Babylon 5 was possibly the best science fiction television show ever made. The original creator, Joseph Michael Straczynski (JMS), is returning to recreate it. It is a reboot that carries over key concepts from the original series, but is not restricted by anything in the original.
Most of the original cast have unfortunately died. Those who are alive may get cameos in different roles.
It will be as close to the original as the remade Battlestar Galactica was to its original.
There was an analysis and proposal for rebooting Babylon 5 made one year ago. The special effects should match up to the Expanse.
The villains and races can be amped up.
The story twists and use of point of view characters can look to what Game of Thrones did in its first five seasons. There would be little need for the many filler episodes used in the first season.
JMS often changed characters in the original version because of problems with actors and contracts. The characters and their roles can be juggled to arrive at a fresh story with new surprises.
Characters and heroes that made it the end of the original series would not necessarily make it to the end of this series.
To answer all the questions, yes, it’s true, Babylon 5 is in active development as a series for the CW. We have some serious fans over at the network, and they’re eager to see this show happen. I’m hip deep into writing the pilot now, and will be running the series upon pickup.
— J. Michael Straczynski (@straczynski) September 27, 2021
The network understands the uniqueness of Babylon 5 and is giving me a great deal of latitude with the https://t.co/jnCj989Csd noted in the announcement, this is a reboot from the ground up rather than a continuation, for several reasons. Heraclitus wrote —
— J. Michael Straczynski (@straczynski) September 27, 2021
— “You cannot step in the same river twice, for the river has changed, and you have changed.” In the years since B5, I’ve done a ton of other TV shows and movies, adding an equal number of tools to my toolbox, all of which I can bring to bear on one singular question:
— J. Michael Straczynski (@straczynski) September 27, 2021
How can it be used to reflect the world in which we live, and the questions we are asking and confronting every day? Fans regularly point out how prescient the show was and is of our current world; it would be fun to take a shot at looking further down the road.
— J. Michael Straczynski (@straczynski) September 27, 2021
So we will not be retelling the same story in the same way because of what Heraclitus said about the river. There would be no fun and no surprises. Better to go the way of Westworld or Battlestar Galactica where you take the original elements that are evergreens and —
— J. Michael Straczynski (@straczynski) September 27, 2021
— put them in a blender with a ton of new, challenging ideas, to create something fresh yet familiar. To those asking why not just do a continuation, for a network series like this, it can’t be done because over half our cast are still stubbornly on the other side of the Rim.
— J. Michael Straczynski (@straczynski) September 27, 2021
The original Babylon 5 was ridiculously innovative: the first to use CGI to create ships and characters, and among the very first to shoot widescreen with a vigorous 5.1 mix. Most of all, for the first time, Babylon 5 introduced viewers accustomed to episodic television to —
— J. Michael Straczynski (@straczynski) September 27, 2021
— the concept of a five-year arc with a pre-planned beginning, middle and end…creating a brand new paradigm for television storytelling that has subsequently become the norm. That tradition for innovation will continue in this new iteration, and —
— J. Michael Straczynski (@straczynski) September 27, 2021
SOURCES- JMS
Written by Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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I have read a lot of books. edit: have seen maybe an hour of B5, but scattered at that. Not avoiding it, would have been at top of list if any TV was.
The "O'Neil" misspelling is so common that I have wondered where it comes from. Way too common for independent mistakes. Some sort of description of this show has it?
Top? See why I don't like it. It distracts from the overall concept of rotation supplying g, and "up" for that matter. More trivially, it should be at end(s), so you can go in and out of the main hab w/o some sort of rotovator-type device. edit: or even worse, it looks like it is supporting the hab.
JMS claims to have creative control
No doubt some executive at the CW wants in on some of that hot Picard storytelling.
Yeah that's a warning signal. I'm still scared by Babylon 5 being aired on PTEN. And Crusade being <insert awful past tense verb here> by TNT.
It won't be a slight hint.
Also how is Picard working out for you?
I believe that the "towel holder" is a zero-g docking port at the top of the station.
You've never seen the only SF show based around an O'Neill habitat?
LOL ok.
No no no no no no… no. 100.0 % of reboots are awful.
As somebody who watched each episode as it aired and owns the DVDs (even the Lost Tales)… leave well enough alone.
A modern remake will no doubt consist of a season 5 soul searching moment where a Drakh accuses Sherridan of using his Vorlon privilege.
JUST NO.
Good. More space series to watch and diss if they spoil it with too much modern sentimentalism and propaganda.
It will be a challenge to improve on the original series other than better effects but with JMS at the helm there is a chance. God help us from changing the characters to gays and transgenders to be hip. It's amazing the original show managed to get any following since they kept randomly moving it around to the most unwatchable times imaginable. At one point I remember staying up to 1AM to watch it! They may get higher viewership just from keeping it at a regular time and not contantly trying to muck up JMS scripts.
The bar wasn't very high. The original had some childish 70s Star Wars flavor mixed with hippy/counter cultural themes.
The noughties one was drenched in fear of religious fundamentalism (the Cylons being very devout monotheists vs the polytheistic colonists) and infiltration by sleeper agents. Corresponding to a post 9/11 world.
How a new series made today would be is left as exercise to the reader.
Ha ha ha…
I was wondering if that towel holder would pass muster. It was kinda bugging me. Thanks.
P.S. Sorry I left off the extra 'l' on O'Neil…
Yeah, there was a certain amount of Mormon theology behind BSG, in much the same way a lot of other SF series have Christianity behind them.
Ugh. So it will be Game of Thrones but in space with aliens? Like Star Trek: Discovery but with more gore and intersectionality?
I hope they don't try to make it "topical." For Star Trek TOS that was kind of it's thing, and it was new and admirable . . . fifty years ago!
But when every sci-fi show since seems to think it is their duty to show current events in real life being played out in far future analogs, it gets really old, really fast. Possibly because it is really predictable, or possibly just because it has been done to death.
Bizarre to see this show beloved of SciFi nerds coming to a youth oriented network like CW.
Yep probably the slightest hint of "wokeness" will make delicate snowflake trumpers avoid the show, so it doesn't hurt their feelings.
Battlestar Galactica is the best by far
Have seen very little TV since 69. BUT, saw first three years of "Earth Final Conflict" and was very pleased. Any opinions anyone?
I've seen a few of the old ones, seems to be preaching some sort of Scientology or Mormon stuff. Gag.
As I have seen neither orig nor remake, my only comment is that they need to remove the towel holder from the hab. edit: and, as O'Neill shows in many graphics, there are many habs, not one. more edit: and the hab seems some sort of neutral site for planet societies to meet, the sum total of which would be far less than one O'Neill star system could support.
Got to admit I've never seen that remake.
The Battlestar Galactica reboot was better than the original.
Interesting that this comes out now, after the news that Russell T Davies is definitely returning to Doctor who, with the rumours that JMS was up for the role. Maybe the rumours were true after all.
Hang about. Marcus the ranger and the doctor stole false documents that said their new identities were married. This was in 1995. I was watching it thinking, yeah, like same-sex marriages will ever be allowed. And yet here we are. So whatever you opinion of wokeness and same-sex marriages is, B5 was far ahead of its time.
I can't say that I have ever seen a reboot that was as good as the original.
Probably because the very fact you've chosen to do a reboot, instead of something original, is a commentary on your story telling skills.
And the current state of US movie making only reinforces that conclusion. I'm sure the special effects will be wild. I'm also sure a quarter of the population will be gay transvestites, and rather than timeless themes, it will be a leaden allegory about modern politics written by scolds.
So, there'll be an orange coloured alien leader who causes global warming and starts rounding up minorities and there'll be a plague and people protesting against the medical cure because it's linked to the first issue and quarantine issues with lockdowns and they'll have some invasion of a poor, low tech and highly religious planet where the invaders are defeated and this is somehow connected to something about gender transformation and wymxn's rights and …
and somehow it won't work out, will lose money, and the producers will blame the audience for being evil and hence not liking it. Because the show was good, so if you don't like it you don't like good and that means you are evil. Logically.
Please, please, don't turn this one also into an unwatchable wokefest!
I'm willing to bet money on the new series going through the ubiquitous changes for all re-boots of today….That is how you should interpret "we cannot retell the same story"….
Dan Lantz, you need to apply as a developer. Make sure all the concepts are O'Neil compliant…