Text 2971, 131 rader
Skriven 2006-06-28 23:20:00 av Robert E Starr JR (3444.babylon5)
Ärende: Re: Babylon 5 revisited a
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* * * This message was from Janne Mikola to rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.m * * *
         * * * and has been forwarded to you by Lord Time * * *         
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Brian Stinson wrote:
> I haven't posted here since I'm guessing 2001.  With B5 pretty much wrapped 
> up by that time, wasn't much to post about.
> 
> With not much on TV lately, I finally plunked down the green and bought the 
> DVD sets.  Wow !  I think I forgot just how great this show actually was, 
> and how it ruined television for me.  In the years since, I've found that B5 
> raised the bar in such a way that I seldom can sit through most of what's on 
> TV nowadays. I've spent wayyy to much time in front of the TV in the last 
> few weeks on a B5 binge.
> 
> It occurred to me while watching just how much this show is like the few 
> good shows on TV today in terms of long term story telling, and I wonder if 
> B5 might be in some way responsible for allowing these shows to exist.
> 

[a long story, and a little bit offtopic]

It's amazing how well this describes my thoughts also. When Babylon 5 
aired for the first time, I watched it, became a fan and thus part of 
fandom. B5 was shown on Saturdays in my country. In the beginning of the 
first series I didn't have Internet connection at home at, and a little 
bit later I had only an expensive modem-connection but I wanted to know 
more, wanted to live a little bit closer to the B5-universe... and I 
knew that I could find the fandom on the Internet.

I was quite young at that time, young teenager, and I didn't have much 
to do in my life, not any real work at least. During B5 my regular 
Saturday started at 11 o'clock when I rode my bicycle to the town center 
and went to the library and reserved an Internet-computer for 3 to 5 
hours. On the net I chatted, read USENET, read websites, and I was 
somehow excited, in some unique way that has never been there after 
that... I don't know, it's hard to put it in words. After the library 
closed I went to the nearest shop, bought something salty and went home 
to wait the clock to be 22:00. And then the main thing in my boring 
school week was there. The last, best hope for peace. Or victory.

I think Babylon 5 was a huge phenomenon, but not everyone saw it. Those 
who knew what was going on, were immensely affected by the series. My 
school notebooks were full of hand-drawn B5's and series logos and my 
literature essays were sometimes about, and sometimes largely influenced 
by, Babylon 5. One time I even wrote an essay to the teacher in which I 
suggested that we should watch parts of Babylon 5 at school, because it 
really is sophisticated, cultured and educated... I thought it was more 
of those than Schindler's list or most of the finnish novels that we 
watched or read. I know that was a bit naive, but hey, I was 15 years old.

But then, everything good comes to its end someday. So did Babylon 5. 
For me, the feeling was exactly the same which I had after I had read 
Lord of the Rings for the first time. The feeling I believe most of you 
have had after finishing an impressive book. "This cannot end now, this 
is not true!" "What do I do now?". The empty feeling. Only, that the 
magnitude was 50 times higher, which is comparable to the time I had 
lived in the realm of the fiction in both cases. LotR gave me a reality 
escape for one month. B5 gave it for 5 years... something like 50 
months. For my teenage years, B5 was really part of my life. But it 
wasn't unsound, really. I did normal things also; I had a moped, I went 
through my puberty, there were those normal mishaps with opposite 
gender, I went to disco and I tasted cider.

B5 ended. I did some things such as spent a year in army, went to 
university and got a girlfriend. Seven years passed.

Then I bought the series, all the movies and Crusade on 41 DVD-discs, 
mostly because that's part of the 90's, part of the television history 
and part of the culture I want to own, but also because I wanted to show 
my girlfriend what was that thing I had grown up with. I began the 
re-run of the series, and it felt amazing. It made me subscribe to this 
newsgroup again and read every website in hope for new information on 
any upcoming Babylon 5 -projects. Of course on the last thing I was 
disappointed, but the series showed me that I didn't consider it as the 
best only because time had sweetened the memories, but because it is Great.

It was not only very well made, but it was unique when it was done, and 
first series to do many things. On one point of view that's not a thing 
to consider as a strenght nor a reason and an argumentation for the 
claim that B5 is great, and I understand that point of view. Those who 
say that are the same people who say that it's terribly wrong to give a 
computer game less score than the original game of the series got, if 
there's nothing else made wrong in the game but that it's merely the 
same game in a new package than the original one. My point of view is 
based on train of thought that Tolkien's Middle Earth is the most 
fascinating fantasy-world because it is the original, and all the other 
elf-human-orc-dwarf -fantasy worlds are so heavily influenced by Middle 
Earth that I cannot consider them anything else than derivate of 
Tolkien's work.

I claim, that very many of the popular story arced series on TV today 
are derivatives of Babylon 5. Not only Babylon 5, but Babylon 5 in to a 
great extent.

All things can be discussed, but in few cases it's pointless. Babylon 5 
really brought something to TV. What were those things? First of all, 
story arc, predetermined plot and the idea to make a multi-year series 
consistent with itself. Second, CGI-effects were brought to give the 
viewer more realistic and emotional scenes that involved things that 
were not possible to be really built and shot in Real Life Size. Second 
and half: Babylon 5 was the first scifi-series to use Newtonian physics 
in space-battles. Third, Babylon 5 fandom was the first one massively 
operating on the Internet. Fourth, possibility to interact with series 
creator during the show was something that gave people possibility to 
feel themselves closer to the show, story and the world. Fifth, and in 
this case, minor thing; widescreen format. Babylon 5 was the first one 
to do this also.

Very likely some other shows would have brought these things in to this 
world if B5 didn't exist. But it does not make this any less 
significant; in this timeline, B5 was the one.

And yes, in my lousy list, there certainly are things that you could try 
to override with counter examples which definitely can be found. But the 
same thing that is valid in the case of Tolkien's elf-dwarf-man-orc 
-world, is valid here; Tolkien and JMS were the First Persons to do, 
what they did, Right. I know there were ideas of elfs and dwarfs before 
Tolkien, and maybe signs of story-arc, CGI, direct and open 
creator-fandom-interaction before B5, but B5 was the first to do it right.

[/a long story, and a little bit offtopic]

-- 
Janne Mikola | janne.mikola@tut.fi | 040-7726656
http://www.students.tut.fi/~mikolaj/
                                                                         
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