Fans Save Babylon 5

Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski revealed some surprising news about the upcoming Lost Tales film - when Warner Brothers lost the computer discs containing the original effects images from the show, the production crew was at a loss as to how they would re-create everything from scratch without delaying the film. Until Straczynski came up with a plan - "I pointed out that a lot of fans out there over the years built their own models of our ships and the station and everything else. So they went out to all these different sites to find high-resolution models and wireframes and texture mattes and so on that they could then take and start building from. So it kind of closed the loop in the sense that Babylon 5 created these images and gave them to the fans, and now the fans have given them back to us."... In fact, it may have been a boon to the movie that the discs were lost. Visual effects technology has grown by leaps and bounds since 1998 (when the show ended). Starting from scratch allowed for even better effects with this film. According to Straczynski, the station and ships were never shown at too much of a close-up in the series because the technology at the time simply didn't allow it. But, "on this DVD, we really had some pane-scrapers [shots that got close to ships]. We get right in there. And the degree of resolution of detail is terrific." In this, the first Lost Tales movie, President Sheridan (Bruce Boxleitner) is heading off to an important meeting on the station. The DVD hits shelves on July 31.