Yup, but you only really 'see' a few seconds of it, and you don't see the people involved, whereas, you take the attack on the Vipers in BSG and you see people struggling to get out of their ships in panic even though they don't have a space-suit, you see people being blasted into deep space to save a part of the Galactica etc.

Edit: As I say, B5 was one of the main launching points for the whole 'doom and gloom' ethic in the mainstream, so, yes, there were moments in there that were templates for later Sci-Fi shows.

Hunter wrote:Bombing Mars was pretty dark. And Earthforce ships cutting up civilian ships.

Yes, but it was never presented as acceptable or a necessary evil; this was bad, and it was seen as bad by pretty much everyone. BSG on the other hand liked to use shades of grey for actions B5 would have painted as definitively evil.

You would never have had the Cylons or Six portrayed sympathetically after the bombing of the colonies in a show like Bablyon 5. BSG was much less liberal with its designated black hat status, in ways that didn't always make sense.

Well I doubt B5 would have been allowed to air in 1995 if JMS had gone down that road. I think that B5 did handle human conflict very well even if it didn't show us the true 'grit' of war. Some of the dialogue in the show is absolutely amazing.

Which is, in and of itself, an interesting observation, because it raises the question of why 'what is acceptable' has changed so much in the last 10 years. Is it because of the public or the Media?

I suppose that's part of what lies at the heart of the whole 'Violent Media numbs us to violence' argument, which I always find just a little bit odd, because I'd always thought that living in the soft, fluffy bubble of Western society was what numbed us to violence. Maybe the recent world events, which have opened our eyes slightly, has pushed film producers to be more gritty in their work in order to maintain attention?

Offhand, I think B5 liked to build up it's villains and BSG liked to deconstruct them.

I think the world is probably less optimistic (and more cynical) nowadays, which is perhaps the main driver - 9/11 and the Bush years seemed to create (or at least wish to) an atmosphere of perpetual fear and suspicion in the US. The idea of a sympathetic, or even multi-faceted, enemy is almost reactionary now.

Whereas (I'd guess - not a great scholar of international relations in my late teens) B5 took place at a time where the world seemed more safe - China was not so ascendant, the USSR was gone, and the main threats were either internal strife or simply those things hidden from view in the resulting mixup.

Albeit I suspect BSG was simply more concerned with reflecting and commenting on the modern world than Babylon 5 was.

Perhaps it's the demise of Star Trek as the Sci-Fi show ?

Stargate has been the bigger sci-fi show for a while I think.

Matthew wrote:Stargate has been the bigger sci-fi show for a while I think.

Dunno if that's still true, given the performance of the new trek movie. But until that, yeah, Star Trek was pretty much an irrelevance except to the lycra costume wearing die-hard loonies.

Hey, I resemble that remark!

Stargate > all

aldo wrote:But until that, yeah, Star Trek was pretty much an irrelevance except to the lycra costume wearing die-hard loonies.

Of course, the mere existence of such people proves it has reached a level of cultural penetration Stargate can only dream about.

ngtm1r wrote:

aldo wrote:But until that, yeah, Star Trek was pretty much an irrelevance except to the lycra costume wearing die-hard loonies.

Of course, the mere existence of such people proves it has reached a level of cultural penetration Stargate can only dream about.

Does it, really?

For any show or game there will always be at least a few people dressed up in costume. Tell me you've heard of cosplay, right?

aldo wrote:

ngtm1r wrote:

aldo wrote:But until that, yeah, Star Trek was pretty much an irrelevance except to the lycra costume wearing die-hard loonies.

Of course, the mere existence of such people proves it has reached a level of cultural penetration Stargate can only dream about.

Does it, really?

When people start using Stargate quotes in casual conversation as they do "Beam me up, Scotty" or "He's dead, Jim," you let me know.

I have yet to hear those phrases in a typical "Casual" conversation.