It would be nice if they remade the effects. They've been mediocre even at their time and nowadays they just look incredibly silly.
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A gentleman will not insult me, and no man not a gentleman can insult me.
Great story, bad actors.
They are all great and I think this was Walter Koenig at his best. A really sinister villian.
shareKoenig has been quoted as saying that Bester was by far his favorite role and I can easily see why. Even after all of those ST:TOS episodes and ST films the character of "Chekov" was pretty shallow and stagnant. Bester was a better written character by at least 100 fold.
shareI am a very great fan of 'Star Trek'.
I should say 'TOS' but as far as I'm concerned the rest was just pants. TNG bah!
Seeing Koenig doing Bester was a bigger eye-opener for me than Wm.Shatner doing Denny Crane.(damn.. he's not just Kirk..he's not just Chekhov!!)
He did slimy,creepy,charming and just plain intimidating brilliantly.
By far the best(er) bad guy for me...and I grew up with Darth Vader.
I liked especially:
- Mira Furlan as Delenn
- Peter Jurasik as Londo Mollari
- Andreas Katsulas as G'Kar
- Stephen Furst as Vir Cotto
- Walter Koenig as Alfred Bester, though I might not be completely impartial on that judgement, he's an original Star Trek actor after all.
But a lot of other people have been pretty good.
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A gentleman will not insult me, and no man not a gentleman can insult me.
Only some of the supporting actors were crappy but the main cast in general was very good.
As for any kind of "reboot" my answer is NO. JMS is not going to recreate that extremely rare "lightning in a bottle" with a new cast.
Bad actors?
Andreas Katsulas gave some of the best performances ever on TV as G'Kar.
Peter Jurasik was almost as good as Londo.
Bruce Boxleitner and Richard Biggs were very, VERY good in their roles.
Mira Furlan, Bill Mumy, Stephen Furst, Jerry Doyle, Jeff Conaway, Jason Carter, Patricia Tallman, and Andrea Thompson were all solid to good in their roles (sometimes very good).
Claudia Christian had a ton of personality, and was occasionally excellent as Ivanova. Michael O'Hare was great as a stoic leader, but mediocre at best in the more personal moments.
These actors had chemistry together. They had personality and brought their characters to life in a way that worked. The show had a kind of magic that transcended any of their individual acting skills (although many of them were outstanding, especially Katsulas and Jurasik).
I wouldn't replace a single member of that cast if I had a Delorean with a flux capacitor and found my way back to 1992 as a producer of B5. You can't replace chemistry, and this cast had great chemistry.
Sure enough. Which is reason enough to never do a "reboot." Although I think it would also suffer from modern PC problems like the "remake" of Battlestar Galactica did.
shareAgreed. Unless people are talking about some of the guest actors, I don't get the bad actor criticism. Comments about some sets and how the CGI looks on a big screen I get, though how shallow to worry about that, especially considering it was made on a small budget. It is epic storytelling, and that is the important thing to pay attention to. Many people can't even absorb everything that is going on during a first viewing there is so much going on, so much to remember. Watching it with a friend now who is new to it, and we are regularly pausing to discuss context and rememberings. It's really fun to introduce someone to the show who gets into it.
"The men people admire are daring liars; those they most detest are men who speak the truth"
No
shareI was not a big fan of Babylon 5, but a reboot would likely be disastrous. I had a lot of issues with the acting, dialogue, and f/x, and while a reboot could improve on some of those (at least the f/x and probably some of the performances), the charm and acclaim behind the series was its pre-planned, long-term story arc.
A reboot would have the near impossible task of replicating that story arc's success, because if it hews too closely to the original story, then it's not going to have much if anything in the way of surprises. If it just takes the basic premise of the story and does completely new things with it, then it's ignoring the aspect that made the original so beloved. It's not like Battlestar Galactica, where the original was so bad and cheesy that it was a lot easier for the reimagining to just take the basic concept and take it completely in its own direction.
I would say a continuation set in the same universe is the way to go for Babylon 5, but J. Michael Straczynski had three shots at it with Crusade, The Legend of the Rangers, and The Lost Tales, and all three failed pretty miserably. Babylon 5 works best when it aims for big, epic storytelling, so attempts at smaller scale tales have just flopped badly. At any rate, I think it's best to just let this franchise rest as it is and let studios focus on creating new shows.