babylon 5
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'Babylon 5' is finally coming to Blu-ray
All 110 episodes and its pilot TV movie will be available in HD.
'Babylon 5' will return as an animated movie from its original creator
Original ‘Babylon 5’ series creator J. Michael Straczynski just announced an animated feature length reboot film developed by Warner Bros. Animation. It is apparently finished and more details will be released next week.
The ‘Babylon 5’ reboot will survive the sale of The CW
The CW may be on the auction block, but Babylon 5 remains in development.
'Babylon 5' is getting a reboot
Some 23 years after its original run, Babylon 5 is making its way back to TV.
HBO Max didn't expect to have this many subscribers for another two years
During its Q4 2020 earnings call on Tuesday, AT&T revealed that its streaming subsidiary HBO Max now boasts some 40 million paid monthly subscribers — a figure neither company anticipated the service would attain until at least 2023. HBO overall now boasts more than 60 million subscribers, according to AT&T. It should be noted that the 40 million subscriber figure includes not just folks who pay for the standalone Max subscription but also people who have Max access either through their existing cable bundles or one of the numerous introductory deals that cellular carriers have been offering since the service’s launch last May. Only around 17 million of those are considered “activated” in that they either downloaded and used the Max mobile app or are actively paying for the service outside of bundling deals.
‘Babylon 5 Remastered’ now available to buy, or stream on HBO Max
Nearly thirty years after it first aired, and twenty years after its troubled DVD release, Babylon 5 is getting a polish as part of its release on HBO Max.
Watching ‘Babylon 5’ in its original format is pretty great
The original, 4:3 versions of 'Babylon 5' are available to buy, and it's a trip watching them, even in SD.
Meet the Upscalers
Fans across the world are using technology to bring low-res video entertainment up to HD standards. Meet the Upscalers.
The Game Archaeologist and the Girdle of Anarchy: The history
"The future in your hands," Funcom promised gamers in the early days of the new decade. As the MMORPG genre slowly took shape and grew in popularity, game studios were still babes in the woods, feeling out this brave and complex new world without a standard handbook to guide them to success. EverQuest focused on large group content and raids, Dark Age of Camelot featured Realm vs. Realm conflict, and RuneScape brought the MMO to the browser. Everyone desperately hoped he had the next big hook that would reel in gamers by the thousands, especially Norwegian developer Funcom, which made headlines in 1999 with its highly acclaimed adventure The Longest Journey. Funcom took one look at the small but expanding MMO market, got together in a group huddle, and said, "You know what guys? This fantasy thing, it's everywhere. Let's do something different. Let's drill for sci-fi gold. And let's throw in robots, cuddly rodents, randomly generated missions and a bitter rivalry between factions. Geronimo!"* (*Quote fabricated by author.) And thus, almost a decade ago, Anarchy Online hit the industry like a sack of broken features. It wasn't the stellar debut Funcom desired, but the game endured and went on to carve itself out a workable plot of land. This month, The Game Archaeologist trades in his rugged leather attire for space armor and a high-powered laser rifle. The year is 29475, and the place is Babylon 5. Er, Rubi-Ka.
The Daily Grind: What IP do you want to see as an MMO?
There are certainly a lot of intellectual properties out there that would make for an excellent MMO. Running down the list of major games currently running shows no shortage of games based on popular franchises -- Star Trek Online, Warhammer Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Age of Conan, Champions Online -- and the trend shows no sign of slowing. But there are other franchises that could conceivably make a number of people happy -- Transformers, The Dark Tower, Doctor Who, Mass Effect, Babylon 5, and so on ad infinitum. Of course, there are licenses that are unlikely to ever be adapted for MMOs, either because their heyday of popularity has passed or because they're just not in quite the right market. Still, we can dream, and in our heads we might have an idea for the world's best MMO based off of Macross. What intellectual property would you love to have a chance to play as an MMO? Do you think there's a chance it might happen, or are you fairly certain that it's just going to remain an idle fantasy?
Infringers of Dune: Dune role-players shut down by Herbert Estate. Spice keeps flowing
Among the various business, educational and social uses to which Second Life is put, Role-Playing gamers have quite a number of thriving communities. If you want to role-play in the world of Joss Whedon's Firefly, or Straczynski's Babylon 5, Lucas' Star Wars universe(s), Tolkien's Middle Earth, John Norman's Gor, Frank Herbert's Dune, Roddenberry's Star Trek, or the settings of Doctor Who, Torchwood, Battlestar Galactica, Harry Potter, Final Fantasy VII or CCP/White Wolf's World of Darkness, Second Life is home to all of these and more. Well, until this week anyway. According to Wagner James Au, Trident Media Group, a literary agent "designed for the twenty first century",which maintains the Herbert Estate sent cease-and-desist notices via Linden Lab requiring one non-profit role-playing community to remove Dune-related names and objects from the virtual environment within two days.
The Digital Continuum: Pondering Star Trek Online
As a kid, I grew up on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Mostly because my parents watched it constantly, but also because I found that I enjoyed the show. Another staple of my nerd-influenced upbringing was a steady diet of Star Trek movies. Since those formative years I've also watched Deep Space Nine, Babylon 5, Voyager and more recently Battlestar Galactica. So it's safe to say I'm at least a casual sci-fi and space nerd. In fact, when I'm not entrenched in some form of entertainment, I tend to spend my extra time over at the official website of Astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Of course Star Trek has never been purely about Science. It's always been -- to me, at least -- a mixture of social-political issues, engaging drama and several degrees of actual science. Different writers and directors have, over several decades, writ large their envisioned versions of Star Trek, with varying amounts of the three critical factors that make up a Star Trek experience. So, obviously, I now find myself wondering what Cryptic Studio's massively multiplayer online version is going to be like.
Blizzard developers are out there
An interesting discussion went on in the Community Service forums yesterday concerning the role Blizzard developers play in those very forums. A poster was obviously attempting to troll and start some argument, asking if the Blizzard devs actually do read what people write or pay attention to the community at large. Kisirani, a Blizzard developer, responded that indeed they do.A few interesting things came from subsequent blue posts that help outline the roles of the developers and community managers. First, it is the job of the community managers (CMs as we call them) to do just what their title says: manage the community. This includes the forums and everything that goes on in there. Kisirani tells us that they regularly collect feedback and suggestions and pass them along to the developers. Kisirani makes it a point to say that they don't have enough time to read everything themselves, and if they were to read everything the game itself would not be developed – and again, this is where the community managers come into play.
EVE Trinity 1.2 patch notes: Junk In Space!
NASA must be envious. They'd probably pay billions to just set a timer to their space junk and have it poof out of existence in thirty days. The difference between NASA and CCP is that CCP can do something about their junk. According to the EVE Trinity 1.2 patch notes, starting April 16, anchored containers which are not in the vicinity of a starbase and have not been interacted with will be given a thirty day timer. At the end of that, if nobody has touched them, they will just be given a short trip through a wormhole into the Dimension of Unwanted Trash. Further, at the first of every month, abandoned drones, fighters, shuttles and rookie ships will be scrapped as a hazard to navigation. With the trash gone, bookmarks pointing to them will become invalid. To save y our bookmarks that point to junk, go through the list and redirect them to coordinates in space (right-click in space next to the container) instead of some random orbiting piece of space debris. Be sure to do this before Downtime on the 16th, because they will be poofed when EVE comes back up if you have not switched them to coordinates before then.If your ship takes more time to undock in the morning, it may just be getting old. Or it could just be that in a re-balancing, your ship had fewer equipment slots than it had the night before. You may no longer leave a station until you remove the excess equipment. Along with the Junk In Space initiative, EVE Trinity 1.2 also includes a huge number of UI and game fixes. They even managed to close a few exploits -- and the world is a better place for us all.
Grimwell gives one reason fantasy pwns sci-fi, we go "Huh?"
Watch your head, you don't want it hit by return fire in the ever-present MMO blogosphere discussion of fantasy vs sci-fi. The most recent discussion started up with Massively's own Michael Zenke and his "Five Reasons Sci-Fi Pwns Fantasy" which prompted the return fire in question from Grimwell. Both of the posts are certainly worth reading, especially if you have any kind of lingering interest in the subject matter. As far as we can see, there's truth to be had on both sides of the fence. However, we do have one point of contention to make with Grimwelll's argument. He states that the reason fantasy "pwns" sci-fi is that it's accessible, which is a constant argument on the matter. While we think he may have a point in that less people are inherently familiar with sci-fi, we very much disagree with his assessment that you need to be a math nerd to enjoy good sci-fi -- his example in this case being Star Trek and its now-infamous technobabble.
Massively's Massive Giveaways: EVE Online
Our theme game for today's giveaways is a game near and dear to my heart -- CCP's fantastic game, EVE Online. If you haven't tried EVE, I can only say that you're missing out if you are a space fan. Of course, flying around is not all that this game has to offer you -- by a long shot. For example, I'm admittedly a bit of a tradeskill freak, so I created a Minmatar Industrialist who spends her days either running missions or happily creating and selling lots of little things while I wait to find a good Corp who will take me in. Of course, building things is just one of many things you can do in EVE, but we'll touch upon some others as the day progresses. For now, however we're offering up the first prize for today; a 100-day EVE Online timecard! This means you can save your ISK for bigger and better things, and instead pick up some free time courtesy of your friends here at Massively. All you have to do to be entered to win is to leave a comment below before 10:15 AM tomorrow (11/14) with your favorite Sci-fi space-based TV show. Of course, you must also be 18+, a resident of the U.S., and otherwise able to comply with the official rules. While I cannot win, I have to say my personal favorite is Babylon 5; I loved to watch the characters either ascend or descend over time. How about you?
Warner Bros. TV shows added to iTMS
That's right, folks (I'm channeling Porky Pig) Warner Brothers has added some of their shows to the iTunes Music Store. The six shows include: Friends Aquaman (he's the shirtless dude in the picture) Babylon 5 (millions of geeks just passed out in excitement) The Flintstones The Jetsons The Best of MADtv It looks like only the first seasons have been added at this point though I would imagine more and more seasons (of those shows that have seaons) will be added.Thanks, Adam.
