10-01-2009, 03:50 PM
B5 CGI is a mixed bag.
Star Trek used models for a long time, which basically meant that space battle scenes were really limited. Lots of shots of the crew pretending to be on a shaking, tilting bridge because it was too expensive to do ship battles with a bunch of models in front of a green screen.
B5 CGI doesn't look nearly as good or realistic as Star Trek's model based special effects, but the good news is that they could easily render much longer scenes of much bigger fights.
What I really liked, though, was that B5 was a 4 year story that was given 4 years to tell it. None of this BSG bullshit where half of the story gets dropped on the floor and lost because they apparently had no plan beyond the first year or two. ("We're still funded? Oh shit! We need to write something!") The whole thing wraps up nicely at the end of the 4th season.
There's actually 5 seasons, though. They ended up getting an extra year to do with as they would and the 5th season basically proves that they could have gone on to write a lot more quality material if they'd had another 4 years.
Star Trek used models for a long time, which basically meant that space battle scenes were really limited. Lots of shots of the crew pretending to be on a shaking, tilting bridge because it was too expensive to do ship battles with a bunch of models in front of a green screen.
B5 CGI doesn't look nearly as good or realistic as Star Trek's model based special effects, but the good news is that they could easily render much longer scenes of much bigger fights.
What I really liked, though, was that B5 was a 4 year story that was given 4 years to tell it. None of this BSG bullshit where half of the story gets dropped on the floor and lost because they apparently had no plan beyond the first year or two. ("We're still funded? Oh shit! We need to write something!") The whole thing wraps up nicely at the end of the 4th season.
There's actually 5 seasons, though. They ended up getting an extra year to do with as they would and the 5th season basically proves that they could have gone on to write a lot more quality material if they'd had another 4 years.