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Comment by Zardoz84 | Hacker News Reader

> And then there’s Babylon 5. Those effects looked a little crude, then really crude, and now… kind of weirdly cool and artistic and ahead of their time. (The show’s approach to real-physics spacecraft maneuvers and modeling came to influence later TV like the 2000s reboot of Battlestar Galactica, which also used LightWave 3D. There is even a Babylon 5 station model tucked into an early scene in the escaping fleet.)

There is one of the original 3d artists of Babylon 5 that re-rendered some of the original assets and scenes at high res... Simply looks awesome TODAY. The 3d art of Babylon 5 was limited by the output medium.

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Not sure if I would agree on the awesome, but here's the link for everyone to judge: https://youtu.be/rf0ka2xJF94

Reminds me of an old book I had about 3d modelling, that was showing some pictures of various things like an underwater scene, a space satellite or rocket and more.

I think the author of the book I have in mind was using form·Z

Tried to find the book online, but I don’t have the book here so it’s difficult to remember exactly.

Here are some books with similar level of detail in their cover art to the detail of that video and to the book I am thinking of.

It’s neat in its own way.

https://www.amazon.com/Into-3D-form-Z-Lachmi-Khemlani/dp/007...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inside-Form-Z-Eden-Muir/dp/15669018...

http://ftp.formz.com/support/books/Kenth_Agurell_4_0.html

It's the textures that really let it down, i think. The solar panel (?) texture in the very first shot is a perfect example. Looked fine at SDTV resolution, but in high-res, you can see it's just flat blocks of colour, and it loses all realism.

Most of the geometry is pretty good. A bit too regular and pristine, could use some tiny variation and some light greebling.

I recently tried to re-watch B5. I was a huge fan when it came out.

I managed to get to early season 2 before I couldn't take the cringe any more. Sometimes it's best to leave things in the past. That being said, a complete re-boot like they did for BG could work.

I've rewatched it twice, and season two is where it seriously picks up. You do need to be able to look past very dated effects and decor and some dated storytelling devices, but to me that adds to the charm. Incidentally some of that dated story telling is what makes season 1 slow - there's a lot of set-up going on, both in terms of setting and characters while they'd have benefit from just jumping straight in and filling those bits in along the way.

In terms of telling a coherent story throughout multiple seasons, it was remarkable at the time, and so compared with most series of the era it stands up far better despite the dated effects.

If they do a reboot, I hope they really does it justice and changes the stories enough that it can stand on its own. A straight remake would be a waste.

To me, The Expanse was the equivalent of a reboot of B5. Interstellar politics, realistic physics, and multi-season plot arches made it a really dramatic, yet geeky show in the same vein as B5.

If there is to be a reboot of B5 I feel it would take off from where The Expanse finished rather than where B5 ended over 25 years ago.

I loved The Expanse, but the setting is very different, and I'd feel cheated if I was promised a B5 reboot and got The Expanse. So much of B5 comes down to the very alien conflicts and unfolding of the time loop.

In terms of continuation I might prefer a continuation of The Expanse over a continuation of B5 - because of the time loop, the B5 story is very closed and complete in a way that means I feel if you were to do anything else in that universe without it getting tedious you need to do something entirely different that'd pretty much need to be its own thing. But where The Expanse TV series ended they had pretty much just started a new story.

> realistic physics

It was a while ago, but a lot of the action tension in the first couple of seasons seemed to rely on things like, "We are leaving [jupiter moon], we are in a rush! Adrenaline is high!... We are arriving at [Mars Moon] 30 seconds later, nothing has changed!". And suspense of "Earth is launching missiles now, oh-no they are about to hit us so we must dodge them!".

It paid lip-service to being "Realistic" physics, but it was just a thin veneer. (Completely fine with "alien physics"/"drive physics" because that is in the story construction. It's everything else, that goes out the window instantly).

I'd love to see where you've seen examples of that, because the The Expanse books are very careful to keep their eye on distances and travel times. The show seemed to follow that as well.

Having written two (self published) novels so far that tries to get it right, I know I've made stupid mistakes, and it's really hard to get it right without seriously limiting the story, or just hard to get it right full stop. So frankly I'm impressed how well The Expanse TV series did, though they certainly took liberties. They at least seemed to mostly try even when it wasn't important from a plot point of view, but then also used it for better effect as part of the plot.

B5 was much more relaxed about that, with JMS explicitly saying in the context of B5 that ships "travel at the speed of plot" [1][2], and with ostensibly having the station rotate for perceived gravity but leaving C&C near the middle where it'd have near zero g, nor did they make the view out their window rotate (pet peeve: should have been a viewscreen, and C&C should be nowhere near the hull; those things are also very much plot driven).

For B5 I'd agree they paid lip service to it. For The Expanse I feel it goes at least a bit deeper. I feel like they come at it from different sides: B5 ignores realism beyond the very superficial (e.g. the station rotating) for the most part except when necessary for the plot, while The Expanse tries to remain realistic except when deviating was necessary for the plot. Note: Realistic not accurate, and I do think there's big gap between what is realistic to an average audience, even if asked to pick out holes, and what is accurate.

[1] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TravelingAtTheSp...

[2] https://www.patreon.com/posts/57948595 "HOW FAST DO WHITE STARS TRAVEL? They travel at the speed of plot."

The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5 has lots of bits from JMS who responded personally to a bunch of stuff on .. GE.NIE ? and USENET.. during B5 production.

http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/

Season 1 was closer to tradition SciFi TV of the time (think of the Star Trek Next Gen.) Each episode is fully self contained and there is little in last weeks episode that you need to know to understand this weeks. There is a tiny bit of story moving from episode to episode (basically the Sheridan/Minbari/Battle of the Line bits and pieces), but mostly it is 22 episide of setup.

Seasons 2-4 move away from that construction to a fully searial story. its 90's TV so there still need to be a definite episode arc in most of the stories, so you still have pointless digressions like Garibaldi getting stuck in Grey 17, but the Shadow/Vorlon war takes over the bulk of the story telling followed by the Earther war.

Season 5 seems more like they did well on the previous seasons so while it was intended to end with season 4, they kept going but without a larger story to propel it.

I think it was originally planned for five series, but then they thought that they were going to get cancelled after the fourth series so they squeezed the planned plot arc in to conclude the end of the fourth instead.

JMS called them 'wham episodes', there are only a few in Season one - a sky full of stars, Signs and Portents, and *Chrysalis, more in season 2..

I believe they weren't sure that Season 5 would happen, so the Shadow War/Earther war was ended earlier in Season 4.

JMS apologized for the 'Grey 17 is Missing' episode. :)

"Babluon 5: The Road Home" just premiered at San Diego Comic Con. Trailer shows off the animation and style pretty well: https://youtu.be/Z54XNJivHOs

Zero-content dig at a great show, thanks. I do remember the graphics being poor until they fixed the lighting in S2, however.

I mean, the story really only starts in season 2. Most everyone agrees that you’re better off skipping most of season 1 except for five or so pivotal episodes and a few others that are quite important wrt character development.

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