Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;1126659At first I assumed the war between the humans and the not-vulcans ended like 100 years ago or so.....Maybe even 30....But 10??  10 years for everybody to be hunky dory after a war of planned genocide??

Not everything is hunky dory, there are militants and reactionaries on both sides, and the change in attitude from the Minbari is explained once a major reveal takes place later in the series.

I won't deny that the first season is rough, particularly now when most of the things that Babylon 5 pioneered are taken for granted (extensive arc plots and foreshadowing, CGI on a television budget, realistic spaceship physics). At the time, it was a huge breath of fresh air, and I thought it did a lot of things right that Star Trek: The Next Generation was doing wrong. Also, pretty much every episode of the first season sets up something that will pay off later on in the show. There are definitely some bad storylines in there, though (My personal vote for Worst Episode is Believers, S01E10).

One the payoffs start landing in Seasons 2 and 3, though, it is very rewarding.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1126662I like Babylon 5, but I remember that episode and I didn't much like that par. I thought to myself the lack of diversity among the alien cultures was more a failing of the writers imagination than any kind of real world analogy. Why would't the aliens have 1000 different cultures and religions?

Alien societies tend to be monocultures because it makes for expedient storytelling. It is much simpler to establish that "Alien Race X is like this" because then you just have to show someone in the makeup and all of that background is instantly established.

It's the same reason why planets in science fiction seem to have only one type of climate and terrain, and you can get away with things like "it is night on Minbar."

The B5 episode you are quoting is playing against the aliens-are-monocultures trope and acknowledging it. Also, the "yay, diversity" stuff wasn't nearly as obnoxious then as it is now.

Quote from: Lurkndog;1126717Alien societies tend to be monocultures because it makes for expedient storytelling. It is much simpler to establish that "Alien Race X is like this" because then you just have to show someone in the makeup and all of that background is instantly established.

It's the same reason why planets in science fiction seem to have only one type of climate and terrain, and you can get away with things like "it is night on Minbar."

The B5 episode you are quoting is playing against the aliens-are-monocultures trope and acknowledging it. Also, the "yay, diversity" stuff wasn't nearly as obnoxious then as it is now.

I know. But that last scene, as I said, just made me wonder about the writers themselves instead of the story.

Quote from: Spike;1125674I've been seeing comments for years that Star Wars was creatively bankrupt (meaning that there is literally no more stories to be told in Star Wars), and I saw a Youtube video title (not hte video... it didn't appeal) stating that Marvel and Disney are 'panicking' about their future prospects.

All of that is absolutely hysterical to me.   I pointed out when teh Last Jedi was coming out, here on this very forum, that any decent writer could take the shit-pile that is and build an enjoyable movie out of it. Captain Marvel doesn't sink the entire MCU, the JJ Abrams debacle(s) of Star Wars (and Trek...) don't destroy the future films in any way.  While we can all appreciate the monumental acheivement of the MCU's build up to Infinity War (and its subsequent wet fart (if enjoyable for all that...) of Endgame), all movies fundamentally stand on their own, for good or ill.  The buildup to Endgame is impressive, but the film itself had to stand on its own merits, and it did.  Endgame didn't stand on its own merits, and was the inferior film for it.  

The prime example of this is The Mandalorian. If shit writing in The Last Jedi doomed the future of Star Wars as a franchise then the Mandalorian would have been DOA. Ironically, I found the Mandalorian to be medicocre, at least in writing (Props to Pedro Pascal for his acting, btw...), but was elevated to greatness simply by the monumental failures it was being compared to.

I don't have a lot of hope about course correcting, because the same forces that created this mess are still present. Shuffling around the nepotistic inheritors of great properties and the utterly creative voids of the executives controlling the money will not do much.  The endemic disdain for their audience (customers...) will be a lot harder to purge than simply shutting up about culture war stuff (see also Brie Larson's sudden discovery of Cleavage vs her Nissan Commercial. Clearly she got the message, but her view of the world is so warped that her 'correction' was ineffectual and hollow)


EDIT:: Correction, when I refer to The Last Jedi, I mean Rise of Skywalker...  Humble-brag: I predicted when I left the theater after The Force Awakens what a shit-show this Disney-wars would be and haven't watched ANYTHING Star Wars since, until the first three Eps of Mandalorian, so I get confused regarding the names.  

Further insight: Its hard to imagine Kathy would do a worse job running the franchise if she set out to destroy it as a property from teh very beginning, honestly.  I'm reminded for the umpteenth time that she fired directors from Solo who went on to win multiple awards for Into the Spiderverse, Solo of course being the single worst performing film in the franchise (only catagorical failure, or something like that?).  Hanlon's Razor suggests its not deliberate, but man that's a bad look...

The problem with Star Wars is, the canon IP is strangling the brand.  The suits are so stupid that they won't allow anything that isn't related directly to the characters in the movies and the movie plots.  There's an entire galaxy of planets to tell stories on, they just have to think of Star Wars as a general sci-fi setting instead of a way to squeeze more blood from the corpses of the movie characters.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1126669Good luck with that idea. The Minbari were a thousand years more advanced than earth.

And they greet other unknown beings with open gunports in a sign of peace while ferrying around their most important leaders ever (implicitly not being isolationist). And it took humans like 10 years to create a brainbooster with the power to create Psionic gods. I assume the mamajamas discovered it as well but use it as a type of luxury floorwax.

There is too much plot contrivance juice for my liking. Reminds me of the conflicts in voyager and how they are solved primarily with the writer deciding the issue is resolved. Does the amount of contrivance plot juice go down later? If yes il give it another shot.

Quote from: Lurkndog;1126717Alien societies tend to be monocultures because it makes for expedient storytelling.

That doesn't bother me because the way I see it, the more alien a species the more difficult it will be for us to determine sub-variations.

To aliens perhaps WE would be seen a monoculture 'Oh those are the sex obsessed aliens right? Their gimmick is banging everything?'

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;1126750And they greet other unknown beings with open gunports in a sign of peace

No, they do it as a sign of respect.

Why the Minbari as a starfaring society, even the warrior caste, wouldn't realize that culture clash would be a more accurate criticism.

QuoteThere is too much plot contrivance juice for my liking. Reminds me of the conflicts in voyager and how they are solved primarily with the writer deciding the issue is resolved. Does the amount of contrivance plot juice go down later? If yes il give it another shot.

Dunno. The writing gets better but it doesn't fundamentally change. From your comments, I wouldn't reccomend it.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1126755No, they do it as a sigWhy the Minbari as a starfaring society, even the warrior caste, wouldn't realize that culture clash would be a more accurate criticism

.

That was implied. We shoot out fireworks as a symbol of joy but if I started shooting fireworks as a greeting for tribesmen in the jungle my ass is getting sacrificed to the moon.

QuoteDunno. The writing gets better but it doesn't fundamentally change. From your comments, I wouldn't reccomend it.

Thanks for being honest. To take it back to Trek, I found DS9 have significatly the least amount of Contrivance juice of the Trek series, which is at its worst on contrivance juice. It still has some at times, and its still frustrating, but deeper impact storytelling was well valued. I just hated how they ended up treating the Ferengi and I hated the conclusion overall. The founders should have all died.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1126755Why the Minbari as a starfaring society, even the warrior caste, wouldn't realize that culture clash would be a more accurate criticism.

Considering the EA fleet was bristling with exposed guns all over the place (the Nova class is more guns than superstructure), maybe the boneheads thought that the humans were already showing theirs?

Quote from: CRKrueger;1126729The problem with Star Wars is, the canon IP is strangling the brand.  The suits are so stupid that they won't allow anything that isn't related directly to the characters in the movies and the movie plots.  There's an entire galaxy of planets to tell stories on, they just have to think of Star Wars as a general sci-fi setting instead of a way to squeeze more blood from the corpses of the movie characters.

Thats pretty much what the original animated shows and two live TV movies did by following the side characters adventures. And later the two non-clone-wars cg animated series hie off into their own thing while touching base now and then with stuff from the books or clone wars.

I think the main problem seems to be that the execs are overfocused on the "Wars" part and lose sight of the rest of the tale.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1126781Considering the EA fleet was bristling with exposed guns all over the place (the Nova class is more guns than superstructure), maybe the boneheads thought that the humans were already showing theirs?

Maybe. There's all kinds of rationalizations that sorta work. Maybe I'm just in a Trek minded way of looking at it.

Bab5 went all over the place in plot or sense and there were distinct times I felt that the writers were just making stuff up on the fly rather than some "plan".
And sometimes stuff really felt like it happened "because plot cant work if it dont".

Quote from: Omega;1126898Bab5 went all over the place in plot or sense and there were distinct times I felt that the writers were just making stuff up on the fly rather than some "plan".
And sometimes stuff really felt like it happened "because plot cant work if it dont".

Their original 5 year plan didn't survive intact. They lost actors and had to replace characters, and never really knew if they were going to get another season. In particular, they had to make an abrupt ending for the show at the end of Season 4, because the original PTEN production company went out of business, and that was going to be it for them. Then they got picked up by TNT, and got a fifth season after all, but they had already jammed a bunch of the events that were planned for the fifth season into the end of Season 4.

Plus, they had the (bad) idea that they were going to spin the Telepath War off into a theatrical film that never materialized, so instead of putting that into Season 5, they did the notoriously weak Rogue Telepath arc instead.

Would it be OK if we moved the B5 discussion to its own thread? I'd love to talk more about it, but I feel like we're stomping on the Picard discussion a bit here.

Quote from: Lurkndog;1126920Their original 5 year plan didn't survive intact. They lost actors and had to replace characters, and never really knew if they were going to get another season. In particular, they had to make an abrupt ending for the show at the end of Season 4, because the original PTEN production company went out of business, and that was going to be it for them. Then they got picked up by TNT, and got a fifth season after all, but they had already jammed a bunch of the events that were planned for the fifth season into the end of Season 4.

Plus, they had the (bad) idea that they were going to spin the Telepath War off into a theatrical film that never materialized, so instead of putting that into Season 5, they did the notoriously weak Rogue Telepath arc instead.

Would it be OK if we moved the B5 discussion to its own thread? I'd love to talk more about it, but I feel like we're stomping on the Picard discussion a bit here.

You asking me? There's only so many ways we can bash Picard until thread drift sets in. But hey, knock yourself out.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1126729The problem with Star Wars is, the canon IP is strangling the brand.  The suits are so stupid that they won't allow anything that isn't related directly to the characters in the movies and the movie plots.  There's an entire galaxy of planets to tell stories on, they just have to think of Star Wars as a general sci-fi setting instead of a way to squeeze more blood from the corpses of the movie characters.

This right here.

Hell that's my immediate *starting point* when I run my games in Star Wars. I have *zero* connection to the movies. I pick a sector, do a little research, then come up with my own sandbox and fill it with stuff I like, then make connections to elements that exist in the EU that give it meat.

I read some blurb that Viacom is in financial trouble - maybe they'll sell Star Trek to the sick Mouse. So it'll collapse in on itself and take all the franchises with it.