B5 Legend of the Rangers

[Nommy]

Wizz!...LOL

I had to read the JMS Speaks thread first. I dont know if I would have spelle it with an "a" or an "e" normally. he he

<font size=50> Go Pats!</font>

------------------
Nommy

[ProfCrash]

Sorry Nommy, but Entilzah will be watching the really important game, the Bears game.

I am going to be one very unhappy camper if the Pats and the Bears end up in the Super Bowl again. I mean, it would be nice to be able to route for the Pats but my heart belongs to the Bears.




------------------

[Nommy]

LOL crash!

I would think it should be the other way around. Your heart should be with the Pats. Especially after that god awful defeat by the Bears in 1985. Hell...we got ran over by a Refridgerator.

------------------
Nommy

[Wizz]

Sheesh...
You guys and your dreamin'.
Pittsburg and St. Louis, with St. Louis winning the Super Bowl, ~21 point (plus or minus a few).

------------------
Do not tempt the patience of Wizzards, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.

[MightyLady77]

I'm amazed no-one else has posted about Legend of the Rangers yet tonight!

I have to say that I absolutely love the weapons system. It sorta gives new meaning to the phrase "kick ass."

I'll hold off on any other comments for now. I just realized that Legend of the Rangers just started a few minutes ago on the left coast.

------------------
MightyLady of the Flame Red Hair
"Mobius strippers never show you their back side."

[ProfCrash]

sigh, It was almost a great day.

Ah well

Legend of the Rangers was interesting. Over all I liked what I saw but there are a few things I am worried about. First, waht I liked

1) The new Captain, David Martell. He is really cute and seems like he is willing to do what he feels is best for his crew no matter the consequences.

2) Dulaan. My favorite character so far. A Minbari with a sense of humor. Most excellent. He has some telepathic abilities and overall seems to be an interesting character.

3) Na'Feel. I love the Narn. (grins) She looks like she is going to be a fun character. It will be intersting to see how she develops

4) Tirk. A Drazi's whose name means I am not going to ahve any more children. I laughed really hard at that. I sense a bit of Zarthras during the naming ceremony "I lift heavy things"

5) Firell. The Minbari healer. Right now all we have seen her do is some healing, and very little of that. Like all Minbari, I ahve a feelign that there is alot more to her then we would first think.

Things I am worried about

1) Sara needs someone else playing her. The actress was miserable.

2) The weapons system. Ummm, I don't know. Unless someone can do a really good job explaining how this thing works, I would have to say that I don't like it. I do not know how she aims, chooses different weapons, ect.. What happens when she gets really tired and has difficulty punching or kicking?

3) Why do we a knew enemy more powerful then the Shadows? What happens to this enemy? By the time we hit Crusade this enemy is gone.

4) Pretty much all of the Human crew with the exception of David Martel. I don't think many of them can act but we have not seen any of them do much of anything. Malcolm could be interesting, I like his job and some of the toys he has. NOt sure about the actor. Kitaro I don't know enough to make any judgements but I didn't see much to make me think that his character is going to excite me.

OK, so I would have to say I enjoyed the movie but I really need to see more to say much. The only explination I can think of for the Hand is that they have not ocme through the portal yet, so if the crew is able to shut down the portal, then the Hand will not come through. This would explain the lack of panic during Crusade regarding the Hand.

All I know is that the Hand aspect reminds me way too much of Thirdspace and I really disliked that movie.

------------------

[Sycamore Evenstar]

No matter what I do, all I get when trying to get to page one is code, so ProfCrash's post is the only one I've seen. :-(

In general I agree with her assessment--especially about the weapons system. In fact, my initial thoughts were, "Dorky. Too much 'Pow! Biff! Kazam!'"

I must be getting old--are the Humans, at least, out of high school yet? Especially Martel.

I am looking forward to a series with some character development. Especially Firell--I agree with PC, she especially looks as though there's a lot more to her than meets the eye. I'll bet a series will let us see some old B5 friends, too, and allow a chance to fill in some history from the intervening couple of years.

Is it me, or are the Narns and Minbari more human appearing this time around? Even G'Kar didn't look quite himself.

As I'm writing this, The Gathering is on. Some introductory rough edges there, too. And that turned out OK!!

------------------

[Sycamore Evenstar]

LOL!! I just got to read your post, Bee. Seems we disagree re the weapons! Still friends, I hope!

------------------

[fanuilhgkar]

Well, overall I liked it. I hope it gets made into a series. I didn't have any complaints about performances (except one, which I'll get to in a moment), I thought they all did a fine job. I especially like NaFeel (sp?); going from shrieking Narn curses and throwing things to no-captain-everything's-fine-ready-when-you-are, and smiling benignly as she leans over to block Martel's view of the engine room. He leaves and she goes back to cursing.

The gunnery pod was interesting. Fun to watch, anyway. Exhausting for the shooter, though. When it was designed they never considered the possibility of it being used by anyone other than Minbari, I suppose. In a prolonged fight, Cantrell would get exhausted. How would they get anyone in there to replace her without them socking each other in the face trying to continue firing during the changeover? Must take some serious acclimatization, too, to hop into a... what?... zero-G bubble? stasis chamber?... spinning and aiming and shooting and keeping track of where the targets were, where they were going, what the ship's maneuvers were and how they affected targeting solutions, spinning all over the place and all without tossing your cookies. I'd flunk.

The one character I did not like was G'Kar. Even his voice inflections grated. I understand he's supposed to have changed. I know that in the short story in Amazing Stories JMS had G'Kar trying to find the Narn he used to be, since he wasn't happy with who he'd turned into. I know that his travels around the galaxy are supposed to have "lightened" his perspective. Katsulas has always done a superior job of portraying G'Kar through all the painful changes he went through, and I can only assume he did exactly what he was supposed to do here and portrayed G'Kar exactly as he was supposed to be portrayed. I just never expected that the changes he was going through would turn him into a buffoon. What the heck was that "Kiss, kiss, love, love" thing all about? The first thing that popped into my head was all those stereotypes of the has-been movie star taking leave of her adoring fans. You know the scene I mean? "It's been lovely dahlings, but I simply must go, ta-ta." The reviewer that said G'Kar had turned into a "bitchy queen" was wrong, IMHO, but there was way too much of the buffoon happening there. The Minbari asked for his help because he's been around the galaxy more than anybody else, but it just seemed that G'Kar talked too much. I wanted to yell at him to get to the point or shut the hell up. And for anybody out there who knows how much I love G'Kar, you know it hurt. Oy, vey.

But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Anyway, this may cure me of my G'Kar admiration, once and for all. Probably about due, anyway.

------------------

P.S. -- I forgot something. G'Kar's last remarks to Capt Martel as he's getting ready to disembark at Babylon 5: "No one there is exactly what he seems. But then again, who is?"

I get the reference. JMS must have been under a time crunch, or something. In terms of profundity it ranks right up there with "No matter where you go, there you are."

*sigh* If they make a series of it, I'll watch anyway, hoping for the best.

---------------------------

P.P.S. -- I've checked on a few other boards, and I'm the only person who thinks G'Kar came across as a buffoon. Must be me, then. I'm the one with the problem. Hmmmm....

[This message has been edited by fanuilhgkar (edited January 20, 2002).]

[This message has been edited by fanuilhgkar (edited January 20, 2002).]

[jasoom]

In general, I am very excited about the Ranger movie & I hope this will be the first installment of many. It was SOOOO good to see the ole station once again. Think I got misty eyed. I'll have to get used to Capn David Martel as well as the rest of the crew, but I think there are good possibilities here. I also enjoyed the meaning of Tirk's name. Very funny. Liked the character of Na 'Feel, not your average Narn & rather decisive in this movie, & seems to me very reachable in humanistic sense and temperament. Have to admit I enjoyed Citizen G'Kars role. It was good to see him in action again.

If I'm not mistaken, the time period is 2265, which places these events after the Telepath War, right? Just wondered because Dulann was mentioned to have some T power.

To have the Ranger ship 'Valen' ram the enemy ship seemed wanting in credibility. No opposing vessel, especially the advanced Had (or are they called Hand - ? Couldn't make out the feathered ambassadors syllables on that one) would sit still for a ramming maneuver. In any case, it was visually demonstrative and appealing insofar as the story line went & I certainly do not wish to appear disappointed. Far from it as, from the Captains final tactical maneuver vis-?-vis the rigged space pod to the designs of all the ships pictured, I was thrilled!

The functionality of the gunner Sarah Cantrell, seemingly manually discharging the torpedoes from head to foot, seemed to me to be just a little bit awkward, if not painfully backward, as human reflexes are so much slower that com-run defense/offense. I'm thinking that Sarah is in a neuronal 'tie in' with ship defenses & guidance, which would make the gunnery position not only possible, but straight forward in tying ones reflexes into a 'sight & calculate' type of set up. The 360 degree scanning visibility she had is a very satisfying development in space combat. Optically speaking, I would think that three gunnery officers should be used at once. No matter how fast Sarah was able to swivel around she always had an at least 50 % blind spot, probably more like 70%, but of course if she were tied in with ship sensors, that would compensate for any blind fields.

I thought the Ghosts of the Liandra were a good touch in that I knew they were to play a pivotal role, but I didn't think it would turn out the way it had, by giving hard evidence about the password that would lead the Captain to the enlightening file.

I'm somewhat impressed with the new enemy and they remind me of something that would come out of '3rd Space. The enemy was referred to as 'No Name', 'Hand of God', & 'Hand of Doom'. (They must have a tough rep!) The enemies gates for accessing our normal space seemed quite different than we've become accustomed to on Babylon 5. (At least I thought they appeared radically different, could be wrong!) I do like the enemy ship design but lets face it, they look like hybrid Shadow Cruisers with shorter legs. Still; they work for me. I'm not ready to admit that they are in advance of the Shadows, however. Biologically speaking, the Shadows were very impressive & more menacing in appearance compared to the 'new enemy'. Of course you couldn't really see the new enemy, just an outline in a wrap that could be hiding all kinds of bad creepy goodies.

The archeological dig on Beta Durena 7 seems to have had some meaning in depth, more than was discussed. An ancient city 8 miles deep that had fostered an ancient race that not only held the new enemy at bay but outcast them to 3rd space must have been awe inspiring. I have a million questions about this race alone, such as: did they know the Vorlons, the Shadows, the Walkers, Lorien, or any of the first ones?

Below is an answer I found regarding my question about specialist Gunner Sarah's reflexes & fast firing

Q: Tell us about how you came up with the unusual approach for the Liandra weapons system, which is symbiotic with specialist Sarah Cantrell (Myriam Sirois).

A: Sarah is the ship, in that respect: If she moves, it fires. She jumps into the gunnery pod, and if she sees an incoming ship, she points at it, and the ship fires. It's a much faster reaction period [than conventional controls]. She's constantly getting sensory impulses from every part of the ship.


------------------