7 ms·
Excellent news. Babylon 5 is underappreciated, but it has mainly good episodes and several amazing ones.[0] However, if I can be cynical for a moment: The arti
by dizzy9 7mo ago
Excellent news. Babylon 5 is underappreciated, but it has mainly good episodes and several amazing ones.[0]
However, if I can be cynical for a moment: The article title is misleading. Only a few episodes have been uploaded so far. At the current rate of one episode per week, it will take until March 2028 to conclude all five seasons. That's assuming they post every episode, and allow the episodes to remain up in the long term.
For some reason, the first episode of season 1, Midnight on the Firing Line, is missing from the YouTube upload, which is a pretty critical omission. YouTube is also a minefield of spoilers in the video recommendations. I can't recommend the YouTube uploads to newcomers right now. The Blu-ray collection appears to be available for about $100.
[0]: https://seriesgraph.com/show/3137-babylon-5 https://seriesgraph.com/show/3137-babylon-5
- nephihaha 7mo agoIt's let down by its effects which even appeared ropey at the time. However, some good storylines.
- alienbaby 7mo agoIf I remember right, the graphics in early episodes were rendered on commodore amigas
- Telemakhos 7mo agoHaving been alive at the time, I can tell you that the effects were amazing then. B5 was one of the first shows to use computer graphics and partially-virtual sets. It wasn't limited by the number of times you could re-composite a handful of models together, so it showed whole armadas of ships. Windows didn't open onto a black felt field of stars but a green screen that allowed ships to pull up right outside the window. The effects don't hold up to what has followed in the past quarter century, and they weren't preserved in a good resolution, so they'll never look very good on a high-resolution monitor instead of an old CRT. But, at the time, they were amazing.
- moron4hire 7mo agoHaving also been alive at the time, I can tell you I thought the effects looked hokey and cheap.
- ghaff 7mo agoThey were pretty good for the budget. (As someone else noted at least a lot were done on Amigas.) I really liked Babylon 5 at the time but there's a lot about it you need to overlook. I recommended it to someone and they told me it was the worst recommendation I ever gave them. The acting was a mixed bag from very good to pretty wooden. And the whole will it get renewed or won't it situation led to non-optimal organization of the last couple of seasons.
- moron4hire 7mo ago"Pretty good for the budget" is not the same thing as "good".
- HelloMcFly 7mo agoIt is extremely difficult for me to believe that someone watching Babylon 5 as it aired on a typical sized CRT television thought the effects looked "cheap". Hokey? Okay, maybe, that's subjective enough to be non-debatable. But "cheap" in the context of a television show? The shots were so much more dense and dynamic than what Star Trek was doing at the time, which is the obvious comparison. It's the season one acting that I find the biggest barrier to entry. It settles in by the end mostly, and the acting markedly improves from Season 2 onward though it always retains some of that campy scifi feel.
- Apocryphon 7mo agoThe costuming and sets and CGI are impressive, but the lighting is unnecessarily murky and the dark industrial tunnels aesthetic makes me think of Red Dwarf, which I can’t imagine was a very lavish production.
- Akronymus 7mo agoAlso, it seems like piracy is still yhe superior form to watch it over YT because, quite frankly, YT's quality is crap.
- roywiggins 7mo agofwiw the whole thing is free to watch on Tubi and the quality there is very nice.
- nseggert 7mo agoIt was just pulled from Tubi a few days ago. Still on the Roku channel, though (for now).
- roywiggins 7mo agoah, bummer. The recent-ish HD remaster is gorgeous if a bit incongruous to watch a mid-90s show in perfect detail.
- wiradikusuma 7mo agoIsn't the linked YouTube video title literally "Season 1, Episode 1"?
- thinkingemote 7mo agoyes, somewhat incorrectly as its the pilot / first movie, that came out before season 1 started https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5#Pilot_film_(1993) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5#Pilot_film_(1993) The numbering of the uploaded episodes seems to be off by one versus wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Babylon_5_episodes#Season_1:_Signs_and_Portents_(1994) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Babylon_5_episodes#Sea...
- rapind 7mo ago> The numbering of the uploaded episodes seems to be off by one versus wikipedia. That’s because there are two hard things when it comes to uploading content. - Off by one errors.
- nobody9999 7mo ago>Isn't the linked YouTube video title literally "Season 1, Episode 1"? Yes and no It's the pilot (and consequently the first[2]) episode "The Gathering", which actually doesn't have an episode number.[0] The first aired episode was S1E1 "Midnight on the Firing Line". The former was released as a "TV Movie" even though it was the pilot episode. [0] http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/countries/us/eplist.html http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/countries/us/eplist.html for the episode listings.[1] [1] Be careful, a wrong click can end up giving you spoilers. :( [2] I'd note that the pilot episode has significant personnel, prop and make-up differences from the rest of the series.
- iso1631 7mo ago> The Blu-ray collection appears to be available for about $100. It saddens me that people aren't willing to pay a pittance in cash (about $1 an hour) for entertainment. They're willing to spend their time, but not their money. This isn't just buying a 100 episode box set, it applies to people complaining "I'd have to spend $10 on $streaming_service to watch that 5 hour miniseries, that's terrible" too.
- account42 7mo agoThe problem with that logic is that the people who have the most time (kids/students) often don't tend to have a spare $1 per hour. Thankfully there are other options for them, yarr.
- squeedles 7mo agoI'd be delighted to spend that for a Blu-ray of the series but I'm afraid of getting the mangled version that they released on DVD. For background, JMS knew the widescreen transition was coming so filmed everything in 16:9. As he put it at the time, it didn't really cost more, you just had to pay more attention to lighting at the wings. All CGI was done in 4:3 because it was thought to be easy to rerender in the future. Alas, the digital assets were not preserved properly and when the time came for DVD, nobody wanted to pay for more work. There may be places where they used the 16:9 masters, but anyplace where there was CGI, particularly where they were compositing over live action, basically chopped the top and bottom of the 4:3 resulting in a sub-VGA mess. It made everyone weep.
- VilleSalonen 7mo agoBlu-ray version is definitely not perfect but I wouldn't call it mangled. It is presented in 4:3 which might be an issue for some viewers but it is absolutely the best this show has ever looked: https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Babylon-5-The-Complete-Series-Blu-ray/342014/ https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Babylon-5-The-Complete-Series...
- squeedles 7mo ago
- nikanj 7mo agoBabylon 5 has never been easy to watch which is a large factor in the underappreciation. Hard to appreciate something you can’t watch legally
- MrMember 7mo agoIt's very easy to watch. When I wanted to watch it a few years ago it took only a few minutes to find a torrent of the full series and less than an hour to download.
- moffkalast 7mo agoI find it hard to believe anyone on this site has a problem with piracy, nor technical nor moral.
- krapp 7mo agoYou'd be surprised. "Hacker" doesn't mean what it once did, and the spirit of the old hacker culture is all but dead here.
- mystraline 7mo agoThe "hacker" here is a soulless techbro willing to sell more parts to make a buck. Of course, since he has no more parts of his own, he sells yours. Naturally, theres no permission.
- malfist 7mo agoYou're going to get flagged to death for saying that. Only lassie faire libertarianism is allowed here. Libertarianism is apolitical you see
- roywiggins 7mo agoIt was easy to watch on Tubi (with ads), though apparently as of very recently it was pulled.
- 7mo ago
- Throaway1982 7mo agoI really enjoyed it until they shoehorned in an attractive human + wierd alien romance to compete with Odo & Kira (barf) on DS9
- lolive 7mo agoDidn't rewatch it for decades. But isn't this romance a very background narrative arc until the very latest season?
- account42 7mo agoThe "making one of the unique alien main characters look more human to be a better sell as a love interest to the audience" part is unfortunately ever present though. Then again, they already went in that direction between the pilot and the first episode.
- Throaway1982 7mo ago^^^
- Throaway1982 7mo agoIt ruined it for me. I just can't care about two creatures who wouldn't care about each other in a biological sense irl kiss on tv.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- wat10000 7mo agoDidn’t B5 do it first, by years? Kira/Odo didn’t become an item until B5 was off the air.
- Throaway1982 7mo agomy mistake. it still made me stop watching.
- 1970-01-01 7mo agoWithout understanding the motive behind it, you should assume it is not good news. You're right to be skeptical of the upload count. All they're doing is sheltering the show on YouTube until the view counters rise to the point of another streaming service making a charitable offer. Then, poof all episodes are moved to another service without notice.
- pseudohadamard 7mo agoThis is why I bought everything on DVD years ago, I can watch and re-watch as often as I like and there's nothing some "rights holder" can do about the content that I paid for with my money.
- Groxx 7mo agoYeah, so far I see mislabeled-pilot, and episodes 3 and 4. That... does not (currently) look like "Babylon 5 is now free to watch". That looks like a minor probing to see if they can charge for it again somewhere. That kind of thing happens constantly, and it's rare that it ever finishes.
- watwut 7mo agoBased on other articles, the plan is to release an episode a week. They are giving us 90ties experience, I guess. They just somehow managed to screw it up. They did not released episode 1, which gives an authentic 90ties experience In 90ties people missed episodes. And misnamed the pilot movie as episode 1 and mislabeled other episodes. And they dont use playlist and will be simultanepusly releasing clips from episodes, so it will be wonderfull mess.
- TitaRusell 7mo agoThis reminds me. Where I live Babylon 5 was broadcast at midnight on a second rate cable network.
- mr_toad 7mo agoIf it’s like the rest of YouTube it’ll quickly be buried in a pile of reaction videos, fan edits, Russian voiceovers and low-resolution re-uploads, with black borders on all sides.
- pseudohadamard 7mo agoWell, as long as they don't opt for the Ferengi MBA school, or the Darth Vader one: "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further".
- toomuchtodo 7mo agoRecommended link to the Blu-ray collection for archival purposes?
- Izkata 7mo agoFun fact: The S4 finale that rates merely "good" is actually a rapidly put together alternate finale when they got renewed for S5, using some of that season's budget. This was so they could delay the real series finale to S5 (originally filmed for S4, when they were unsure they'd get an S5).
- JLO64 7mo agoDefinitely not my favorite episode, but I got a kick out of the similarities to A Canticle for Leibowitz during one of the segments in it.
- philwelch 7mo agoThat was a very conscious and deliberate homage.
- krapp 7mo agoIt wasn't conscious or intentional. JMS only realized the connection halfway through writing it. "It was only when I was about halfway into the act that I thought, "Oh, crud, this is the same area Canticle explored." And for several days I set it aside and strongly considered dropping it, or changing the venue (at one point considered setting it in the ruins of a university, but I couldn't make that work realistically...who'd be supporting a university in the ruins of a major nuclear war? Who'd have the *resources* I needed? The church, or what would at least LOOK like the church. My sense of backstory here is that the Anla-shok moved in and started little "abbeys" all over the place, using the church as cover, but rarely actually a part of it, which was why they had not gotten their recognition, and would never get it. Rome probably didn't even know about them, or knew them only distantly.) Anyway...at the end of the day, I decided to leave it as it was, since I'd gotten there on an independent road, we'd already had a number of monks on B5, and there's been a LOT of theocratic science fiction written beyond Canticle...Gather Darkness, aspects of Foundation, others." -- Lurker's Guide
- philwelch 7mo ago
- sylario 7mo agoI am incredibly out of the loop in the world of blu-ray. Do you still need to buy a terrible video player to read them legally on windows ? I give so little attention to physical media that I do not even know if 4k blu-ray use the same blu-ray storage format or if it is some sort of upgraded blu-ray with more storage.
- chocochunks 7mo agoOfficially? Yes, unfortunately. 4K is even more complicated. Technically 4K is the same discs, but sometimes they use the rare BD-XL 100GB discs that not all drives can read. There's also a bunch of extra DRM junk, so for 4K you need a new drive, new software and an Intel CPU from a specific time period as new ones don't include the bits for 4K Blu-ray DRM. Unofficially you use MakeMKV and just rip the disc. EDIT: Oh, apparently PowerDVD no longer supports UHD Blu-ray either so even the official way is dead now.
- keanebean86 7mo agoSome drives have modified firmware that helps when ripping. https://forum.makemkv.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=19 https://forum.makemkv.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=19
- toomuchtodo 7mo agoAny specific drives you’d recommend for ripping?
- dangus 7mo agoAnything on their list is fine. I have some random LG slim thing and it works. The custom firmware allows them to rip 4K blu-rays. I’m really glad I discovered this because I really didn’t want to spend on a 4K player or a PS5, knowing that this format is really on the way out.
- keanebean86 7mo agoI have a LG WP50NB40 but it might be scarce these days. I wanted an external drive. Took about five mins to flash. I've ripped a few recent UHD blurays like the Barbie movie and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness without issues.