Spoilers to the first episode to Crusade:
Oh! I don't think that it was bad. It has a lot of potential. It just
seemed... well... short, abbrevaited, cut down to fight a 1 hour slot minus
commerical breaks.
The new characters; Giddeon, Matheson, Chambers, et al. didn't seem to
have nearly enough character development that they should. We have no
mention of the Shadows, the war, B5, nor any of the other races (Minbari,
Narn, Centuari, etc.). All we had was a quick mention of the infection of
Earth, followed by a quicky space battle.
Where are the Rangers? Aren't they supposed to be in this?
I sense TNT's meddeling in this.... I'm sure all remember the the dreaded memo
where TNT outlined where they wanted this series to go. (Remove ALL B5
references, more violence, mindless T&A, the "sex officer.") This wasn't even
supposed to be the true first episode, this is just something they made JMS
whip up to fill in the danes.
I hope it gets better...
Anyway. On to the techincal aspects of the Excaliber. They seemed to upgun the
Victory class a bit. They added arrays of pluse cannon gatteling guns as well
as some kind of heavy pluse cannon in the turrets. We now know that the
Victory can carry maybe 3 or 4 squadrons of Thunderbolts. Of wise, the neutron
lasers and the BFG are still present.
Anyone want to add to this?
> At 8:43 PM -0700 6/9/99, Mark A. Siefert wrote:
It
> just seemed... well... short, abbrevaited, cut down to fight a 1 hour
oooh yeah. I liked it too. With the music, and I like Chen's soundtrack, the
overall effect, especially in the climatic scenes, was downright creepy. And
nicely atmospheric, and stylish. Not to mention different. The visuals were
very good, and I have a lot of tolerance for the first, tentative few,
episodes of a series. They *all* go through this, I've come to expect it (so I
can be pleasantly surprised).
On postive notes, there were a few things I truly appreciated. First of all,
they appear to be carrying maybe a company of marines. With dropships and
ground support elements. Whoever planned the security detachments for the
Enterprise was negligent. The troops should come in handy. The big fighter
action around the Excalibur was very nice, I like the more panoramic battle
scenes. Adding more point defence makes a lot of sense, maybe they playetsted
the ship?
Of course, a heavy AA armament ties in with the very clear parallels with Star
Blazers (the Yamato had a similar upgrade). Think about it, heavy spinal mount
with power restrictions, mission to save earth, cool theme song (well, not for
Crusade). Then there's the Golden Fleece et
al...
Next!
Did you notice the surplus Star ship tooper uniforms?
(I couldn't find a way to bring this really 'on topic' right now; sorry)
> Spoilers to the first episode to Crusade:
It
> just seemed... well... short, abbrevaited, cut down to fight a 1 hour
No, it wasn't that bad. I'm sure drawing out the ship-to-ship battle at
the end could have been drawn out a *lot* longer, but then we've seen JMS use
this type of strategy before as far back as Season 3. It works well enough.
> The new characters; Giddeon, Matheson, Chambers, et al. didn't
Well, to be fair, this *is* the first ep - we're just getting to know
these characters. This is the 'laying the groundwork' ep (with some
reservations; see the included JMS post below). You know it takes time for
characters to develop. Patience, grasshopper.
> We have no
Did you *really* expect mention of the Shadows and the war and B5? Well, okay,
maybe a tip or nod about B5, but the others? (do you discuss Nazis
and/or
the Battle of, oh, Midway in everyday life?) No reason to mention them in any
manner whatsoever. This takes place, remember, *years* after the Shadow War,
years after the Earth civil war. I don't talk about the Vietnam or Korean wars
in my everyday conversations (heck, I can go long months without
mentioning or thinking about them ;-).
I'm sure we'll hear about B5 soon enough (Lochley's character, I saw, is
supposed to be a main character). Even so, B5 isn't the *only* thing that's a
happenin' spot in the B5 universe. There's a LOT of other things going on that
DON'T involve B5.
As for the other races, they weren't mentioned because...they didn't
contribute anything to this story? There really wasn't any reason to mention
them at this time. Heck, even during the regular B5 episodes you didn't see or
hear about any certain race *every* episode, did you? I mean, how many times
did you hear about the Vree, or the Drazi, in any given episode? Heck, man,
you didn't even hear about the Shadows every episode. The infection of Earth
was necessary to give the viewers information as to *why* this team was being
put together and doing what they will be doing.
> Where are the Rangers? Aren't they supposed to be in this?
Ask JMS, man.
> I sense TNT's meddeling in this.... I'm sure all remember the
See appended JMS note below.
> I hope it gets better...
See appended JMS note below.
> Anyway. On to the techincal aspects of the Excaliber. They
I dunno if they would have had time to upgrade the Excalibur any. It's been
too long since I've watched A Call To Arms, so I can't say with any authority
that we've seen (if only from long-distance) defensive fire like the
pulse cannon gatling guns from these ships. And I'm not going to get any time
to
check it out, either, over the next week. :-/
Mk
----
[appended JMS post]
From: jmsatb5@aol.com (Jms at B5)
Subject: jms on first eps
Date: 9 Jun 1999 21:18:23 -0600
Just for the record: I think the first one -- the only one written
directly at
TNT's behest -- is probably the weakest one, certainly the one I find
least interesting. It's lumbered with buckets of exposition, explaining things
that don't need explaining, too many fights, too many explosions, too much
swaggering around, all stuff the net wanted.
Then we go back to the show we wanted to make...Path of Sorrows is terrific,
Well of Forever is a solid character story, The Long Road is just pure fun
(that's pretty much reverse broadcast order, btw)...there's one or two in the
bunch that are a bit slower than I'd like, but those are the exception rather
than the rule.
Just to get my own feelings on this out there.
jms
(jmsatb5@aol.com) B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
Spoilers below:
Did anyone notice the following continuity errors:
*When Gideon meets Durrena in her cell, she says that the Drahk destroyed her
world.... WRONG! It was the shadows. (More of TNTs attemptted revisionism?)
*Also, Mars is an "independent member of the Earth Alliance?" Huh? Isn't that
being just a tad contradictory?
*How in perdition's name do you have a "Knak" for languages and can translate
an alien dialect after only just hearing it for a few minutes?
*If they were afraid of of being contaminated by the Plague when they were
aboard the Drahk ship, then when did they allow Durrena to go running around
with a shirt that revelead so much... skin? As far as I remember no one said
that the plague's only vector was the air; though you can correct me on this
one.
Did you notice the Teep had no gloves or badge?
Chan
> Did you notice the surplus Star ship tooper uniforms?
No, but welcome back--I was wondering where you were.
Uh-oh. Looks like I'm going to have to de-lurk now.
Also note that the Captain said something like "He has obeyed all of the new
rules for telepaths." Yup, new rules. Crusade is, I think, set 5 years after
the 5th season of B5. I'm guessing that the
oft-mentioned Telepath War took place sometime
during that 5-year period, and that things have
changed significantly. PsiCorps might no longer exist.
> At 07:40 PM 6/10/99 -0400, you wrote:
He had a psi patch on the left side of his uni.
Scott