I thought I might give people a brief run down of the B5 Con on Saturday.
There were various talks I went to covering comics (not too great), Arthurian
stuff and links to B5 (quite interesting) as well as some talks by Harlan
Ellison. That guy is a psycho. I'm not sure whether I want to read any of his
books or not now.
The best bit was the three hour talk by JMS. Much of the time he was showing us
previews of things to come which was quite cool. Apart from the season 1-5
outtakes (Lennier's classic response to Marcus saying "I think we're in trouble"
after their white star is hit - "No shit Sherlock").
---
What follows contains no real spoilers at all. I'm going to describe the
appearance of the Crusader ship and mention a few mundane points about Crusade
and the third B5 movie. Your chance of not seeing any of this in the trailers
leading up to their release is minimal and gives nothing away but if you want to
know absolutely *nothing* about anything then read no further.
---
We also saw a 10 minute trailer for A Call to Arms, the movie that kicks off
Crusade. No spoilers but a look at some of the characters which include a
technomage. Should be a laugh. We also got some flybys of the Crusade ship, the
Excalibur. From what I can tell this ship is a result of Sheridan's desire for a
new, destroyer class ship that can tackle more than the White Stars can that was
mentioned a few episodes back. Given that it's been put together by Earth and
much of it consists of reverse engineered Vorlon technology quite a bit of its
functionality isn't well understood as pieces have been bolted on in the hope
that they'll something cool. We're thus promised some fun in the form of "What's
this button do"? or people drastically firing up previously unused systems
during combat resulting in some cute CGI effect. Why do I think of Arthur
switching on the Infinite Improbability Drive during the Magrathea missile
attack? As for appearance, it's a mile and a quarter long and consists of a very
long, thin body widening out at the back to 3 fins, one vertical and the other
two at 120 degrees. The bridge is a pod a little way up the vertical fin that
sticks out. Its shape reminds me a bit of the Battlestar Gallactica fighters but
with a longer body. As for fiewpower etc we don't know much except that its
"level 1" firing mode is similar to a White Star. Level 2 is available but
drains most of the power. It also has its own defence grid.
As confirmed, Crusade doesn't follow such a tight arc as B5 does. Essentially
it's an action adventure series with drama elements as opposed to the drama
based, political series with action elements that is B5.
The second half of the talk was a preview of the third B5 film, River of Souls.
This won't preview in the States until Novemeber so it was nice to get a bit of
payback for the end of B5. RoS isn't fully complete yet as they''ve yet to layer
in all the music but I didn't notice anything obviously wrong. I won't give
anything away (you can read a synopsis of it at the Lurkers Guide) except to say
that it's really outside the arc completely and could almost take place at any
time. It struck me as more of a long episode than a film and whilst quite fun,
wasn't brilliant. It's a shame that many of the real characters of B5 were
absent. No J'Kar, Londo, Vir, Delenn or Sheridan. The main players were Lockley,
Zack and Garibali. It also starred Ian "Lovejoy" McShance" and Martin "Apocalyse
Now" Sheen. A final teaser is that's it's worth watching just to see Lockley in
a very revealing set of pink underwear.
I gather that ThirdSpace is due out in three weeks and is quite Lovecraft
influenced. People I spoke to who've now seen all three reckon that ThirdSpace
was their favourite, not least because it has Ivanova, Lyta and Vir in it.
Richard
---
"A Smith & Wesson beats four aces"
Email: richard@
ICQ#: 1492328
There were various talks I went to covering comics (not too great), Arthurian
stuff and links to B5 (quite interesting) as well as some talks by Harlan
Ellison. That guy is a psycho. I'm not sure whether I want to read any of his
books or not now.
The best bit was the three hour talk by JMS. Much of the time he was showing us
previews of things to come which was quite cool. Apart from the season 1-5
outtakes (Lennier's classic response to Marcus saying "I think we're in trouble"
after their white star is hit - "No shit Sherlock").
---
What follows contains no real spoilers at all. I'm going to describe the
appearance of the Crusader ship and mention a few mundane points about Crusade
and the third B5 movie. Your chance of not seeing any of this in the trailers
leading up to their release is minimal and gives nothing away but if you want to
know absolutely *nothing* about anything then read no further.
---
We also saw a 10 minute trailer for A Call to Arms, the movie that kicks off
Crusade. No spoilers but a look at some of the characters which include a
technomage. Should be a laugh. We also got some flybys of the Crusade ship, the
Excalibur. From what I can tell this ship is a result of Sheridan's desire for a
new, destroyer class ship that can tackle more than the White Stars can that was
mentioned a few episodes back. Given that it's been put together by Earth and
much of it consists of reverse engineered Vorlon technology quite a bit of its
functionality isn't well understood as pieces have been bolted on in the hope
that they'll something cool. We're thus promised some fun in the form of "What's
this button do"? or people drastically firing up previously unused systems
during combat resulting in some cute CGI effect. Why do I think of Arthur
switching on the Infinite Improbability Drive during the Magrathea missile
attack? As for appearance, it's a mile and a quarter long and consists of a very
long, thin body widening out at the back to 3 fins, one vertical and the other
two at 120 degrees. The bridge is a pod a little way up the vertical fin that
sticks out. Its shape reminds me a bit of the Battlestar Gallactica fighters but
with a longer body. As for fiewpower etc we don't know much except that its
"level 1" firing mode is similar to a White Star. Level 2 is available but
drains most of the power. It also has its own defence grid.
As confirmed, Crusade doesn't follow such a tight arc as B5 does. Essentially
it's an action adventure series with drama elements as opposed to the drama
based, political series with action elements that is B5.
The second half of the talk was a preview of the third B5 film, River of Souls.
This won't preview in the States until Novemeber so it was nice to get a bit of
payback for the end of B5. RoS isn't fully complete yet as they''ve yet to layer
in all the music but I didn't notice anything obviously wrong. I won't give
anything away (you can read a synopsis of it at the Lurkers Guide) except to say
that it's really outside the arc completely and could almost take place at any
time. It struck me as more of a long episode than a film and whilst quite fun,
wasn't brilliant. It's a shame that many of the real characters of B5 were
absent. No J'Kar, Londo, Vir, Delenn or Sheridan. The main players were Lockley,
Zack and Garibali. It also starred Ian "Lovejoy" McShance" and Martin "Apocalyse
Now" Sheen. A final teaser is that's it's worth watching just to see Lockley in
a very revealing set of pink underwear.
I gather that ThirdSpace is due out in three weeks and is quite Lovecraft
influenced. People I spoke to who've now seen all three reckon that ThirdSpace
was their favourite, not least because it has Ivanova, Lyta and Vir in it.
Richard
---
"A Smith & Wesson beats four aces"
Email: richard@
ICQ#: 1492328