IF There Were Going To Be A Crusade Reboot, Who Would You Cast?

[Republibot 3.0]

He's 57 according to the interwebs. That's hardly old – if Sly Stallone and Arnie and Harrison Ford and Bruce Willis can still be action stars in their late 50s and 60s, I'm sure Biehn could do Gideon. And why couldn't he be that old? If we're rebooting why not make the captain a little older?

Arnie hasn't done any action in an action movie in like a decade. Sly specializes in men of action who are in their autumn years (Rocky Balboa, Rambo, his current boxing comedy, etc) They're more dramas about mortality than straight-ahead actioners. Bruce looks like an extremely buff Don Rickles more and more as he ages. Harrison Ford is looking long in the tooth.

Also: these people are in unusually good shape for their ages, owing to extensive personal training and diet every day. They take months to get in shape for their movies, and training, and they don't do their own stunts. And a movie has a budget to make things look better than a TV show. It's an entirely different animal than the grind of a weekly TV show.

Patrick Stewart was about 45 when TNG started, and in very good shape for a little guy of his age, but he wasn't an action/romantic lead. He was simply too old to be credible. How many fistfights did he get in in 135 episodes? Like maybe five?

Richard Dean Anderson was a very serviceable older lead in SG1, but part of that was that they addressed his age quite a bit. He was continually complaining about his knees and stuff. And he wasn't a romantic lead. He was kind of an anti-romantic lead through much of the show. And even then, after 5 years, he started taking a backseat in the show because he wanted to spend more time with his family, and also he really was just getting too old to do rigorous shoots every week.

 

[A_M_Swallow]

{snip}
Durena? Just pick any short chesty model with nice legs. Doesn't really matter. For Doctor Chambers....uhm....I dunno. Thing is: we really didn't get much of a sense of her character, so it's hard to say.

Durena is more than a pretty face. She is a prosthetics role that does stunts. Most actresses will not take the job.

Replace the character by Lyta. Give Lyta a different name and the crew can spend the next 5 years pretending not to have worked it who she is.

Doctor Chambers - any 40 year old actress with a strong character can play a doctor. They may even be able to get a name because there is a shortage of good roles for actresses in their 40s.

 

[Republibot 3.0]

Durena is more than a pretty face. She is a prosthetics role that does stunts. Most actresses will not take the job.

Point taken. She's a stuntwoman.

Replace the character by Lyta. Give Lyta a different name and the crew can spend the next 5 years pretending not to have worked it who she is.

Syntax was a little weird there. Are you saying ditch Durena altogether and replace her with Lyta working undercover, or recast the character with Pat Tallman?

Doctor Chambers - any 40 year old actress with a strong character can play a doctor. They may even be able to get a name because there is a shortage of good roles for actresses in their 40s.

The actress who played Dr. Chambers was also a stuntwoman. JMS seems to like casting them.

 

[KoshN]

The actress who played Dr. Chambers was also a stuntwoman. JMS seems to like casting them.

And yet she doesn't seem to be able to throw a believable punch (the fight scene where she's protecting Max Eilerson's ex-wife). The fight between Ivanova and Dr. Trent in Thirdspace was equally bad. However, when Lochley decked Lyta in B5 S5 was much better, probably a testament to Tallman and Scoggins.

 

[KoshN]

And, yeah, thirdspace sucked. Honestly, none of the TV movies were very good.

In my opininn:
The Gathering - It looks dated now, but they were still getting their act together.
Babylon 5: In the Beginning - I love it.
Thirdspace - I never liked it.
The River of Souls - Initially, I didn't much care for it, but it grew on me.
A Call to Arms - I almost love it.
The Legend of the Rangers - 99% of it is hideously bad.

 

[Republibot 3.0]

In my opininn:
The Gathering - It looks dated now, but they were still getting their act together.
Babylon 5: In the Beginning - I love it.
Thirdspace - I never liked it.
The River of Souls - Initially, I didn't much care for it, but it grew on me.
A Call to Arms - I almost love it.
The Legend of the Rangers - 99% of it is hideously bad.

Very similar opinions:

"The Gathering" - original version slow, boring. Like the music.
"The Gathering" - TNT version - much better, but I didn't care for the music.
"In the Beginning" - easily the second-best of the movies, and probably the one I've watched most. Disappointed by the incongruities with the story as told in the series itself, but not bad.
"Thirdspace" - Just sucks. "Oh, we ran out of plot. Well, let's just have a 20-minute fistfight!
"River of Souls" - pretty 'meh.' Would have made a mediocre hour-long ep, but needlessly padded out, and the Holobrothel and Stuart Pankin's terrible acting and the whole 'whacky bat' thing. Awful.
"Call to Arms" - love it. Best of the bunch, by a LONG margin.
"Rangers" - easily the weakest of the bunch.
"Lost Tales" - 50% fun, 50% terrible, on the whole pretty weak.

 

[Ragzus]

In my opininn:
The Gathering - It looks dated now, but they were still getting their act together.
Babylon 5: In the Beginning - I love it.
Thirdspace - I never liked it.
The River of Souls - Initially, I didn't much care for it, but it grew on me.
A Call to Arms - I almost love it.
The Legend of the Rangers - 99% of it is hideously bad.

Very similar opinions:

"The Gathering" - original version slow, boring. Like the music.
"The Gathering" - TNT version - much better, but I didn't care for the music.
"In the Beginning" - easily the second-best of the movies, and probably the one I've watched most. Disappointed by the incongruities with the story as told in the series itself, but not bad.
"Thirdspace" - Just sucks. "Oh, we ran out of plot. Well, let's just have a 20-minute fistfight!
"River of Souls" - pretty 'meh.' Would have made a mediocre hour-long ep, but needlessly padded out, and the Holobrothel and Stuart Pankin's terrible acting and the whole 'whacky bat' thing. Awful.
"Call to Arms" - love it. Best of the bunch, by a LONG margin.
"Rangers" - easily the weakest of the bunch.
"Lost Tales" - 50% fun, 50% terrible, on the whole pretty weak.

"The Gathering" (only saw the tnt version) It was fairly slow but had a decent plot it looks dated now but the story still tracks fairly well.
"In the Beginning" - Loved it, only thing they could've changed is having the actors not look like they did in season 2, so it could've been done at any time (my favorite is first)
"Thirdspace" - I liked the space scenes basicly that was all, and the vorlon under plot of having made so many mistakes.
"River of Souls" - I didn't like this at all, i felt the cast wasn't enough in it, seemed like it would've made a better season 1 or very early season 2 episode.
"Call to Arms" - I liked most of it, besides the rush and lack of other characters I would've liked to have seen it improved by leaving a cliff hanger at the end to which crusade enters with some of the footage from the now end of the film in the first episode Sherridan could recap for the record/viewers what exactly happened from his dream the whole way then pick up from the building of the crew by sherridan he could've just been looking at files no need to have the cast appear in that footage you'd clearly film at the end of the film, then intro the crew + minor disaster leading to some of the EA crew being killed before they even get started episode 1 they finally fill the crew and get going! (in my current opinion lol)
"Rangers" - Ugh, Great idea poorly done, Rangers point of view was cool but... it just wasn't done right it just didn't fit, That ship firing method just screws the entire show for me, as well as the "new enemy" it couldn't have just been drak?
"Lost Tales" - I liked these they were very heavy story but they felt like episodes of B5 from what season 5 should've been like. - They were low on cast but i just felt like the stories they were trying to tell were really good, only improvement would've been more space battles! lol

 

[A_M_Swallow]

Durena is more than a pretty face. She is a prosthetics role that does stunts. Most actresses will not take the job.

Point taken. She's a stuntwoman.

Replace the character by Lyta. Give Lyta a different name and the crew can spend the next 5 years pretending not to have worked it who she is.

Syntax was a little weird there. Are you saying ditch Durena altogether and replace her with Lyta working undercover, or recast the character with Pat Tallman?

Durena was the last of her race. I meant Lyta undercover - after the Telepath War she must have about 1/3 of Psi Corps hate her.

Doctor Chambers - any 40 year old actress with a strong character can play a doctor. They may even be able to get a name because there is a shortage of good roles for actresses in their 40s.

The actress who played Dr. Chambers was also a stuntwoman. JMS seems to like casting them.

JMS likes strong women characters. Weak women do not stay stunt women for long.

 

[Ragzus]

Durena is more than a pretty face. She is a prosthetics role that does stunts. Most actresses will not take the job.

Point taken. She's a stuntwoman.



Syntax was a little weird there. Are you saying ditch Durena altogether and replace her with Lyta working undercover, or recast the character with Pat Tallman?

Durena was the last of her race. I meant Lyta undercover - after the Telepath War she must have about 1/3 of Psi Corps hate her.

Doctor Chambers - any 40 year old actress with a strong character can play a doctor. They may even be able to get a name because there is a shortage of good roles for actresses in their 40s.

The actress who played Dr. Chambers was also a stuntwoman. JMS seems to like casting them.

JMS likes strong women characters. Weak women do not stay stunt women for long.

Yeah i get where he is coming from strong women are better, i don't wanna be whiped or anything but i don't like stories about pretty faces and no personality.

 

[Republibot 3.0]

"In the Beginning" - Loved it, only thing they could've changed is having the actors not look like they did in season 2, so it could've been done at any time (my favorite is first)

There's a number of problems with the story. For starters, Sheridan destroyed the Blackstar late in the war, only shortly prior to the battle of the Line, not in the early days as shown here.

If Franklin and Sheridan had not only met each other before, but been on a secret mission and (evidently) in a prison camp together, then why was no mention of it made previously in the series? More to the point, why is the VEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRYYYYY SSSSSSSSSTROOOOONG implication in "Points of Departure" that Ivonova is the only one on the station Sheridan knows?

With all the hand-to-hand combat in the montages, how is it possible that no one ever really 'saw' a Mimbari in/prior to the war? JMS said that Sinclair was literally the first human they actually met in person, and that the conflict was basically ship-to-ship prior to The Battle of the Line.

Where's the minbari 'wall of bodies' that the Soul Hunter hacked his way through?

The Franklin/Sheridan diplomatic mission feels like a little bit of a 'make work' plot to me.

 

[Ragzus]

"In the Beginning" - Loved it, only thing they could've changed is having the actors not look like they did in season 2, so it could've been done at any time (my favorite is first)

There's a number of problems with the story. For starters, Sheridan destroyed the Blackstar late in the war, only shortly prior to the battle of the Line, not in the early days as shown here.

If Franklin and Sheridan had not only met each other before, but been on a secret mission and (evidently) in a prison camp together, then why was no mention of it made previously in the series? More to the point, why is the VEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRYYYYY SSSSSSSSSTROOOOONG implication in "Points of Departure" that Ivonova is the only one on the station Sheridan knows?

With all the hand-to-hand combat in the montages, how is it possible that no one ever really 'saw' a Mimbari in/prior to the war? JMS said that Sinclair was literally the first human they actually met in person, and that the conflict was basically ship-to-ship prior to The Battle of the Line.

Where's the minbari 'wall of bodies' that the Soul Hunter hacked his way through?

The Franklin/Sheridan diplomatic mission feels like a little bit of a 'make work' plot to me.

Yes they certainly made changes like using franklin to fill a spot they should've cast to somebody else or left empty.
The story would be a good re-starting point with all that content that is missing, the war went on for a while but we saw very little, but later people state they killed minbari hand to hand etc which from the film wasn't very clear it looked like almost a complete one way push, perhaps that was just the way JMS wanted it to look.

I still like it even if it has gaps.

 

[Republibot 3.0]

And yet she doesn't seem to be able to throw a believable punch (the fight scene where she's protecting Max Eilerson's ex-wife). The fight between Ivanova and Dr. Trent in Thirdspace was equally bad. However, when Lochley decked Lyta in B5 S5 was much better, probably a testament to Tallman and Scoggins.

Yeah, that was kinda' weak, you're right. As for Scoggins, she boxes in the gym to stay in shape, so, yeah, she can throw a punch. Also: Texas chick. They're all crazy.

 

[Republibot 3.0]

JMS likes strong women characters. Weak women do not stay stunt women for long.

True. Also: Stunt women generally work cheap, and can hit their marks, which is handy when you're doing a lot of FX, *AND* when you hire one, you don't have to hire another stunt woman to fill in for her. And they're NOTORIOUSLY easier to work with than your standard primadona actress. They're not going to complain about having to wait around an extra hour for someone to get their lines right when their normal gig is getting thown off of buildings.