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Babylon 5 Season 1 Mini Series
Based on previous conversations with my brother, boyfriend, and various threads I've considered the possibility of editing season 1 down to a 5-10 hour mini series. How would you go about doing this? What would you cut or keep in, and why?
Comments
[B]Soul Hunter[/B] (not really needed but does help a bit with the Sinclar-Delenn relationship and the whole "They're using you!" bit)
[B]Born to the Purple[/B] (MAYBE! it has a ton of witty one liners and Adira, but the storyline is weak and some of the acting meh)
[B]Parliament of Dreams[/B] (goes without saying)
[B]Mind War[/B] (very important for starting the Psi Corps storyline)
[B]And the Sky Full of Stars[/B] (further establishes the Sinclar - Minbari link)
[B]Believers[/B] (stand alone, but very good)
[B]Signs and Portents[/B] (goes without saying)
[B]Voice in the Wilderness[/B] (Great Machine and Hyperions!)
[B]Babylon Squared[/B] (goes without saying)
[B]The Quality of Mercy[/B] (Free clinic, alien healing device, plus its a good episode in general!)
[B]Chrysalis [/B](not important at all, you can leave this one out!)
Its 12 episodes but at 45 min an ep, that's 9 hours
Worf
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/Midnight_on_the_Firing_Line"]Midnight on the Firing Line
[/URL] A: Ragesh 3
B: Raiders
The whole plot in the episode is important -- edits should be minor
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/Soul_Hunter"]Soul Hunter[/URL]
A: Soul Hunter
This episode is important as it establishes characts and anchored in the arcs. I do think we can cut out Nagrath out of the whole thing.
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/Born_to_the_Purple"]Born to the Purple[/URL]
A: Londo's purple files and love
B: Gold channel and Susan's father dying
Both are needed. A establishes Londos motivation with Morden down the road. B is needed for Susan's character development
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/Infection"]Infection[/URL]
A: Rubber monster suit
B: ?
The A arc only establishes that Earthforce is interested in Bioweapons. Except for select scenes this episode may be cut.
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/The_Parliament_of_Dreams"]The Parliament of Dreams[/URL] (Plot priority is questionable)
A: Jeff and Cathrin
B: G'Kar Assassination
C: Religious Celibration
B arc establishes NaToth and A establishes relationship with Cathrin and some character development. Lieneer is also introduced. C arc I like just for the closing scene. A and C may be cut, or reduced.
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/Mind_War"]Mind War[/URL]
A: Ironheart
B: Sigma 957
A establishes PsiCorps and B introduces the Firstones. Both should be kept
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/The_War_Prayer"]The War Prayer[/URL]
A: Homeguard - Minbari Point of View
B: Ivonovas love interest.
Susans love interest depends on the primary arc. The home guard is a line I have conflict with. It helps set up context for the Clark arc, but does fizzle out when Clark and Nightwatch take over.
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/And_the_Sky_Full_of_Stars"]And the Sky Full of Stars[/URL]
A: Sinclair Abduction Interrogation
B: Ivanova and Garabaldi hunt for Sinclair
This abduction fits into Sinclairs battle of the line arc and helps form the minbari relationship with humans. The B arc can probably be reduced or removed.
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/Deathwalker_%28EP%29"]Deathwalker[/URL]
A: Deathwalker
I find this episode to be quite enjoyable as is despite its non arc status. I would keep this in.
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/Believers"]Believers[/URL]
A: Doctor vs Faith
Another episodic episode that is of good quality and thought provoking. I say keep in.
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/Survivors"]Survivors[/URL]
A: Garabaldi is framed
B: Prepping for prez visit to B5
A story develops character for Garibaldi and establishes his struggle with alcohol. Dependent on the B story for context. Both keep in but could be reduced.
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/By_Any_Means_Necessary"]By Any Means Necessary[/URL]
A: Docker Guild Strike
B: Londo and G'Kar antagonize each other for the Eth Tree.
The A line gives us a perspective of the workers of Babylon 5, those who can't be heros. While nice and enriching to the universe it can probably be cut. The B line help furthers establish the relationship between G'Kar and Londo, but this is also done elsewhere.
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/Signs_and_Portents"]Signs and Portents[/URL]
The title of the season as well!
A: Raider attacks
B: Lady Laderia/The Eye
C: Mr Morden
Elements of the A story could be dropped, but B and C are quite important
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/TKO"]TKO[/URL]
A: Walker Smith
B: Susan's Shiva
A is cut. Period. B is very important for Susan's development.
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/Grail"]Grail[/URL]
A: The Seeker
B: The Feeder
C: The curse
Episodic, but doesn't contribute much to anything other that the Minbaris spiritualism
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/Eyes"]Eyes[/URL]
A: Dudes from EA and Psi Corps try to take command of the station
Another good episode showing the dark side of Earthforce and the relationships with psi corps. However it is episodic.
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/Legacies"]Legacies[/URL]
A: The vanish of the war leader
B: The young latent telapath
I say A is important enough to be kept while the B line helps form Susan and Winters relationship.
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/A_Voice_in_the_Wilderness"]A Voice in the Wilderness[/URL], part 1
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/A_Voice_in_the_Wilderness"]A Voice in the Wilderness[/URL], part 2
A: The great machine
Keep! Might be able to treduce down to an hour.
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/Babylon_Squared"]Babylon Squared[/URL]
A: B4
Very important, Zathras says keeep but no, no one listens to Zathras
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/The_Quality_of_Mercy"]The Quality of Mercy[/URL]
A; Healing device
B: Mindwipe
A must be kept for Marcus. B could be eliminated/reduced although
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/Chrysalis_%28EP%29"]Chrysalis[/URL]
A: Quadrent 37
B: Prez assassination
C: Chrysalis
All need to be kept
And whatever you do, don't cut out the closing scene of Parliament of Dreams! Its like, so cool. It really makes the episode, to be honest. If the rest of the episode was crap (which is isn't by far) then it'll still save it.
Parliament of Dreams: Cathrin should be removed.
Mind War: The Ironheart part didn't play out. It falls apart latter on. It should be greatly changed or removed.
Sky Full of Stars important? It was sort of dropped when When Sinclair was dropped. I do like it though.
Signs and Portents: the Eye, Morden and Kosh.
I also feel that the motivations of sinclair's departure could be better emphasized by a re-cut of the last five episodes.
One more element that was left out about plot weighting...a good balance of plot advancement and action is needed. Development needs to take place, but not at the cost of viewer interest, so in a miniseries format (Lets say 6-9 episodes) we would have to work it out in such a way that a greater arc is revealed over the course of the season, but not in a way that undermines the enjoyability of previous episodes.
And this may be a bit of a stretch, but it would be worth considering re-rendering the VFX shots from season one. While the actual framing need not be meddled with, this does mean that modifications to the content/flow/order could take place and be completely transparent, rather than having to slice and dice the existing material. There wasn't all too much used in the first season and most of it was generally simplistic (by modern standards), but if someone could donate time to such a sub-project, the rewards would be worth it.
With a little creativity, we might even be able to carry over some of the development from The Gathering to the miniseries. While I'd estimate that 50% of the shots are incompatible purely on a lighting standpoint, There are quite a few story elements that could be introduced in a way that would allow us to smoothly integrate them. My guess is that we could salvage 8-15% of the pilot for this. Perhaps more if we were to consider utilizing flashbacks (five distinct points in S1 allow this, and a style exists that we could utilize to incorporate them)
And you could also take the Battle of the Line footage from In the Beginning to use in And the Sky Full of Stars.
Worf
Many of the season one plots tie together in subtle ways. This could work to the benefit of an editor, in that you could have A-sub1, and A-sub2, starting out seemingly unrelated but converging. It allows for the perceived complexity of having 4+ stories without actually having it. Higher payoff, as well. the A/B stories could still be highest priority, but C(A-sub2)/D(B-sub2) can come in at a close third.
I'm sorry, but why does that need to be bothered with? I would think the viewer would realize that wars do happen, and if they were dumb, I think the Narn-Centauri relation would change their minds.
[quote]Parliament of Dreams: Cathrin should be removed. [/quote]
It would be very tricky to remove her, especially since she is the one that first encounters the Sigma 957 walker, and that she appeared quite a bit in Chrysalis. I mean, Sinclar saying "Nothing's the same anymore" is a pretty critical line, and she was right next to him.
Plus to be honest, while in the grand scheme of things Catherine wasn't all that important, I think her relationship with Sinclair was very well done. In fact, I'm going to have to think along Derek's lines and say that Catherine and Sinclair had a more interesting relationship then Sheridan and Delenn.
I mean, "How's your aunt?" and things like that is pretty good stuff. Even though it might seem smart to remove a lot of this stuff, it is quality.
[quote]Mind War: The Ironheart part didn't play out. It falls apart latter on. It should be greatly changed or removed. [/quote]
Sigh, the Talia mindfuck. Yeah its true that this petered out with her departure. But aside from that, it begins showing the Psi Corps what they're really like (the experimentations, the rumors that they are pulling the strings back home, etc.) which is critical to the rest of the series.
[quote] Sky Full of Stars important? It was sort of dropped when When Sinclair was dropped. I do like it though. [/quote]
I actually missed this episode during the original TNT reruns when Season 5 was picked up (and never saw it during the original run, nor most of S1 for that matter), and of course knowing what happens to Sinclair anyway, I didn't feel this is important. But to someone who doesn't know Sinclair's destiny, this is important. Yeah Sinclair disappeared for a long time, but he is still one of the most pivotal characters of the series. This is a slow episode, and a lot can be cut out. It could be pretty easy to chop this episode by 10-20 minutes (and you can remove the gambling subplot with the security officer almost entirely).
In this so called mental exercise ( ;) ) I am attempting to do a quasi triage which I didn't really communicate. Step 1 is to identify particular episode stories which could be flat out cut -- where they are episodic and add little or nothing to the overall series (The A plots of TKO and Infection for example). While this will probably help as far as new recruit attention span, it will probably not be enough to make the season match the expectations of those who watch/like Firefly and BattleStar
The second step is to identify the arcs present and which A/B/C plots which at some level tie into them. At this point we determine which arcs can be safely cut. For example, if Cathrin's arc is determined to not be significant we would cut her A/B/C stories out as long as those stories are not vital to the arcs we keep or to the overall series.
Thirdly we examine at a scene by scene basis. This will be the most time consuming. While an arc or A/B/C story might be kept there may be particular scenes which we collectively go "meh" and decide to ax. Example: any scene with Nagrath.
Also, if there is a scene which is considered important/vital for the season/series but something that would have been cut by the previous steps of the triage, then we must identify the cut scenes which are vital to establish some context for the target and reimpliment them (ie, the Walkers of Sigma 957 so we must somehow establish Cathrin).
The last step will be fine editing. Everytime Ironheart says "I am... becomming," I have the sudden urge to stab someone.
There are some limitations. As we only have the final mix and no master audio tracks the background audio may not line up. Franke's modular music makes this more feasable than it would for other series, but it is a limitation which can prohibit desired edits.
Another element is chronolgy. While the timeline for a lot of events are open to replacement, I fill hesitent to reorder jms events. It is his universe after all and I just want to condence it, not reorder it. One of those unrational gut feeling things.
To the specific responces:
Sanfam: Action and development are both very important, I do not argue with that. It is something to be looked at all levels of the triage.
The homeguard debate: The scenes which mention homeguard in passing may be enough to be a segway into Clark/Nightwatch. However the War Preyer establishes to the views the extreams they go to. In this case it would be something that I recommend to be edited down, but not flat out eleiminated. It also portrays Londo as a more sympathetic character and Vir as someone with morals -- but this can also be established in other story elements.
The Gathering: I intentionally decided to leave this as its own seperate element due to its different casting and production elements. I can invision it being a series of flashbacks to provide context though, but that is a higher level of editing then my brain can wrap around.
Efects: I would LOVE to re do season one effects for several reasons. One: they were rendered in 4:3 and while wideframe was in mind, the topes and bottems were cropped and in later episodes I felt something was missing. Finding the 4:3 copies and then adding to the sides will aliveiate that. Also I finally noticed that the same external shots of B5 were reused and different ships were composited over it. More shots that we see in later seasons can be used as well as new renders. There is a particual scene where we first see the star furies in combat with the raiders and the pacing is, how we say it, slow as models. Redoing that scene will spead up the combat pace to what we expect from more modern sci fi. Finally are the live action/cgi composits. I have to check how many ther are in seaosn 1, but those (the core shuttles for example) can use a boost.
We also know that jms can be a bit heavy handed with is forshadow. "Nothing is the same anymore." Well DUH the prez just blew up! It may be that Cathrin really isn't needed, that Walkers of Sigma 957 isn't as important as other elements, so that arc can be cut or minimalized. We also need to look at the multi functions of scenes and stories. Sigma 957 do introdue the idea of firstones, but it also shows G'Kar as a sympathetic character and not all evil.
And for evaluation, at the end of War Without end part 2 when we see what sinclair becomes my boyfriend simply said, "WTF?" Based on that case study I would argue that any element that involves that arc must be included to make it more previlent in the new viewer's mind.
Well yes you would only do that if you were re-rendering footage but at the same time why make extra work when there's existing material that's good enough?
Worf
Worf[/QUOTE]
"Good enough" may not actually be good enough. Of course, we could always strive for that exact level of quality, which would drastically increase the amount of footage we could sample from to save time later, but re-rendering still allows immense (theoretical) levels of flexibility in re-purposing content for different contextual needs. I think the extra work would be almost trivial compared to that needing to be put into the actual editing stage, and perhaps far less if one considers the need to edit around other dialog and events occuring within the same CGI segment in order to change context.
[QUOTE=croxis;173188]There are some limitations. As we only have the final mix and no master audio tracks the background audio may not line up. Franke's modular music makes this more feasable than it would for other series, but it is a limitation which can prohibit desired edits.[/QUOTE]
While I don't remember exactly how the audio mix was handled in the B5 dvd releases, I believe there is a distinct possibility that we can subtract the music from much of the show with an automated process. We're dealing with something that was filmed for Dolby Surround telecast and upmixed to Dolby Digital 5.1 for the DVD releases. the DVD mix has music on the four outer channels, dialog primarily in the center and vfx from all five. The key here is that music is consistently along a range of channels and does not fade unevenly or carry any particular bias towards a channel group. This means that dialog is generally isolated to begin with, and that any segments lacking isolation can be subtracted and lightly processed to improve clarity.
For that question alone I really like that episode. Regardless of the rubber suite. That and the teck Earth got from it is all thats needed.
Can you make Cathrin -not- be Sinclair's lover? Old girl friend who takes offered advantage for old friendship? G'Kar's friend that Sinclair doesn't approve of? Her trip were she was rescued by the Narns is important.
Infection is important in that it introduces biological technology as a part of the B5 universe, which is necessary for the Vorlons and Shadows, and shows that not just those two races have it. Not that you need an entire episode to do that, of course.
That one with the latent telepath for example. She's a terrible actress, but it further shows the dicotomy between Ivanova and the Psi-Corps. Also the A story with Neroon begins the Warrior-Religious caste rift.
Arcs:
Sinclair battle of the line/Valen
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/Soul_Hunter"]Soul Hunter[/URL]
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/And_the_Sky_Full_of_Stars"]And the Sky Full of Stars[/URL]
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/Eyes"]Eyes[/URL]
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/Legacies"]Legacies[/URL]
Psicorps
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/Mind_War"]Mind War[/URL]
Homeguard/nightwatch
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/The_War_Prayer"]The War Prayer[/URL]
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/Eyes"]Eyes[/URL]
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/Chrysalis_%28EP%29"]Chrysalis[/URL]
Shadow War
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/Signs_and_Portents"]Signs and Portents[/URL]
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/A_Voice_in_the_Wilderness"]A Voice in the Wilderness[/URL]
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/Babylon_Squared"]Babylon Squared[/URL]
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/The_Quality_of_Mercy"]The Quality of Mercy[/URL]
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/Chrysalis_%28EP%29"]Chrysalis[/URL]
Narn/Centauri Conflict
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/Midnight_on_the_Firing_Line"]Midnight on the Firing Line[/URL]
Crystalis
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/Chrysalis_%28EP%29"]Chrysalis[/URL]
Unconnected:
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/Born_to_the_Purple"]Born to the Purple[/URL]
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/Infection"]Infection[/URL]
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/The_Parliament_of_Dreams"]The Parliament of Dreams[/URL] (establishes Na'Toth)
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/Deathwalker_%28EP%29"]Deathwalker[/URL]
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/Believers"]Believers[/URL]
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/Survivors"]Survivors[/URL]
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/By_Any_Means_Necessary"]By Any Means Necessary[/URL]
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/TKO"]TKO[/URL]
[URL="http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/Grail"]Grail[/URL]
One thing your dividing up of the episodes seems to completely lack is considering which epiosdes important to character development. Remember that B5 is as much about its characters as it is about events. Most of S1 is sporadic, seemingly-unconnected events, but they're all important to developing the characters properly.
Another idea: can we break the episodes down by character focus and development? If there's a specific set of storylines we can adopt to tell multiple stories in parallel at different levels of priority, we could reduce the number of "episodes" needed and better prioritize specifics threads.