Perspectives of a Canadian in the Old/Deep/New/Geographic South: This is where I ramble on about nothing in particular and post a few nice pictures.
Zathras is used to being beast of burden to other peoples’ needs. Very sad life. Probably have very sad death. But at least there is symmetry
No one ever listens to Zathras. Quite mad they say. It is good that Zathras does not mind. Has even grown to like it. Ah yes.
Got my copy of B5 – The Lost Tales earlier this week and finally got around to watching it yesterday. I’m not entirely sure how much I like it yet. I’ll have to watch it one or two more times I think. At 72 minutes long, it’s a little bit shorter than two regular episodes and is split up into two sub-plots. It’s not entirely what I was expecting, but thinking back to what I initially heard about what Lost Tales as supposed to be, it fits pretty well.
If I recall correctly from the initial news of the Lost Tales project, it was supposed to be a series of character focused short stories. As such, I think it does a good job of further developing and refining the traits of the two main characters that make an appearance: Lochley and Sheridan. People expecting something resembling a full on B5 movie are likely to be disappointed. I liked the two stories that were told, and the endings definitely fit the characters involved. In fact, I thought the Sheridan story was predictable and had a reasonably good idea what his solution was going to be about halfway in.
The effects are pretty much all CGI with very few actual sets based on what I’ve seen in the special features on the DVD. The title ‘The Lost Tales’ gives the impression that there will be more than just the two stories, but I think the original intent was that if this one was successful, other DVDs would likely follow. It would be interesting to see the concept applied to other characters.
Lots of the usual extra stuff on the DVD (interviews, behind the scenes stuff), including a couple of nice tributes to Andreas Katsulas (G’Kar) and Richard Biggs (Dr. Franklin), both of whom are ‘out exploring beyond the rim’.
4.5 stars out of 5 for the CGI and FX.
Overall, I think I’d give it 3.5 stars out of 5.
This is a fantastic DVD set. Babylon 5 was a cutting edge series when it came out nearly 10 years ago, and to me is still one of the best sci-fi series ever. But this isn’t about the series. Everyone knows the series was great and what it was all about.
The 5 season collection is pretty huge. With 6 DVDs and 22 episodes in each season, it’s a lot of TV watching. Nothing any die-hard B5 fan wouldn’t object to or find overly strenuous, especially since the entire series can be watched commercial free (with pauses for bathroom breaks and food of course)!
The slip cases for each season are nice and colourful and provide a very nice presentation for the series. Each season comes in a book-style cover with disk on each side of a plastic DVD disk holder. My only complaint with the boxed set is that the disk holders are simply glued in and not very solidly at that. Already I’ve had a two of the disk holders pop out of the covers when they got dropped (onto carpet). The cover is creased between each plastic holder to make for easy opening, but doesn’t seem like it will withstand a lot of opening and closing. It’s not likely to fall apart soon, but it seems to me the binding could have been done a little better and more solidly.
There are special features on disks 1, 4 and 6 of each season, which I haven’t had a chance to go through yet. 2 or 3 episodes in each season have commentary from JMS and others. The special features consist mostly of character, equipment and technology background in the form of ‘data files’. Gag reels are included in the last couple of seasons. A few short documentaries are also sprinkled here and there.
The series itself of course I give 5/5 to. The DVD collection I’ll have to give 4/5 to, mostly because of the relatively poor binding quality and ho-hum special features.
“No boom?” – Michael Garibaldi
“No boom.” – Cmdr Jeffrey Sinclair
“No boom today. Boom tomorrow. Always a boom tomorrow.” – Lt. Cmdr Susan Ivanova