Encyclopedia
Babylon 5 is an epic
science fiction television series created, produced, and largely written by
J. Michael Straczynski. The show centred around the titular Babylon 5
space station, which acted as a focal point for politics, diplomacy and wars. It is noted for its heavy reliance on pre-planned story arcs over its five-year run, sometimes described as a 'novel for television'.
The pilot movie,
The Gathering, aired on February 22, 1993, and the regular series initially aired from January 26, 1994 through November 25, 1998, first in syndication on the short-lived
Prime Time Entertainment Network, then on cable network
TNT. Because the show was aired every week in the
United Kingdom on
Channel 4 without a break, the last four or five episodes of the early seasons were shown in the UK before the US.
The series won several awards, including two
Hugos for Best Dramatic Presentation.
Concept
The series consists of a five-year story arc taking place over five seasons of 22 episodes each. John Iacovelli said "Babylon 5 is a window on the future" in the DVD feature
Creating the Future, linking to the idea of a
space opera. The hub of the story is set in the 23rd century on a large
space station named Babylon 5; the five mile long, 2.5 million ton rotating colony is built to be a gathering place for fostering peace through
diplomacy, trade, and cooperation.
Straczynski was determined to produce a science fiction series for adults in which, for once, things would be done properly: consistent technology, "no kids or cute robots". He started out with ideas for two different shows, one a vastly ambitious epic covering massive battles and other universe-changing events and the other set in a single space station, before realizing both could be done in a single series. It was not a utopian future — there is greed and homelessness. It was not a place where everything was the same at the end of the day — main characters grow, develop, live, and die. Straczynski wanted the show to be a mirror to the real world and to covertly teach .
Unlike most television shows, this series was conceived as a
novel, with a defined beginning, middle, and end. In addition, even tie-in novels, comic books, and short stories play a significant part of the overall story.
Babylon 5 uses an arc-driven storytelling style now prevalent in science fiction and in mainstream drama. In the DVD feature
The Making of Babylon 5, Walter Koenig said "It's an exciting uniquely different series that could forever change the way you look at science fiction television" and referred to "groundbreaking special effects and new breathtaking achievements in makeup, sets and costumes". Straczynski anticipated the rise of digital television, shooting the series in 16:9 format rather than the normal 4:3 - a full six years before
ER and many other dramas began doing the same thing.
Babylon 5 also revolutionized the use of computer technology in creating visual effects at a time when using models and miniatures was the norm. It was also the first sci-fi series to respect
Newtonian physics in its space battle sequences, with particular emphasis placed on the effects of inertia. More recent series such as
Joss Whedon's
Firefly and the Sci-Fi Channel version of
Battlestar Galactica have also made similar efforts to simulate realistic physics.
"Trap doors"
Though conceived as a whole, and with Straczynski writing most of the episodes it was necessary to adjust the plotline to accommodate external influences. Each of the characters in the series was written with a "trap door" into their background that, in the event of an actor departing from the series, the character could be written out with minimal negative impact to the story. In the words of Straczynski, "As a writer, doing a long-term story, it'd be dangerous and short-sighted for me to construct the story without trap doors for every single character. [...] That was one of the big risks going into a long-term storyline which I considered long in advance."
Major challenges included the replacement of
actor Michael O'Hare as the station commander after the first season.
Jeffrey Sinclair was intended from the beginning to become Valen. As originally planned, this would have occurred at the end of the series, but with Michael O'Hare's departure at the end of Season One, Sinclair's transformation to Valen was moved up by what became several years.
Before Andrea Thompson left the series for a career as a
CNN news presenter, the character of Talia Winters was to have undergone a transformation into a Psi-Corps agent, having been revealed as a "sleeper" whose true personality was buried subconsciously and acted as a spy observing the events on the station and the actions of her command staff. When Thompson left the series, this revelation was turned into a way to remove the character from the series permanently. Had Thompson remained on the series, her "good" persona would have been restored over the "evil" one by the use of a data crystal that
Kosh had commissioned through the services of a "Vicar"; According to JMS, Kosh had detected the Psi-Corps plot, and had taken steps to salvage what he considered a valuable resource. This plot was never used, and neither was the data crystal.
Two characters were written out using a pair of intertwining "Trap Doors". When
Jason Carter left the series at the end of Season 4 to return home to
England and his family, the "Trap Door" calling for
Marcus Cole to simply die in battle was altered so as to literally give his life *to*
Susan Ivanova as she lay dying from wounds suffered in battle. In a twist that left the possibility for Cole's return, his body was left in suspended animation on the station to await a new discovery that might resuscitate him. Subsequently, when
Claudia Christian left the series at end of Season 4, her character was written out of the series by having Ivanova accept a command of her own on a deep-space exploration mission, her self-realization of her grief over the loss of Marcus being the defining factor in Ivanova's decision to leave. JMS would later revisit these two characters in a short story which not only resolved the relationship in a way that was very well-received by fans, it also incorporated elements of the
Talia Winters "data crystal" plot.
Vir Cotto's "Trap Door" wound up being used as a major sub-plot involving the maturation of Vir's character in the world of Centauri politics. Had
Stephen Furst left the series, Vir would have simply returned home and taken up another government job. As the series progressed, for several episodes Vir was reassigned as the Centauri ambassador to Minbar, although he eventually was reassigned back as
Londo Mollari's aide.
Babylon stations
In the show, Babylon 5 is a center of political intrigue and conflict, and eventually takes part in a massive interstellar conflict from which it emerges with a victory over forces of darkness and chaos, albeit at great cost. This is reflected in the opening monologue of each episode which includes "last, best hope for peace" in season one but changes to "last, best hope for victory" by season three.
Babylon 5 is the fifth, and last, of the Babylon space stations. The Babylon Series were modified versions of the
O'Neill Cylinder. Three predecessors, the original Babylon station, Babylon 2 and Babylon 3 were all sabotaged and destroyed before their completion. The fourth station,
Babylon 4 vanished twenty-four hours after it became fully operational. "
Babylon Squared" and "
War Without End" deal with the disappearance of Babylon 4. Babylon 5 is substantially smaller than the previous stations due to budget constraints after the failure of the first four stations. The three Babylon stations seen on screen were a different color: Babylon 1 was red, Babylon 4 green, and Babylon 5 blue. The station is set in the Epsilon Eridani star system, orbiting the third planet of that system, "Epsilon III".
Bruce Boxleitner, who played station commander Captain John Sheridan, described the space station Babylon 5 as "... A free port for diplomats, travelers and businessmen. A combination of building the
United Nations and
Times Square on an intergalactic scale...", in the introduction of "The Guide to Babylon 5".
Civilizations
One of the show's many themes is the cultural and social interaction between civilizations: the station is, after all, a diplomatic meeting-place. The show is as much political thriller as science fiction.
Five dominant civilizations are represented on Babylon 5, and more than a dozen less powerful ones. The 5 dominant ones are the
Humans,
Minbari,
Narn, Centauri, and the
Vorlons. The less powerful races make up the League of Non-Aligned Worlds which includes The Drazi, Brakiri,
Vree, Pak'ma'ra,
Gaim, Markab, Hyach, Llort,
Abbai, and others.
Languages
English is mentioned explicitly as the "Earth language of commerce". The show takes no account for possible change in the language 250 years from now. Hearing other human languages or even their mention is highly uncommon in the series. Most aliens are able to speak English correctly. Ambassador Delenn and Londo Mollari, both alien characters, speak with regional accents similar to Russian and Eastern European slavic countries.
All the major human characters speak American English, with the exception of Marcus Cole, who speaks with distinct British Received Pronunciation. Susan Ivanova, born in
Russia, speaks with an American accent, but has some posters with writing in the
cyrillic alphabet in her room, possibly indicating she knows the language. Her father speaks with a distinct Russian accent, as does her brother.
Various minor human characters speak English with recognizable regional accents, including British , New Zealand , Nigerian , Australian and Hispanic . Most of these are the native accents of the actor playing the role. The actor playing "Captain Jack" in "
Racing Mars" spoke with a strange combination of Australian, American and Cockney accents. In "By Any Means Necessary", a man called Alberto Delvientos dies after an accident in the docking bays, and his brother says in Spanish "¡Hermanito, Dios mío!" when he realizes what happened.
Londo Mollari has a noticeable accent, developed independently by actor Peter Jurasik and most closely imitated by William Forward, who played Lord Refa. In the novels it is described as a "Northern accent" and is considered uncouth. G'Kar has a particular gift for speech and writing in both Narn and English, as is demonstrated particularly from early in the third season onward.
The
Gaim, Pak'Ma'Ra and Vorlons do not speak directly in English, though in the case of the Vorlons it is not entirely clear that sounds preceding their English speech is their native language . Some companion literature to the series has suggested they simply refuse to learn other languages. This is definitely true for the Pak'Ma'Ra - in the tv series,
Lennier asks
Delenn what to do with the Pak'Ma'Ra Ranger applicants, since they refuse to learn any language other than their own.
Among aliens, only Minbari are shown to speak a
different language when humans are present to stress that the humans cannot understand what is being said. When Minbari are shown talking to each other, they are shown as speaking in English although according to creator Joe Straczynski it is presumed they are speaking their native languge while the audience hears it as english.
Direct fan interaction
Babylon 5 was also the first show to fully utilize the
Internet as a tool for building fan support. Straczynski used most of the popular Internet and pre-Internet communications services to spread the word about the show, answer fan questions and keep a constant stream of information buzzing through science fiction fandom. He posted thousands of messages, eventually focusing most of his attention on
GEnie and the Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated.
Regular and guest stars
Regular cast
...
- John Sheridan -
...
-
Susan Ivanova -
Recurring guest characters
...
- David Corwin
There was also a group of actors who each played numerous bit parts, known informally as "The Babylon 5 Players". For example, each of the actors who played a Drazi ambassador during the series also appeared as another minor character elsewhere in the
Babylon 5 saga.
Themes
Through its ongoing story arc,
Babylon 5 found ways to portray themes relevant to modern social issues.
Authoritarianism vs. chaos; light vs. dark
The central theme in
Babylon 5 is the conflict between order and chaos, and the people caught in between.
The Vorlons represent an authoritarian philosophy: you will do what we tell you to, because we tell you to do it. The Vorlon Question "who are you?" focuses on the identity as the motivator over personal goals. The Shadows represent chaos. Their belief is that by creating conflict, a stronger generation is born — "survival of the fittest". The question they pose is "what do you want?" Placing desire and ambition before everything else, encouraging conflict between other groups, who choose to serve their own glory or profit. Selfishness is often the turning point of a character from light to darkness, and selflessness denotes a change in the reverse.
The stated philosophies of both the Vorlons and the Shadows seem directly in conflict with the effects their presence seems to produce. During the time that the Vorlons are tacitly "in charge" of the known universe, wars and skirmishes seem commonplace. However, as soon as the Shadows increase their presence, an alliance of races begins to form to fight them. .
War and peace
The
Babylon 5 universe includes numerous major armed conflicts. The conflicts serve to illustrate specific themes: every conflict has a forgotten "third side," people crushed beneath the feet of the powerful; a single individual willing to sacrifice himself can be more powerful than the greatest army; whereas an individual willing to sacrifice everyone else to serve his own objectives can reduce entire worlds to ashes, and yet still be defeated.
Ultimately, every violent conflict is born out of self-interest, perpetuated by prejudice and ideology, and resolved by the realization that each side needs the other to survive. The most clear example of this is the history of the Hyach race: The Hyach evolved alongside the Hyach-Doh, with whom they interbred. Over the course of centuries the Hyach leadership began a process of persecution beginning with religious laws and ending in genocide. It was not until after the last Hyach-Doh had been killed that the Hyach birth-rate began to fall: the Hyach genetic structure needed the Hyach-Doh for them to survive, and by wiping them out they had doomed their race.
By the end of the series, we find members of opposing sides working together to forge a new future.
Love
Unrequited
love is a source of pain in
Babylon 5. The losses of characters such as Ivanova and Sinclair are central to the story arc of the first three seasons, while Marcus and Lennier are ultimately destroyed by their love . Not all love in the show is unrequited, however. Sheridan, for example, returns from the dead after discovering that his love for Delenn is "worth living for" in "
Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?".
Religion
One of the aspects of Babylon 5 was that many of its characters had profound spiritual and/or religious beliefs . Straczynski, an atheist, was determined that the characters and the show would treat all these beliefs with the utmost respect, saying, "religion [...] has always been present. And it will be present
200 years from now. That may not thrill me, but when one is a writer, one
must deal with realities, and that's one of them. To totally ignore that
part of the human equation would be as false and wrong-headed as ignoring
the fact that people get mad, or passionate, or strive for better lives. [...] In the Babylon 5 universe, all the things that make us human -- our
obsessions, our interests, our language, our culture, our flaws and our
wonderfulnesses -- are all still intact."
Often, a religious or moral question was presented with no clear answer. A perfect example was "Soul Hunter" in which three different interpretations are presented for the Soul Hunters' actions. The moral conflict presented in "
Believers" is another example. More important for the overall arc of the program was the large plot thread hinging upon Minbari religious beliefs and the spiritual evolution of G'Kar.
Music and scoring
The original pilot movie had music composed by Stewart Copeland. When the show was picked up as a weekly series Copeland was not available, and so Straczynski hired Christopher Franke, of
Tangerine Dream fame. Franke stayed on as the composer for all five seasons of
Babylon 5, and three of the
Babylon 5 telefilms. When Straczynski obtained funds to create a new writer's edition of the pilot movie, the original Stewart Copeland score was replaced with a new score by Christopher Franke.
Original series
Main article: List of Babylon 5 episodes and moviesEpisodes
Each season shared its name with an episode which was central to that season's plot.
- Season 1:
- Season 2:
- Season 3:
- Season 4:
- Season 5:
Production costs: according to director J. Michael Straczynski "I produced B5s 110 episodes at [a cost of] about 90 million dollars." .
The scripts for the series which were written by Mr. Straczynski are all being published. This will, if all goes as planned, be a 15 volume series for a total of 92 scripts .
Made-for-TV films
- - the pilot movie
- - prequel
-
-
- - pilot to the Crusade series
- - pilot to the Legend of the Rangers series
Spin-offs
Crusade
The spin-off series
Crusade ran on
TNT for thirteen episodes, having been set up by the TV-movie
A Call to Arms. The production team received help from
NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory to make sure that the series depicted science and technology accurately. However, creative differences between Straczynski and TNT caused problems; the network wanted more sex and violence and forced Straczynski to begin the first episode with a fistfight. The sex-and-violence request was later withdrawn and TNT in fact allocated more money to
Crusade, giving the actors better uniforms and new sets mid-season, but due to the creative differences TNT eventually decided to cancel the series after thirteen episodes had been produced, but before any of them were aired. At the time of the cancellation, no major story arcs had yet come into play, though unproduced scripts published online by Straczynski in addition to comments made by him online, at conventions, and on Crusade DVD commentaries reveal that they would have, had the series continued.
Legend of the Rangers
A made-for-TV movie titled
was produced by the Sci Fi Channel. It was the proposed pilot episode of a new series titled
. Rescheduled after the September 11, 2001 attacks, the movie aired on January 19, 2002. However, it was scheduled against an
NFL AFC Divisional Championship playoff game featuring the
New England Patriots and the
Oakland Raiders. The pilot's poor ratings killed the network's interest in a series.
The Memory of Shadows
In 2004 and early 2005, rumors widely circulated about a planned
Babylon 5 movie for theatrical release. However, on February 25, 2005, a post from Straczynski announced that the project had fallen through and was for all practical purposes dead. The proposed movie, titled
The Memory of Shadows , was written by Straczynski. Filming was to have begun in April 2005 in the UK with Steven Beck as the director.
Several sources have claimed that factions within Warner Bros. wanted to recast established
Babylon 5 roles with younger and more well-known actors, causing a major controversy among fans. Straczynski has acknowledged the subject and has stated that the negotiations were problematic, but has said that he is unable to directly comment on the issue.
The Lost Tales
A new project set in "Babylon 5" universe was announced by Straczynski at San Diego Comic Con 2006. "" will be a set of mini-stories featuring established characters from the series. The project is intended to be a straight-to-video DVD release, however there is possible interest from one of the major US TV networks as well. The production of the first three stories will commence in September 2006 with Straczynski writing, producing and directing.
Novels, novelizations, short stories, and comic books
Unique to the
Babylon 5 universe among virtually all other shared media universes is the sanctioned canonicity of many of its offshoot novels and comic book stories; nearly all of the
Babylon 5 novels and novelizations to date having been based on outlines written directly by J. Michael Straczynski. The later Del Rey books are considered to be more canonical than some of the earlier Dell ones, and at least two major plotline revelations were made in the
DC Comics series that were directly referenced in the TV series. In all, per Straczynski's own remarks, canonical elements exist in every single book published to date, and his deeper involvement in the novel-publishing program from 1996 onward has ensured a greater level of canonicity within such works.
Additionally, the creator himself penned a number of short stories expanding on several key story-points from the television series, along with a number of other established authors, with all such tales considered as "real" as the TV show itself. The comic books published by DC are also fully endorsed , with JMS again either having directly written or contributed to all of the issues in one form or another.
Straczynski himself is presently hard at work finishing up the manuscript for a 100-page
Babylon 5 graphic novel, to be published during the late period of the year by
Wildstorm Productions.
As of 2006, the premise, characters, and plotline are still unknown.
Mongoose Publishing, the publisher of recent
Babylon 5 role-playing game material, has announced that it will be releasing a line of
Babylon 5 novels and graphic novels beginning in summer 2006. JMS has made it clear that he is not involved with this project and considers the works to be "fan-fiction".
DVD releases
Season releases
All five seasons have been released individually in the US and the UK. A complete 5-season set is also available in each of the two DVD regions, titled
Babylon 5: The Complete Television Series for the U.S. and Canada, and
Babylon 5: The Complete Universe for the UK. The UK version also includes all the films and the short-lived spin-off
Crusade. As on 2006, the complete first season and the individual shows from Season 1 are also for sale at the ITunes Music Store.
According to director J. Michael Straczynski as of mid-2006 "The DVD sales have raised over 500 million in revenue." The financial success of the DVD box sets has led to a renewed interest in further Babylon 5 work .
| DVD Name | Region 1 | Region 2 |
|---|
| Babylon 5: The Complete First Season | November 5 2002 | October 28 2002 |
| Babylon 5: The Complete Second Season | April 29 2003 | May 26 2003 |
| Babylon 5: The Complete Third Season | August 12 2003 | November 10 2003 |
| Babylon 5: The Complete Fourth Season | January 6 2004 | April 19 2004 |
| Babylon 5: The Complete Fifth Season | April 13 2004 | January 17 2005 |
| Babylon 5: The Complete Television Series | August 17 2004 | N/A |
| Babylon 5: The Complete Universe | N/A | October 24 2005 |
Babylon 5 movie releases
The
Babylon 5 TV movies were distributed differently in the U.S. and UK. Initially a DVD containing the two movies
The Gathering and
In the Beginning were released on both region 1 and region 2 DVD. Then, in the U.S., the first five movies which aired while
Babylon 5 was still on the air were released in one boxset, with the TV movie
Legend of the Rangers getting its own separate release on both region 1 and region 2 DVD. In the UK, a film boxset was released, but instead of containing the five movies like the U.S. version, it contained the three movies which hadn't been released yet .
The Gathering was released as a low-priced promotional R1 DVD in 2004, intended as a 'trial' of the series proper; Warner Bros. issued several such DVDs but discontinued the line shortly thereafter due to lack of interest.
| DVD name | Region 1 | Region 2 |
|---|
| Babylon 5: The Gathering/In the Beginning | December 4 2001 | N/A |
| Babylon 5: The Gathering | N/A | April 8 2002 |
| Babylon 5: In the Beginning | N/A | April 8 2002 |
| Babylon 5: The Movie Collection | August 17 2004 | N/A |
| Babylon 5: Movie Box Set | N/A | February 21 2005 |
| Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers | March 14 2006 | October 24 2005 |
Mastering problems
The transfer of
Babylon 5 to DVD created significant problems with regard to
special-effects/
CGI footage. Several factors complicated the process.
- Although originally broadcast in the standard television aspect ratio of , all live-action footage was filmed on Super 35 mm film . The idea was that, once widescreen televisions became more popular, the episodes could be easily converted into a widescreen format.
- CGI shots were rendered in the 4:3 ratio, but designed so that the top and bottom of each shot could be removed to create a widescreen image without ruining the image composition.
- All of the purely live-action shots were stored as high-definition digital images.
- However, CGI shots, and shots combining live-action with CGI, were stored in the much lower-definition NTSC digital format.
- Over the years, the original computer-generated models, etc. have been lost, making it necessary to use the old 4:3 CGI shots.
This has resulted in several consistent flaws throughout the
Babylon 5 DVD release. In particular, quality drops very significantly whenever a scene cuts from purely live-action to a shot combining live-action and CGI. This is especially noticeable on the
PAL DVDs, since CGI shots had to be converted from NTSC as well as being blown up to fit a widescreen television. In addition, while the live action film was indeed widescreen, shots were composed for 4:3, resulting in a conspicuous tendency for actors to clump up in the middle of the screen.
Games
In November 1997, Chameleon Eclectic Entertainment published the original
The Babylon Project: The Roleplaying Game Based on Babylon 5. In 2003, Mongoose Publishing printed the
Babylon 5 Roleplaying Game & Factbook.
The Babylon 5 Wars wargame, the first licensed product of its kind, was first published by
Agents of Gaming in 1998. The game was developed in close contact with the creators of the show, and most of the published material is considered canon. Agents of Gaming later published Babylon 5 Fleet Action, which focused on battles of a larger scale. There was also a Babylon 5 Collectible Card Game.
There are no officially licensed Babylon 5 video games on the market, though in 1998 a video game based on
Babylon 5, named
Into the Fire, was being developed by
Sierra, the publishers of
Homeworld. Work on this game ended on September 21, 1999, when, as part of a corporate reorganization, Sierra cancelled it and laid off its development staff when the game was only a few months away from release. This game was to have cast the player as the pilot of a Starfury fighter craft giving the player an opportunity to "move up through the ranks" and eventually take command of capital ships and even fleets. Christopher Franke composed and recorded new music for the game, and live action footage was filmed with the primary actors from the series.
The web site continues to track Babylon 5 mods for other games. FirstOnes.com hosts the site of the , an independent project to develop several standalone games. A collection of mods for the
Homeworld platform can be found at website. These mods try to capture the best battles from the series. Another independently developed, freely available mod is , a total conversion of the computer game
FreeSpace 2 is a space simulation [i] computer game [i] series developed by Volition Inc. [i]...
. The mod features several campaigns set during the Earth-Minbari War and the Raider Wars. Other games with Babylon 5 mods include
Star Trek Armada and Star Trek Armada 2.
Trivia
- One of the show's Hugo awards is used as a prop in the final episode, the first time that a Hugo has been shown on-screen in a series that has actually won a Hugo.
- In the Babylon 5 universe, every intelligent species in the galaxy has, apparently on its own, developed the food that we call Swedish meatballs. Each species has a different name for it . This is reminiscent of a phenomenon reported in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a science fiction [i] comedy series that debuted as a radio comedy [i] ...
: every intelligent race has a drink called "gin and tonic"—but only the name is similar, and the actual drink is unique to each species.
- Dilbert is an American [i] comic strip [i] written and drawn by Scott Adams [i] ...
cartoonist Scott Adams appeared in a cameo role in the season four episode Moments of Transition. In a bar, he enlisted Garibaldi to help him find his dog and cat who he said meant to take over the universe. Adams also has stated that he considers B5 to be the best television show ever made. When TV Guide is the name of two North American weekly magazine [i]s about television [i] programming, on ...
did a cover story on that, they had Dilbert say Star Trek, believing that that would sell more issues.
- In the British sitcome Spaced, Tim gets himself sacked from the Silent Reading comic book store by declaring to the owner that "Babylon 5 is a big pile of shit".
See also
- Babylon 5 influences
- List of Babylon 5 articles
References
External links
- : The definitive Babylon 5 reference and episode guide
- : Information from the original 1991 promotional flyer, with different character names and Peter Ledger's artwork
- : Collection of Straczynski's postings to Usenet and other online forums
- : Babylon 5 Wiki
- : A podcast partially run by cast with cast and crew appearing.
- : Straczynski's only official site.
