Breaking Down JMS' Tweets on the Upcoming Babylon 5 Reboot

[Frustration]

nu BSG is and always was garbage.

I would argue that it had a fantastic 1 1/2 seasons... and I didn't watch much of it after that, because it was a soap opera. But when it was good, it was really good.

(You've gotta have a plan, writers. B5 changed the game - you can't just make stuff up as you go along.)

[McAvoy]

nu BSG is and always was garbage.

I would argue that it had a fantastic 1 1/2 seasons... and I didn't watch much of it after that, because it was a soap opera. But when it was good, it was really good.

(You've gotta have a plan, writers. B5 changed the game - you can't just make stuff up as you go along.)

I said that tongue in cheek.

I didn't mind season 3 but season 4 annoyed me.

Cylons have a plan? What the hell was that plan? Obviously they wanted that tag line without really thinking about it.

[CharlesPhipps]

nu BSG is and always was garbage.

I would argue that it had a fantastic 1 1/2 seasons... and I didn't watch much of it after that, because it was a soap opera. But when it was good, it was really good.

(You've gotta have a plan, writers. B5 changed the game - you can't just make stuff up as you go along.)

I said that tongue in cheek.

I didn't mind season 3 but season 4 annoyed me.

Cylons have a plan? What the hell was that plan? Obviously they wanted that tag line without really thinking about it.

I fucking hate when they do that. It's also ridiculous because I thought I'd figured it out as, "The Cylons are following the fleet to Earth to exterminate everyone there." Which would have justified why the Cylons let them go.

[McAvoy]

nu BSG is and always was garbage.

I would argue that it had a fantastic 1 1/2 seasons... and I didn't watch much of it after that, because it was a soap opera. But when it was good, it was really good.

(You've gotta have a plan, writers. B5 changed the game - you can't just make stuff up as you go along.)

I said that tongue in cheek.

I didn't mind season 3 but season 4 annoyed me.

Cylons have a plan? What the hell was that plan? Obviously they wanted that tag line without really thinking about it.

I fucking hate when they do that. It's also ridiculous because I thought I'd figured it out as, "The Cylons are following the fleet to Earth to exterminate everyone there." Which would have justified why the Cylons let them go.

I don't even think Earth was part of the Cylons 'plan'. If I remember that tagline was in the beginning.

[CharlesPhipps]

nu BSG is and always was garbage.

I would argue that it had a fantastic 1 1/2 seasons... and I didn't watch much of it after that, because it was a soap opera. But when it was good, it was really good.

(You've gotta have a plan, writers. B5 changed the game - you can't just make stuff up as you go along.)

I said that tongue in cheek.

I didn't mind season 3 but season 4 annoyed me.

Cylons have a plan? What the hell was that plan? Obviously they wanted that tag line without really thinking about it.

I fucking hate when they do that. It's also ridiculous because I thought I'd figured it out as, "The Cylons are following the fleet to Earth to exterminate everyone there." Which would have justified why the Cylons let them go.

I don't even think Earth was part of the Cylons 'plan'. If I remember that tagline was in the beginning.

I mean there is no Plan and it was obvious when they showed up on New Caprica and revealed there was no Plan.

[Mickey_Rat15]

nu BSG is and always was garbage.

I would argue that it had a fantastic 1 1/2 seasons... and I didn't watch much of it after that, because it was a soap opera. But when it was good, it was really good.

(You've gotta have a plan, writers. B5 changed the game - you can't just make stuff up as you go along.)

I said that tongue in cheek.

I didn't mind season 3 but season 4 annoyed me.

Cylons have a plan? What the hell was that plan? Obviously they wanted that tag line without really thinking about it.

I fucking hate when they do that. It's also ridiculous because I thought I'd figured it out as, "The Cylons are following the fleet to Earth to exterminate everyone there." Which would have justified why the Cylons let them go.

I don't even think Earth was part of the Cylons 'plan'. If I remember that tagline was in the beginning.

I mean there is no Plan and it was obvious when they showed up on New Caprica and revealed there was no Plan.

Earth could not have been part of the Cylon Plan, it was not really part of the Colonial's plan until Roslyn got religion and discovered that Earth might be more than a legend.

They did come up with a Plan for the Cylons. It was just kind of lame. The Plan was Cavil screwing with his parent's heads before killing all humans, as well as working on his Oedipal issues.

What ended up annoying me was not only was Moore and crew flying by the seats of their pants adding story elements without thinking about how to bring them all together into a coherent plot until they realized they were running out of episodes. In his commentaries he kind of disparaged JMS's approach of plotting out the overall series arc before you start, and was very proud of his half assed method.

[Frustration]

Babylon 5 is the gold standard for how to script out an epic story arc while leaving room for unexpected developments.

Ron Moore can write compelling episodes, but he sucks at writing arcs.

[McAvoy]

Babylon 5 is the gold standard for how to script out an epic story arc while leaving room for unexpected developments.

Ron Moore can write compelling episodes, but he sucks at writing arcs.

JMS wrote most of the episodes and pretty much game planned all of the characters to have exits should the actors leave. The whole show was basically how cheap you could make a sci fi show without it looking cheap.

I am sure Moore probably could have figured out a better plan for nuBSG if he followed JMS. At best he had an outline for season and that's it.

[clearspira]

NuBSG is an interesting case example of the Do's and Don't's of making a reboot. Season 1 and 2 were an undoubted success. Season 3 has its fans. Season 4 is hot garbage and reeks of the ass pulling required when you ''have a plan''. Tigh being a Cylon doesn't really make sense. The Final Five from Earth doesn't really make sense. Abandoning all of their tech to live like cavemen absolutely does not make sense. Starbuck becoming Jesus was unwelcome.

The show started as one of the more realistic sci-fi shows in history (bearing in mind that its contemporary shows include Andromeda FFS) and didn't end that way to put it mildly.

[Frustration]

Abandoning all their technology wasn't totally unreasonable. Advanced technology requires the industrial base of an entire society to support it - you can't cobble together a smartphone in your garage, except by assembling already-constructed components, and fabricating those components involves sophisticated mining and refining systems, extraordinarily advanced chip construction, and chemical resources that themselves require major support systems.

The human fleet wasn't designed for colonization - it wasn't carrying the equipment and knowledge necessary to maintain itself or recreate an advanced technological civilization. Moreover, the Cylons found them once by looking for signs of their technology - they weren't going to take the chance that they could successfully hide their slowly-failing ships.

It was the part where they declared they were biologically compatible with the existing hominids that was absurd. That's just... I don't have the words. That *requires* that some powerful entity has been manipulating all of human history and has arranged grossly improbable events according to its own design, because that's more or less impossible. So absurdly unlikely that it acts as proof positive of intelligent action.