At the time, we just didn't know
the context.  Also, having seen that in a dream, I think the Centauri is
predisposed to *make* it happen, to go down that path, thinking it's
unavoidable.  The Centauri wouldn't know the context until it happened.



> and, even less believable for me, he shouldn't
> have been so reliant on Galen having said there are "ways" to prevent
this
> future in order to understand, on his own, that there are other ways.

I think "ways" was a hint that Galen planted, one that he was sure
Sheridan wouldn't miss.  Who's to what would have *really* happened if
Sheridan had let his ship get to 5000KPH.  It's possible that *nothing*
would have happened, and that Galen's ire afterward was just for show.



> (In fact, the episode would have made its point about Sheridan's
character
> more strongly if he'd come up with the alternative plan while Galen
was
> insisting that his was the only way to solve the problem.)

The more somebody insists there is only one way to solve the problem,
doesn't that make you wonder about other ways?




> What I did like in the episode was the acting of the young prince; you
could
> see the arrogance of power, the naivete of youth, and the possibility
of
> different futures really clearly in his behavior.

That part was very good.



> I also found painful the conversation between Lochley and Sheridan in
which
> we hear why hardly any of the B5 actors are in this production.  The
part
> about G'Kar and Franklin "beyond the rim" was touching, but the rest
of the
> litany of Delenn, Mollari, Garibaldi, all with excuses, just seemed
> embarrassing to me.

No, it was just a quick way of addresing the issue.  It probably
shouldn't have been addressed, but then somebody else would have had a
problem with that.  That's the trouble when doing short stories on a
small budget, especially one where almost all the sets, props, wardrobe
and CGI were not available.  What are you going to pay these people to
come in and do very little, and will they come in to do it?  Remember
Crusade - The Path of Sorrows, and Pat Tallman not coming in for one
day's work and pay?  Bill Mumy wasn't even going to be *in* the episode,
even though Lennier *was* in it, because was going only to be seen from
behind, and have no lines.  Lennier (somebody standing in for Bill Mumy)
would just be seen fighting off in the distance.


To do this right, what they need are the sets, wardrobe, props and CGI
recreated, and all that takes MONEY.  They also need money enough to
entice the actors back.  Given the current budget, you *can't* expect
Babylon 5 - The Lost Tales to look as good and as populated as Babylon 5
(the TV series) or even Crusade.  On Crusade, did we even see Corwin,
Zack or any of the other B5 regulars other than Lochley? No.  We
couldn't even get Lyta when she was *needed* for the story!

Bottom line, they need a bigger budget and time to recreate all the
stuff that was lost, sold or destroyed, or we're going to have to be
satisfied with sparsely populated stories and almost no physical sets.
We need some crowbars to pry Warner Brothers coffers open.  Expect to
see some moths fly out, and the air to smell stale like that in the soul
hunters Whisper Gallery.





> (The layout of the front cover of the DVD case also
> just rubbed in how few B5 actors signed on

There were few B5 actors signed on because these are short stories, and
so have to get to the point in 36 minutes (18% less time than one
standard B5 or Crusade episode), and the more actors you have in the
show, the less time you're going to spend on any one of them.  ALSO,
there's the matter of budget.   Do you think they had the budget for
adding Delenn, Londo, Vir, Garibaldi and Zack?


> -- Galen is just not important
> enough in the B5 hierarchy to deserve a third of the real estate.
It'd be
> different if there'd been a third story revolving around him.)

Galen deserved to be on the cover because the three on the cover were
the three actors from B5 on the DVD.



> I also found the plot situation in the first half somewhat artificial.
> I don't mean the premise of someone being possessed, but rather this
> supposed either/or choice between a secret exorcism and a publicized
> non-exorcism.  Why not a publicized examination of the miracles, with
> lots of scientists involved, and *then* an exorcism, thereby making
the
> church seem more relevant *and* doing the ethically right thing?  (I'm
> talking, of course, about the situation as it first appears, not the
truth
> uncovered by Lochley.)
>
> And I agree with everyone else about the hideous docking bay,

It did "look like" a matte painting with CGI characters walking of it
(like Crusade - War Zone and the distant shot of the cliff that Eilerson
is working on.), and a lot of other static characters which were part of
the painting.  Needs work.



> the general
> lack of life (i.e., extras) on the station, and missing the A and B
story
> structure of the real B5 episodes.

You're not going to get that on stories of this length and with the
existing budget.  If all of the existing B5 and Crusade stuff was
available, you'd get close, but you still wouldn't get all the actors.




> ....Peter Woodward clearly hasn't read the Technomage trilogy,
> since he talks about how little Joe told him about his character's
origins
> and characteristics.

Yeah, I know. Maybe he doesn't know that those books are out there.

-- 
Mac Breck (KoshN)
-------------------------------
"Babylon 5: Crusade" (1999)
Galen: "There is always hope, only because it's the one thing that no
one has figured out how to kill yet."

"Brimstone" (1998)
Angel: Oh, there's one more thing you should know. Your fate was never
determined until you killed Gilbert Jax. All in all, you've led a good
life, Ezekiel. Have faith. Your work's appreciated.
--- SBBSecho 2.12-Win32
 * Origin: Time Warp of the Future BBS - Home of League 10 (1:14/400)