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When comparing the early promotional material for Babylon 5 with what appeared on screen you wouldn’t think it was the same show. Rather than doing one race and character at a time (like the previous two posts) here’s a few of them grouped together.
Shown here are some of the character and race descriptions which were put together for a promotional flyer that was sent out to stations just after Warner Bros. showed interest in the pilot movie back in 1991. . . . . and as you can see it describes a universe which is quite a bit different from what eventually made it to the screen.
The visual elements were drawn up by the late Peter Ledger – Joe Straczynski commissioned him to produce various sketches to show around town, and they were more for promotional purposes rather than actual production concept art . . . So everything looking quite different from how it appeared on screen isn’t that unexpected or unusual as others would be brought on board when the actual process of creating the show got under way - and they’d bring various skills and ideas to it. . . . . It’s the character and race descriptions which are perhaps a little more surprising.
The Centauri and Londo Collari (that’s not a typo) remain pretty much unchanged from their 1991 descriptions, but the other races and characters like Khosh Naranek and the Vorlons are virtually unrecognisable, and underwent some serious changes as the pilot movie – and later the series – was being developed by the larger team of artists.
Another interesting element to this is the dynamic between the various races. . . Back in 1991 the humans are described as one of the most – if not the most - advanced group. So much so the Vorlons are out to eliminate the Earth Alliance in order to be the dominate race!! . . . . . While the Narn are the new kids on the block and are an opportunist and aggressively expansionist species.
Anyway. I’m not going to even attempt a piece by piece breakdown of the differences - There’s too many far more knowledgeable and experienced fans kicking around here to do that. : ) But it is also interesting to note that the early promotional material this came from referred to Babylon 5 as a Warner Bros. Television production . . . . There’s no mention of PTEN anywhere on it. Which does tie in with something touched on with John Copeland over on B5Scrolls, where it’s explained how the Head of Warner Bros. Televsion was an advocate for the show and it was the programming head for PTEN who required some convincing.
There’s a direct link down in the comments to an old site which holds more details about this promotional flyer sent out to stations.
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a few months ago i discovered that a bunch of people made an Babylon 5 Freespace 1/2-alike with the Homeplanet SDK; Homeplanet is basically this Russian Freespace 1/2-like that was developed by Revolt Games that all of 5 people know about and borders on being kusoge (and is set in the same universe as Neuro, an actual kusoge FPS game that got a lot of fame when several YouTube personalities uncovered its English release from Taiwan).
what is it called? BABYLON 5: I’VE FOUND HER -
my question is how did this even come into fruition. as far as i know, a bunch of hardcore B5 fans - working as Space Dream Factory - randomly ask Revolt Games if they can use their SDK they made for Homeplanet to make a free B5 game and went ‘hell yeah’ - it’s reasonable to assume that someone at Revolt has severe B5 fever, which i can get - i watched B5 a year ago or so and it has aged absurdly well despite some really off filler episodes
you can actually get I’ve Found Her here, it’s entirely free and standalone, and it’s in English by default:
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I think at least part of it has been the fandom frothingly desirous of a Freespace 2-style B5 game since Into The Fire got canned at the 11th hour by Sierra for reasons we can and will never understand.
I’ve Found Her has been our last, best hope for a halfway deace B5 flight sim game ever since. I feel like that’s got to have been what buoyed it all the way to release.
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I played it when it first came out and and I just kept sling shotting back and forth over whatever thing I was trying to shoot at cause of the physics
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You know there’s actually a full Freespace 2 mod with 15 campaigns called the Babylon Project
It’s still getting updates!
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I like the babylon 5 civ 4 mod because the one Earth Alliance game I did involved me spending like three hours establishing patrol routes to deal with the endless fucking swarms of pirates who descend upon known space like flies. By the end of it I knew exactly how Ivanova felt all the time
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i guess i have something to play then when i go on a Freespace binge again
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One of the larger Freelancer servers back in the day was also a Babylon 5 total conversion.
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I had a dream dayshawn the cafeteria worker from vice princpals was instead working at the zocalo on babylon 5 and having to disinterestedly listen to londo and g’kars ravings
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I wish we could have a meetup on Babylon 5 so bad dude
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I am dragged broken into the set of Medbay ten minutes in for surgery by Scratch after Wile E. Coyote-style accelerating my Kawasaki Ninja ZX-11 into the matte painting backdrop of the central corridor.
Was watching this on the set design and I love how well they were able to stick to the vision while having relatively little budget to work with.
“It was realistic, people really lived in this space.”
Genuinely one of the things that make this show really work for me.
"With the exception of the Medbay, every set doubled as a different set. The Zocalo would also become the Central Corridor…
“…it would also become its own kind of down below, and in some scenes it could become like the core you know where we’d have the reactors and stuff.”
“The quarters would always double, so Ivanova and Sheridan would have the same quarters, Delenn and Lando would have the same quarters, with just completely different dressing.”
Everything with the white models into the construction and “scumbling” is great:
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At Readercon this year, the main guest was David Gerrold, known mainly for writing The Trouble with Tribbles. What isn’t as well-known is that he once wrote a script for B5 called “Believers”! I picked up a copy of it, which he was nice enough to sign:
I will report back on how it is when I have properly entered fanfic mode and have the cast’s running in my head.
Anyways:
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