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‘Babylon 5’ Reboot in the Works at The CW
Original series creator J. Michael Straczynski will pen the script for the update.
The CW is heading to space.
The younger-skewing broadcaster is teaming with original series creator J. Michael Straczynski for a reboot of Babylon 5.
Described as a “from-the-ground-up reboot” of the original, Straczynski will pen the script for a new potential version of the former syndicated drama from Warner Bros. TV. The new take revolves around John Sheridan (originally played by Bruce Boxleitner), an Earthforce officer with a mysterious background, who is assigned to Babylon 5, a five-mile-long space station in neutral space, a port of call for travelers, smugglers, corporate explorers and alien diplomats at a time of uneasy peace and the constant threat of war. His arrival triggers a destiny beyond anything he could have imagined, as an exploratory Earth company accidentally triggers a conflict with a civilization a million years ahead of us, putting Sheridan and the rest of the B5 crew in the line of fire as the last, best hope for the survival of the human race.
From Gizmodo:
Babylon 5 Is Getting Rebooted, With J. Michael Straczynski at the Helm
Variety reports that Warner Bros. has ordered a reboot of Babylon 5, produced and written by Straczynski as part of a deal between Warner Bros. TV and Straczynski’s Studio JMS. The series is not a continuation of the show, but a “from the ground up” reboot of the cult classic 1993 series, which ran across five seasons and seven made-for-TV movies until 1998.
[....] The series was beloved for its dark sci-fi plots and its approach to a massive, intertwined narrative over the course of its seasons and movies [...]
If only we could see the original vision of B5 as it would have been if no actors would have had to leave the show.
The past tempts us, the present confuses us, and the future frightens us. -- Emperor Turhan
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Opportunist on Tuesday September 28 2021, @06:53AM (5 children)
One of the key features of B5 was that the plot was pretty complicated and that wanting to understand it drove the audience to watch. You would tune in week after week for a glimpse of information to put the puzzle together. Even though some of the plots for the episodes themselves were sometimes fairly weak, if not to say, nonsensical. But with every nonsensical plot, you'd receive a nugget of information for the big picture, and that kept the people watching.
B5 was, in essence, much more like a mystery show rather than just a simple SciFi show. The mystery was what's behind the Shadows, what's the plan of the Vorlons, why did the Minbari surrender, what is Mr. Morden's agenda, and so on, and so forth. It was a show about politics, philosophy and skullduggery. That works once. Yes, you can rewatch it after knowing the plot already, because you want to see the little bits of information that you missed the first time around when you didn't understand why a gesture is important or how what you thought is a throwaway line is profoundly insightful.
But you can't really redo it. If the plot does not change fundamentally, and if it does, what about it is B5 anymore, I highly doubt a lot of people would be intrigured.
(Score: 3, Informative) by zocalo on Tuesday September 28 2021, @07:21AM (4 children)
I can easily see a lot of the original fans watching the reboot if it makes it to production; whether they continue watching though will depend on how well jms can keep true to the original while still throwing enough new twists in to keep them hooked. If he has the entire arc mapped out again up front, including the major changes, then I'd say the chances of that are probably pretty good. If I get the chance, I'll certainly be giving it a try.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 28 2021, @02:50PM (3 children)
If this goes ahead I will not be looking forward to this. B5 is not a show that can get remade and still remain B5. Many remakes are terrible, some remakes are good, but most of them are disappointing to fans of the originals because they don't have the same feel as the original. B5v2 will be a shadow (no pun intended) of the 90's B5 and everything will be changed except for the names. Expect drastic, ridiculous, & nonsensical changes to look, style, and feel in a similar way to what ST:Discovery did to the Klingons.
Most of what makes B5 so great is not trendy in 2021. People today don't have enough patience for preconceived character growth that occurs over five years, no enough patience to wait three years for the whispers of signs and portents and prophecies in season 1&2 to evolve into major plots during seasons 4 & 5. Neither do viewers have patience to listen to long exquisite & expositive dialog. No more long drawn out emotionally moving speeches by G'Kar ("The future is always born in pain","There are mysteries in the universe that we still cannot explain, I find that both reassuring and terrifying."q/uq). Even Besters' drawn out "I miss you so much" soliloquy as he leans against his lover's cryo-tube will be shortened down in the remake to something like "Yo, my bitch is still alive. Word up!"
Viewers today want continuous "fireworks" from the beginning of the show to the end, otherwise they get bored.
A B5-remake will be a completely different show than our beloved 90s B5. Of course like all remakes today (or software UI updates ) the changes will be done for nothing more than the sake of change, instead of changing to provide specific & measurable improvement.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 28 2021, @05:03PM (1 child)
You sure? Because that sounds like it could be written about Game of Thrones.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday September 28 2021, @05:32PM
I was thinking of Lost:
people tuned in week after week for years to find "they're angels". WTF?
Write well and peeps will peep.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday September 29 2021, @11:34AM
I disagree. The thing that killed B5 originally was that people in the '90s didn't watch TV shows by the season, they watched them by the episode. Networks moved the air time for B5 around and so you'd usually miss a few episodes every season and that was incredibly bad for understanding the continuity. I bought the DVD boxed sets when they came out and watched each season in a short time and it was far better than watching it on TV one episode a week. B5 got a little bit of a renaissance in the early 2000s from people first watching it for the first time in this format.
These days, 'binge watching' is a term: Most people watch shows on streaming platforms and will watch a season of a thing before moving onto the next one. There's a lot more appetite for shows that have whole-season storylines rather than a monster-of-the-week structure because most people watch a bunch of episodes in a row and a whole season in a few weeks rather than over the course of a year.
sudo mod me up