Why Babylon 5's Creator HATED the Pilot Episode
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- Опубликовано: 7 авг 2024
- Babylon 5 Creator J. Michael Straczynski (JMS) HATED the pilot movie that launched his epic space saga.
I'll tell you the story of how it all went wrong and how Babylon 5: The Gathering holds up today.
#babylon5 #sciencefiction #b5
Do you think JMS was too hard on his creation?
Does Babylon 5: The Gathering hold up?
Let me know in the comments.
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Everybody hates the pilot. It's like a prototype that doesn't have all the bugs worked out and upgrades installed. The cast has yet to figure out their characters and what motivates them.
Be kind watching pilots. They are like cookies taken out of the oven a bit too soon.
It definitely isnt B5’s final form.
But I dont hate it.
Pilots often feel like a glimpse into an uncanny parallel universe - especially when key roles get recast. (Like the Buffy the Vampire Slayer pilot with a different actress playing Willow - so weird! )
The TV networks need to learn this. They're forever canceling great shows before they have the time to develop and like you said work out the bugs. Then turn around and complain that their viewership is dropping.
I have a friend who specifically loves pilots; she likes the character introductions, the early world building, stuff like that.
Sometimes pilots are also much better than the series that gets greenlit, or what it turns into after half a season: in those, the pilot is the purest vision of the creator, before the suits take a hatchet to everything.
There's one series where the pilot is probably my favorite episode, or pair of episodes rather. SeaQuest DSV. Not perfect, but it sets up this world where politics, environmentalism, and greed collide all the time. Sadly, they seemed to throw away the book Rockney S. O'bannon started and the show suffered for it. It's still one of my favorite shows, but it just slid downhill after the pilot.
@@AvengerBB1 I remember that show, I really like it too. It
I really liked it how the pilot introduced G'kar as a villain, considering all the things that happen later. What a complete and fulfilling character story!
I saw the Babylon 5 episodes, except for season 5, when they first came out. I have all of the episodes and all of the films, including the pilot on DVD. This is by far my favorite television series. The Gathering is not perfect, but it's still a damned good story, and I still enjoy watching it, and the rest of the series, for the zillionth time, just as I can watch the first two Star Trek series over and over and never tire of them. I have also been fortunate enough to meet most of the main actors (aside from Bruce Boxleitner) at science fiction conventions. They were all very nice and pleasant to deal with.
The thing that bugged me the most about the pilot was how the heck Kosh could have been poisoned when he is totally encased in his encounter suit. It would have perhaps made more sense it it had been maybe Delenn getting poisoned and the Minbari threatening to renew the war with Earth.
The special edition adds a little line of dialogue for Kosh during his run-in with ‘Sinclair’ that goes some way to explaining why he may have come out of his encounter suit.
I agree, but what bothered me more was Vorlons were an unknown. How would anyone know what would poison them? As the clearly pointed out with the alien sector, what's healthy for one species is poisonous to another.
@@tomwhone9804 That part actually makes sense. The Vorlons weren't an unknown to the Minbari, or at least not as much as they pretended. If any race on B5 would know how to poison a Vorlon, it'd be the Minbari. Of course, this would've been nice knowledge to pull out against New Kosh, but perhaps we can write that off as warrior caste-specific knowledge. Unfortunately, if you're looking for concrete specific in how to poison an energy being, and how Dr. Kyle was able to somehow treat that, I think you have to resign yourself to a certain level of hand-waving there so that the plot can keep moving
Since the Vorlons are beings of energy rather than physical creatures, it doesn't really make sense that a poison for flesh and blood creatures would have worked on Kosh.
@@ivaneames4354 Agreed. There's much wrong with the premise. I give the show some latitude, presuming they hadn't thought that far ahead.
B5 was made possible by hundreds of inventions that made that almost one knows about. Today, the technology of computers (especially personal computers) in vfx is taken for granted but someone had to invent the tools and technologies. I am pleased and proud to count myself among some incredible inventors. Heady times. Magical times.
Wow! I’d love to hear about what you worked on.
I remember when B5 first aired some friends of mine were tuning in specifically to see what they were doing with the visual effects.
@@Phintasmo Here's a for instance... at that time there wasn't a clearly defined workflow to get video off a computer and into the standard video workflow. First, ASDG developed control software for the Abekas (sic) family digital disk recorders so physical connection between an Amiga and an Abekas DDR allowing one frame at a time to be laid off to the DDR. Then ASDG developed control software for the Exabyte tape drive and the software to encode video into the Abekas back up tape format. This allowed an Amiga with only a tape drive to write tapes that popped directly into an Abekas. Then ASDG developed a new encoding scheme that dithered video scan lines producing much better color fidelity that was possible using video encoding alone (we should have patented this). Video in those days (NTSC, for example) had very little bandwidth available for the blue range of the spectrum and has A LOT of trouble with dark blue especially. Prior to this invention, dark blues, close to blacks would have noticeable blotches in video that weren't there in 24 bit video. With this invention, the blotches could no longer be seen. So, just in getting video off the Amiga we invented three things.
Peter Jurassic and Andreas Katsulas really showed their abilities in the pilot, which went way deeper in the show itself. Katsulas especially brought G'Kar and the Narns to life. I remember him saying that the prosthetics and costume felt like being stuffed into a UPS postal box. Yet he probably produced some of the performances of his life. I think it's down to something Andrew Robinson said recently about playing Garak on DS9. When you're under all that makeup, it frees you to be someone entirely different as an actor.
"It looks lived in compared to the more sterile way it is shot later"
That was what I always loved about The Gathering. It is the single most time where the station actually felt like the "self-contined city" that it always touts itself as.
I liked the grittier look. I remember at the time it was a big change from Star Trek.
As pilots go, I think it was pretty darn good. Ya, it had it's rough spots, but compare it to the pilots of some other shows and it looks like a masterpiece.
And of course, the ONLY thing that matters is the pilot was 'good enough' to get the best SciFi series ever made, made, that's all that counts
It still managed to hook me back when it aired.
Ultimately, that's all that really matters.
I don’t think JMS hated the pilot, he just was trying to figure out the bugs in the plot lines. As it turned out B5 became one of the best Sci-Fi shows ever!
Fun fact JMS was one of the creative talents for the animated show Wheeled Warriors,
which is about an order of vehicle riding "knights" in space called the Lightning League.
Despite being science fiction it had distinct elements of Arthurian fantasy, including a
space wizard.
If you look at some of the themes, monsters, heroes, characters like the technomages
with Babylon 5 he was able to achieve something much like that yet with more polish
and thankfully many, many more fans. Babylon 5 remains a wonderful lesson about
how great stories come in all shapes and sizes. Best wishes. JT
The pilot is far to be my favourite but it didn't discourage me to watch the following episodes. And I'm glad I've done that. Babylon 5 remains one of my favourite TV shows of all time !
A French B5 fan.
I saw The Gathering at the World SF Convention before it was broadcast. I liked it as did most of the crowd. JMS seemed happy enough with it then.
I was another who was really only drawn to _The Gathering_ on VHS because I was a huge Amiga fanboy and wanted to see what the Video Toaster could do as a serious VFX tool. In an era of cheap straight-to-video SF fare, it's unlikely that _The Gathering_ would have stood out among the other tapes for hire in my local video store had I not known about the Amiga connection.
But there was something about this show, beyond the Amiga VFX, that hooked me. The alien "zoo" thing was always problematic -- like staying in a Travelodge where all the rooms have glass walls -- but that aside it seemed to offer a hard-to-define draw that most SF of the day didn't, even as it tread some well-worn paths. Perhaps it was the hints of a bigger story to tell, or the amazing performances of Jurasik and Katsulas in particular who, with relatively little to work with, seemed to effortlessly elevate their characters beyond the Halloween costumes and quirky accents. All I know is that when I learned it had been picked up for a series and that Channel 4 in the UK would be showing it, I was there for the rest of whatever it might offer.
And boy, did it deliver.
I'm glad JMS got to revisit and tweak the pilot, and I do prefer the Special Edition. But for me the original did its job. It's far, *far* from perfect. In many ways it's the very definition of mediocre. But it worked to set the scene for the series that would follow.
On occasion I've wondered what might have happened had JMS waited -- or been forced to wait -- another decade before getting the series greenlit. What would a show with the scope and ambition of _Babylon 5_ have been like with the production values and VFX of, say, the rebooted _Galactica?_ But then we would not have had the same cast so brilliantly bringing their characters to life, and while the overall arc would have been the same there's a chance JMS would not have written certain episodes and subplots the same way in a post-9/11 world. We might have got a "better" show, but we'd have missed out having never known the original.
B5 was way before it’s time in the kind of story it told - the tv market and fx are way more conducive to this sort of show nowadays.
But I feel the shift in trend towards serialized storytelling mightn’t have happened without B5 showing what could be done.
@@Phintasmo JMS and B5 pushed Hollywood (back) toward serialized storytelling, but I think the increasing popularity of Anime in the 90s would've pushed it anyway. And streaming has made serials the norm.
Yep, saw both. I watched the original when it came out and was mesmerized. The special edition tightens up the editing and flow, definitely. The style also fits more closely to the whole series.
However, the original movie is kind of like its own thing. Not as a pilot, but just a self-contained story
I liked the pilot, I fondly recall its gritty and sick introduction to a series I would watch as as I did homework.
2:00 I wonder what Michael O'Hare is saying here, given what we know now about his mental health. The other guy doesn't look too pleased...
Great breakdown video.
I know I saw the original pilot when it was first broadcast. I've also seen whatever was on streaming ~5 years ago, not sure if that was remastered -- I think I saw the "zoo" scene then, also.
I think JMS was too critical of the pilot: it had its flaws but I think B5 was so far ahead of its time that some things made the show more palatable (e.g. the goofy aliens) and other things were just par for course (wooden acting on sci-fi shows). Personally, I loved the lighting and scene design in the pilot, and I wish more of it was kept in the series.
I rewatched a season 5 episode the other day and the bigger sets look very sterile and too clean - they should have kept a little smoke and grime.
I think what audiences responded to in the pilot was the potential we saw - a series that wasn't Star Trek but felt more like the real world we knew. And that was always the show's strength - difficult politics, race relations, labor strife, a struggling press, economics, et al - a reality we rarely saw in other SF shows.
I rather liked the darker look of the pilot. Too many of the later scenes looked like sets on a stage. And the wider range of aliens gave it more of a larger galaxy feel.
I was introduced to B5 about 20yrs ago by my best friend. He had seasons 1-4 and In The Beginning. He didn't have The Gathering, he said it wasn't very good. Anyway, he lent me season 1, which I liked well enough, then he lent me the rest of what he had and I decided I liked the show enough to get it myself on DVD.
When I got the DVDs, I got the lot, and this time started with In The Beginning, and then The Gathering, and I decided I liked the pilot well enough. As it turned out, I'd got the recut version with the Christopher Franke score, which obviously made it feel more like regular B5. I showed my friend this version of the pilot and he liked it well enough. It was only after this that I got him the DVD of The Gathering and discovered that there were two versions. I saw the original version once, and can understand why it was recut.
I have indeed seen Babylon 5 The Gathering.
Both versions...
I remember watching original version of the Pilot back in the day when it first aired.. I LOVED it.
A couple of years ago I watch a tubtuber doing a "watch along/ reaction" video on The Gathering... and was Shocked that he was watching the original version NOT the special edition. Fuck man did that ever take me back
I did a rewatch without realizing there WAS a special edition!
The ‘Entil’Zha’ moment really threw me - all these scenes I had no memory of, haha!
The real killer regarding the pilot is that I've never been able to decide whether to tell new people to watch it or not. You get characters that aren't going to be seen again, you get some downright false information on Vorlons, and worst of all the whole show has to be a pilot so it needs to keep studio execs in mind as the most important part of the audience. However, you also get some lovely foreshadowing and the start to the whole "you have a hole in your mind" arc.
I wish there was a fan edit of the show with just a few bits of the show, including the final battle. It wouldn't be a very fun edit to watch, but new folks could start with the first proper episode, then watch the edited highlights of the pilot, then continue with the show.
Completely agree! I’d skip the pilot except they do reference the events that took place quite a few times in season 1
@@Phintasmo Excellent! So, when do you expect to complete the fan edit? ;)
By the way, was it ever mentioned in-series what happened to Takashima after the events of the Pilot. I mean, Doctor Kyle was mentioned a few times and, obviously, Lyta would reappear later in the Series but I don't think anyone ever spoke of Takashima again.
Also, I kinda dig the Original Score by Stewart Copeland.
According to the Babylon 5 Wiki:
"Following the assassination attempt on Ambassador Kosh, Takashima was recalled to Earth where she was assigned to a classified mission to the Rim by EarthForce."
No further information after that.
I also liked the original score.
Also from the wiki, certain story twists from S1 and S2 were originally going to be assigned to her, but were assigned to other characters when her character did not return to the series. Some of those threads were set-up in the pilot.
Great videos! Saw the pilot on VHS the first time.
My biggest problem with the pilot is continuity. This includes how characters' entire demeanors and personalities are different, as well as more blatant things such as G'kar's "gill implants", Delenn having more magic rings than the Elves and Men combined, and of course all the issues with the "poisoning" of Kosh. All the later evidence of how telepathic they are, and Kosh having met Sinclair before, I feel like there were a few ways Kosh could have known it wasnt actually Sinclair meeting him.
I can put a lot of it down to a show finding its feet. There’s a weird line in early TNG when Picard talks about the Klingons having joined the Federation. The lore all gets ironed out in time.
I've been rewatching this since my Dad was a fan early on. I never knew this. It's nice to discover this information for the first time.
It should be mentioned that the special edition restored Tomita's original vocals. That was the most frustrating thing about the pilot--the studio "softened" her performance, and then her character was jettisoned from the series because the focus groups didn't find her strong enough. Also, despite both versions being roughly the same running time, the special edition has 14 minutes of new footage. A lot of what was removed were alternate shots that leaned more into Compton's style.
Yeah, it’s really great that we can now judge for ourselves by watching both versions.
Executives dropped the ball on several space operas. Firefly was cancelled just as it had become a cult classic. Andromeda was a smashing success. Battlestar Galactica, Farscape, The Expanse, there was always room for good storytelling in space. And there still is.
Someone will hate me for saying this. I got to meet JMS in 2019 at a convention. I was really looking forward to it because Babylon 5 (and later nuBSG) were the only SciFi shows I loved more than Star Trek. I wanted to get an autograph and thank him for providing an epic drama series that had me glued every week it aired as a teenager. He didn't have a line and was selling autographs (as all the stars do at conventions) and his latest books. Holy cow, he couldn't even muster a "thank you for the kind words" or "I'm glad you enjoyed it" or any response. He looked like I had just asked him for a dollar on the street to buy beer with. Maybe he was having a bad day or not feeling well, but I really looked forward to meeting a few of my heroes that day and two of them (the other was Daphne Zuniga) really seemed like they didn't want to be there or care about the fans. I contrast that with 25 or so other stars and writers I've met at conventions and they were huge disappointments, at least on that day.
I’ve never met the guy but after reading his autobiography I’d be inclined to cut him a bit of slack. He has Asperger syndrome and finds everyday social interactions quite challenging.
@@Phintasmo I do my best to show grace and not make assumptions. I was disappointed that the interaction didn't go the way I wanted, but I wasn't angry. I appreciate his work and writing and you can't judge someone by a 5-10 interaction.
This is why it's said, "Never meet your heroes."
JMS was known to be a bit like that, I love the show but I don't ever want to meet him.
@@PhintasmoProbably just having a bad day. I met him once some years ago and he came off as very kind and decent. (Now, I did have the opportunity to work with a famous Trek writer - won’t say who it was, except that his episode concerned some rapidly multiplying furballs - that was far less pleasant. So it goes.)
There's a few things about the pilot that I like more than when they went to series.
The atmosphere of the station is probably the biggest one, I loved the lower lighting, more spot lights, and the light smoke-filled sets.
There's something about the Pilot's uniforms that I really like. Maybe it's the lack of the leather panel that I don't enjoy as much in the series proper.
I also prefer the look of B5's interior in the pilot to its look in the series.
the best artists and creators ARE their own harshest critics
that's part of what makes them the best. they don't settle for "good enough" and they push back against others who do (or would).
when you have a clear and passionate vision for something, "good enough", just isn't.
I saw "The Gathering" when it first came out, but for the most part only remember it as the revamped version. And I'm glad for that. 🙂
I have it on DVD and forgot about the alien residential section. Yes, that struck me as odd when I first watched it on TV and did not notice it was missing in the DVD
JMS is being a little hard on himself. I agree the "alien zoo" was dumb. Best part for me, was Sinclair recounting his blackout experience on the Line. Chilling.
I like that scene and it’s enhanced in the special edition by the addition of small sound bites from later in the series - really makes it more atmospheric.
I think it would've been worrying if he *didn't* hate it, honestly. It was his first attempt at a show, where he had limited influence and not much experience over a huge project. That he was so hard on it just shows that he grew as a creator and recognised his mistakes early on.
Definitely!
He went from being a writer to essentially being a project manager in charge of all kinds of departments.
He did great considering!
I liked the pilot with its smokey blade runner aesthetic and the music was great, ashame they replaced tamalyn tammata .
I didn't mind the hazey look. It was a welcome change from the overly clean look common in Star Trek. Even DS9 and Voyager didn't get anywhere near as atmospheric.
Katsulas was and Jurakic is a gift we were privileged to see acting.
There’s some amazing casting in B5.
Apparently JMS didn’t really look at anyone’s resume - he gave anyone a shot if they did well in the audition (which is apparently not how it usually works)
I know that I’m likely alone in this, but I actually prefer Stuart Copeland’s score to Franke’s, though obviously it’s now more of a piece with the rest of the series.
Something this video doesn’t mention is that JMS didn’t entirely absolve himself of blame either, stating at the time that the script was something of a rush job and that he could certainly do better.
Personally I have a soft spot in my heart for this pilot. It's the first B5 I ever watched and it wowed me from the start. The mystery is well done and G'kar and Londo are particularly good. I also like the original minbari ambassador a bit more than Delenn, at least early on.
That is her. Mira Furlan was in heavy makeup and was supposed to transform into the beauty she was.
I remember when B5 was a new thing. Our local FOX affiliate wasn't airing the show, but our little group had a connection in the neighboring state who worked at an affiliate which was, and got us tapes of the eps every week for group watching. =^[.]^=
I have shelf-full of B5 VHS box sets I really should let go of.
@@Phintasmo Surely there is a collector somewhere who would love to have them. =^[.]^=
Peter Jurassic and Andreas Katsulas made the show, their rively and character arcs are so intertwined for all 5 series. Its almost funny re watching them in the pilot/season 1 knowing what happens to them both over the future seasons. Just perfect casting and character writing.
I re-watched it again recently. I really enjoyed it. Delenn I noticed didn't have as many ridges on her face - there were other changes that I noticed where the aliien's looked slightly different. I have continued watching the series season one since. I thought the dramatic music of the series was really good.
Christopher Franke’s music is a really essential part of the B5 formula. It was really missed in the Crusade spin-off
The thing I don't understand is this: Why did JMS keep making references to it during season 1 if he hated it? There are several references to it in Believers and Flag Full of Stars. The Gathering didn't get replayed much until the TNT run. He could have just... pretended it never happened.
That’s a very good question. I watched from the start of season one and remember being mildly confused at the references to The Gathering.
Some shows totally reshoot their pilots once they get the green light (Buffy the Vampire Slayer for one).
I reckon it’s because The Gathering got a high profile release and JMS didn’t know it wouldn’t get many reruns.
At least it saves us from an endless debate over whether it’s canon or not.
It's a thing among writers who love continuity. Dr. Kyle seeing inside a Vorlon, and disappearing, too shiny to resist.
Probably because in S1 they had too little material to use and that had to keep referring back to it. Once they had 2-3 seasons done, they could ignore it as much as possible.
I don't think JMS hated the story being told in the Gathering, just how it was told/filmed etc.
When viewing the different shows, Babylon 5 and Star Trek DS9 - it's obvious which had the better pilot - Paramount could throw as much money behind their project as they wanted, but their finished product comes out a poor second to JMS's masterpiece.
I thought the re-edited version of The Gathering was an improvement on the original; mostly the new music score, the updated CGI, the added dialogue and extended scenes, and the dropping of the alien "zoo" sector. It's a shame that Tamlyn Tomita's original vocal performance couldn't have been utilised.
Didn't watch more than an episode or two of the show until I was an adult. I have seen the later version of The Gathering, I was gifted a dvd including it sometime after I finished the series proper. I didn’t hate it but it does have that beta test feeling. And as a hobbyist writer, I completely understand JMS having the harsh opinion on some of his work.
Okay, I'm watching your channel. You care enough to make this worth my time. Thank you.
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for the support!
Have you gone to The Lurkers Guide to Babylon 5? It's a treasure trove of news and info about the babylon 5 Universe. The only problem is that it is a 30 year old web site complete with that early to mid 90s design aesthetic. I only mention it here, on this video, because The Lurker's Guide also catalogues most of JMS' Online services (GEnie, Compuserve etc)posting about Babylon 5 as it was first being shopped around up through it's production and initial broadcast. If you're a fan of the series and want to know the ins and out of the hows and why's of it's production The Lurker's Guide is an incredible resource. I should mention that someone (ahem) posted on the old GEnie Scifi forums B5 board some of the exact points brought up in this video and JMS responded to them that comment and his response are included on the guide lol
It's a brilliant resource! I kind of like that it's still a 90s era website - makes it feel like you are entering a time capsule.
Pilots are supposed to..
Explain the setting or set up the situation (check)
Introduce characters and their purpose (check)
Experiment with set design and anesthetic (check)
Nothing more. Most pilots are somewhat different from the series...some aren't shown at all due to recasting. Often a year+ passes before the episode begins shooting. Examples like Gilligan's Island, That Girl and Happy Days come to mind.
As a pilot/ep 1 it was a much better story and effort than TNGs pilot and DS9s pilot.
Replacing the 90s TechnoGuitar music that Sharps Rifles and other series used, with movie score Romantic Era dramatic music was the best fix to make it timeless.
Most SF series before 1988 only got 3 years because they were made primarily for syndication to kids, but were sold first to the big 3 prime time adult networks. Most fantasy shows can only hold an adult audience for a couple years...and then they devolve into kid silly...and go magically to syndication with 75 episodes.
Star Trek and LIS both did this.
By 1990, the landscspe had changed. TNG STARTED in syndication, as did several others....or they started on fan dedicated cable channels like SciFi. That's why the 90s was the heyday of long running SF series.
The only ones that collapsed quickly were the ones on tratitional prime time broadcast: V, FireFly, etc...
That is also why SF series are coming back due to streaming instead of WB or CBSnightly or NBC. Directly to syndication...except you are the syndicate.
Orville is an example of the 60s method falling apart on them as it did with FireFly. After a year, Fox was ambivalent about season 2. After poor traditional ratings in season 2, he had to take it directly to a streaming syndicate to even produce S3 after a year's hiatus.
I preferred the music at the end of the original version, very up-tempo and yes, I agree: Technopunk'ish!
Interesting video. It's funny as I just watched the pilot for the first time in years a few days before seeing this. I actually like the look of the show better in the pilot. That said, if the director was responsible for some the stilted acting in the pilot, it's best he went with other people. And the "zoo" was ridiculous. I actually wish some of the more puppety aliens had stuck around, but that was a terrible way to show them off. Given the issues they had with N'Grath though, it probably was best just to ditch them.
Puppets can work if done well.
Farscape had great puppet Aliens but not every sci-fi show has the Henson company behind them.
@@Phintasmo I was thinking the exact same thing. Puppetry is a real art, and you need talented people to pull it off.
I always liked The Gathering. It's an interesting alternate0universe take on the show. The barely working CGI and "cyberpunk" guitar are very much of their time. But 1993 is a time I am nostalgic for, so that doesn't bother me.
Yes, the zoo makes no sense, and the actors needed a little more work and such. But that "80's detective show" vibe really set it apart from any other sci fi on TV. I thought it worked. JMS was just horrified because he was expecting a 1:1 mapping from his head to the screen, and that's never how it goes. Sometimes as a creator in a collaborative medium you just gotta Relaxen und watchen Das Blinkenlights, and trust that the other artists around you aren't maniacs, even if they have different tastes than you do. I am going through some of this trying to make my own first film, and I'd kill to have it go half as well as The Gathering did.
I want to hear that original music. Sounds like a Toto bonanza.
I hate the pilot, so it's nice to see how it's failure wasn't JMS' fault. I have not seen the entire original version, but holy shit that original cyberpunk guitar music reminds me of things wrong with the '90s that I'd forgotten about. And that's what the pilot reminds me of: the parts of the '90s I've forgotten, so I only really watch it for nostalgia reasons.
Stuart Copeland of the Police did the amazing soundtrack for the Equalizer, so Compton must have gotten him back onboard for this one.
I digagee about the harsh lighting. In the age of very evenly lit, beige Star Trek, I felt that the lighting was one of the most distinctive characteristics of B5 that set it apart. For what it’s worth, that lighting remained in place for much of Season 1 and shows up in later episodes as well.
The biggest missed opportunity was losing the plot thread where Laurel Takashima would have been the one to shoot Garibaldi in the back, rather than his barely seen “second”. That would have been a shocker.
I quite liked the Copeland score, but it sounded like a lot of other stuff from the era.
Franke’s music was a huge part of what made B5 unique (and was sorely missed on Crusade).
Takeshima shooting Garibaldi would have been so much better. They could have shifted her to recurring antagonist. On the flip side we’d have lost Ivanova in that timeline.
@@Phintasmo Or get Ivanova in Season 2.
That’d work! Although it might be a bit much to replace both captain and first officer all at once. Maybe in that timeline Sinclair sticks around.
@@Phintasmo it’s possible Ivanova might have been on the bridge, a la Corwin and stepped into a higher rank once Takashima was caught. That could have taken another whole season.
@Phintasmo Given what was going on with O'Hare that wouldn't have been likely.
I watched the show on Tubi & the madlads at the streaming site decided to put the special edition version at the end of the series. So after the massive cliff-hanger that is series 1s ending you get the silly pilot. I was kinda exited for it I knew it was the pilot about halway through & thought it made some mysteries better & I wish I had just skipped it because its not really important & anytime something from it pops up they have a flashback to ensure you know whats happening.
I've always really liked B5's dark and smoky look. As a kid, it looked a lot cooler and edgier than Star Trek's sets, and as an adult I still think it gives it an interesting visual identity.
I believe the original pilot is only available on VHS & Laserdisc. By the time of DVD, the special edition was made and supplanted the original. I don't know that I've ever really revisited it, if saw it in its original form to begin with. And while maybe the heavily moody lighting schemes on the pilot were maybe a bit much, I do think the first season could've benefited from a bit more shadow and inventive camera work. The show proper starts off a bit uneven in its cinematography choices and how they lit some of the lower budget sets. By season two, I think they found better ways to photograph the sets they had. Not to the drudge up any DS9 comparisons, but that show definitely found a darker, more distinctive visual style apart from its Trek brethren. B5 didn't have the money for as many elaborate setups or intricate lighting designs, but a little tweak here and there to things could've added a bit more a visual tone to many aspects of early B5.
Watching The Gathering is tough because all the makeup is a bit more angular and a bit more extreme, in cases. I know Londo's wig was a constant influx thing, but it's all just a little bit too much of a prototype here. The other changed bit is that Delenn was originally meant to be male and transform into female through her cocoon gestation, but JMS couldn't pitch Mira's voice down or do anything cost effective to make that work with the makeup. Thus, they went in another direction for Delenn instead.
Anyway, good video! I hope you gain subscribers quick!
Thanks so much!
Hoping to put out another B5 one next week, then after that a little feature on a sci-fi show I think more people should watch.
Nope, the original version was released on DVD back in the early-days, and I still have it. While Copeland's music was totally different to Franke's later-and-better-for-the-story score, I still love Copeland's music, and the pilot itself, given the time when it was released. Although these days, it's probably better to just let the original edit of the pilot fade into obscurity.
What I liked, even in the pilot, was the sense of working consistent rules in space. Combat wasnt the nothing blips of star wars, or the shield and shake of star trek. It had structure for capital ships, and dangerous quick death for light craft. The main weapons could be intercepted, but also spammed. Higher tech weapons are devastating but take entire capital ships to power. And can still be screened by intervening craft. Well at least until it started adding the god weapons to the formula and the end of season 4 civil war all of a sudden speeding up fight exchanges to look like star wars.
He wasn’t particularly thrilled by the original edit, so he reedited it himself adding footage that had been cut and put in a new soundtrack for a TNT debut.
I've got it on DVD. Unfortunately, I watched it after watching and becoming a fan of the series...and I agree with JMS.
Ironically Richard Compton started out his career as an actor on the Star Trek TOS episode the Doomsday Machine.
New to your channel; love it!
Things I dud like about the station, the rooms and living quarters were pretty small. And there were the best quarters on the station. It showed that space was at a premium, especially personal space. And a lot of it was dark, power was not limitless. All very unlike ST:TNG
JMS was to hard on it. I remember watching it when it aired and I was hooked.
I love B5 as much as I love DS9. I love the ways they're similar but more importantly I love the ways they're different.The biggest issue I have with the pilot is the makeup, it is beyond awful. It's so distracting that it makes it hard to focus on the story, luckily they got that fix for the regular episodes. The only other issue I have with the pilot is with the doctor and first officer which like the makeup they fixed for the regular episodes.
I have the whole series on iTunes and I don't think I've ever watch the pilot in all the years I've had it. I love the TV movies, except for maybe Thirdspace, but TS is still nowhere near as bad as the pilot.
I'm hoping the reboot is at least as good the original but like the Battlestar reboot, I'm hoping that it's even better. I'm so happy that JMS has the same role as with the original, being both writer and producer. If he wasn't involved I wouldn't even be thinking about watching it let alone being excited about it.
I thought the doctor and first officer were alright but we got a definite upgrade with their replacements.
JMS knows what he’s doing - he definitely has something good planned for the reboot!
On its initial broadcast, I couldn't watch all of the Babylon 5 pilot movie. Also missed most of the first 2 seasons. When I later saw the whole pilot movie, I wondered how the hell it ever got picked up. This explains some of the bad.
Originally, I dropped out of the show in S1. Then, when S4 was wrapping up, I dipped back into it and was like "WHOA! WTF happened here?! When did it get good?!"
To all three questions at the end. Yes, yes, and yeah. When I was a kid I collected lots of sci-fi on VHS recordings off the air. And B5 was the more realistic version of the future than Trek. Love Trek and star wars too, but shows like B5, seaQuest and a couple others seemed more likely. Trek would have you believe there are thousands of intelligent races in the galaxy, So does star wars, but B5s numbered at most a hundred or so. When we learned about the first ones and the more fantasy elements of the show it still sounds more plausible. It just stinks that JMS has had so many challenges and resistance to an incredible idea for how humans could end up running the galaxy in a couple hundred years. I've always classified it with Mass Effect and Star Trek because the story of humanity being necessary and important in galactic affairs is a universal one in all three handled differently. Something to appreciate in almost all sci-fi!
@4:01 isn't cringe at all once you find out that Lyta Alexander is a telepath.
I just hope JMS would not make a remake of B5. "Don't fix what isn't broken".
Space Ape Man should have been a regular!
JMS was also behind the conceptual development of some (most ?) of one of my favorite (yet little known) 80's US animation series called Spiral Zone .
The "team good guys" on that show were very reminiscent of the "international" make up of the classic Star Trek series (for those of you who continue to claim that only Star Trek / Paramount took stuff from JMS to create DS9) .
Anyway, after the pilot episode of Spiral Zone, JMS walked away from that series -- with again claiming that too many changes were made to it .
Considering this video, this might be a reoccurring theme of drama queening it .
The show Spiral Zone show btw (well some episodes) deliver far deeper stories than the "work that JMS is proud of" , such as his stuff on He-Man, or Captain Power .
Some fans worship him . I can understand why . B5 is pretty good (except the last season) .
But the dude is ... weird .
He’s very rigid and doesn’t react well to his vision being tinkered with.
Apparently directors and actors on B5 needed his approval to change even one word of the script (and he nearly always said no).
I just looked up Spiral Zone as I’d never heard of it!
He took his name off the project and used a pseudonym for his script on episode 4.
Babylon 5 is so awesome.
The thing about sci-fi in the 70s 80s and early to mid 90s is that, if a show was even remotely watchable, you watched it because there was very little choice and even a good show would have an 80% chance of being cancelled within the first season. So, you supported everything and anything in the hopes you would get one show to stick around long enough to find its footing and become better in season 2 or 3. Today, there's tons of choice out there for sci-fi/fantasy so you can be a little choosey, but not back then.
I remember that the pilot was OK but promising. So I kept on watching (whenever I could, since, another aspect of sci-fi is that it played at random times).
I have memories of never being able to figure out when Farscape was airing.
I liked the pilot quite a bit. The rock score gave a different feel to the whole thing, distinct from the typical grandiose orchestral score.
Huge Star trek fan but I always loved this compared to DS9, Yes it got better as the seasons unfolded, But the Twist about Talia was jawdropping everyone was talking about it in School the next day. DS9 never managed to create that level of shock, It shows how underused Walter Koenig was in Star trek it was like a different actor playing Bester. The entire dynamic of the show changed when he appeared. He knew exactly what he was doing
and clearly loving every second. The difference in budget was staggering that was the main issue, the CGI was bad, but the stories are more relevant today than back in the 90's.
I always quite liked the pilot, and actually preferred the 'cyberpunk guitar' over the closing credits.
It’s pretty good, it Christopher Franke’s music was a huge part of what made B5 so memorable
I saw it. I remember the juxtaposition of Babylon 5 vs DS9. I will put it this way and betray my age. In 8th grade I saw this pilot and said I want this series. As a black kid and Star Trek fan k hung on to DS9 and B5 through high school. In college, it was all about B5.
I have seen both versions of The Gathering. (I have the original TV version lying around here on VHS somewhere.) The original version has some good elements which are gone in the special edition, and there are distinct improvements in the special edition over the original. As an example of from the original which I miss is the introduction. The music over which Londo voices his "I was there at the dawn of the Third Age of Mankind..." is better than Franke's score in the updated version. Additionally, the lack of Kosh's voice in the original version when he is poisoned is an improvement. There is no reason to add "Entil'zha Valen" to the dialogue - in fact, IMO, it spoils a major plot point down the road. Additionally, by showing an animated arm rather than Lyta's own arm in that scene, it hints more at Kosh's true appearance, which is better kept under wraps until Kosh emerges for all to see at the end of Season 2.
So there are definitely aspects of the original pilot which are better than JMS' updated version, but, overall, the second version does outclass the first in terms of the lack of the alien zoo, the better line delivery by the cast, and the updated CGI.
I loved every single episode of this show, plus all the spinoffs.
I could probably count the episodes I don’t like on one hand - but the Legend of the Rangers movie is near unwatchable it’s so bad!
My question is: when introducing someone new to the show, do you start with the pilot or jump right into episode 1?
I didn’t make my wife watch The Gathering. Although there are some allusions to it in Season 1, I figured that those were explained well enough without the pilot. She was already cringing at the Centauri hairstyles. I was afraid that the pilot would put her off the show entirely. She ended up loving the whole series!
I’d be inclined to jump to episode one - the pilot isn’t fully baked version of what B5 would be.
JMS said ‘In the Beginning’ was partly intended as an entry point for new watchers.
It kind of spoils some of the early mysteries, but he reckoned it still works in a ‘audience knows more than the characters’ way.
I didn't see the pilot until after I saw the first season. All I could think at the time was "D'lenn looks like a wicked witch with that chin and nose". The makeup was really bad. I also wondered about all the cast changes.
The makeup was definitely improved after the pilot. It all seemed more harsh and angular in The Gathering.
I think some of the things JMS hated are dumb. I think the "moody" lighting of the pilot makes it look more expensive and considered. Would have contributed to the tone for stuff with the psicorp, or would have made Sheridan's meeting on Z'ha'dum not look like a Sears catalog. I think it also needed a look that separated it from Star Trek. BSG for example did this with the handheld stuff. I think the more "sterile" cinematography really made the sets look cheap. In contrast with the makeup which I thought was always excellent it really made the show feel like a "wannabe" star trek rather than its own thing.
They should have kept the smoke. There’s some shots of the larger station sets later in the series that look lifeless.
I like The Gathering now, but when I first saw it - some 20 years ago now - I remember thinking "my god, this is really bad". This was partly to do with the alien prosthetics looking much worse, but also that the character personalities of Delenn and G'Kar were completely different, the plot was a mismatch to the setting, and the Vorlons just another alien race, not really all that mysterious. But I have come to like it all the same, warts and all.
It is understandable and when I go to rewatch I tend to skip over the pilot if I am being truthful.
My bluray boxset preorder is released in a week and a half. I can't wait as I've never seen the series. At the time I ess in my mid teens and just dismissed the show as cheap and juvenile compared to Star Trek, but in the years since all I have heard is positive things. It sounds like it is the sort ot show that maybe does suck a bit when you dip in to random episodes on TV but if you dedicate yourself to it and watch in order is one of the best. Hope I enjoy it 🤞
It’s a special show. It rewards the viewer who pays attention and nearly everything pays off beautifully. It was made on a fraction of DS9’s budget but I think that made them try all the harder to make up for it elsewhere.
It is funny, how the creator's see much problems and flaws in their creation, that fans and other people cannot see....
Unless they are looking for it...
We are often our own worst critics.
I really wanted to see Babylon 5 because of the Commodore Amiga doing all the CGI, but despite the best efforts of The Gathering being so goddamned AWFUL, it didn't put me off watching the rest of the show, and I loved the show in the end. Just not The Gathering. Never.
You failed to mention one of the studios he went to was Paramount about five years before DS9 aired and they told him they weren’t interested but paid attention to his pitch which explains why DS9 is so similar to Babylon 5 is because Paramount ripped him off.
JMS is bitter to this day he dropped his lawsuit against Paramount because he simply couldn’t afford to fight them.
Perhaps that’ll be a story for another day…
The pilot wasnt perfect, and I get why JMS was a bit hard on it - especially if he had a specific vision and the director and studio kept trying to change that. In my opinion he was being a bit hard on the pilot, more than it deserved for the most part (some things like the alien sector in the first version was ridiculous) but maybe I would feel like that too if I kept having people run me around when they kept making changes to my show I didnt like.
With that said i liked it and feel like it worked well as an opening for the show.
I think it is unfortunate we don't see the first officer again, I liked her personally, but we did get Ivoniva, which I can't imagine the show without. I also liked Lyta but we got her back eventually.
Agreed. And JMS could have ignored the pilot movie once it went to series, but its events are mentioned quite frequently in season 1. He must have had some regard for the story it told.
I loved that flat bat rifle the pilot had. What happened to that?
The "Surf Board' PPG is what I called it. It was replaced with normal looking rifles. Sadly lol.
I think probably he’s like someone who didn’t get everything they wanted at their wedding. The guests liked it, but he can only see how it fails to live up to his vision.
I've never seen a really good pilot episode for any series. All pilots suffer from their not having all the kinks worked out and most of the acting is usually stiff due to the actors not really understanding their characters. That being said, if a pilot sells the show to series, it has done what it was supposed to do. I saw both the original 1993 version and the TNT special edition of "The Gathering." The special edition version is the better one; especially since the updated version changes Londo's beginning narration so he no longer says Sinclair was Babylon 5's last commander and it cuts out all the little scenes showing hokey Star Wars cantina style aliens.
There are some neat little tweaks in the Special Edition that help it fit better with the series as it actually unfolded.
I like some of the deleted scenes they put back in - like Sinclair confronting the smuggler at customs - but I can see why a lot of these were taken out for pacing reasons.
I always wondered why Tamlyn Tomita's performance was so bad and unconvincing. I always thought it was her lack of acting skill instead of the direction. The "stronger" take proves otherwise and would have been a million times better.
Yeah, I’ve seen her act much better in other productions. Because of this pilot I spent years thinking she was a bad actress.
B5 is maybe my favourite sci-fi of all time.
I have NEVER watched The Gathering, and probably never will😂
It’s worth a watch! Just keep your expectations most.
The pilot was....not great, but as a kid I watched it and it was very ahead of its time, so i enjoyed it. You could see what JMS was going for and there's little hints in there of the future, Like when kosh meets "Sinclair" he says Entilza Valen. Which comes back to describe Sinclair in season 3. I doubt that was there accidently.
The Entilza Valen line was a neat little addition for the special edition. It really helped me get my head around why Kosh would step out of his encounter suit.
There's one right in the opening line: "I was there at the dawn of the 3rd age of Mankind." After the Shadows are defeated, Sheridan said that we were entering a third age.
Impossible to find it streaming now in the proper 4:3 format!
JMS had a gem and the Holywood types kept fighting him to keep it from showing, once they backed of it was the great show all us lurkers was waiting for. Now if Disney would step back from all the stuff they ruined. That trash heap is covering epcot now.
I think B5 could be even better today now that audiences are conditioned to expect it’s kind of story telling. Roll on the reboot! (I hope it actually happens)
@@Phintasmo I recently finished my first watch-through of B5, and I loved it! However, I see absolutely NO value in a reboot as it would be a pale imitation of the original, especially if it was made nowadays given the current culture and incompetent activist writers.