Babylon 5 (reboot movie)
 

Babylon 5 reboot likely to become big-budget film:

"According to a report from TV Wise, Babylon 5 showrunner J. Michael Straczynski will
shortly begin work on a rebooted big-screen version of his 1990s sci-fi TV series.
Straczynski made the announcement at San Diego Comic-Con last week."


"According to JMS’s latest announcement, the new script will be targeted at a
2016 theatrical release and will be a reboot of the series rather than a
continuation. This is necessary for both dramatic and practical purposes—the
series was in regular production from 1994-1998, and the cast has simply aged
too far to credibly play themselves again during the series’ main timeline.
Additionally, several of the foundational cast members—Michael O’Hare, Andreas
Katsulas, Richard Biggs, and Jeff Conaway—have passed away.

However, JMS reportedly said he would attempt to use the original cast members
in whatever ways he could, including potentially having series anchor Bruce
Boxleitner play the president of the Earth Alliance (though as B5 fans know,
exactly which president JMS is talking about would have a tremendous impact on
Boxleitner’s role)."

See:

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/...-budget-movie/



http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-conten...14/08/b5lt.jpg

The dawn of the third age of mankind....

Sheldon isnt going to happy by this :p

I dont remember anything about Babylon 5 I think I watched it

Oh YEAH!
Babylon 5 was an excellent TV show for the 90s.
I enjoyed it very much and am looking forward to this. :)

It will depend on how they will reboot it. Currently as it is the show is for the 90's.

They are correct, they can't restart it were they left off. Too many of the cast are dead, and the actors having aged almost to the point were they can't pull off their characters anymore. We are only two years away from the point were it would be 20 years since the start of season 4 (November 1996) and a year or so past the events surrounding the predicted ending story of Lando and G'Kar (though Andreas
Katsulas is already dead).

Not sure how they would pull it off.

I'm very on the fence about this but leaning towards optimism now.

Con: It's a reboot
Pro: JMS is behind this
Con: It's a movie and not a TV show (low running time to flesh out characters)
Pro: The CGI won't be made in Amigas :heh:
Con: Warner Bros still has the rights to all TV adaptations of the franchise so they can't really continue the movie on TV if it does well
Pro: There's no major studio behind this so it should be free from corporate meddling
Con: There's no major studio behind this so JMS has to finance it out of his own pocket

Overall I don't really know what to think. The original is such a great show and had fantastic performances by the likes of Andreas Katsulas (G'Kar) and Peter Jurasik (Londo), for example, that I have a hard time seeing how they might be topped.

On the other hand the original show spent virtually all it's running seasons on the brink of cancellation so the story was always written as if there was no sequel right up to the last few episodes. That meant that there were plenty of trap doors taken to cleanup issues with stuff like non-renewals by actors and the like and the story suffered for it. Hopefully this reboot can avoid all that and give us the story that JMS really wanted to tell.

That reminds me that we really haven't had any good weekly SciFi show ever since the Battlestar Galactica remake finished and put everyone on the "realistic dark and edgy" path I don't particularly enjoy.

I still crack up at the Londo / G'Kar Elevator Scene. The Shadow War and Earth Civil war were the best arcs for me. The overall story was so well written, even with the lower budget and going against DS9, I thought it was a better overall series in the end.

This show really reminded me of the 90s, when workstations had to make the graphics of this show that can easily be eclipsed by today's desktops. I could actually have a intelligent conversation about this show in chatrooms etc.

When you say dark and gritty path that BSG went, I though B5 was dark and less optimistic vs Star Trek at the time and I enjoyed it. But I agree, I don't want B5 to go too far where BSG went. I kind of tuned out of BSG when all the civil war, politicizing, religious aspects got too much.

Jurasik and Katsulas had excellent comic timing. Half the stuff they did together was variations of comic routines just with serious subject matter. Plus they could also play serious and dark when needed.

I would say I liked Boxleitner as Captain Sheridan. A well written hero with flaws and his own pitfalls but with the skills and leadership needed to get him past the harder times that faced B5. His early experience in the Earth Mimbari war already showed he was a capable and rational commander and would be reflected in all the way as the president of the Interstellar Alliance.

Jerry Doyle's portrail of Garabaldi gave a us the no nonsense oldschool street cop on a space station. A person who's skill with being able to investigate things, handle people, and ability to command is put the test when faced with his alcoholism, problems with his ex and Bester. Its too bad they never did flush out the rest of Garabaldi's private war against Bester and the Psicorp on TV.


But Katsulas and Jurasik were really the dramatic and comedic duo of this series as you said. From the serious points to the point of them bickering like and old couple, I will miss that.

Replacing certain actors with other actors shouldn't be that hard in terms of getting the character they want out of the performance. But Lando and G'Kar...that will require a lot of talent to pull off as well as Katsulas and Jurasik. Especially the comic timing. I think it was "The Eye" were they are standing is front of an elevator with some random human and just go off on each with a slo start, then use the human to bounce things off, then go straight at it...to miss the elevator. Then "in unison" say "There see what you made me do" then walk away. With perfectly in sync hand gesters. That along with the two seasons later elevator scenes, shows these two has excellent comic timing. And that will be hard to replace.

Well this is certainly interesting.

I loved the series when it was on air, and I thought it was far better than Deep Space 9, which it was up against. The questions posed Vorlons and the Shadows, "Who are you?" and "What do you want?", along with the idea that "there are races that are millions of years older than our own" really show the deepness and maturity level of this show. It was awesome.

Also, it had the creepiest spaceship designs ever.

Endless "Daffy Duck" Soul

instead of a reboot, couldn't they just move the timeline forward? Actors currently still around can reprise older ver of their characters and actors no longer around can written out.

Then it's dead end for reboot!? Or maybe the movie just testing the waters so that WB would allow a reboot on TV.

The article I read at Ars Technica (which is a rather reputable source) claims that JMS is hopeful in convincing Warner Bros to finance the film so maybe we might get lucky.

Babylon 5 is one of the best sci-fi series I've watched though I would still lol @ the low budget back then so a real budget is good. It sure had some very interesting stories. I think it was able to do what Star Trek: DS9 (another great show that ran in the same time with it) wasn't able to do since it was free from the limitations of an existing franchise and canon.

JMS is the type that doesn't like to recycle things or drag things out so we should expect a concept to have different characters. A big issue with Babylon 5 is that it was originally meant for 5 seasons, but forced to compressed into 4 but then suddenly got extended to 5 after it was all over. Man this show sure was treated like crap and really had to overcome a lot of obstacles to get going.

They definitely need more vorlons. And somehow stick Londo in though. :p

Oh I hope they get Claudia Christian back on board. :)

This is the best news I've heard this entire week! The best TV series of all time is being rebooted!

'Babylon 5' is getting a reboot

"Some 23 years after its original run, Babylon 5 is making its way back to TV. According to
Variety, The CW has ordered a reboot of the seminal sci-fi series. What’s more, original creator
J. Michael Straczynski is attached to the project.

That’s good news because Straczynski penned 92 of the 110 episodes that make up Babylon
5. At the moment, there are relatively few details on the production, but what we do know is
that it’s being billed as a “from-the-ground-up reboot.” None of the original actors from the
series, including Bruce Boxleitner, are currently attached to the project, but that may change."

See:

https://www.engadget.com/babylon-5-r...193805568.html

I wonder if this will be animated rather than live action?