Text 5927, 104 rader
Skriven 2006-08-10 12:48:00 av Robert E Starr JR (6424.babylon5)
Ärende: Re: Help me out, please?
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"Joseph DeMartino" <jdemarti@bellsouth.net> wrote in message 
news:1155169892.972031.41920@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> Michael Malloy wrote:
>
>> If I may suggest, I think I know why "Legend of the Rangers" didn't do
>> so well. It had nothing to do with football.
>
> If I may suggest, you don't.  ;-)
>
> 1)  "Legend of the Rangers" did OK.  The ratings were in line with
> previous "B5" movies, even *with* the effect of the football game on
> the east coast.  They weren't the spectacular numbers (ratings of 4+)
> that Sci-Fi had acheived with previous heavily promoted originals
> airing in the December-January time frame (like the two "Dune"
> mini-series.)  Absent the football game the ratings would have been
> somewhat higer.

OTOH, there had to be people like me.  I watched its TNT debut.  I did not 
come away wanting more from the "renegade rangers", nor did I tune in for 
any Sci-Fi run of TLOTR.


> 3)  It wasn't the ratings *per se* that prevented the pilot from going
> to series, and it certainly wasn't the cast or the characters.  The
> problem was purely a business disagreement between Sci-Fi and Warner
> Bros., and it went back to before the start of filming on the project.
> Sci-Fi wanted to own a piece of the series, Warner didn't want tos
> share its toys.  Result:  the ratings weren't good enough to justify
> Sci-Fi doing a series they didn't own a share of.  If they'd had an
> ownership interest they almost certainly would have taken a chance on
> the series.  If the ratings had been better, it would have been worth
> doing the series even if they didn't own the show.  Given that neither
> was the case, they passed.
>
> The notion that "Rangers" "failed" because fans somehow didn't like, as
> evidenced by ratings or feedback to Sci-Fi, simply has no basis in
> reality.

....unless Sci-Fi was sitting on the fence about whether to do a series.  At 
that point, fan reaction could have tipped things against the show.


> Frankly I thought the "Rangers" pilot was no worse than many other SF
> pilots (better than the tedious "Encounter at Farpoint" and probably
> better than the original cut of "The Gathering" - the one that sold
> "B5".)  The biggest weakness (apart from everybody saying "We live for
> the One, we die for the One" every five minutes <g>) was the weapons
> system, and that was another casualty of the pissing contest between
> SFC and WB.  (The system in JMS's script proved too costly to build at
> the last minute, and neither production partner would pony up the extra
> money to do it right.  So what ended up in the finished film was a
> last-minute improvisation, cobbled together on the soundstage from
> whatever happened to be on hand.)

Twenty-someodd sentients packed into a ship designed for a single-digit crew 
and yet the interior is so vast that someone gets lost.  For hours.

Our Hero, Martel, gets dressed down and demoted for choosing to retreat when 
the tactical situation clearly warranted such a retreat and there was no 
larger goal present that demanded a suicide stand.  The whole notion that 
"Rangers never retreat" was silly from the get-go and it is this premise 
that gets the plot rolling and haunts the show from start to finish.  There 
is no precedent from B5 requiring Rangers to "die stupidly".  Huge buckets 
of Minbari Warrior-Caste macho would have to have been injected into the 
Rangers over the years between B5 and TLOTR.  If so, TLOTR does not mention 
it.

And I accept no excuses for the inane weapons system.  If a bad idea is 
implemented, regardless of the constraints that forced it, it's still a just 
as bad an idea, it still brings the final production down just as much.

Being better than "Encounter at Farpoint" isn't exactly difficult, y'know. 
You might as well say "Legend of the Rangers" compares favorably with 
"Thirdspace".  IMHO it *does* marginally compare favorably to "Thirdspace" 
and unfavorably to "River of Souls" or any version of "The Gathering".  It's 
no "In the Beginning" or "A Call to Arms".

-- 
John Trauger,
Vorlonagent


"Methane martini.
Shaken, not stirred."


"Spirituality without science has no mind.

Science without spirituality has no heart."

-Methuselah Jones
                                                                               
                                            
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