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Babylon 5 Project - The Film Series

Reviving this thread because there's a lot of forward momentum right now! So here's where I am with this project:
  • Babylon 5 Project I — Released at the end of last year!
  • Babylon 5 Project II — Submitted to the academy
  • Babylon 5 Project III — Has been finished, just need to render!
  • Babylon 5 Project IV & V — Making the final touches
  • Babylon 5 Project VI, VII, VIII — I actually think I've done the bulk of work for all three of these and it's basically relinking footage so it shouldn't be quite as much work.
Assuming everything goes well, I should have this bunch of films ready in the next few week to a couple months. If you're wondering where that brings us in the storyline, Babylon 5 Project VIII covers Messages from Earth to Severed Dreams which puts us just outside of the Shadow War proper.
 
I have film 6 finished but I still need to export it. This takes us to the season 3 premiere. It looks like I should have most of films 7 and 8 complete before my hard drive failure so it shouldn't take much for that. Fortunately, I still have rough cuts for films 9 to 21 but those will be more work than what I've been doing the past week.
 
Almost finished this first batch of films! All that remains is going through the last half-hour of B5 Project VIII: Severed Dreams to check for any minor tweaks that need to be done. After that, I'll start rendering each film and submitting them to the academy.

These 8 movies are just shy of the midpoint of the television series. The bulk of the remaining 13 films will be more minor edits as the series gets pretty arc intensive from here. JMS liked to create heavy arcs in 3 to 6 episodes which is perfect since 3 episodes combined are about 2 hours long.
 
Finished the final touch ups for movies 3-8 and started work on the next 3 films! These 3 movies brings us up to the season three finale and the midpoint of the film series. I'll start uploading films 3-8 over the next week or so as I render them.
 
Babylon 5 Project III: Moments of Revelation is complete and uploaded for anyone who wants it! Will be submitting it to the academy very soon.

JANf9St.png


Here's the current progress and I'm going to update my first post with this as well. Films marked with an * are little more than 3 episodes strung together in a row. One of the things I noticed while putting this together was that JMS seemed to like writing heavy arc episodes in 3 or 6 episodes. Since 3 44 minute episodes is roughly 2 hours, that made my job a lot easier! I've broken this down by season although I don't really think of this film series in those terms. It just gives you a good idea of where things are.

SEASON ONE
Babylon 5 Project I: Dawn of the Third Age — COMPLETE
Babylon 5 Project II: Signs and Portents — COMPLETE

SEASON TWO
Babylon 5 Project III: Moments of Revelation — COMPLETE (note: this actually starts off with the season 1 finale)
Babylon 5 Project IV: The Coming of Shadows — Final cut complete but still needs to be rendered
Babylon 5 Project V: The Long, Twilight Struggle — Final cut complete but still needs to be rendered
*Babylon 5 Project VI: The Fall of Night — Final cut complete but still needs to be rendered (note: includes season 3 premiere)

SEASON THREE
Babylon 5 Project VII: Point of No Return — Final cut complete but still needs to be rendered
*Babylon 5 Project VIII: Severed Dreams — Final cut complete but still needs to be rendered
Babylon 5 Project IX: Interludes and Examinations — Detailed edit in progress
Babylon 5 Project X: War Without End — Assembly edit complete (I want to see if I can add some of Londo's scenes from In the Beginning)
Babylon 5 Project XI: In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum — Assembly edit complete

SEASON FOUR
*Babylon 5 Project XII: The Summoning — Assembly edit complete
*Babylon 5 Project XIII: Into the Fire — Assembly edit complete
Babylon 5 Project XIV: Racing Mars — Assembly edit complete
*Babylon 5 Project XV: Moments of Transition — Assembly edit complete
*Babylon 5 Project XVI: No Surrender, No Retreat — Assembly edit complete
*Babylon 5 Project XVII: Endgame — Assembly edit complete

SEASON FIVE
Babylon 5 Project XVIII: A Tragedy of Telepaths — Assembly edit complete (condenses the first half of season 5 into a single film)
*Babylon 5 Project XIX: Darkness Ascending — Assembly edit complete
*Babylon 5 Project XX: The Wheel of Fire — Assembly edit complete
Babylon 5 Project XXI: Sleeping in the Light — Assembly edit complete (covers everything from The Wheel of Fire [the episode] to Sleeping in the Light)

Still a long way to go but a lot of the heavy lifting has been done.
 
I'm glad to see you have assembly cuts complete for all of your films. I hope that keeps you motivated all the way through your project! I've been meaning to rewatch the whole series at some point, and I think what I'd like to do is wait for you to finish your project and then watch your condensed version straight through. I'm intrigued how you're going to incorporate the bizarre last episode "Sleeping in Light". You may have answered this already and I've just forgotten, but are you only dealing with the main series, or are you including any of the films (The Gathering, In the Beginning, Thirdspace, The River of Souls, A Call to Arms)? What about the spinoffs (Crusade, The Legend of the Rangers, The Lost Tales)?
 
Hopefully I'll be able to get this all done sooner rather than later then!

I will say I kind of cheated on some of the assembly cuts! A lot of them are just 3 episodes strung together and were some of the first ones planned so I could figure out where in the series I needed to condense. The rest were a lot more work... especially the first half of season 5 which was really ambitious.

Sleeping in the Light will be more of a bookended thing which will start off with a bit of the final episode before dovetailing into Wheel of Fire, Objects in Motion, and Objects at Rest. Then it wraps up with the rest of the series finale.

This might end my B5 fanedit experience, TBH... it's 21 of them! The only other possibility would be to see if Crusade could be heavily edited down to a proper ending. I seriously doubt this is possible at all and it's been a long time since I've watched the series so I wouldn't have a clue where to start.
 
asterixsmeagol said:
I'm glad to see you have assembly cuts complete for all of your films. I hope that keeps you motivated all the way through your project! I've been meaning to rewatch the whole series at some point, and I think what I'd like to do is wait for you to finish your project and then watch your condensed version straight through. I'm intrigued how you're going to incorporate the bizarre last episode "Sleeping in Light". You may have answered this already and I've just forgotten, but are you only dealing with the main series, or are you including any of the films (The Gathering, In the Beginning, Thirdspace, The River of Souls, A Call to Arms)? What about the spinoffs (Crusade, The Legend of the Rangers, The Lost Tales)?
Click to expand...
 
Quick update! Babylon 5 Project IX: Interludes and Examinations is almost complete! Usually at this point I'll make a viewing copy and go over it to make sure my edits are seamless.

I'm starting work on Babylon 5 Project X: War Without End which finally brings us to the B4 storyline's flip side. This one is a two parter and when I first cut it together it just felt way too short and rushed, so I've put in scenes from Babylon Squared in here as well to help slow down the pace a bit.

One thing that I'm unsure about is whether I can add scenes of Londo in the throne room from ItB. I'd like to in order to get the runtime up but I doubt there's room for it (or the extra storyline). We'll see!
 
I don't think it's possible to make Crusade coherent, but if you figure out a way God bless you. The studio interference in filming order and changes to scripts results in contradictory combinations of uniforms and plot points.
 
It would have to be a complete overhaul, yeah, and I don't think it's possible either. Just fun to think about!
 
asterixsmeagol said:
I don't think it's possible to make Crusade coherent, but if you figure out a way God bless you. The studio interference in filming order and changes to scripts results in contradictory combinations of uniforms and plot points.
Click to expand...
 
@"subjectzero" and @"asterixsmeagol", I love your idea to turn Crusade into a movie!

Actually, two movies. Make them a trilogy together with Call to Arms:
- Part 1 is Call to Arms, subtitled "Out of the Shadows".
- Part 2 is Crusade with black uniforms, subtitled "Where are you Going?". This includes Lochley and the Mars medical conference.
- Part 3 is Crusade with the 'bell-hop' uniforms, subtitled "Who do you Trust?". This includes Dr Franklin.
 
Hm... one idea that I did have was to replace Evan H Chen's score with Christopher Franke's and shortening it to a trilogy would make it more feasible. Even did a rough version for the intro credits:


Pass: crusade

Still not convinced it's possible to pull this off.
 
lapis molari said:
@"subjectzero" and @"asterixsmeagol", I love your idea to turn Crusade into a movie!

Actually, two movies. Make them a trilogy together with Call to Arms:
- Part 1 is Call to Arms, subtitled "Out of the Shadows".
- Part 2 is Crusade with black uniforms, subtitled "Where are you Going?". This includes Lochley and the Mars medical conference.
- Part 3 is Crusade with the 'bell-hop' uniforms, subtitled "Who do you Trust?". This includes Dr Franklin.
Click to expand...
 
@"subjectzero" , let me know if you do want to tackle Crusade. I can upload my slightly cleaner version of the opening credits with the Sierra Game theme. It's 1'26" in 5.1 AC3 (I used the 25fps PAL dvds).
 
Just finished Babylon 5 Project XI — In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum which brings us to the end of Season 3 and halfway through my film version series. I still need to double check films 9 to 11 but I'll start outputting and uploading films 4 to 8.

Season 4 will be pretty simple since it's so arc heavy so there's very little being cut out. The heavy lifting of re-editing the entire series is pretty much now done!
 
Babylon 5 Project IV: The Coming of Shadows has been submitted so that should be up sometime soon in IFDb! If you want a copy, just PM me. This film sees the beginning of the Narn-Centauri War which is when we get into the story proper.

I've also finished proofing B5 Project IX: Interludes and Examinations so that's been added to the list of films that just need to be output. Still need to go over films 10 and 11 to finalize them but they're nearing completion.

Started work on films 12 and 13 which are the first 6 episodes of season 4 and finishes up the Shadow War arc. The bulk of work on these two films will be removing the fade to black commercial breaks and credits at the beginning of each episode. In fact, most of season 4 will be like this since it's the arc heaviest season.

My first post in this thread has been updated
 
I caught the edit over on Reddit and I enjoyed it. I think I may have previewed this for you in the past, but I can't seem to recollect. It was done very well and it's some of favourite moments from that season too. I'll leave a review when it's up on IFDB.
 
Wrapped up my first detailed edits of films 12 and 13 which encompass the first 6 episodes of season 4. I'm drawing nearer to the end of the Babylon 5 Project and with the next movie I'll be 2/3rds finished the edits. At this point, the films become fairly similar to the TV series with very few changes. Of the remaining 8 films, 5 are basically 3 episodes strung together:
  • Babylon 5 Project XV: Moments of Transition — The Minbari civil war
  • Babylon 5 Project XVI: No Surrender, No Retreat — Earth civil war part 1
  • Babylon 5 Project XVII: Endgame — Earth civil war part 2
  • Babylon 5 Project XIX: Darkness Ascending — Centauri War part 1
  • Babylon 5 Project XX: The Wheel of Fire — Centauri War part 2
Then there's the three more major edits:
  • Babylon 5 Project XIV: Racing Mars — Mostly cutting down the lull between the Shadow War and the civil wars.
  • Babylon 5 Project XVIII: A Tragedy of Telepaths — Truncates the hell out of the first half of season 5 and reduces the telepath arc to a single film. This is really the only film that really has a ton of edits done to it in the remaining 8.
  • Babylon 5 Project XXI: Sleeping in the Light — A bit of a lighter edit that uses Sleeping in the Light to bookend The Wheel of Fire, Objects in Motion, and Objects at Rest. The major edits here are in Objects at Rest which stops when Sheridan and Delenn leave Babylon 5 and head to Minbar so no urn and no Lennier betrayal.
Zarius said:
I caught the edit over on Reddit and I enjoyed it. I think I may have previewed this for you in the past, but I can't seem to recollect. It was done very well and it's some of favourite moments from that season too. I'll leave a review when it's up on IFDB.
Click to expand...

You may have, I don't quite recall either, but you definitely did help get the quality up on these. Thanks for the review, really humbled by some of the messages I've been getting regarding my edits. I really do hope this becomes the definitive rewatch for at least a few fans... so I'll try not to bugger it up!
 
Just caught up on this thread. Love the ambition here. Season 4's closer 'Deconstruction of falling Stars' is such superb episode not including that must have been a tough call.
 
It was only a tough call because I really like that episode but it just didn't fit anywhere, it's too stand alone. I did try and see if I could tack it on to the series finale but that just killed the emotional weight of Sleeping in the Night. Since B5 Project is all about telling the 5 year story in as succinct form as possible, it just made sense to let it go... Kill your darlings, as they say!
 
Malthus said:
Just caught up on this thread. Love the ambition here. Season 4's closer 'Deconstruction of falling Stars' is such superb episode not including that must have been a tough call.
Click to expand...
 
Babylon 5 Project V: The Long, Twilight Struggle will be available in the next hour or so! I will add that to IFDb sometime today but PM if you would like to get it. This one is probably one of the most episodic of all the movies... it's a bit of a hodge-podge and I tried to make the stories flow into each other as best as I could. But with this, we're roughly a quarter the way through the film series!

I'm currently going through Babylon 5 Project X: War Without End for the final edit so hopefully that will get done soon.

Hit a bit of a bump in the road with Babylon 5 Project XIV: Racing Mars as the timeline is doing something weird to the audio when I replace the video clips (long story). It's not a deal breaker, but it is a bit of extra work since it means I have to replace the clips manually, one by one. I am worried that this problem will creep up when I do Babylon 5 Project XVIII: A Tragedy of Telepaths which is heavily edited from 9 episodes... but, again, I'll just have to replace the clips manually so all the work has been done. It's just a tedious process.

As for all the other films, they're all mostly three episodes strung together so there's no real worry there but Racing Mars will slow me down a bit. The finale is a bit more work but not by much as it's three episodes bookended with Sleeping in the Light.

Actually... I just had this thought. In B5 Project 1 and 3, I used a bit of the Earth-Minbari war from In the Beginning as the cold opens. Part of this was to introduce characters and plot elements but it was also to set a precedence for Sleeping in the Light's cold open being set in the future. But it'll be a while since I've used that structure... now I'm thinking I might be able to go back to ItB one more time to introduce General Lefcourt for Endgame since it will also remind viewers of that structure for the finale. Just something for me to ponder I guess...
 
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