Babylon 5

[Lord Varys]

It is really sad, though, to think who is dead already there - O'Hare, Katsulas, Conaway, Doyle, Biggs, and now Furlan, too. And I guess I forgot somebody.

Edit: Yes, Stephen Furst is dead, too.

Edited February 10, 2021 by Lord Varys

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Hi, I’m dead wrong, how are you.  

[Ran]

I remarked on Furlan's passing that of the first five or six people in the S1 credits, only one (Claudia Christian) was still alive. Pretty sobering. As I said then, the cast seems particularly cursed. Coincidence, of course, but... I can't think of another multi-season series that had so many performers pass away well before a ripe old age. By contrast, Star Trek was filled with Methuselahs. 

 

[Lord Varys]

52 minutes ago, Ran said:

I remarked on Furlan's passing that of the first five or six people in the S1 credits, only one (Claudia Christian) was still alive. Pretty sobering. As I said then, the cast seems particularly cursed. Coincidence, of course, but... I can't think of another multi-season series that had so many performers pass away well before a ripe old age. By contrast, Star Trek was filled with Methuselahs.

Well, it was basically sickness and complications from chronic illnesses.

Kind of sad, though, that the actors of a show which actually focused quite a lot on addiction, alcoholism, and drug abuse had so many actors die from complications with that  - from what I gather both Conaway and Doyle died as early as they did because of that.

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

I remarked on Furlan's passing that of the first five or six people in the S1 credits, only one (Claudia Christian) was still alive. Pretty sobering. As I said then, the cast seems particularly cursed. Coincidence, of course, but... I can't think of another multi-season series that had so many performers pass away well before a ripe old age. By contrast, Star Trek was filled with Methuselahs. 

From TOS, Chekov, Kirk, Sulu and Uhura are still with us (although Nichelle Nichols has been quite ill for some time and Walter Koenig seems to have been ill quite a lot recently), which is remarkable. William Shatner was on the news just a few days ago and looks remarkably well for almost 90 (he looks younger than Patrick Stewart, who is nine years younger than him). From TNG and Voyager, the entire casts are still with us. DS9 has lost Nog and Odo though.

 

 

[SpaceChampion]

A few years old, but interview with Walter Koenig discussing meeting JMS and doing the Bester role.

That channel has several videos with Mumy and JMS.

 

JMS on O'Hare's illness:

 

Edited February 16, 2021 by SpaceChampion

[SpaceChampion]

Youtube keeps bubbling up B5-related videos.  Here's one with Michael O'Hare speaking at a London convention in 1995.  I think the Babcom convention.

He's quite funny!

 

[Ran]

Very curious.

Adam Leibowitz (aka MOJO) says he'd be up to talking to JMS about whatever this is, though he thinks all the old models would need to be redone from scratch. OTOH, the composition and shot design and so on info embedded in scene files would still be of use, and really the way things were choreographed were a major part of why B5's space combat scenes still stand up.

[felice]

23 minutes ago, Ran said:

Adam Leibowitz (aka MOJO) says he'd be up to talking to JMS about whatever this is, though he thinks all the old models would need to be redone from scratch.

Depends what the goal is. If you want everything to look as realistic as modern CGI, sure. But re-rendering the original CGI in HD to match the resolution of the live action film would also be a valid choice.

[Ran]

4 minutes ago, felice said:

Depends what the goal is. If you want everything to look as realistic as modern CGI, sure. But re-rendering the original CGI in HD to match the resolution of the live action film would also be a valid choice.

Someone did note to Mojo that they re-did a number of key models for the B5 film anthology The Lost Tales (the station, Starfuries, Centauri battle cruisers and fighters, Narn cruisers, Minbari cruiser, Earth Alliance destroyers) which could probably be used for whatever he has in mind. To be honest, it's the scene files that really matter most, just to get the camera and object movement right....

Although looking at MOJO's thread, another person thinks it may be JMS trying to get models to render for print as part of some sort of massive illustrated B5 guide book.

[Werthead]

4 hours ago, felice said:

Depends what the goal is. If you want everything to look as realistic as modern CGI, sure. But re-rendering the original CGI in HD to match the resolution of the live action film would also be a valid choice.

Tom Smith's been doing exactly that for the last few months. The results are outstanding. There are a few areas where the textures show their age - the close-ups of B5's hull where the guns are firing you can see individual squares of the texturing at the edges of the screen - but for the most part the results are very impressive. B5's CG was massively over-engineered for the time and they used cutting-edges tricks to make it all work.

Ideally you'd update the models and re-render everything, but Smith's approaching - taking the original models and scene files and re-rendering them in 1080p in widescreen - still makes the visuals look fifty times better than WB's scheme of up-resing the 1990s CGI (which sometimes looks okay and often looks blurry or smeared).

The limitations with that are that apparently the scene files only exist for Seasons 2 and 3, and not all of them, but all the models from Seasons 1-3 have survived. The problem is that apparently none of the scene files and only a few models from Seasons 4-5 have survived, and those models definitely need updating; Netter Digital were really shockingly awful at spacecraft design and much weaker at scene composition compared to Foundation Imaging. ND also used some very iffy shortcuts that FI would never have thought about in a million years to cheaply deliver shots fast. Because of all that, Seasons 4-5 and the TV movies would need to be rebuilt from scratch.

An even bigger headache is that absolutely none of this helps the composites, which are still the biggest obstacle in getting a proper HD version of the show, as you'd need the raw greenscreen footage from Warner Brothers from way way back in the day.

[felice]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

Tom Smith's been doing exactly that for the last few months. The results are outstanding.

Indeed; I'd be perfectly happy with that quality on a blu-ray release. I suspect younger viewers would still consider it primitive compared to modern fare, though. It's a question of whether the extra cost of redoing models and textures would pay off in attracting new viewers.

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

WB's scheme of up-resing the 1990s CGI (which sometimes looks okay and often looks blurry or smeared).

Even that is still a big improvement over the cropped and zoomed widescreen versions, though.

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

The limitations with that are that apparently the scene files only exist for Seasons 2 and 3, and not all of them, but all the models from Seasons 1-3 have survived. The problem is that apparently none of the scene files and only a few models from Seasons 4-5 have survived

Hopefully more files than currently known are still in existence and will be uncovered if a full scale remastering does go ahead. Not that long ago we didn't know any files still existed.

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

An even bigger headache is that absolutely none of this helps the composites, which are still the biggest obstacle in getting a proper HD version of the show, as you'd need the raw greenscreen footage from Warner Brothers from way way back in the day.

Well it does help, it's just not sufficient. Fingers crossed the raw footage does still exist and they're willing to go to the expense of finding and scanning it!

[Ran]

JMS has been recording live commentaries for B5  for patrons, and has decided to release a selection over time. First up, his commentary on "Parliament of Dreams" (with the intention that you'll watch along on your own copy of the episode):

 

[Ran]

JMS reported yesterday that John Iacovelli, the production designer on Babylon 5, passed away due to cancer. He was only 64. The LA Times has a long obit.

Edited April 16, 2023 by Ran

[Cas Stark]

You guys probably already know this, but B5 is now on Tubi.  

[drawkcabi]

This is...majestic!

Paso Leati...the Lion can still roar...