Khaki F. Dog

Only that it should.

B5 broke new ground in its day, breaking from the Star Trek establishment by blasting a sci-fi series onto the screen that blended speculative contemplation, mystical philosophy, long-term character development, conspiracy, heroism, betrayal, cutting-edge creative effects and wicked, wicked forehead jobs.

The original airing of the pilot episode featured puming electric guitars in a rocking score by Steve Copeland (of The Police fame), later retconned to the orchestral stylings of the series’ composer Christopher Franke.

The show was thrilling. Political intrigue, thought-provoking concepts of science and mysticism, entwining and unfolding destinies and most of all, to the young nerd that was me at the age of fourteen, the logistics of travel, habitation, trade, peacekeeping and ultimately warfare in space.

Yes, the sound sucked. Yes, the sets were a little on the hokey side, but you know what? A recent re-watching of the series showed that they held up impressively under the exacting standards of my adult eyes, accustomed to the glories of Firefly and Battlestar Galactica.

But the CGI on the DVDs is terrible, terrible. Gather ‘round, children, and hear the sad tale we call the Tragedy of Babylon 5.

J. Michael Straczynski, Joe to his friends, worked tirelessly to get B5 onto the screen and would later perform a Herculean feat unmatched in television history before or since, penning all the scripts for a 22-episode season solo. The man was a visionary, brilliant not only in his own creativity, but his ability to enthuse and nurture other talens (including established ones like ‘creative consultant’ Harlan Ellison) and to dance with light-footed grace around the perils of television production.

An actor decides to leave the show before completing their character’s intended four-season arc? No problem. Straczynski had a trap door ready, a plausible plot twist that could drop the character, plus a clever reinterpretation of past events that would let a different character fulfill the intended role.

Visionary that he was, he could also see that television in the future would be different from 1993. The DVD Consortium was hotly and noisily debating the digital media of tomorrow, and the benefits of 16:9 widescreen were so obvious that television would definitely one day embrace it.

So up he came with a cunning plan. “Let me film it in widescreen,” he said. “We’ll compose the shots so they can be cropped to 4:3, but then at least we’ll have widescreen footage which we can use on the DVDs.”

The studio’s nostrils throbbed. “But what of the special effects you’ve budgeted? Wider screens at higher resolutions cost significatnly more computing power.” Ah yes, there’s the rub. Why would anyone spend that extra money for a benefit that wouldn’t be felt for half a decade at least?

Straczynski planned for the future. “When the time comes to make DVDs,” he said, cackling with snotty glee, “computers will be more powerful by an order of magnitude. They’ll be able to render all the CGI we need at DVD resolution in a fraction of the time it takes us to produce it for VHS. Think of it! With only a small investment in ten years’ time, you’ll be able to market the series as a whole new experience!”

And wouldn’t that have been nice, children?

Wouldn’t it have been nice if poor management, poor archival practices and the dissolution of the VFX houses that produced the effects for B5 hadn’t resulted in the utter annihilation of the graphic assets that could have been used to re-render the CGI?

Look at the B5 DVDs. The footage is crisp and detailed, but as soon as a space-ship comes into view it turns to shit. Blurry, knobbly, even with some weird prismatic haloing around the jagged edges.

Being unable to re-render the graphics they had no choice but to take the VHS tapes of the computer effects, which were already of lower resolution and quality than DVD by far, and then cut the top and bottom to narrow it down to widescreen.

Now, if the studio wanted to put B5 out on Blu-Ray, they would have to start all the graphics from scratch. They don’t even have any archives of any of the CGI models — the shot of a Minbari ship in the straight-to-DVD Lost Tales set was only possible because nerdy fans had independently created a model of the ship and provided it to the producers.

Would that be so bad, though?

Think of it. The studio has that most precious of resources: camera negatives. Can you imagine what that would look like, digitized with modern equipment, graded to modern standards, and then bolstered by brand-new, far-less hokey CGI?

I know, I know. I sound like George Lucas. But stick with me.

B5 made its limitations work. Straczynski’s production team struck a brilliant balance between quantity and quality: the sets were small, but that was made plausible because on a space station, habitable space is at a premium. Of course you’d make all your workspaces as compact as possible. And as a result, they could build a huge variety of exciting locations in a limited amount of studio space.

Likewise the CGI. Yes, it wasn’t convincing, but it was awesome — literally, awe-inspiring. Space-ships obeyed Newtonian physics (or at least, the ones that were bound by them). The designs were inventive and spoke volumes abuot the species’ culture and psychology.

The series, for all its weird little silliness here and there, is a treasure of ingenuity and richly deserves to be refashioned. Who’s with me!