Love or loathe it, the Hand a tactical blunder?(spoilers)

I was intrigued by the Hand. They are a mystery. I like mysteries. I have no doubts about JMS's ability to flesh them out, fit them into the B5 universe, and slowly and obtusely reveal their origins and motives, making it all interesting and enjoyable. And I certainly don't think of the Hand as a throwaway, or a rip off of the Shadows, no matter how long they remain in the story line.

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You're speaking treason! Olivia De Havilland as Maid Marian
Fluently! Errol Flynn as Robin Hood
You're talking treason! Olivia De Havilland as Arabella Bishop
I trust I'm not obscure. Errol Flynn as Dr. Peter Blood

Pallindromes of the month: Snug was I, ere I saw guns.
Doom an evil deed, liven a mood.

How did we go from this:

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Regardless of your personal views on the suitability of the Hand, given the strongly negative reaction of many long-time B5 fans doesn't it count as a tactical blunder by JMS?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

To this:

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Were any of you vets on the edge of your seat about the Hand? Excited about them AS PRESENTED?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The thread started out by asking if JMS has committed a tactical blunder by annoying large numbers of his fans. (An unsupported assertion, by the way.) That is, if he risked reducing the eventual viewing audience for the show by presenting the Hand as he did. (This is implicit, but if annoying the fans has no affect on viewership, it is hard to see how this could count as a "blunder.")

Newscaper pretends not to be interested in merits of the Hand plot in and of itself, just whether or not using it was a good idea.

When I challenged the idea that "large numbers" of fans had a real problem with this element of the plot, he misstates my argument to bolster his.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>A little informal count that I did of a couple of sites and the newsgroup suggests that no more than 30% of the folks posting are worried about the Hand thing, and most of those are willing to give the series a shot and see what develops.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>And Joe DeM. ... is 30% of the potentially most ardent supporters insignificant?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No. Not when no more than 30% expressed any problem with the Hand thread and that most of them (meaning at least 16% out of the 30%) would watch the series and see what JMS was up to. That means at least 86% of fans were OK with the whole thing. Ergo it was not a "blunder"

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>I'd venture that 75% of the B5 vets were NOT beside themselves, NOT on the edge of their seats, at the prospect of the Hand. Maybe they didn't bitch, but they weren't thrilled either (maybe about a series, but *not* about the Hand)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Having lost the point he was originally arguing, Newscaper now abandons the original question and the mask of "objectivity" and changes the terms of the discussion in mid-stream. We are no longer to consider whether or not JMS made a mistake, or even the degree to which people may have disliked or been disturbed by the element of The Hand. Now the test is how many people were "thrilled" with the Hand, "on the edge of their seats" "beside themselves."

This isn't a conversation about whether or not the Hand were a tactical error. This is an exercise in beating up on JMS for its own sake, and Newscaper is content to use any stick to do it with. If not enough people agree that a tactical mistake makes JMS wrong, he'll argue that too many fans hated the idea - and that this proves JMS is wrong. If that argument doesn't pan out, he'll argue that not enough fans loved the idea of the Hand, jumped up and cheered, sat on the sofa wetting themselves with sheer joy over the very thought of the Hand to prove that JMS was wrong.

The arguments, the facts, the ideas don't matter, as long as in the end JMS has been "proven" wrong.

I am losing patience with this sort of "debate", which seems to be more and more the norm, here and elsewhere.

Regards,

Joe



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Joseph DeMartino
Sigh Corps
Pat Tallman Division
joseph-demartino@att.net

Well, then, I'll go back to the original question. I DO think the Hand was a mistake, creatively and 'tactically,' even though I enjoyed the movie and think Rangers deserves to be a series on its own merits. My message board surfing isn't as extensive as yours, Joe, and I haven't done a scientific count, but I have seen some dubious responses to the Hand there. A friend of mine, who watched B5 from The Gathering and has been eagerly looking forward to Rangers, was unimpressed by the plot of the movie, and felt like it was something that had been done before. I think newscaper does have a good point, that it shouldn't be necessary to say 'Oh, that's not what it seems, JMS wouldn't be that obvious.' A more unique threat might have been more engaging AND done a better job of setting up the bait and switch, is one is indeed in the works.

That said -- I don't think it's a significant blunder by any stretch of the imagination. There were strong characters and at least one strong character-based plot (David's disgrace and second chance), so the hits outweigh the misses as far as I'm concerned.

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Dave Thomer
This Is Not News

Joe D., you've said it all. This is why I tend not to post much.

It does raise an interesting question in my mind though, which may get deleted or moved to another forum.

Why have some fans rounded so quickly and so hard against JMS? Have some folks just been waiting for an excuse to chop him down?

There is an alarming lack of faith popping up. People have gotten ahead of themselves I think, by setting the bar too high (unrealisticly high) they opened the door for disappointment, and are now calling parts of the story errors and blunders, but I never heard this about things in B-5, like the Vicar, which JMS said he didn't like, didn't want and would have removed given the chance.

Why the attacks and constant second and third (and fourth) guessing?

Radar

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"The avalanche has already begun. It is too late for the pebbles to vote."

I don't think the hand was a mistake, and we will be hit with a JMS "Agnew", (an unexpected turn, ex. 'The ball Agnewed, hitting him in the face.'). I expect the following, (in spoilers, Just in case, and doubtfull, I speculate wrong)

<table bgcolor=black><tr><td bgcolor=black><font size=1 color=white>Spoiler:</font></td></tr><tr><td><font size=2 color=black> The hand is not free, they are still trapped, but they are communicating with some of the races. These races will be working for the release of the hand, and the 'Experts' will send the Liandra, due to thier surviving contact with Hand influenced technology. The Hand, once released, will need allies, (The Shadows used us to operate as CPU's for thier ships, who knows the reasons of the Hand,). From thier this can spin anywhere! </font></td></tr></table>



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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by KoshN:
The Shadows were a great "villian" race. I hate to see them reduced in stature.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I had the wrong tense in that statement. It should have been: "I'd hate to see them reduced in stature."


<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by GaribaldiHairs:
How do you know the Hand is stronger than the Shadows ? How do you know they are older and badder ? How do you know there will be a "Hand War" bigger than the "Shadow War" ?

I've seen the pilot, and I can't answer any of those questions. And the movie finish on this quote: "No one is exactly what it seems" (or something), in fact the most important rule in the B5 universe.

If I tell everybody that the frenchs are the meanest people on earth. Will you blindly forgot the nazi history, only based on my saying ?

I don't get that some people react badly on the Hand. We know NOTHING (as in NOTHING) about them.

I can judge the new weapon device, the actors performance, the FXs, the soundtrack, the over-all script & story ... But The Hand ? WTF is this ???
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

We don't know. However, the way The Hand was introduced, hardly made for a "WOW" pilot.

What might have helped:

Going down to the archeological site. Seeing the probe that came back through the portal.

Ships that didn't look like dirty snowflakes.

Some beam weapons, for crying out loud.


From the way The Hand was introduced in the pilot, it seems that they're either a Dodge City storefront (all show and no go) that will be taken care of quickly in the series, or a threat bigger and badder than the Shadows. The former isn't very exciting, and the latter devalues the B5 and Crusade stuff that's already been filmed. Neither scenerio is a good thing.


My fingers are crossed that JMS can come up with a third scenerio that maintains continuity with the B5 and Crusade stuff that's already been filmed, and the Crusade stuff that he had in mind.


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KoshN
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Vorlon Empire
http://www.scifi.com/b5rangers/

[This message has been edited by KoshN (edited January 30, 2002).]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR> What might have helped:

Going down to the archeological site. Seeing the probe that came back through the portal.

Ships that didn't look like dirty snowflakes.

Some beam weapons, for crying out loud.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I agree wholeheartedly. What I did like about the pilot, and probably newcomers as well, were the exteriors on Minbar and the Rangers themselves. I just think that this pilot should have given us the WOW that Koshn mentioned earlier. To be honest, I think the Rangers themselves got lost in trying to tell the story about the second-rate villiany of the hand. Hell, a two-hour feature about Ranger training itself would have been more enjoyable that what we saw. Be that as it may, I actually hope that sci-fi does pick it up as a series.... I just don't think they have enough intelligence to make smart decisions -- unless anyone here actually saw the RoboCop Mini-series.

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"Dawn's in trouble? Must be Tuesday." -- Buffy Summers, "Once More With Feeling."

[This message has been edited by PsionTen (edited January 30, 2002).]

maybe the hand is actually good and they are trying to break loose to stop the people that put them in thier from harming the universe. kind of a rough idea though.

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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Lennier:

Lorien does not know them, Delenn does not mention them in "Deconstruction", nobody in Crusade mentions them, nothing at all hints about them... hence they are not what they seem.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

"Deconstruction"? I think you mean "Rising Star".


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I liked XXX's (I forget his/her handle) comments about watching the show "immersively" or "objectively".

I wanted to be able to enjoy it in the former fashion but was jolted into the latter by the at-first-glance "been there, done that" of the Hand.

I just think something is off-base when we *have* to step back from it to explain it away ... "what JMS really means is this..." or "what he's probably going to do is this..."

And what's this business about "having faith"? Any show has to try to earn (and re-earn) the loyalty of its viewers at every outing. Granted, you don't drop a proven series becasue of one dud, but as a standalone *movie* we should have gotten more, where we didn't have to be apologists for it, second-guessing on the basis of a series which might not ever happen.

And, Joe DeM., I think I admitted my bias in this matter in the first post. There was no sneak attack -- as the replies veered off my counter-replies changed as well.

As for "turning on JMS" at the drop of a hat ... I think part of my reaction came from realizing to my mortification that many of the criticisms I had with Enterprise (which I gave up on after about 7 eps -- yawn) also fully applied to the new movie set in the beloved B5 universe.

And it is NOT that LOTR is not B5.
I expected I would dislike Crusade because I loved B5 so much -- but I quickly came to love the characters and the format.

So I *do* have an open mind.

I am actually FOR JMS getting his shot at a series. But if it contiues too much in the same vein, same caliber as the pilot, it is unlikely that I will become hooked.

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newscaper,
from the SciFi Channel Farscape BB

I've only read the first few in the above thingy, so forgive me if I comment on things that are just up there, or somehow miss something else or somethin. (I'm in a hurry)

A lot of people have trouble with The Hand.....I don't. Other than perhaps the name itself.....I will grant that, there is nothing I find overly offensive. I find that it's a good way to intro some outsiders to a plot where you would not have to know the nitty gritty on, as it's new for everyone. If they started the pilot with them attempting to help rebuild from the shadow war from the start, we'd have tons of newbies lost and confused by the plot, because there's that whole area that they'd be clueless about. JMS would've had to put in 15 minutes of commentary to explain the Shadow/Vorlon thing, and the whole 5 year story for those newbies, and it would have detracted from the story.

You also needed a grab that would get people back. Something that wasn't solved in one pilot. A simple problem like the Drazi beating each up with Green and Purple, or lord knows another corrupt Earth crisis....it would have been solved, and there'd be no reason to come back.

For some here, it makes them want to know what it is about The Hand that makes them so interesting, and is at least a draw for some.

On a slightly different note, many seem to take offense to another old killer race. Except for Thirdspace, there really hasn't been one like the Hand. I think if it turns out to be what it looks like, then the Hand has the potental to copy the Thirdspace aliens, being a power beyond comprehension and all that. However, even that can be done without copying themselves. An new enemy has to be mysterious and powerful seeming, at least at the start, otherwise there is no reason for them to be a threat at all. It's like a single league world attacking the Minbari.....it wouldn't be interesting.

So, as long as he does it right, I don't care if it's another old race. The galaxy's a big place, and older races can exist, and can exist from "outside" as I think was pointed out in the movie.

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It's like I've always said, you can get more with a kind word and a 2 by 4 than you can with just a kind word.

We're all entitled to our opinions. But just because some people don't like a particualr plot point doesn't make it a mistake or a tacitcal blunder. As JoeD's numbers show, it's a few of you against the rest.

It's been said before, and I'll try and get it across again. You first have to understand that LOTR is not just for B5 vets. There are plenty of other peopel that get SciFi, and they're potential viewers. The Hand is a way to get those people interested, because they dont' know B5 history. It worked, because I've read posts from various sites from non b5ers who were intrigued by the hand.

As for us B5 vets, if you don't like it: fine. Your opinion is your opinion. But you guys are still missing the whole point. B5 taught us that nothing is what it seems. GKar even said it in the pilot. Get it? You aren't supposed to take The Hand at face value. You're supposed to realize that they are not what they appear to be.

"So what? We get it now, but we dont' like it," seems to be the attitude of the naysayers. Well, tough.

You weren't wowed? Not JMS fault you have too high expectations.

You didn't like the Hand? Tough. Other people did.

You didn't get what you expected? Tough. Not every fan is goign to be pleased.

The fact of the matter is, most people want a series. Most people were satisfied with the pilot. So JMS did not make a "tactical blunder."



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We're all born as molecules in the hearts of a billion stars, molecules that do not understand politics, policies and differences. In a billion years we, foolish molecules forget who we are and where we came from. Desperate acts of ego. We give ourselves names, fight over lines on maps. And pretend our light is better than everyone else's. The flame reminds us of the piece of those stars that live inside us. A spark that tells us: you should know better. The flame also reminds us that life is precious, as each flame is unique. When it goes out, it's gone forever. And there will never be another quite like it

A pure and simple case of The Hand is quicker than the eye, at least some people's eyes.

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You're speaking treason! Olivia De Havilland as Maid Marian
Fluently! Errol Flynn as Robin Hood
You're talking treason! Olivia De Havilland as Arabella Bishop
I trust I'm not obscure. Errol Flynn as Dr. Peter Blood

Pallindromes of the month: Snug was I, ere I saw guns.
Doom an evil deed, liven a mood.

Most of the people who are posting that they didn't like it seem to be complaining that
It Wasn't What THEY were Expecting.

Personally, I'm Glad that JMS still isn't Predictable.
If B5LR was Predictable it wouldn't be worth watching.

So, I'll wait impatiently for the series.

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Do not ascribe your own motivations to others:
At best, it will break your heart.
At worst, it will get you dead."

In my case, that's only true in the sense that what I was expecting (or, more accurately, what I was hoping for) was something somehow new, exciting, or surprising, and the Hand were not that. The Hand had the same 'going back to the well' feeling that season 5 of B5 had for me.

If people like it, great, more power to 'em. I can't help but think that there would be a way to get newcomers to the story engaged in a way that also surprised and energized more of those familiar with B5. I thought the characters succeeded on that score, and I think it would have been an improvement if the plot had as well.

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Dave Thomer
This Is Not News

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PsionTen:
I agree wholeheartedly. What I did like about the pilot, and probably newcomers as well, were the exteriors on Minbar
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

There wasn't enough of it though. I think it needed an exterior zoom-in to the Ranger Training Facility, i.e. a zoom-in to that balcony where they were observing the ships, ...say from the ships to the balcony. It would have been good, just to give a sense of where you were in that blue, overhead CGI shot, and a feeling of scale.


<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PsionTen:
...and the Rangers themselves. I just think that this pilot should have given us the WOW that Koshn mentioned earlier. To be honest, I think the Rangers themselves got lost in trying to tell the story about the second-rate villiany of the hand.
...
Be that as it may, I actually hope that sci-fi does pick it up as a series.... I just don't think they have enough intelligence to make smart decisions... <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


I liked the look of the room where they did the Pike Training. It had a nice Japanese look to it, and had a lot of nice detail. It looked like they spent some money dressing up that set. The wood surfaces, the translucent wall areas, the floor, and the door all looked "rich."

I also liked the CGI model of the Liandra, especially the details in it's exterior surfacing. It had a nice two color look to it (brown & green), and good surface detail. Nice work.

The close-up surfacing (animated) of the Hand ships was also a nice touch, and reminded me of how the surfacing of the Shadow ships was animated. That was another nice touch.


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KoshN
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Vorlon Empire

http://www.scifi.com/b5rangers/

I think I'm going to watch it with some newbies[1], keep quite and observe their reactions.

[1] Not my cousin Jim because he hates or finds something terribly wrong with almost everything, and would point these things out to the rest of the group, and so nobody would enjoy it.


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KoshN
-------------
Vorlon Empire
http://www.scifi.com/b5rangers/

[This message has been edited by KoshN (edited January 31, 2002).]

I think maybe I'm just a little odd, but I took this from a slightly different perspective. Recently, I've found that I've enjoyed movies/shows that "failed in some areas but had potential" more than I liked the "Wow, that was a textbook great movie" purely for the reason that the first case is more interesting to talk about and makes me think. When I see a "Wow" movie, that's all I get out of it. Wow. Then I go home and do something else. When I saw Legend of the Rangers, I went home, thought about the plot, discussed it with friends, posted on newsgroups, got intrieged, started imangining different ways the plot could twist in the series...and most importantly, I came together with other B5 fans, and we shared something. That part of the whole thing has gotten me a lot more pumped about a new series than some cool effects and an air-tight "perfect" plot would have. When things are perfect, things get boring. If we had world peace, life would be dull. Without sin, virtue isn't a virtue anymore, it's a standard, it's a given, it's completely lost all it's meaning and become pointless.

Okay, I'm getting way too philisophical now, so I think I better stop. You get my point.

In other words, no, I don't think it was a tactical blunder. I rather quite enjoyed the results.

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Pam Kanik
pkbab5@aol.com

"Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics and you'll get ten different answers, but there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us. It'll take Marilyn Monroe and Lao-Tzu, Einstein, Morobuto, Buddy Holly, Aristophanes .. and all of this ..
all of this was for nothing unless we go to the stars."
-Sinclair, Babylon 5: Infection

Listen to all this talk and the consistent negative posts made me realize something. The naysayers really, deep down don't get what B5 is about. That's the impression I get. From what I have seen there are basically two attitudes (with some overlap) the "WOW" group and the "Star Trek" group.

WOW- Frankly I see the reason these folks were disappointed with Lotr is because it DIDN'T retread over the same familiar areas. Aside from G'Kar we didn't see anything from B5. These are the folks who what the beam weapons, white stars, expanding pikes and all the stuff. Of course the fact that all these effects have been lost (thus explaining why much wasn't seen) doesn't deter them. They wanted a lot of old familiar stuff.

A subset of these folk were basically hoping for a movie that reavealed a really big secret about the B5 universe we haven't seen before. Hence requests for plots like the Drakh War or Telepath War or other mysteries. They don't really want something that is going to set up a series but they want questions answered. It seems that the folks in this area were also upset with the other movies, which also didn't really address this stuff.

Of course, I wonder what they would have liked about a 2 hour movie on the Shadow war?

Star Trek group - I'm not going to insult Star Trek, but a lot of fans have ingrained in them the Star Trek mentality. By this I mean, "What you see is what you get". Every character in ST speaks pretty much the "truth" as it were. What they say is absolute (until it become inconvinent for the writers) and true. So you always know where they stand, what exactly is going on and so forth. You know Klingons act only in a certain way, that Romulans act in a certain way, exactly what a Klingon warship can do, etc. etc. etc. This is fine for the kind of morality stories Star Trek is known for, where only humans (and only some of those) are three dimensional characters and everyone else is a one dimensional foil to them on whatever issue is being explored.

In B5 there is a lot of disunity between what the characters know and what the auidence knows. Characters may lie, disassemble or present a view that may or may not have anything to do with "reality". They also don't know anymore than they are like to know. People aren't used to that, instead they are used to characters who suddenly know anything they need to know at the drop of a hat. A fan of B5 has to understand that we have seen only bits and pieces of a wide universe and things don't always seem to make sense at first glance. Slowly the layers are peeled back and you get deeper and deeper glimpses until a section is revealed.

I followed the discussions about B5 on various forums for years and the "Star Trek" attitude seemed to be the one JMS and others had to really fight against.

As for me, the Hand didn't WOW me but I didn't expect to be WOWed. I expected a solid story with interesting characters. I don't care if the gunnary pod seemed odd. I didn't wonder why they were not in a whitestar. I'm not one to think because I've seen a background shot of Tuzanor during a civil war that the city *has* to look a certain way. So much of what people are complaining about I don't get. Instead I assume we are seeing new aspects of this wonderful universe and can't wait to see more.

Then again I've always been a little odd.

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Lyta lives!

pkbab5, you sound like a Shadow- evolution through conflict.

Look folks, it's very simple. The movie geared for two audiences:

1. Those unfamiliar with Babylon 5
These people got to see some cool characters, an interesting universe filled with worlds, political organisations, an elite corps of marine-ninja type soldiers, and mysterious bad guys. Enough to spark interest in a series.

2. Those familiar with Babylon 5
We got to see a whole bunch of new characters, primarily Martel, Cantrell and Dulann, some new baddies, and lots of potential story lines and mysteries. Plus, anyone who watched B5 knows that there could be any number of things going on with the Hand and their allies- enough not to presume to think they know all about them. Enough to spark interest in a series.

So what's the f***ing problem?

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"You do not make history. You can only hope to survive it."