Babylon 5 For the First Time | River of Souls

Two veteran Star Trek podcasters watch Babylon 5 for the first time. Brent Allen and Jeff Akin search for Star Trek like messages in this series, deciding if they should have watched it sooner.
Why did they call a movie about holosuites River of Souls??
This show is produced in association with the Akin Collective, Mulberry Entertainment, and Framed Games. Find out how you can support the show and get great bonus content like access to notes, a Discord server, unedited reaction videos, and more: / babylon5first
Special Thanks to all who support our show through Patreon, including:
Executive Producers:
Andrew
Andrew Black
Becky Sparks
Calinicus
ClubPro70
Colin 3of5
Colin Blair
Demi-DW
Fabio Kasecker
FellKnight
Frankie
Gregory Christ
Ian Maurer
Jack Kitchen
Jeffrey Hayes
Joel Townsend
Joey Pomeroy
kat
Katerina Kalinevich
Kenny A Karyadi
Martin Svendsen
Matt Ion
Mattie Garcia
Mr Krosis
Neil Moore
Nia is framed
Peter Schuller
Rob Bent
Ron H
Snatcher42
Starfury 5470
Stuart98
Suzanne Egg
TrekkieTreyTheTrekker
Terrafan
Todd "Canuck" Schmuck
Producers:
David Blau
Guy Kovel
John Koniges
Follow us on Twitter: / babylonfirst
Website: www.babylon5fi...
All rights belong to the Prime Time Entertainment Network, WBTV, and TNT. No copyright infringement intended.
Copyright Disclaimer, Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for 'fair use' for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.

[@TheFireMonkey]

The Vindrizi said they were preserving knowledge so they could put things back together after a disaster not so they could help prevent a disaster. They are supposed to help AFTER everything falls apart, so if the Shadow war had destroyed everything and knocked civilization back to the stone age, THEN the Vindrizi would come out with their knowledge and bring back civilization.

[@lionofhighpark]

It's worth noting that the show never explicitly states if "souls" are real. Every time soul is mentioned in the show, there is always an alternative scientific explanation. Do the soul hunters capture souls, or create digital replicas? Do the triluminaries react to Valen's soul, or Sinclair's DNA? It's always intentionally left vague.

[@yumyumpodcast]

Although not a masterpiece this film is just a fun time and gives us a small glimpse into what things would be like under Lochley's command. It's always great when Janet Greek directs and she gets some interesting visuals and shots. This film really brings into focus something that has been just a recurring minor detail which is Lochley's love for big sloppy meals, if you ever go back you will begin to notice that she was eating spicy ribs while doing paperwork or putting lots of sugar in her coffee. Scoggins gets to really here and I just love how tired Lochley is of all the trouble that follows the previous crew that she has to deal with.I do appreciate that the films are just an excuse to see the cast bounce off each other and we even see Corwin have time to show off what a freak he is.

[@stevecollette6831]

A Call to Arms..... Crusade.... You've probably already heard this, but the watch order vs. the actual air order for the series is VERY different. JMS was even a little ticked. Please spend some time figuring out the way you want to watch the series, there are multiple ways to be disappointed.

[@TheFireMonkey]

OK - personally, I enjoyed this but I also understand why you might not like it at all. I liked the fact that the Soul Hunters were wrong - why? Because as the show had left it, we had the arrogant stance of the Soul Hunters that they _knew_ and everyone who disagreed with them was wrong. End of discussion! This corrected that - the Soul Hunters do NOT know all about souls. They just have an opinion... As for the question of whether it is humane to "lock up" the souls - that depends on what is natural. The Soul Hunters claim that there is nothing past death, and if so, then they are better off than not existing. On the other hand, since we see in this that the Soul Hunters don't actually know nearly as much as they think they know - then capturing the souls IS a bad thing. Oh, there was a reason why Lockley was in the holo-brothel - it's a kind of easter egg relating to the actress' professional past. For some people it was an amusing callout - to others perhaps not. Take it or leave it, but it was not random and not actually done for eye-candy [though I'm sure they didn't mind that aspect]

[@KeithDCanada]

Jeff is no longer allowed to reference Mass Effect

[@EHondaSF2Alpha]

Brent - you are wrong. That intro was great! Did a spit take!

[@TheFireMonkey]

Speaking as an artist, 1st - AI art is not now a threat to artists ... it just doesn't manage to create any real competition, and I rather doubt it will be any time soon. 2nd - unless AI becomes really sentient, and therefore becomes a real person, it will never have the spark of creativity that an actual person can have. If they ARE sentient, then they are people and have every bit as much a right to compete as any other people do.

[@waltermc3906]

Martain Sheen's acting choice of acting for this film was actually very deliberate. His stilted speech was because the character was a very young alien (for his race), who had **never** spoken English before.... *Why did Martin Sheen's soul hunter speak so oddly at first?* JMS: "What we had discussed (actor, director and me) was that soul hunters don't generally get much chance to hang out and talk to people; they can empathically sense the language, however, when they encounter others. At first, he didn't know the language very well, and gradually became more able to express himself. "

[@neilbiggs1353]

Yeah, I don't think that it was a bad performance, so much as what they were trying to convey not coming across how they intended it. Whether they should have had things in the dialogue be wrong too, so it wasn't just in the speech that the errors were happening, is maybe a debate but it's far too late at this point

[@algi1]

It wasn't AI art, that dude crafted those holograms by hand, he's a real artist.

[@NathanielMiller]

If you can get it, I think you guys would appreciate the commentary track from the old DVDs. They were recorded several years after the show, so there's been time for perspective. You don't even need to "watch" the movie(s) again, you can put it in the background and listen to it as a podcast (or, to use Brent's frequent term, put it on while folding laundry). For this movie, the commentary is JMS, the director, and Tracy Scoggins. Martin Sheen filmed this just before West Wing. The Minbari built a wall of bodies to stop the Soul Hunters from getting to Duhkat. That's what started the "W. Morgan Shepherd Soul Hunter" down the path to madness. 65

[@dll_Rhemuth948]

It was actually TNT telling JMS that they wanted a movie script almost immediately after he finished writing FADE OUT on “Objects at Rest.” JMS wanted to go on a vacation, but he was contractually bound to produce something. He thought why not have a holo-brothel on b5? He thought it was funny. Which is another reason that proves that humor is subjective.

[@kevinmorbidthelostcronin1984]

As I listened to the new Intro, all I could think of was a TNT commercial for Crusade. After watching Call To Arms, you might want to listen to the theme of Crusade (the Series) in order to upgrade the music. The Intro spoils nothing that is not already in Call to Arms, but has a similar feel to yours. As for DeepFaking, technology is reaching a point that makes this irrelevant. I spent a lot of time about 20 years ago warning various big organizations to get ahead of this problem. They ignored me because they thought it was unrealistic and I was a nobody (one of which was true). Now, it is too late. With the genie already out of the bottle, imposing any controls will be done at a disadvantage. With billions of people, you can always find a Look-a-like or Sound-A-Like, and then employ them at 1% of the cost. "The person in the Holo-suite isn't Captain Lochley, it is Liz Beth Stockley from downbelow..." Because Politicians tend to be at the forefront, Political Ads will run with the support of John Sheridan (of Derby, U.K.) and then claim that it was not their fault that people thought it was the Interstellar Alliance President. The thing to do was to start creating agencies that let people buy the rights to voice, acting style, image (separately) per project and having digital files that allowed this. Get ahead of it, like ?John Legend? Make your version preferable over the thousands of voices "like" yours that will follow. When an artist writes a song ideal for Frank Sinatra, use his data files, not give a future Micheal Buble a chance. Naturally, this has its own negative result, but the eventual "Unintended Consequences" are good in my opinion, so I will not provide them to the corporate business idiots that need help to see the downside to the choices they will make even with warnings. (*Points to the Streaming Wars* I warned them how to avoid that back in 2008 and 2018. Oh well *Also looks at Sony who he also tried to help. Apple iTunes would never have existed if Sony had listened*). As far as "brothels", I am almost on board. They have to meet the standard health and safety regulations of any business, totally on-board. They have to meet the criminal issues (certain dangerous/abusive situations and prohibited material) and which would include catering to the underage (most likely solved by being away from schools and such, with curtained windows, and a receptionist/cashier/bouncer of sorts before getting to the material). After that, let Capitalism and local ethics do the "job". If it is against the "ideals", it will go out of business. Oh my gosh, I did not expect Jeff's comments at ~43:00 to hit home so much. I watched this in the 90's. Now, I find myself in one of those "whisper chambers" without having committed a crime other than watch doctors fail me. Absolutely, it is Torture. Torture from which I have spent years pleading to be allowed an escape. Life in DownBelow would be 1000x preferable. Thought Exercise: What if the Soul Hunters are suffering from a linguistical hurdle? What if they do not prevent anybody from "evolving", "Ascending", "Dying"? What if these are "Transportor Scans" that are put into "Pattern Buffers" and then a "Holo-prison" to prevent them from "escaping". No one in a Soul Hunter's collection was ever "alive". They are just complex recreations so that future generations can learn from their wisdom? But then that begats: are we learning from them when they are locked away? when did the Soul Hunters transfer from public librarians to personal curators? and what truly constitutes a Soul (are these less deserving of being treated respectably just because they are clones)? This change in perception would explain their "rule" as a society to not "capture" until the time of death. Captured Souls would have ALL the knowledge/wisdom/experience that person would have ever gained, without the constant second guessing of "what would I have experienced if I lived longer?" In River of Souls, their hatred burns because of that question. For most others captured following the rules, they could always be shown that death was seconds away. It would also explain why so many Soul Hunters would show up at events, because they could each get a copy ("You mean MewTwo is at the Grocery Store in town for the next hour?"). But if a blockade is made, no Soul Hunters can get close enough for the scan and the "soul" is lost for all time to everybody. I think a very B5, non-Star Trek message is present. That no matter how idealistic a goal is at the start (preserving the knowledge gained by the best of us), time and fallibility can turn it into something horrible (accidently imprisoning thousands/millions of people into a tortuous daily life for eons. Only by accepting regular input from others can we see the errors in what we have come to accept as normal.

[@timamherst-clark2699]

Ok. I'm now more convinced than ever that This Jeff is some kind of alien pod-person! He still looks younger than our original Jeff of a few weeks ago, but he (it?) seems to be aging faster than is usual. In a few more weeks he'll probably look just like old Jeff did, and by then it may be too late to do anything about this. I'm not sure if Brent is involved in anyway, but it did seem to happen around the time they were spending time together in the real world, so . . . ? (assuming that THIS is "the real world"!) Help Jeff, 65ers, we may be his only hope! 😃

[@MarvinNoFun]

The Soul Hunters are wasted in this show. They could have done something much more interesting than that. For example, show us a Black Mirror-like artificial hell, in which they keep souls. Maybe, even a story, where a soul doesn't know that it has died and ended up in a Soul Hunter's ball.

[@algi1]

Artificial intelligence doesn't exist. Large language models are branded as AI. It's an algorithm that copies what humans did. The problem with "AI" is that it makes people believe that it's actually AI and humans think that "OMG, it's a Ghost in the Shell thing, let's give it human rights", when there's actually no intelligence, no consciousness, no creativity, it's just an algorithm. Imagine the AI singularity, except AI isn't smarter than humans, it's a complete disaster, the end of human culture.

[@FersusSwingo]

the thing with AI Art ties into the brothel discussion in my opinion: If an artist sells/gifts their artworks/likeness/voice for it to train AI models with it: no problems there. But as it's used now, it's essentially mass-theft (if we are at the brothel allegory, one might use the "R" word, but I'm not risking that...). So in the vast majority of the cases there is no consent there. Also: AI models don't really create new stuff, they only can give you what they already have. The remix stuff is something humans do to, but innovating on emulated art and creating something new is not possible with the current approach. They are very sophisticated guessworking algorithms: "you gave me this and that keyword, those direct me in this certain area in my model, so I give you back something from there..."

[@christheBlindSocialist]

The conversation about deep fakes in porn made me think of the practice in the '90s, probably never stopped, of editing the heads of celebrity women to naked bodies of naked porn actresses & models. Back then I thought nothing of it. I was a kid. Of course I didn't. I never gave it another thought 'til now. I can see *NOW* why those women might be angry & hurt by this practice. I don't have a problem with AI being used to depict real people as long as those people get paid. AI should not be used to get around paying people for their work. It should be a tool for the subject to be able to fget in as many projects as they can/want without the worry of schedule conflicts. That might reduce what their image is worth, but the subject might be able to balance it out with the size of the workload. This might also bring down these huge budgets for movies. I also don't know much about what I am speaking on. I might just be full of shit. One thing I am certain I am right about is that the British didn't conquer the world because they thought they knew what was best for those other cultures. They didn't particularly care about those people. They knew what was best for themselves. What was best was to conquer, steal all the resources, & not pay the people living there. In fact, the people living there provide a convenient work force to be exploited. The US government operates the same way today. That's why the US orchestrates coups all over Latin America. That's why a war in Ukrain was started in 2014.

[@MoOrion]

I believe this is the first indication of the battle with the studio that would END Further Babylon 5 series... The directive was to "sex things up" here we get the holo brothel ... More such sexual references increase in frequency... Eventually the demands cross the line for JMS and he refuses... and thus Crusade gets canceled.

[@bekkers29]

"This boy has truly become the Illusive Man," made me laugh so hard! Also, I am firmly on Lochley's side. The thought of being dead, but being forced to exist against my will is utterly horrifying and falls in line with the notion of a hell. I have no problem with the idea that I will one day cease to exist, but the idea of being forced to continue existing without any ability to interact with the world sounds much worse to me than death. Now, if someone CONSENTED to that, then that's fine. The fact that the soul hunters do not obtain consent is utterly horrifying to me.

[@dargron7614]

"How was he the guy?" Funny story. Martin Sheen wasn't suppose to be the guy. Ian McShane was cast to be the Soulhunter, while Sheen was cast to be the Archaeologist, but Sheen read the script and wanted to play the Soulhunter, and nobody was saying no to Martin Sheen.

[@MoOrion]

Brent... in B5 we have Energy beings... Namely Vorlans... but also most if not all the other first ones to include the Shadows are energy beings as well. The species was about to ascend to become such energy beings.

[@dewaynejelks9088]

"Call to Arms" is the best B5 movie

[@hornorsilk2901]

I think it is the second best, but also has the worst music of the movies

[@nathanliteroy9835]

It's the worst, the idea is neat, but, the plot is terrble, lazy and bad: SPOILERS the wizard knows everything but deliberately only says the bare minimum so that the plot and investigation have happened in the story

[@praiha]

It's a good pilot movie for Crusade, but The Road Home is a better stand alone movie

[@b.s.864]

@@praiha The Road Home was a mistake that never should have been

[@stevemartegani]

I can't tell what timeline we are in because of Jeffs half beard lol

[@missyprime8198]

His beard is in the "Sheridan being interrogated" phase

[@rendymonyab]

I for one believe every movie after this should have an into made the same way... This into was FANTASTIC

[@terryhopkins1466]

Soul Hunters, via earlier explanation, if they don't capture the soul, it is lost to oblivion... No transitioning, no evolving, no joining, no rebirth, no heaven, no hell. This story seemed to disprove their theory that the souls are going into loss and nothing if they don't intervene.

[@setremnevets]

Funny that you think legalizing weed leads to getting rid of income tax.

[@algi1]

I wonder if Joe Estevez would've been better as Soul Hunter.

[@sststr]

That intro was indeed so awful as to be amazing! I wouldn't even be mad if you did it for the next movie too!

[@joeychicago6436]

I honestly forgot this movie existed,

[@TheFireMonkey]

@1:07 - Jeff: ... right now, Over me.

[@hornorsilk2901]

TNT interference led to the the holo-Lochley

[@TheFireMonkey]

65 and out

[@bidders71]

65, who won the over under, i think it was Jeff.

[@hornorsilk2901]

Not an official answer, but the B5 RPG answer: The Mongoose Publishing factbook Darkness and Light states that the Soul Hunters are products of First One design, most probably created by the First Ones called the Mindriders, who attempted to capture and preserve the wisdom and power of the younger, mortal generation of Lorien's race, the Speakers. The Soul Hunters are said to have been genetically based on the Speakers as well. The project failed and the Soul Hunters were let loose, whereupon they developed a mission to preserve souls based on their original purpose.

[@BackstageAtTheSmith]

Just a bit of context for adult stores, advertising an "arcade" means there are private viewing booths for adult films.

[@CallumArmistead]

16:48 - it's ironic you like this movie more than third space, i agree, but it's the same reason i like season 5

[@chrism7395]

65! In the UK at this time, I think Ian McShane was mainly known for the BBC series 'Lovejoy', where he played a rogueish antiques dealer and The West Wing didn't air until 1999 (2001 over here). IMO both the UK and American versions of Ghosts are great comedy series; which is unusual because most remakes of UK comedies don't make the transition across the pond very well (I think The Office is the only other one that's managed it).

[@planetprobable]

65 Martin Sheen played the lead in one of the most iconic movies ever, Apocalypse Now.

[@stuartwald2395]

My apologies, but Brent just went past the "I (personally/subjectively) think that is stupid" line and went right to "That is objectively wrong" with his statement that if we just legalized and regulated (and taxed) the marijuana industry, we could get rid of income taxes. There are many things to argue about/discuss with regard to marijuana (I am frankly a Joe Friday fan on this issue), but anyone can do a google search about what has happened in many western states where marijuana has been decriminalized/legalized and the resulting explosion of criminal activity (in growth and distribution of marijuana), the wreckage of legal businesses in the field, and the very low amount of revenue actually being collected. Getting back to the movie, it is possibly Tracy Scoggins' best performance in the franchise. Martin Sheen's work gets better as the story progresses, in great part because (backstory) he was directed to take it that way, that he was learning the local language and culture by osmosis after coming in with no knowledge of humanity.

[@KeenanV]

Sorry but you are buying the Fox News / Newsmax propaganda. I live in a legal state and it is nothing like you are describing.

[@neilbiggs1353]

"we could get rid of income taxes" - isn't that just generally a terrible idea anyway according to most economists? Most taxation that is based on purchases etc tend to disproportionately fall on poorer people? It doesn't help that a lot of social sciences tend to have issues of reproducibility so what you can get is a bunch of stuff that doesn't fully account for confounding factors because it fits an ideology, but that stuff (which I mostly see in discussions about European VAT) seems to be pretty accurate

[@cpmf2112]

Well, Brent is wrong about the numbers because there isn't any way all income taxes could be replaced, but the facts are very clear in the places where it has been legalized and all the bad things predicted didn't actually happen in real life. You can imagine whatever you like but it didn't happen.

[@TheFireMonkey]

I love the intro - that was perfect!

[@hornorsilk2901]

Ian McShane was much like Lovejoy too

[@DIYTAO]

I doubt nether Jeff or Brent has seen that series since it was Brittish made and really old

[@hornorsilk2901]

The Soul Hunters I think are a good concept, and the B5 RPG I think added good ideas about them, but they also don't work as a main storyline; I think they work best as background characters.