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A little bit of catch up?

FreeBaGeL

Regular
Hi, I'm new to these boards and could use a tiny bit of help. I've done some searching around the site and the forums, but there are still some things I'm missing.

Let me give you my brief story first. Unfortunately, my father passed away this past year. He was a huge B5 fan, and I remember watching a handful of episodes with him when I was younger. So, I figured I'd go ahead and watch it all the way through.

Me and my girlfriend have now watched all the way through from the very first episode to the very last. Somehow the episodes I saw when I was a kid managed to be all the ones that gave away the endings (end of the shadow war, end of the civil war, etc), yet I was still completely captivated. My girlfriend, who normally doesn't like these kind of shows, was just as hooked as I was. All in all we watched all 100+ episodes in a very short time period, we were addicted. I can't think of any show that has ever even compared.

Anyhow, now that we've gone through all those I'm itching for more. I've learned the movies have come out in a box set, so I'll pick that up. I also plan on hanging around here and keeping up with things, though from reading through there are a few things that have confused me (everything here seems to be written in abbreviations ;)).

-I understand there was a spinoff about the rangers that didn't even last a full season. However, it seems people are referring to a "Rangers" series, and a "Crusades" series as two seperate things. Are they, or are people talking about the same thing? Also, is there any way I could find these to watch them?

-In reading the article about Richard Biggs (sad to hear, I've been through what his family is going through and I feel for them), there's a mention of a "new B5 project." I assume this is the B5:TMoS that I keep seeing referred to. I did a search on it and came up with pages and pages of people referring to it, but couldn't find an explanation of what it was. I've put together some of the pieces and it sounds like it's some sort of new B5 movie, but I don't know much more than that. Sorry if this has already been answered a few times, but I couldn't find it. Thanks for any help, be seeing ya.
 
Hi there, FreeBaGel. :cool:
Welcome aboard! :D

O.K. I am no B5 expert, but I think I can answer your questions.

After Babylon 5 was on for 4 seasons, it was getting cancelled. Then TNT bought it for Season 5 and it finished its 5-year story arc. At the same time TNT also planeed for a spin off series "Crusade". It filmed some episodes and was cancelled before any episodes aired. It was then aired as a short series or something.

Later the Science Fiction channel purchased a pilot to a new series, and that is "Legend of the Rangers" or "Rangers". It was not picked up. So yes, Crusade and Rangers were different projects with different casts.


About TMoS. JMS kept dropping hints that there was a big project in the B5 universe coming soon. We know it's a motion picture. And that's about all we know. :D

Hope that helps.
 
I understand there was a spinoff about the rangers that didn't even last a full season. However, it seems people are referring to a "Rangers" series, and a "Crusades" series as two seperate things. Are they, or are people talking about the same thing? Also, is there any way I could find these to watch them?

There was only one spinoff series that was made called Crusade. It takes place about five years after the main time period of Babylon 5. While Rangers occationally pop up in it, it is not a series about the Rangers. The openning premise of the show is of Captain Matthew Gideon and his crew on the ship Excalibur searching through the galaxy for a cure to a plague. We know from what jms has said that the cure would have been found sometime in the middle of season two (had the show been allowed to continue) and another story much larger than the search for a cure would have become front stage that had only had background layed for it in the early part of the series. Hopefully, we'll be getting the couple handfuls of Crusade episodes on DVD sometime in the near future.

Legend of the Rangers is a telemovie (not available on the movies set that came out recently) that was going to serve as a bit of a pilot for a series based on the Rangers similarly to how The Gathering telemovie served as a pilot for Babylon 5. The SciFiChannel, after the broadcast of Legend of the Rangers decided to not pick it up as a series. So, there's only the movie, no series.

In reading the article about Richard Biggs (sad to hear, I've been through what his family is going through and I feel for them), there's a mention of a "new B5 project." I assume this is the B5:TMoS that I keep seeing referred to. I did a search on it and came up with pages and pages of people referring to it, but couldn't find an explanation of what it was. I've put together some of the pieces and it sounds like it's some sort of new B5 movie, but I don't know much more than that. Sorry if this has already been answered a few times, but I couldn't find it. Thanks for any help, be seeing ya.

We really don't know too much information about TMoS. We know it's called The Memory of Shadows and that we've been told pretty much without direct out and out saying it that it's a theatrical movie. Some of the strongest speculation seems that it will probably touch on some of the plot that Crusade would eventually have delt with. Beyond that, we know very little.
 
Welcome FreeBaGel!

My condolences on the loss of your father. I think it's cool that you've learned to enjoy something that he did, though.

Yes, we do tend to abbreviate episode and movie names to their initials and I'm sure it can be confusing. Please don't be afraid to speak up and tell us you don't understand, we all seem to enjoy helping folks discover B5 and all of it's intricacies. There's never another first time to discover B5 but the show rewards watching over and over.

Some sites that are indispensible fonts of B5 knowledge for you:

Lurker's Guide which has synopses of all episodes, some info on comics, novels etc. and most of JMS' posts about each episode.

Ooops! JMS is J. Michael Straczynski, the creator and head writer of the show. Otherwise known as the Great Maker or Joe but not to be confused with Joe DeMartino, a knowlegable poster/moderator here.

JMS News is an archive of JMS' posts from back in the beginning of his making The Gathering. Over 17,000 posts. JMS hangs out sometimes at the rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated newsgroup which is where most of those posts are from.

Glad you found us! Enjoy!

Jan
 
My condolences as well on the passing of your father. I imagine that he was quite young if you were a kid when B5 was on the air. I too am glad that you've taken solace and have enjoyed something that he found to be so fulfilling.

It seems that Hypatia, VL and Jan have done a good job of explaining the shows and referring you to resources. There is also plenty of good discussion and insight here. I hope you enjoy your time here and feel free to ask more questions as they come up.
 
Welcome too.

Feel free to ask anything you like. Sometimes you will bring up a point that no one has thought about before. If there is a relevant thread, I'm sure someone will point you to it, or we'll just discuss it again.

I sometimes get confused with the abbreviations.

Condolences on your loss.
 
One other comment for someone who has gone through all of the DVD's for the first time and wants more B5:

As crazy as it sounds, you might consider starting over from the beginning of S1 (that's Season 1). The second time is, in some of ways, more fun than the first. This is less true for the last couple seasons than the first couple. The thing is there is *a lot* of stuff that flew by in first season or two sounding like throw-away lines of dialog or just nice-to-flesh-out-character but not terribly pertinent to anything background. However, once you have seen the payoffs a year or three later (in show time, or real time for those of us who watched it in first runs) it is really cool and fun to see just how early those seeds are being planted, and to really catch all of the references. The only reason that I said the last couple seasons don't have as much of a more-fun-the-second-time factor is that they obviously can't be planting as many seeds for much later in the series that you didn't really catch the first time.
 
Welcome to the Board.

So sorry to hear that you've lost your father, and happy that you are able to share B5 with him, even if he's not here to enjoy it.

The Crusade DVD set should be coming out within the next few months.

There are also some novels that are considered to be part of Canon, if you like to read (They aren't neccessary, but, they do provide some expansions on things that are only briefly covered in the show, so they will enrich your understanding of some of the characters and races:

The Technomage Trilogy - Passing of the Technomages by Jeanne Cavelos
Book 1 Casting Shadows
Book 2 Summoning Light
Book 3 Invoking Darkness

The Centauri Prime Trilogy - Legions of Fire by Peter David
Book 1: The Long Night of Centauri Prime
Book 2: Armies of Light and Dark
Book 3: Out of Darkness

The Psi Corps Trilogy by Gregory Keyes
Book 1 Dark Genesis: The Birth of the Psi Corps
Book 2 Deadly Relations: Bester Ascendant
Book 3 Final Reckoning: The Fate of Bester

To Dream in the City of Sorrows by Kathryn Drennan (JMS Wife)

The Shadow Within by Jeanne Cavelos

These are the books that are considered to be true to the show. There are 7 other books, but there's alot of stuff in them that doesn't add up with what you know from the show.
 
There are also some novels that are considered to be part of Canon

Some have found that word (canon) to be a bit confusing as well as the abbreviations. ;) Canon refers to events, characters or technology which is considered to have inarguable existance within a fictional universe.

The canon consists of the television series Babylon 5 and its later TV movies, the TV series Crusade, the Babylon 5 novels and the Babylon 5 comic book published by DC Comics. This was decided by J. Michael Straczynski, who maintained a tight control on the expanded universe to ensure everything was canonical.
 
The canon consists of the television series Babylon 5 and its later TV movies, the TV series Crusade, the Babylon 5 novels and the Babylon 5 comic book published by DC Comics. This was decided by J. Michael Straczynski, who maintained a tight control on the expanded universe to ensure everything was canonical.
Isn't that a bit of an exaggeration? I thought JMS had said that something like 80% of this book or that was "canon" but I don't recall ever hearing him say all of the B5 books were 100% accurate-to-his-B5 universe. :confused:
 
Slight exaggeration I suppose, the ones I listed are all pretty close to 100% canonical (I think he's given them between 85%-98% canon).

The other 7 (Books 1-6, and Book 8) are the ones that are pretty low in regard to accuracy to Canon.
 
Thanks everyone for the warm welcome, looks like I'm going to enjoy it here :).

Thanks for all the explanations as well, I've really learned alot in a short period of time. I checked out those links as well and learned some very interesting tidbits.
 

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