Bester wants Lyta's body! Delenn cooks up an end to the Minbari Civil War! Sheridan decides to start the Earth Civil War!
Crikey — it's been how long since my last Babylon 5 rewatch? August? Crikey.
Overall an episode with solid acting, from guest stars (Bester! Neroon!) and regulars alike, hampered only by a rushed plot and some dodgy FX. 4.0 of 5.
B5 Rewatch: 4×14 “Moments of Transition”
(Holy moley — I haven’t watched / reviewed any B5 since August? Well … there’s been a new TV season and … um … stuff.) The Minbari Civil War comes to a head! Mr.…
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It always gets me how people now look back an say how weak B5's FX are, in hindsight. For its time, they were bleeding edge. IIRC, Glen Lawson had an insane budget for its time when he did the original BSG in the 70s. JMS & Co. delivered movie quality (or better than what was in the movies in the 90s) under budget for five years. And while its Trek counterpart was still using stop motion.
Kids today don't know how good they've got it.
+greg zapiec I think it's fair to judge the FX both by contemporary standards (as a warning) and how groundbreaking they were at the time. What the B5 team did was groundbreaking and, overall, still quite good.
In the case I cite for this ep, the problem with the Starfire Wheel scene is that the temple interior is just not well thought out in how it was rendered, and the (script-specified) similarity between the circular light pattern in the temple (with the SW in the middle) and the Grey Council circle is completely lost. That could have been the direction in part, but the script descriptions of what things there were to look like (including the crowds) never quite gel.
I still watch B5 not for great special effects (which every TV show has) but for the intelligently written epic story (which almost no TV show has)… thank goodness for Game of Thrones…
Loved the character "G'kar".
I wonder if they should redo B5 keep the same stories/plot but update the FX.
+Roldan Robles G'kar returns the episode after this, I believe.
I really would rather not have them re-do B5, even keeping the story the same. Just too much room to lose some amazing stuff done in the original.