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selenakMy first instinct is still to say „I wouldn’t, because the original is so great. Not perfect - nothing ever is, and I‘m aware of B5‘s flaws - but it is still one of my all time most beloved tv series, and thus I instinctively dread it getting a second rate makeover.
My second instinct is to do what I suggested a couple of years ago, when we first heard rumors there might be a reboot, which is: a parallel show which covers the same years as the original does but focuses on different characters and situations, those we didn‘t or couldn‘t see much of in the original show - Centauri women ( you knew I‘d start with the Centauri, didn‘t you?) from their own pov (both women who live on Centauri Prime and women who try to have a different life elswehere), and more of the non-noble Centauri in general, ditto for the Narn (and here one could use, for example, Na‘Toth‘s departure at the end of s2 for a storyline following her and through her some other Narn), more human civilians, too; how did the Minbari who weren‘t in the Grey Council react when it was broken up, how about making a worker Minbari a pov character, what became of Delenn‘s s1 friend the poet, and so forth.
HOWEVER. This isn‘t what was asked. And in past years and decades, I‘ve come across reboots of sci franchises wich I really liked - not just of shows where I didn‘t have an emotional attachment to the original (Battlestar Galactica comes to mind) but where I did (the German sci fi series Perry Rhodan since some years now runs parallel to the original a reboot called Perry Rhodan Neo. ) Pondering what makes a good reboot (for me, as always, this is highly subjective), I decided that a good reboot wonders what the core of a story/series is. And then doesn‘t try a remake (a remake is a different thing), but tries to put its own spin, influenced by the different time of creation, on it. In the case of BSG, I‘d say Moore and friends concluded the core is „planets inhabited by humans get attacked by androids, cataclysmic events ensue, the survivors then look for Earth, but the Cylons are still an issue“ and went from there. Presumably he was also aware original BSG was influenced by Mormon beliefs and decided to include a strong religious element - but not for the human characters, for the robots/androids/cylons. As for the original BSG characters, some made it in name and function to the reboot, but not necessarily in personality, others were combinations, and others were unique to the reboot.
So what is the core story of Babylon 5? Far trickier to answer, and not just because of my Centauri and Narn centric pov (what do you mean, first Sinclair and then Sheridan is the main character?). „After a very bloody war between two galactic people, one old and established, one up and coming, which started with a cultural misunderstanding , they and some other people decide on a space station to avoid similar situations where various people can negotiate and trade and try to resolve their differences peacefully. Among these are some Space Romans past their glory days and the people of one of their formerly occupied and exploited colonies who are now independent and an up and coming power. Then it turns out there are a couple of even older galactic races pulling the strings in the background, Earth goes fascist, and our heroes become rebels while simultanously fighting first one, and then both of the older powers. Also, even pre-fascist democratic Earth had lousy laws for telepaths. Eventually, our heroes manage an interstellar alliance. The fight with the uberpowerful wannabe puppeteers ends by kicking them both out and refusing to fight for them anymore, while the earth civil war ends with a military victory over the fascists. Then everyone tries peace, with mixed success, the legal situation for telepaths hasn’t improved, and Selena‘s favourite character of all time has to face his past sins and what they wrought, and completes his tragedy. Most other main characters surviving so far hare a nice retirement.“
I bet anyone reading this might nod at some parts, but at others will say „but what about arc x/storyline y, that needs to be included!“ But that‘s the problem. B5 really was a novel in space, as originally pitched, with fascinating plots and subplots, and is incredibly hard to condense. (Certainly not into „Casablanca in space“, which I think was another pitch JMS used when trying to sell his pilot all those years ago.)
But let‘s take my meagre attempt at condensing as a basic outline. We only got two lines or so from how JMS pitched a rebooted B5, and in it, Sheridan is already mentioned as a guy with a mysterious past, from which I conclude he intends to meld Sinclair and Sheridan into the same character. Fair enough: Sheridan owes his existence to tragic real life circumstances which hopefully won‘t be repeated by whoever would play B5‘s human commander in season 1. But if there‘s just one of them and he gets an amalgan of Sinclair‘s and Sheridan‘s arc(s) - with, I presume, Catherine Sakai getting to be Anna Sheridan, poor soul - , I vote that this particular Commander/Captain JS does NOT become President in season 5. Not even in a s5 like originally planned. Either kill him for real at Z‘ha‘dum, with Delenn and Ivanova sharing the rest of his storyline between them, or let him go Valen via time travel at the latest after Earth has become democratic again. I say this not simply because it‘s one of my pet peeves that Sheridan in s5 simply isn‘t a very good President while the narrative insists that he is, but because he doesn‘t need to be. This isn‘t Return of the King. You don‘t need a ruler bringing healing to Middleearth, err, the galaxy, and you don‘t need to reward your hero by putting him on a throne, err, making him President, either, especially when that‘s just not something he‘s suited for. So: in my reboot, Sheridan and Delenn do not spend decades switching the offices of the Presidency and Entil‘zha between them. Due to real life nepotism in politics, this today would feel even less democratic than it did in the 1990s. Instead, they time travel back in the past and conclude their destinies there while the first President of the Alliance is, drum roll… a new character. Because one thing my reboot does is take the idea from my parallel show and introduce more civilians for humans, Centauri, Narn and Minbari early one, one of whom, female or male, will later end up as President.
I think Londo and G‘Kar‘s storylines, both individuallly and together, are pretty much perfect, so for the life of me I can‘t think of twists that would be as powerful. (I mean, a reboot isn‘t a „five things which never happened“ fic.). Otoh, it would be horrible for whoever would be cast as Londo and G‘Kar to simply have to play scenes which habve already been played to perfection. Something like this is a recipe for disaster, see also those remakes who actually are word-for-word, shot-for-shot remakes. But I dont have a solution there, and I don‘t think you can do a version of B5 WITHOUT Londo and G‘Kar as key characters. You simply can‘t.
Where I do see an opening are the aides. Not that Vir isn‘t also instrumental for the show, and Lennier, and Na‘Toth; what I mean is that you could give the aides more narrative room earlier on, you could show their relationships with each other instead of sketching it just via two scenes seasons apart, as with Vir and Lennier, and of course, Na‘Toth needs to be if not on the station the entire time then on the show the entire time. My reboot has solved the make-up problem and will hire the right actress from the get go. So perhaps we could get around the difficulty of condemming some poor souls of just having to replay what Peter Jurasik and Andreas Katsulas have played superbly before by a pov shift, i.e. we get introduced to Londo via Vir instead of the other way around, to G‘Kar via Na‘Toth and so forth. Or: the Ambassadors get more than one aide at the same time. I mean, there‘s certainly no shortage of work. And we don‘t know at the start whether Vir is Vir, so to speak, or whether it‘s the other one. It makes for different dynamics which could be explored.
Now: the „Earth goes fascist“ over several seasons storyline was a very strong one in the original show. And very understandably, it took its cues from the 20th century precedents (plus some Orwell). But a B5 for the present would be created in the world we live in now. And thus I would introduce a billionaire type like Edgars as one of Clark‘s backers far sooner, and I wouldn‘t make him an old man, but a younger tech bro. And not the only one. Unlike Star Trek, B5 featured a future with money and economic problems anyway, so it would make sense to work with that some more. Moreover, first season Earth, instead of having basically the (20th century) US political system for the entire world (a President, a Senate, etc.), would literally be governed by Corporations who during the Earth-Minbari war did work together because the survival of humanity was at stake, but now are competing again, and are all trying to get B5 under their control and oust the competition. Meanwhile, Clark or the Clark equivalent has made contact with the Shadows and thus has an ace to play in how to establish a complete monopoly/complete takeover of Earth. While those of our human characters who are still in the Military haven‘t forgotten how they fought for all of humanity, not just corporation X, Inc, and are trying to get their, and the human characters who aren‘t in the military but have civilian jobs are less and less sold on the joy of authoritarian capitalism, either.
(A tech oligarchy would also explain why no one - or not many - are bothered by the legal status of the telepaths when Earth is still supposed to be a democracy. In the reboot, are regarded as literal property, belonging to the various big businesses.)
Post-Civil War, Earth for the first time does have the chance to become a genuine democracy again instead of a tech bro oligarchy, but is still working on that, having just managed the first truly free elections in a century, when the show ends.
So these are some thoughts of how to make a reboot that‘s not just a remake.
The Other Days
My second instinct is to do what I suggested a couple of years ago, when we first heard rumors there might be a reboot, which is: a parallel show which covers the same years as the original does but focuses on different characters and situations, those we didn‘t or couldn‘t see much of in the original show - Centauri women ( you knew I‘d start with the Centauri, didn‘t you?) from their own pov (both women who live on Centauri Prime and women who try to have a different life elswehere), and more of the non-noble Centauri in general, ditto for the Narn (and here one could use, for example, Na‘Toth‘s departure at the end of s2 for a storyline following her and through her some other Narn), more human civilians, too; how did the Minbari who weren‘t in the Grey Council react when it was broken up, how about making a worker Minbari a pov character, what became of Delenn‘s s1 friend the poet, and so forth.
HOWEVER. This isn‘t what was asked. And in past years and decades, I‘ve come across reboots of sci franchises wich I really liked - not just of shows where I didn‘t have an emotional attachment to the original (Battlestar Galactica comes to mind) but where I did (the German sci fi series Perry Rhodan since some years now runs parallel to the original a reboot called Perry Rhodan Neo. ) Pondering what makes a good reboot (for me, as always, this is highly subjective), I decided that a good reboot wonders what the core of a story/series is. And then doesn‘t try a remake (a remake is a different thing), but tries to put its own spin, influenced by the different time of creation, on it. In the case of BSG, I‘d say Moore and friends concluded the core is „planets inhabited by humans get attacked by androids, cataclysmic events ensue, the survivors then look for Earth, but the Cylons are still an issue“ and went from there. Presumably he was also aware original BSG was influenced by Mormon beliefs and decided to include a strong religious element - but not for the human characters, for the robots/androids/cylons. As for the original BSG characters, some made it in name and function to the reboot, but not necessarily in personality, others were combinations, and others were unique to the reboot.
So what is the core story of Babylon 5? Far trickier to answer, and not just because of my Centauri and Narn centric pov (what do you mean, first Sinclair and then Sheridan is the main character?). „After a very bloody war between two galactic people, one old and established, one up and coming, which started with a cultural misunderstanding , they and some other people decide on a space station to avoid similar situations where various people can negotiate and trade and try to resolve their differences peacefully. Among these are some Space Romans past their glory days and the people of one of their formerly occupied and exploited colonies who are now independent and an up and coming power. Then it turns out there are a couple of even older galactic races pulling the strings in the background, Earth goes fascist, and our heroes become rebels while simultanously fighting first one, and then both of the older powers. Also, even pre-fascist democratic Earth had lousy laws for telepaths. Eventually, our heroes manage an interstellar alliance. The fight with the uberpowerful wannabe puppeteers ends by kicking them both out and refusing to fight for them anymore, while the earth civil war ends with a military victory over the fascists. Then everyone tries peace, with mixed success, the legal situation for telepaths hasn’t improved, and Selena‘s favourite character of all time has to face his past sins and what they wrought, and completes his tragedy. Most other main characters surviving so far hare a nice retirement.“
I bet anyone reading this might nod at some parts, but at others will say „but what about arc x/storyline y, that needs to be included!“ But that‘s the problem. B5 really was a novel in space, as originally pitched, with fascinating plots and subplots, and is incredibly hard to condense. (Certainly not into „Casablanca in space“, which I think was another pitch JMS used when trying to sell his pilot all those years ago.)
But let‘s take my meagre attempt at condensing as a basic outline. We only got two lines or so from how JMS pitched a rebooted B5, and in it, Sheridan is already mentioned as a guy with a mysterious past, from which I conclude he intends to meld Sinclair and Sheridan into the same character. Fair enough: Sheridan owes his existence to tragic real life circumstances which hopefully won‘t be repeated by whoever would play B5‘s human commander in season 1. But if there‘s just one of them and he gets an amalgan of Sinclair‘s and Sheridan‘s arc(s) - with, I presume, Catherine Sakai getting to be Anna Sheridan, poor soul - , I vote that this particular Commander/Captain JS does NOT become President in season 5. Not even in a s5 like originally planned. Either kill him for real at Z‘ha‘dum, with Delenn and Ivanova sharing the rest of his storyline between them, or let him go Valen via time travel at the latest after Earth has become democratic again. I say this not simply because it‘s one of my pet peeves that Sheridan in s5 simply isn‘t a very good President while the narrative insists that he is, but because he doesn‘t need to be. This isn‘t Return of the King. You don‘t need a ruler bringing healing to Middleearth, err, the galaxy, and you don‘t need to reward your hero by putting him on a throne, err, making him President, either, especially when that‘s just not something he‘s suited for. So: in my reboot, Sheridan and Delenn do not spend decades switching the offices of the Presidency and Entil‘zha between them. Due to real life nepotism in politics, this today would feel even less democratic than it did in the 1990s. Instead, they time travel back in the past and conclude their destinies there while the first President of the Alliance is, drum roll… a new character. Because one thing my reboot does is take the idea from my parallel show and introduce more civilians for humans, Centauri, Narn and Minbari early one, one of whom, female or male, will later end up as President.
I think Londo and G‘Kar‘s storylines, both individuallly and together, are pretty much perfect, so for the life of me I can‘t think of twists that would be as powerful. (I mean, a reboot isn‘t a „five things which never happened“ fic.). Otoh, it would be horrible for whoever would be cast as Londo and G‘Kar to simply have to play scenes which habve already been played to perfection. Something like this is a recipe for disaster, see also those remakes who actually are word-for-word, shot-for-shot remakes. But I dont have a solution there, and I don‘t think you can do a version of B5 WITHOUT Londo and G‘Kar as key characters. You simply can‘t.
Where I do see an opening are the aides. Not that Vir isn‘t also instrumental for the show, and Lennier, and Na‘Toth; what I mean is that you could give the aides more narrative room earlier on, you could show their relationships with each other instead of sketching it just via two scenes seasons apart, as with Vir and Lennier, and of course, Na‘Toth needs to be if not on the station the entire time then on the show the entire time. My reboot has solved the make-up problem and will hire the right actress from the get go. So perhaps we could get around the difficulty of condemming some poor souls of just having to replay what Peter Jurasik and Andreas Katsulas have played superbly before by a pov shift, i.e. we get introduced to Londo via Vir instead of the other way around, to G‘Kar via Na‘Toth and so forth. Or: the Ambassadors get more than one aide at the same time. I mean, there‘s certainly no shortage of work. And we don‘t know at the start whether Vir is Vir, so to speak, or whether it‘s the other one. It makes for different dynamics which could be explored.
Now: the „Earth goes fascist“ over several seasons storyline was a very strong one in the original show. And very understandably, it took its cues from the 20th century precedents (plus some Orwell). But a B5 for the present would be created in the world we live in now. And thus I would introduce a billionaire type like Edgars as one of Clark‘s backers far sooner, and I wouldn‘t make him an old man, but a younger tech bro. And not the only one. Unlike Star Trek, B5 featured a future with money and economic problems anyway, so it would make sense to work with that some more. Moreover, first season Earth, instead of having basically the (20th century) US political system for the entire world (a President, a Senate, etc.), would literally be governed by Corporations who during the Earth-Minbari war did work together because the survival of humanity was at stake, but now are competing again, and are all trying to get B5 under their control and oust the competition. Meanwhile, Clark or the Clark equivalent has made contact with the Shadows and thus has an ace to play in how to establish a complete monopoly/complete takeover of Earth. While those of our human characters who are still in the Military haven‘t forgotten how they fought for all of humanity, not just corporation X, Inc, and are trying to get their, and the human characters who aren‘t in the military but have civilian jobs are less and less sold on the joy of authoritarian capitalism, either.
(A tech oligarchy would also explain why no one - or not many - are bothered by the legal status of the telepaths when Earth is still supposed to be a democracy. In the reboot, are regarded as literal property, belonging to the various big businesses.)
Post-Civil War, Earth for the first time does have the chance to become a genuine democracy again instead of a tech bro oligarchy, but is still working on that, having just managed the first truly free elections in a century, when the show ends.
So these are some thoughts of how to make a reboot that‘s not just a remake.
The Other Days
