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hkmaly

Star Trek DS9 versus B5

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2 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:
2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I would agree that the competition was incentive for both shows to get better. I think the stealing of ideas was in both direction, though.

I would agree in theory.  Both ought to crib notes from each other.  But in practice I don't remember anything in Babylon 5 that looks like it came from Deep Space 9 (which is not to say there was nothing). Either B5 hid their influences better or they didn't steal much.  DS9 may not have stolen anything else besides the Shadow War.  (I am intentionally setting aside B5 fan accusations that DS9's concept came from B5 creator JMS' pitching B5 to Paramount.  Not opening that can of worms)

There are some format differences too.  B5 was always intended as a massive 5-year story arc whereas all of the Trek Franchise shows were much more as episodic TV.

Well we already found one example, so I would guess B5 was hiding better. The fact B5 looked very consistent and was always planned for 5 years except one moment when it was supposed to be shortened to four and then they changed mind again certainly helped.

2 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:
2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I can't fully agree with this. At least part of the blame for Voyager goes definitely to Brannon Braga.

There's blame enough for both Berman and Braga.  But Berman was the boss.  The captain's always responsible.

Ok, can agree with this.

2 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:
2 hours ago, Scotty said:

While Jake could have been done better, he certainly could have been done worse.:cough:wesleycrusher:cough:

Wesley Crusher was Gene Roddenberry's Marty Stu.  Jake Sisko was spared that at least.

But I would say the only worse example of useful idiocy I've seen, was Jar-Jar Binks introducing Galactic Senate Legislation to make Palpatine an Emperor.

But that was only one-time and Jar Jar wasn't only one who was played by Palpatine. Case in point, Anakin Skywalker.

Meanwhile, Jake Sisko got into it himself. Seriously, son of commander of the station, how could he hoped they overlook him?

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7 hours ago, hkmaly said:

But that was only one-time and Jar Jar wasn't only one who was played by Palpatine. Case in point, Anakin Skywalker.

To be frank, I actually liked this bit. George Lucas actually listened to the fans when they said how much they hated Jar-Jar and gave him a much smaller part in the second movie, and he all but vanished in the third. And Jar-Jar proposing that the Senate vote Palpatine special powers made sense. At the time, everybody still trusted Palpatine with the possible exception of Yoda, and even Yoda only had a vague suspicion that he could not actually support with evidence of any kind.

And let's be fair. Jar-Jar was a complete idiot. It speaks quite well for Palpatine's plotting that he was actually able to turn Jar-Jar into a useful idiot.

Jake Sisko... *sigh* I have such mixed feelings about him. He was quite good in some episodes, pretty darn annoying in others and absolutely awful in his war reporter role. And some episodes they just wasted his potential completely. In Valiant he could have been an amazing counterpoint to Sisko himself and have exposed just how short the Valiant's crew fell of their dreams and ambitions, but all he could do was amble around and vaguely mutter, "Dad wouldn't have done it like this."

 

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15 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Well we already found one example, so I would guess B5 was hiding better. The fact B5 looked very consistent and was always planned for 5 years except one moment when it was supposed to be shortened to four and then they changed mind again certainly helped.

Not voluntarily shortened to 4 seasons.  :)

IIRC (and it has been a while) Babylon 5's network, PTN, died out from under them.  Then it was picked up by Turner Broadcasting for Season 5.

15 hours ago, hkmaly said:

But that was only one-time and Jar Jar wasn't only one who was played by Palpatine. Case in point, Anakin Skywalker.

yes it was one moment of Jar-jar being a useful idiot.  I acknowledge that Jake Sisko had to sustain his his useful idiocy over the long-haul.  I'd maintain that jar-jar did more damage to his universe with that one moment however.

One could argue that Jar-Jar was an idiot, if not a useful one, his entire life.  Is there a character more hated by fans in the Star Wars universe?

If there is it might be the shallow, whiney, Aniken Skywalker.  Belated sympathies to Hyden Christianson.

Or C3PO.  That droid got on my nerves very fast.  I wanted to tie him to a stake at the Imperial Stormtrooper school of Accuracy and use him as a practice target.  3PO would be perfectly safe bout would spend his days in unending terror.  When the prequels came out I wanted to give jar-jar the stake next to him.

Edit: I almost forgot about Ewoks.  They're in the running too.  Yub Yub!

15 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Meanwhile, Jake Sisko got into it himself. Seriously, son of commander of the station, how could he hoped they overlook him?

I'm surprised Jake Sisko wasn't imprisoned and used as a hostage.  Or worse tortured, broken and mind-mucked as the Cardassians had partly done to Jean Luc Picard years earlier.  They could have made Jake Sisko into a Cardassian agent well before the Dominion War was over.  I guess they decided that Jake was doing pretty well by them entirely on his own and he didn't have the stuff to make a decent spy.

8 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

To be frank, I actually liked this bit. George Lucas actually listened to the fans when they said how much they hated Jar-Jar and gave him a much smaller part in the second movie, and he all but vanished in the third. And Jar-Jar proposing that the Senate vote Palpatine special powers made sense. At the time, everybody still trusted Palpatine with the possible exception of Yoda, and even Yoda only had a vague suspicion that he could not actually support with evidence of any kind.

There was Padme's line, "This is how freedom ends: To thunderous applause."  She knew giving the special powers was bad but my memory of the prequels has thankfully dimmed so I don't remember her opinion of Palpatine.  But she never confronted Jar-Jar, who used her Senate seat to bring that end about.

Less Jar-Jar Eps 2 and 3 is an noble end unto itself.  I still wonder that Lucas had to be told to dial the character back.

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Hmm, maybe this thread should be retitled for Sci-Fi Discussions in general, since it drifted almost immediately away from B5 vs DS9?

Speaking of which, any discussion of who came up with which ideas first needs to acknowledge the fact that JMS first offered his idea for Babylon 5 to Paramount Televison, including going into what was in his five year plan, showing them the series bible and a number of script summaries from the entire planned run.  They were interested, and then all of a sudden they decided instead of doing this new series unrelated to their big franchise, they were going to do a new Star Trek series instead.  One which just happened to be set in a big space station instead of on a ship.  Babylon 5 had to go looking for a new home, and did find one, but it took long enough that DS9 hit the air a little before B5.  Saying one show had any particular development before the other has to keep in mind that they had already heard JMS's basic plan before either one started shooting.

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33 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

Hmm, maybe this thread should be retitled for Sci-Fi Discussions in general, since it drifted almost immediately away from B5 vs DS9?

Speaking of which, any discussion of who came up with which ideas first needs to acknowledge the fact that JMS first offered his idea for Babylon 5 to Paramount Televison, including going into what was in his five year plan, showing them the series bible and a number of script summaries from the entire planned run.  They were interested, and then all of a sudden they decided instead of doing this new series unrelated to their big franchise, they were going to do a new Star Trek series instead.  One which just happened to be set in a big space station instead of on a ship.  Babylon 5 had to go looking for a new home, and did find one, but it took long enough that DS9 hit the air a little before B5.  Saying one show had any particular development before the other has to keep in mind that they had already heard JMS's basic plan before either one started shooting.

IIRC once B5 was on the air, lawyers got involved in resolving this question.  The resolution was kept under a tight wrap.  JMS has only said that he was happy with the outcome.

I tend to think DS9 copied JMS' base concept (a space station orbiting a planet with a nearby a mcguffin that coughs up episodes now and then) but didn't set out to copy B5's 5-year story arc at first.  There certainly weren't any hints of the Dominion War in DS9's early bad seasons (at least that I can remember now).  As I have posted before, I consider it a foregone conclusion that DS9 copied the Shadow War once they had to step up their game.

I also posted before that I couldn't point to anything B5 lifted from DS9 but that was before I integrated the fact that the Defiant came first by a good year.  It's entirely possible that the White Star was copied from the Defiant, since the reverse is certainly not true.  In doing web research, I found something that said the White Star's original concept was as a small cramped ship, which is a trait of the Defiant.

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2 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

One could argue that Jar-Jar was an idiot, if not a useful one, his entire life.  Is there a character more hated by fans in the Star Wars universe?

 

If there is it might be the shallow, whiney, Aniken Skywalker.  Belated sympathies to Hyden Christianson.

This here Anakin guy?

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41 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

I also posted before that I couldn't point to anything B5 lifted from DS9 but that was before I integrated the fact that the Defiant came first by a good year.  It's entirely possible that the White Star was copied from the Defiant, since the reverse is certainly not true.  In doing web research, I found something that said the White Star's original concept was as a small cramped ship, which is a trait of the Defiant.

But that's my point above; if anything, the fact that the White Star was described originally as a small, cramped ship, and then DS9 came out with a small, cramped ship argues that the White Star was described that way in the B5 bible (which Paramount Television had access to long before either show came out).  Babylon 5 was planned out ahead of time, from the station to the ship to the war and beyond.  Anything that was in that bible, you can't say that B5 stole it from DS9, because B5 had it first, no matter who got it on the screen first.

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19 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:
4 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

One could argue that Jar-Jar was an idiot, if not a useful one, his entire life.  Is there a character more hated by fans in the Star Wars universe?

http://www.zombieroomie.com/2010/10/25/flashback/

"Jar Jar, you're a genius"

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1 hour ago, CritterKeeper said:

But that's my point above; if anything, the fact that the White Star was described originally as a small, cramped ship, and then DS9 came out with a small, cramped ship argues that the White Star was described that way in the B5 bible (which Paramount Television had access to long before either show came out).  Babylon 5 was planned out ahead of time, from the station to the ship to the war and beyond.  Anything that was in that bible, you can't say that B5 stole it from DS9, because B5 had it first, no matter who got it on the screen first.

Agreed, if the White Star was in the show bible JMS showed Paramount.  Do we know that for a fact?  I don't know either way. 

I do know that the show had both plot and character changes forced ion it as it was produced, so it's not automatic that the White Star was intended from Day 1, even though it easily could have been.

 

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4 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:
20 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Well we already found one example, so I would guess B5 was hiding better. The fact B5 looked very consistent and was always planned for 5 years except one moment when it was supposed to be shortened to four and then they changed mind again certainly helped.

Not voluntarily shortened to 4 seasons.  :)

IIRC (and it has been a while) Babylon 5's network, PTN, died out from under them.  Then it was picked up by Turner Broadcasting for Season 5.

Nevertheless, they weren't brave enough to just continue as originally planned and just count on someone picking them. On the other hand, considering how Crusade didn't ended, it would need lot of bravery.

4 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:
20 hours ago, hkmaly said:

But that was only one-time and Jar Jar wasn't only one who was played by Palpatine. Case in point, Anakin Skywalker.

yes it was one moment of Jar-jar being a useful idiot.  I acknowledge that Jake Sisko had to sustain his his useful idiocy over the long-haul.  I'd maintain that jar-jar did more damage to his universe with that one moment however.

Sure he did more damage, but if it wasn't him Palpatine would find some other useful idiot to do the same damage. I don't think there was any shortage.

4 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

Or C3PO.  That droid got on my nerves very fast.  I wanted to tie him to a stake at the Imperial Stormtrooper school of Accuracy and use him as a practice target.  3PO would be perfectly safe bout would spend his days in unending terror.  When the prequels came out I wanted to give jar-jar the stake next to him.

Well C3PO was build by Anakin from parts found on junk heap. I think we know why the personality module ended there. Of course, poor Anakin (literally poor) couldn't afford anything better.

4 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:
20 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Meanwhile, Jake Sisko got into it himself. Seriously, son of commander of the station, how could he hoped they overlook him?

I'm surprised Jake Sisko wasn't imprisoned and used as a hostage.  Or worse tortured, broken and mind-mucked as the Cardassians had partly done to Jean Luc Picard years earlier.  They could have made Jake Sisko into a Cardassian agent well before the Dominion War was over.  I guess they decided that Jake was doing pretty well by them entirely on his own and he didn't have the stuff to make a decent spy.

He wouldn't be useful agent but think about the morale boost torturing him could bring! Really surprising. ... or maybe they did and it was so fast it didn't even get on screen.

4 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

There was Padme's line, "This is how freedom ends: To thunderous applause."  She knew giving the special powers was bad but my memory of the prequels has thankfully dimmed so I don't remember her opinion of Palpatine.  But she never confronted Jar-Jar, who used her Senate seat to bring that end about.

She knew it's not his fault. Maybe she even blamed herself for giving her seat to such idiot.

3 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

I tend to think DS9 copied JMS' base concept (a space station orbiting a planet with a nearby a mcguffin that coughs up episodes now and then) but didn't set out to copy B5's 5-year story arc at first.  There certainly weren't any hints of the Dominion War in DS9's early bad seasons (at least that I can remember now).  As I have posted before, I consider it a foregone conclusion that DS9 copied the Shadow War once they had to step up their game.

Yes ... it's possible they rejected the concept because they though it doesn't fit and it took them two seasons (and B5 getting on air) to realize that the closer to it they get the better DS9 will be. It's true that until DS9, Star Trek was very careful to avoid any war getting onscreen, although it could be due to what would war do to budget.

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32 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Nevertheless, they weren't brave enough to just continue as originally planned and just count on someone picking them. On the other hand, considering how Crusade didn't ended, it would need lot of bravery.

Even though it made the first half of Season 5 awkward, I like the fact that B5 shortened or delayed plot arcs and scrambled out a final episode for the show as a whole.  It would have given some closure if there was no Season 5.  Few TV series give their fans that much consideration. 

Crusade...had problems.  A bunch of them.  Some self-inflicted, some inflicted by Turner.  I did like its introductory movie (A Call to Arms) however.  And I had a small crush on Carrie Dobro which didn't hurt either.  :)

32 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Sure he did more damage, but if it wasn't him Palpatine would find some other useful idiot to do the same damage. I don't think there was any shortage.

Can't argue with that, but Jar-Jar took the imitative when he was supposed to be a bench warmer.  he didn't have to do anything but cast a vote, but instead he went out of his way to set up the vote that ended a multi-thousand-year Republic.  On that basis a lone he earns his own private circle of hell.

32 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Well C3PO was build by Anakin from parts found on junk heap. I think we know why the personality module ended there. Of course, poor Anakin (literally poor) couldn't afford anything better.

As much as I dislike C3PO, and that's a lot, Lucas worked him over the coals by having Aniken build him.  It was stupid and not needed. 

On further thought "stupid and not needed" describes a lot of what Lucas did in Episode 1...
 


Edit:  I hit send too soon...

 

21 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

He wouldn't be useful agent but think about the morale boost torturing him could bring! Really surprising. ... or maybe they did and it was so fast it didn't even get on screen.

I like to think it was all home-grown Jake-brand Stupid.

22 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

She knew it's not his fault. Maybe she even blamed herself for giving her seat to such idiot.

Yeah it was his fault.  he didn't have to act but did.  It is possible that Padme did blame herself but we don't see any evidence of that either.  Padme seems completely disconnected from how her office was used to bring down the Republic.

24 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Yes ... it's possible they rejected the concept because they though it doesn't fit and it took them two seasons (and B5 getting on air) to realize that the closer to it they get the better DS9 will be. It's true that until DS9, Star Trek was very careful to avoid any war getting onscreen, although it could be due to what would war do to budget.

Budget was a consideration.  TNG had to do everything with physical models so starship battles were costly.  As the first major show to go heavily CGI (exclusively with its starships), Babylon 5 proved the viability of CGI as a alternate way of doing starships and effects (and bringing down the price while they were at it).  DS9 jumped on the bandwagon. They even used the same CGI company as B5 used for seasons 1-4: Foundation imaging.  It's entirely possible that CGI enabled DS9 to stage the Dominion war.

 

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On 9/13/2017 at 2:20 AM, Vorlonagent said:

Crusade...had problems.  A bunch of them.  Some self-inflicted, some inflicted by Turner.  I did like its introductory movie (A Call to Arms) however.  And I had a small crush on Carrie Dobro which didn't hurt either.  :)

Wasn't the worst problem that they tried to adapt to what Turner wanted? Which 1) didn't helped Turner to not stop them 2) made show worse?

On 9/13/2017 at 2:20 AM, Vorlonagent said:

On that basis a lone he earns his own private circle of hell.

Unlikely. There are just nine circles. Also, why should he have the advantage of privacy?

In fact, I know of perfect person to put near him: Palpatine himself :) I'm sure neither will enjoy the other.

On 9/13/2017 at 2:20 AM, Vorlonagent said:
On 9/13/2017 at 1:59 AM, hkmaly said:

Yes ... it's possible they rejected the concept because they though it doesn't fit and it took them two seasons (and B5 getting on air) to realize that the closer to it they get the better DS9 will be. It's true that until DS9, Star Trek was very careful to avoid any war getting onscreen, although it could be due to what would war do to budget.

Budget was a consideration.  TNG had to do everything with physical models so starship battles were costly.  As the first major show to go heavily CGI (exclusively with its starships), Babylon 5 proved the viability of CGI as a alternate way of doing starships and effects (and bringing down the price while they were at it).  DS9 jumped on the bandwagon. They even used the same CGI company as B5 used for seasons 1-4: Foundation imaging.  It's entirely possible that CGI enabled DS9 to stage the Dominion war.

And that's not even talking about how TOS wasn't able to use CGI :)

It's surprising that CGI spaceships needed almost as long to appear viable as CGI for characters. One would expect spaceships would be simpler, and there were already CGI spaceships in 1984 (The Last Starfighter, Lensman: Secret of The Lens), but 1987 show still uses physical models and only after Jurassic Part, Death Becomes Her and Terminator 2 someone tries CGI for spaceships in major show.

Also yes Dominion war without CGI would be hard to do ... or would look weird. I mean, there was ONE major battle in TNG ... but we only actually saw it in DS9.

 

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5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Also yes Dominion war without CGI would be hard to do ... or would look weird. I mean, there was ONE major battle in TNG ... but we only actually saw it in DS9.

Just one of the opening shots of the Dominion War that I offhand recall would have been almost completely impossible without huge expense. It is the moment where, after the retreat from DS9 and arriving at their temporary new quarters, you get a view of the Federation fleet. It is HUGE. It contains dozens of ships and would have required the budget of a major blockbuster movie to make using physical models, I suspect.

ETA: A quick Youtube search turned it up. It is here.

 

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13 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

Just one of the opening shots of the Dominion War that I offhand recall would have been almost completely impossible without huge expense. It is the moment where, after the retreat from DS9 and arriving at their temporary new quarters, you get a view of the Federation fleet. It is HUGE. It contains dozens of ships and would have required the budget of a major blockbuster movie to make using physical models, I suspect.

ETA: A quick Youtube search turned it up. It is here.

You could make it with like ten models filmed repeatedly - not like all of them are unique - and the budget for that might be justifiable if you would use those ten models for all those three seasons. Unfortunately, you would need another ten models for dominion fleet and what's worse, you need to destroy some of those to show battle damage. In short, yes it would be too much money and even back then it was certainly cheaper to use CGI.

(It's funny that today, similar style of CGI shots are affordable for fan movies .)

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On 9/16/2017 at 10:48 PM, hkmaly said:

Wasn't the worst problem that they tried to adapt to what Turner wanted? Which 1) didn't helped Turner to not stop them 2) made show worse?

Yes...but.  It's not that simple.

Crusade was made in two sets of episodes.  The first episodes to be made occured canonically later while the second run of episodes occur first in the lives of the characters.  JMS originally intended to "hit the ground running" and cover the early stuff as he needed it in flashback.  He changed his mind and used the second run to cover that early ground. 

Production wasn't intended to be broken into two groups, but relations broke down between JMS and Turner halting production at  the 13 episode mark (the minimum number for a "season") while everybody fought their battles.  Turner wanted more "f***ing and fighting" and had some really awful ideas on how to do it.  They also had genuine criticisms.  JMS had a long list of stuff he wanted changed.  They eventually figured it all out and production resumed.

That second run of episodes were, in my personal opinion, far better than the first.  But they occur earlier according to the lives of the characters.  If you watch the show in canonical order, Crusade starts out pretty good, then gets worse.  It's pretty obvious obvious because the jump occurs from the last of the second group where people most know what they're doing to the very first episode made.  JMS also gets a few digs in at Turner execs in the closing moments of that last of the second group of shows.

On 9/16/2017 at 10:48 PM, hkmaly said:

Unlikely. There are just nine circles. Also, why should he have the advantage of privacy?

In fact, I know of perfect person to put near him: Palpatine himself :) I'm sure neither will enjoy the other.

I'd argue that jar-jar Binks is a social creature who needs other people to annoy.  He might even be a emotional vampire living off the frustration his childish hijinks create in others.  he withers and dies with nobody to react to and nobody to react to him.  Assuming he is not a Sith in disguise.

Palpatine is simply evil.  Depsite the billions or even trillions of people murdered and impoverished by his deeds, He still doesn't deserve to share a circle of hell with jar-jar.  Though I can see palpatine paying off karma at a vastly increased rate if he did.  The better choice for a companion for jar-jar would be the Aniken Skywalker of the prequels.  If we have to give Jar-jar a playmate, I can't think of a better one than shallow, petty, whiney, self-important, angsty Aniken.

On 9/16/2017 at 10:48 PM, hkmaly said:

And that's not even talking about how TOS wasn't able to use CGI :)

It's surprising that CGI spaceships needed almost as long to appear viable as CGI for characters. One would expect spaceships would be simpler, and there were already CGI spaceships in 1984 (The Last Starfighter, Lensman: Secret of The Lens), but 1987 show still uses physical models and only after Jurassic Part, Death Becomes Her and Terminator 2 someone tries CGI for spaceships in major show

I think Moore's Law still had some work to do in 1987.  I worked in the computer game industry during the 90s and made at couple friends among the company's CGI artists as they walked the halls waiting for their desktop PCs to finish rendering a static CGI image (an hour, often longer, per image).  

The first season of Babylon 5 was rendered using the CGI package Lightwave on the Amiga.  Later seasons ported to Lightwave on the PC.  You can see effects differences between Season 1 (Amiga), 2-4, (PC) and 5 (different company).  Foundation Imaging had a huge central supercomputer with banks of processors to do its rendering work.  I imagine both Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park had to assemble similar systems, which couldn't have been cheap to build or maintain.  One of those artist friends I made later went to Foundation and I got an informal tour.

Effects at the level of The Last Starfighter were was not good enough to compete with or replace physical model work.  I cannot comment on Lensmen.  Terminator 2 (released 1991) illustrated the limits CGI faced even at the movie-budget level.  The T-1000 was silver when shapeshifting, a color which hides a lot of sins.  Jurassic park shows how far CGI evolved in just those 2 years.  Babylon 5 entered production after JP hit the theaters.

IIRC, DS9 started out using physical models and converted to CGI midway through the show.

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58 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

I thought I remembered something they called a "Video Toaster" being used on early Babylon 5.  Any idea what that was?

An add on piece of kit for Amiga computers.  Early version of a GPU. See here

 

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8 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:
On 9/17/2017 at 7:48 AM, hkmaly said:

Wasn't the worst problem that they tried to adapt to what Turner wanted? Which 1) didn't helped Turner to not stop them 2) made show worse?

Yes...but.  It's not that simple.

Crusade was made in two sets of episodes.  The first episodes to be made occured canonically later while the second run of episodes occur first in the lives of the characters.  JMS originally intended to "hit the ground running" and cover the early stuff as he needed it in flashback.  He changed his mind and used the second run to cover that early ground. 

Production wasn't intended to be broken into two groups, but relations broke down between JMS and Turner halting production at  the 13 episode mark (the minimum number for a "season") while everybody fought their battles.  Turner wanted more "f***ing and fighting" and had some really awful ideas on how to do it.  They also had genuine criticisms.  JMS had a long list of stuff he wanted changed.  They eventually figured it all out and production resumed.

That second run of episodes were, in my personal opinion, far better than the first.  But they occur earlier according to the lives of the characters.  If you watch the show in canonical order, Crusade starts out pretty good, then gets worse.  It's pretty obvious obvious because the jump occurs from the last of the second group where people most know what they're doing to the very first episode made.  JMS also gets a few digs in at Turner execs in the closing moments of that last of the second group of shows.

Hmmm ... it's true that I first saw crusade and later read about the correct order and stuff. I might need to rewatch paying attention to it to form opinion. But I though the more "f***ing and fighting" didn't made the show better ... also, isn't Galen mostly missing from the second run?

8 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

I'd argue that jar-jar Binks is a social creature who needs other people to annoy.  He might even be a emotional vampire living off the frustration his childish hijinks create in others.  he withers and dies with nobody to react to and nobody to react to him.  Assuming he is not a Sith in disguise.

I wouldn't. He is annoying but I don't think he does it deliberately. It would need to be REALLY good disguise.

8 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

Palpatine is simply evil.  Depsite the billions or even trillions of people murdered and impoverished by his deeds, He still doesn't deserve to share a circle of hell with jar-jar.  Though I can see palpatine paying off karma at a vastly increased rate if he did.

I think he does deserve it. Maybe not constantly, though.

8 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

The better choice for a companion for jar-jar would be the Aniken Skywalker of the prequels.  If we have to give Jar-jar a playmate, I can't think of a better one than shallow, petty, whiney, self-important, angsty Aniken.

Really? They could actually enjoy each other's companion!

Wait. Which prequel? Maybe the episode 3 one could work.

8 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

I think Moore's Law still had some work to do in 1987.  I worked in the computer game industry during the 90s and made at couple friends among the company's CGI artists as they walked the halls waiting for their desktop PCs to finish rendering a static CGI image (an hour, often longer, per image).  

Ok, I don't have this kind of experience.

8 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

Effects at the level of The Last Starfighter were was not good enough to compete with or replace physical model work.  I cannot comment on Lensmen. 

... and actually didn't saw either of those two.

8 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

Terminator 2 (released 1991) illustrated the limits CGI faced even at the movie-budget level.  The T-1000 was silver when shapeshifting, a color which hides a lot of sins.

I think silver spaceships would be possible :)

But yes, good point: unlike physical models, CGI payed per minute ; at that time, you got hardly any savings from using same models repeately.

8 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

IIRC, DS9 started out using physical models and converted to CGI midway through the show.

Apparently, even later. The transition to CGI was completed in 1997, during DS9's sixth season and VOY's fourth season. The scene you were posting might've been exception but maybe was actually shot with models.

Sacrifice of Angels' was actually the first real major digital undertaking; not only was it a huge amount of digital shots for Star Trek, it was about 40 shots per house. It was a huge space battle. Up until then, the largest battle they'd [had] was, I think, a Borg battle, Wolf 359, back in Next Generation, where you saw at most three or four ships, on the screen at any given moment.

EDIT: Wait: Hutzel ... made virtually no use of CGI for any of the episodes ... save for ... in the earlier episode "Call to Arms". So probably exception.

 

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15 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Hmmm ... it's true that I first saw crusade and later read about the correct order and stuff. I might need to rewatch paying attention to it to form opinion. But I though the more "f***ing and fighting" didn't made the show better ... also, isn't Galen mostly missing from the second run?

My memory is hazy to be honest.  I haven't watched Crusade since it aired.  JMS always intended Galen to be someone who comes and goes as he chooses.  He wasn't supposed to be there all the time.  JMS wanted to ration our Galen time to maintain his air of "magic".  There's a JMS quote which I can't recall the exact words for but the gist of it was that you don't want to see a technomage eating his breakfast.  Its a mundane thing which takes away the magic*.  It may be that JMS didn't need Galen as much or the actor wasn't available as much or something else entirely.

*When I read that quote I had this mental image of Galen in full technomage gear sitting down to a plate of pancakes.  I have a personal addendum.   You can show a technomage eating his breakfast...but it has to be "magical" in some way.

15 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Hmmm ... it's true that I first saw crusade and later read about the correct order and stuff. I might need to rewatch paying attention to it to form opinion. But I though the more "f***ing and fighting" didn't made the show better ... also, isn't Galen mostly missing from the second run?

I wouldn't. He is annoying but I don't think he does it deliberately. It would need to be REALLY good disguise.

I think he (Palpatine) does deserve it. Maybe not constantly, though.

Palpatine is indeed a villain.  a really bad irredeemable guy.  That hell would be his destination is not up for debate.  :)

In-continuity,  jar jar Binks is as you suggest just an idiot.   Granted a useful idiot that enabled the enslavement of a galaxy, but at the end of the day he's just an idiot.  he has plenty of good intentions to pave his way to hell.

From our (or at least my) perspective as a viewer, Palpatine put in a solid day's work as corrupter and manipulator.  He did his job well and got his just deserts in Return of the Jedi.  Jar jar?  jar jar is an offense.  His antics are tooth-gritting.  Jar-jar deserves his own circle of hell not because of his actions in the star wars universe but because he annoys us the viewers every frame of movie he is in.  he is the most prominent piece of the sheer idiocy inflicted on Star Wars by George Lucas, but is only a piece of what Lucas did in Episode 1 to deface his creation.

15 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Really? They could actually enjoy each other's companion!

Wait. Which prequel? Maybe the episode 3 one could work.

To say Aniken Skywalker gets better with age really clears a low bar.  Agreed, he was at his most detestable in ep 1 when Lucas was at his most detestable.  (hmm...There may be a parallel there.  Lucas writing Aniken Skywalker as some kind of dark, emo Marty-Stu?  Corrupted and evil because nobody on the side of good ever really understood him?  Must think on this and decide if I actually believe it)

I'll also grant that Aniken was at his least detestable in Ep 3 but that's only relative to ep 1.  I really hated kid-Aniken.  In Aniken's world everything is about him.  Jar-jar's comic antics make him the same way.  They're both road accidents Lucas won't let you look away from.  That's a fundamental conflict no matter which aniken from which movie you use.

Now that I think of it, Aniken's self-absorption gets worse with time.   You can boil his descent into evil just by remembering of every teenager's lament, "It's not fair!" I think ep 3 Aniken would be the one who would most hate being marooned for all eternity with jar jar Binks, but any Aniken would still be competing with jar Jar for the attention of their collective audience of two.

15 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Ok, I don't have this kind of experience.

... and actually didn't saw either of those two.

I think silver spaceships would be possible :)

But yes, good point: unlike physical models, CGI payed per minute ; at that time, you got hardly any savings from using same models repeately.

I've only seen bits of Last Starfighter myself, but enough to think the movie needed the "computer related" tag the way the first Tron movie did.  For reasons I absolutely can't understand now I actually read the novel made from the movie script of Last Starfighter.  I was young and foolish I suppose.  In my own defense, it was before I knew much about the movie.

For T2 -style CGI to work, all spaceships would have to be silver blobs.  They could be interesting shapes even colors but wouldn't handle the same sort of detail we see with physical models. 

I thought the cost with physical models was time needed to construct them and then warehousing them when they weren't needed.  Not that they were never reused but that they had to be reused enough that they justified the time and cost making them.  This is why TNG made extensive use of the Excelsior model from the movies.  It was something they didn't have to build.

15 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Apparently, even later. The transition to CGI was completed in 1997, during DS9's sixth season and VOY's fourth season. The scene you were posting might've been exception but maybe was actually shot with models.

Sacrifice of Angels' was actually the first real major digital undertaking; not only was it a huge amount of digital shots for Star Trek, it was about 40 shots per house. It was a huge space battle. Up until then, the largest battle they'd [had] was, I think, a Borg battle, Wolf 359, back in Next Generation, where you saw at most three or four ships, on the screen at any given moment.

EDIT: Wait: Hutzel ... made virtually no use of CGI for any of the episodes ... save for ... in the earlier episode "Call to Arms". So probably exception.

Interesting.  I didn't realize it took that long for Trek to transition to CGI, but it makes sense.  They didn't want the viewer to see any difference and senior effects people didn't want to give up control.  I even agree with their observations on Babylon 5.  yeah its ships and combat sequences did look CGI-ish, especially in Season 1.  But it was close enough to physical model work that B5 was able to make it a "distinct look" rather than look like they were being cheap.

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3 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

From our (or at least my) perspective as a viewer, Palpatine put in a solid day's work as corrupter and manipulator.  He did his job well and got his just deserts in Return of the Jedi.  Jar jar?  jar jar is an offense.  His antics are tooth-gritting.  Jar-jar deserves his own circle of hell not because of his actions in the star wars universe but because he annoys us the viewers every frame of movie he is in.  he is the most prominent piece of the sheer idiocy inflicted on Star Wars by George Lucas, but is only a piece of what Lucas did in Episode 1 to deface his creation.

Buuut ... wouldn't this be reason to send LUCAS to hell, instead of Jar Jar?

3 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

I thought the cost with physical models was time needed to construct them and then warehousing them when they weren't needed.  Not that they were never reused but that they had to be reused enough that they justified the time and cost making them.  This is why TNG made extensive use of the Excelsior model from the movies.  It was something they didn't have to build.

In both cases, the cost of models is 1) constructing 2) storing 3) using.

Small physical models have very big constructing cost but small storing and using cost.

Big physical models (say bigger than one meter) have very big constructing cost and big storing cost but small using cost.

CGI models in time of B5 had small constructing cost, moderate storing cost and very big using cost.

CGI models now have moderate constructing cost (they are much more detailed usually), small storing cost and small using cost.

 

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42 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Buuut ... wouldn't this be reason to send LUCAS to hell, instead of Jar Jar?

We can only hope.  :)  An eternity cooped up with jar-jar Binks would not be too harsh in my view

Though in fairness, Lucas put a lot of money into a new generation of sound quality and movie effects. we might not have CGI at the quality we have it today if not for Lucas.

42 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

In both cases, the cost of models is 1) constructing 2) storing 3) using.

Small physical models have very big constructing cost but small storing and using cost.

Big physical models (say bigger than one meter) have very big constructing cost and big storing cost but small using cost.

CGI models in time of B5 had small constructing cost, moderate storing cost and very big using cost.

CGI models now have moderate constructing cost (they are much more detailed usually), small storing cost and small using cost.

I think you're underestimating the construction costs for CGI models.  I think you are correct that the cost is lower however, but I don't think "small" is the correct descriptor.  Moderate or big construction cost.  Storing is, yeah comparatively trivial.

I think physical models had a very big use cost.  Bigger than CGI.  To shoot a Trek space battle I'd expect you'd need a sound stage, lighting, blue or green screen setup, people laying out the tracks the models follow, as well as the optical effects after shooting the physical models.  With B5 it all happened in one go inside the huge render computer at Foundation Imaging.  B5 essentially just rented time on Foundation's computer.  That rent would certainly factor in a fraction of the cost to Foundation (building, running, maintenance, improvements), but wasn't close to the whole enchilada.  Call that cost "big" maybe, but not "very big".

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41 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

Though in fairness, Lucas put a lot of money into a new generation of sound quality and movie effects. we might not have CGI at the quality we have it today if not for Lucas.

Yes ... he started good, but got much worse with age ... or success. I read somewhere than at time of filming Phantom Menace, there was noone around who could say "that's stupid" to any of his ideas, no matter how stupid they were - and they were LOT of stupid due to that.

41 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

I think you're underestimating the construction costs for CGI models.  I think you are correct that the cost is lower however, but I don't think "small" is the correct descriptor.  Moderate or big construction cost.

So, upgrade "cost in time of B5" to moderate and "now" to big?

41 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

I think physical models had a very big use cost.  Bigger than CGI.  To shoot a Trek space battle I'd expect you'd need a sound stage, lighting, blue or green screen setup, people laying out the tracks the models follow, as well as the optical effects after shooting the physical models.  With B5 it all happened in one go inside the huge render computer at Foundation Imaging.  B5 essentially just rented time on Foundation's computer.  That rent would certainly factor in a fraction of the cost to Foundation (building, running, maintenance, improvements), but wasn't close to the whole enchilada.  Call that cost "big" maybe, but not "very big".

Hmmm ... I think it depends on something I forgot to mention - scale: with single ship's fly-by, it's cheap - not simple, but those people have experience with it, and you can move camera instead of ship (or let person with blue/green clothing move the model manually instead of tracks). But with even just two ships we get to "moderate" for small models and "big" for big models. And more ships can make it very big ... or impossible.

Meanwhile, CGI scales optimally ; ten ships might even cost less to render when together on scene than separately.

 

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4 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Yes ... he started good, but got much worse with age ... or success. I read somewhere than at time of filming Phantom Menace, there was noone around who could say "that's stupid" to any of his ideas, no matter how stupid they were - and they were LOT of stupid due to that.

Completely agreed.  There were a lot of people who were just thrilled to work with THE George Lucas.  He could do no wrong...while doing a whole lot of wrong.

9 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

So, upgrade "cost in time of B5" to moderate and "now" to big?

Something like that.  CGI beat physical models for cost.  That's about all I intended.

21 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Hmmm ... I think it depends on something I forgot to mention - scale: with single ship's fly-by, it's cheap - not simple, but those people have experience with it, and you can move camera instead of ship (or let person with blue/green clothing move the model manually instead of tracks). But with even just two ships we get to "moderate" for small models and "big" for big models. And more ships can make it very big ... or impossible.

Meanwhile, CGI scales optimally ; ten ships might even cost less to render when together on scene than separately.

Generally agreed RE models effects, but there have to be fixed setup costs.

CGI just about can't scale downward but ought to scale pretty low.

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