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b5_revisited2010-02-08 08:17 am
ruuger) wrote in b5_revisited2010-02-08 08:17 am
Entry tags:
"Severed Dreams" discussion
This is the discussion post for the episode 3X10, "Severed Dreams". Spoilers for the whole of the series, including the spin-offs and tie-ins, are allowed here so newbies beware.
Summary:
Babylon 5 secedes from the Earth Alliance as a protest to President Clark's actions.
Extra reading:
The article for "Severed Dreams" at Lurker's Guide.
Summary:
Babylon 5 secedes from the Earth Alliance as a protest to President Clark's actions.
Extra reading:
The article for "Severed Dreams" at Lurker's Guide.
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I had forgotten "Hague introduced me to him" scene on the Alexander which I rather loved this time around. If you tell a civil war story, you should include the poignancy of firing on people you know and like, and while JMS doesn't really show the faces of the loyalists in this particular episode and doesn't flesh out someone who remained on the Clark side until Lochley much later, this scene does a great job of underlining the "other side" is human in every sense of the word, and that there are friends there.
It continues to crack me up that Londo sees the big human civil war mostly as a travel inconvenience for Centauri.
Sheridan and his father quote about "never start a fight, always finish it": you can tell how much JMS liked that line since he also gave it to Angelina Jolie in The Changeling last year.
Just as it pleased me last week that we saw one security officer refusing to join up before Garibaldi entered the room, this time it pleases me one officer at Ops leaves when Sheridan says they can, because not EVERYONE joining up, for good or ill, is always way more realistic.
It occurs to me that the portrayal of ISN in this and all the previous Earth secession episodes is the most positive depiction reporters ever get on B5, showing them as brave sources of truth instead of bashing them as intrusive and questioning Our Heroes. Of course, next time we see a reporter they're propaganda tools, but I actually don't mind that so much since it's what would happen in a fascist regime.
This episode has Delenn at her coolest, but I'm torn in my response between what I feel when watching and what I feel when thinking about it later. Both her overwhelming that guard at the Grey Council ship by sheer force of personality, then breaking up the Grey Council, and her coming to rescue at the last moment for Sheridan & Co. make me viscerally cheer for her while they happen. BUT. Later. The thing is, Delenn when blaming the Grey Council for their not wanting to get involved with other races etc, blaming the Warrior Caste for not fighting etc., saying she warned them for three years etc., is a bit rich if you consider: they offered her the top job two years ago, and she refused. She basically turned her back on the responsibility because she liked her life on B5 better (and because she believed the prophecy was about her, and wanted to make that true). (And that's not mentioning that the Warrior Caste wasn't the one who started the Earth/Minbari war, and that they weren't told why it ended; in their place, I'd be somewhat sceptical on believing Delenn on whether or not a war is worth fighting as well.) If she had been willing to become leader of the Grey Council, she could have implement crucial changes in Minbari foreign and interior policy, but she did not. Also, note she does not mention the worker's caste at all, which jives with her s4 "YOU have forgotten the workers" - so did she.
I guess what I'm trying to get is that Delenn tends to blame anyone but herself for the Minbari political situation, and that this is hypocritical because she certainly is to blame for some of it. Otoh, brooding would not have gotten her anywhere in this particular situation, action was called for, and I love when she gets things done. So I can't say I wish her scenes differently.
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I love the tag when they come back after the battle for Earth. That was a great follow-up.
I think you have a point about Delenn, but in this case I think the fact that she was able to galvanize them into action was the point (as you say in your last paragraph). I mean, I believe Neroon has a point about her taking this prophecy as reason to do this being sketchy, but it was still the right thing to do, IMO.
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I love the tag when they come back after the battle for Earth. That was a great follow-up.
Oh, me too! I'm so glad they got the actress back because having the same reporter return had a big emotional impact.
I think you have a point about Delenn, but in this case I think the fact that she was able to galvanize them into action was the point (as you say in your last paragraph). I mean, I believe Neroon has a point about her taking this prophecy as reason to do this being sketchy, but it was still the right thing to do, IMO.
*nods* Absolutely, and I wouldn't have wanted Delenn NOT to galvanize them into action or spend three weeks in extensive debates first. It's just that these scenes have more ambiguity to them than I felt the first few times around when I was simply all "hell, yeah!" about pretty much all Delenn scenes in the episode, and I find this ambiguity only enriches them.
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She'll end up blaming herself eventually. Don't worry.
She basically turned her back on the responsibility because she liked her life on B5 better (and because she believed the prophecy was about her, and wanted to make that true).
She turned her back on the Grey Council back in S1, because she firmly believed in the prophecy a lot more than she liked her life on B5. And she had no idea that the Grey Council would turn a blind eye to the coming events that eventually overwhelmed the galaxy.
And I cannot blame Delenn entirely for what happened on Minbar. The other Minbari - especially those on the Grey Council - are just as much to blame as she.
"Also, note she does not mention the worker's caste at all, which jives with her s4 "YOU have forgotten the workers" - so did she."
I think you went a little too far here. Both the Religious Caste and the Warrior Caste tend to forget the Worker Caste. Delenn even pointed this out in S4. But to solely blame her for this seemed a bit too much for me.
I had intended to comment on the episode as a whole. But the comments about Delenn blinded me from this. And I don't like it.
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Also, I fail to understand why my comment would keep you from commenting on the rest of the episode.
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Feel free to disagree. After all, it's the Internet - that's what we do here! I personally like all kinds of different opinions, including
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I love Delenn a lot here. Yes she is sketchy in her interactions with the Council, but I love when she's scary and strong, when you can really feel that this IS somebody who would start a genocidal war. I love the good and the bad in her.
Mostly I love this one for the fun space battle, and the fact that it was a well thought-through battle (on the part of the writer/director), and that (most importantly) it had emotional resonance because of all the character work that had gone before.
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I very much like the number of female captains in Earthforce, by the way. Like John, I would have liked to have known Hiroshi better.
Never noticed Major Ryan saying 'I don't know what I'll tell their wives' when talking to his aide. I think that's our second hint that Hague is dead (aside from Ryan being in the command chair.)
The Charge of the Light Brigade of Narns is affecting as always. Especially the background music, a dirge in between the pulsating battle chorus.
I watch the extra sent on with the real fire extinguisher to put out the real fire on the bridge with glee.
Jane and the ISN crew...great stuff. She got a name!
And of course I love the PDA at the end (both the kiss and the hug. Both. The kiss that launched a thousand fics, that is.) Though it was wildly indiscreet and foolish to do that in front of returning Nightwatch members...the beginnings of the idea of Minbari War Syndrome?
The most interesting thing about this re-watch is the different takes on characters and rationales and backstory, even when I disagree. Which I do, sometimes vehemently. If I get my thoughts in coherent form, I'll add more later. :)
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(I suspect even if the actor had been available, Hague would have just ended up playing Captain Hiroshi’s role. I think it’s much more effective to make it clear right from the start that Sheridan’s going to have to lead the fight himself.)
It occurs to me that the Earth Civil War plot focuses on Mars far more than it does Earth – we don’t ever actually see Earth under the Clark administration, but we do get to see the bombing of Mars here, occupied Mars in season four. For that matter, we never hear much about Earth based resistance – the show does have an unfortunate tendency to portray the civilian population of Earth as an amorphous mass of collaborators, cowards and idiots – while with Mars we don’t really meet anyone who *isn’t* working against Clark. This is probably a budget issue more than anything else – it’s cheaper to render Martian landscapes than Earth ones, still, it’s interesting.
On the subject of cowards and idiots – the Grey Council. What drew my attention rewatching this scene is how stylised and stagey its. The Grey Council may as well be props – none of them move, none of them speak, none of them try to stop Delenn taking the staff. It’s impossible to visualise Neroon as one of those silent unresponsive figures Delenn lectures. Now B5’s done very stagey scenes elsewhere – “And the Sky Full of Stars”, “Comes the Inquisitor”, “Intersections in Real Time” – and the Grey Council’s always been a little stagey. But here – there’s seemingly no attempt to give this scene any naturalistic elements.
(Note that I’m not criticising – I find it very effective. But it’s an interesting contrast with the realistic style of the rest of the episode)
Of course, in hindsight it’s obvious that it’s not as simple as rejecting the Grey in favour of Delenn’s stark black-and-white view on the need for action; that this scene’s almost self-conscious artificiality just draws attention to the fact that of course it’s never going to be as simple in reality as simply making a speech and having most of the council then unswervingly follow you.
May have to think on this some more…
It occurs to me that Delenn and Londo each have one of the two most bad-ass/hell yeah! moments in the series – Breaking the Council/”Be somewhere else!” narrowly beating out Londo’s “What are you going to do, Mollari, blow up the island?” “Actually…” Of course, both actions in the long run have very negative consequences for their people. Probably not intended as an intentional parallel, but it caught my attention.
Minor notes:
- Clark’s pilots follow the Star Wars rule of having evil black helmets that conceal their faces more than the good guy pilots. Of course, that’s somewhat inverted during the boarding sequence, where Clark’s troops have uniforms that call to mind allied WW2 infantry, while Garibaldi’s men are in black riot gear.
- Corwin’s little character arc is nicely understated – we know enough about him to know he’s conflicted, but he doesn’t get any big dramatic moment of decision like Zack did. Probably more realistic, and nice to get a representative of the average loyal B5 crewmember. Nice also – as selenak’s mentioned – that one of the techs did quit.
- I *knew* we saw Hyperion type ships outside the first season!
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Yes, and I agree that even if the actor had been available instead of moonlighting on DS9 (*g*), he'd have been killed off here because of the narrative demanding Sheridan to be the most senior military figure.
Mars and Earth: interesting point. Well, we do see Real ISN resisting (and getting beaten down for it), and it's located in Geneva. (BTW, the European in me loves that JMS made Geneva the future capital instead of some US city.) And I suppose from a Watsonian pov you can say that Mars had a long history of discontent with Earth central and far less population.
Corwin’s little character arc is nicely understated – we know enough about him to know he’s conflicted, but he doesn’t get any big dramatic moment of decision like Zack did.
Yes. I really like the moment when Ivanova asks him whether he's okay. By and large, B5 does a great job of making clear everyone has their story, not just the leads, it's simply that we don't see so much of the others.
It occurs to me that Delenn and Londo each have one of the two most bad-ass/hell yeah! moments in the series – Breaking the Council/”Be somewhere else!” narrowly beating out Londo’s “What are you going to do, Mollari, blow up the island?” “Actually…” Of course, both actions in the long run have very negative consequences for their people. Probably not intended as an intentional parallel, but it caught my attention.
Ohhhhhh, yes, you're right. *adds this to the list of Londo/Delenn parallels*
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This ep was one of my favorites. I love the epic stories the best and though he might come off a bit hammy at times, Sheridan is wonderful when he does his big speeches. I found the scene with his father touching too though... the things they didn't say and the things they did seemed the way real people talk about things.
The Narn! They came riding in like avenging angels, fighting and dying for the humans. G'kar gets some of the best scenes in the series anyway but the Narn themselves are moving from annoying aliens who whine about their mistreatment yet jump in to treat the Centauri the same to something more nobel, more heroic. They begin to become the people that G'kar believes they are in the beginning.
Corwin was handled well. Most of the time, people simply just make their choice and do their job without announcements and fanfare. I also liked that they didn't villify the one who decided to go too. Eventually, we will see that both sides of the Earth Civil War were, for the most part, simply people who thought they were doing the right thing.
I thought the battle inself was very well done... the Fx weren't what they'd be today but they were good and the battle was shown in a nicely dramatic way. I had to cheer when the Earth ships blew up even though it was sad at the same time.
Someone mentioned how static the Grey Council scenes were. It fit though. The Council itself was static and out of touch, it seemed to me. Even if they disagreed with Delenn and even though she actually began the Earth/Minbari war, their chance to hide and pretend nothing else existed besides themselves ended then. Did they think if they ignored the Shadows that they'd go away?
I guess I had more to say than I thought! :)
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When I first watched it, with Trek as my main background, I was awed by the realism of the battle scenes, specially the existence of the blast gate, and the hand to hand fighting, the fact that the large guns appar to have recoil. Yes, and the fire extinguisher. Over a decade later, the same things still impress me.
The aftermath of the on-station fighting is well-handled, wityh the wounded twitching between the bodies, and Garibaldi in shock; not the "clean" disappearance from view of the fallen pilots. And of course their number is also mentioned quite pointedly (and there is the funeral coming up, too).
If you tell a civil war story, you should include the poignancy of firing on people you know and like
Yes, and more attention to detail. The Abyssinian cat called Max. No preachy "we know them all" sermon, but the gently evoke image of two officers at a social do chatting about their families over a glass of wine. That's what makess the scene bite.
Corwin’s little character arc is nicely understated
I love his mild surprise at himself when he redlizes he's OK with it.
But I also like the fact that someone does leave the bridge (and later, people leave the station, not only Nightwatch). Aything less would have been too good to be true (as selenak has also pointed out)
I love the moment when he thinks they're defeated and he crumbles (only to be saved moments later).
Me too. I nearly crumbled, too, first time round, and even knowing what's going to happen it is still quite moving.
The Mars bombing gives me the creeps, both the way teh announcement akes a probability an inevitability, and th scene itself. Not so much the anonymous pilot (even the dark helmet can be explained as glare protection, not just generic evilness), but th way we get to realise, just before teh cut, that (unlike on Earth) all it only takes those two missiles to kill the entire poulation of the dome.
oops, gotta run!
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The on-station battle scenes are quite good a showing the problems that they'll face later on against the shadows. Garibaldi set up his line of defence, only for the Narns (probably following their own quite different defence proceedures) to plough straight past to repel the marines from the moment the hull is breached. Every race has a different combat method, each of which has a good reasoning behind it, and that's as much a problem as the political differences. You don't get much detail of this later on, but it's a nice little detail in this episode.
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