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OK, so the special effects were ... umm ... good for their time, and some of the episodes were very weak.
But B5 was some of the best SF on TV in the way back when.
And now ... It's being rebooted[^] - I'm hopeful, I expectant, I'm waiting ... probably for a long time ... 
Modern effects, decent scripts, long story arcs, foreshadowing - B5 brought right up to date. Just a pity so many of the original actors aren't with us any more. Going to be difficult to see G'Kar without Katsulas, Garibaldi without Doyle, Vir without Furst, Franklin without Biggs, or Delenn without FurLan ... But I'll get used to it!
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
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I was gonna say, why does that show need a reboot, rather than a continuation...but then, if it was an on-going story, people would be expecting to see old familiar faces. Who's left of that cast?
(rhetorical question - I couldn't name a single one of them)
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dandy72 wrote: Who's left of that cast?
Well, Londo is still going: Peter Jurasik - Wikipedia[^]
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
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dandy72 wrote: people would be expecting to see old familiar faces. Who's left of that cast?
(rhetorical question - I couldn't name a single one of them)
Only about half to two thirds of the main cast are left (11/18 of the regular cast are still alive, but the secondary actors/actresses have had better luck). Using the list from Wikipedia:
Michael O'Hare as Commander (later Ambassador) Jeffrey Sinclair (season 1; guest seasons 2–3): RIP 2012
Bruce Boxleitner as Captain (later President) John Sheridan (seasons 2–5): Alive
Claudia Christian as Lt. Commander (later promoted to Commander) Susan Ivanova (seasons 1–4, guest season 5): Alive
Jerry Doyle as Michael Garibaldi: RIP 2016
Mira Furlan as Delenn: RIP 2021
Richard Biggs as Doctor Stephen Franklin: RIP 2004
Andrea Thompson as Talia Winters (season 1–2): Alive
Stephen Furst as Vir Cotto: RIP 2017
Bill Mumy as Lennier: Alive
Tracy Scoggins as Captain Elizabeth Lochley (season 5): Alive
Jason Carter as Marcus Cole (seasons 3–4): Alive
Caitlin Brown (season 1, guest season 5) and Mary Kay Adams (season 2) as Na'Toth: Alive, and Alive
Robert Rusler as Warren Keffer (season 2): Alive
Jeff Conaway as Zack Allan (guest season 2, main seasons 3–5): RIP 2011
Patricia Tallman as Lyta Alexander (original TV movie, guest seasons 2–3, main seasons 4–5): Alive
Andreas Katsulas as G'Kar: RIP 2006
Peter Jurasik as Londo Mollari: Alive
JMS has previously stated that he wouldn't ever have new actors take the roles of those who've gone beyond the rim; unless that's changed the reboot's going to be a major shakeup in the characters.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
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Dan Neely wrote: unless that's changed
...and JMS is involved...
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dandy72 wrote: Dan Neely wrote:unless that's changed
...and JMS is involved...
JMS Is involved.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
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Hope. I have hope for this; MJS may make it OK; CW may screw it up. It's our last best hope for the future.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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JMS: "We have some serious fans over at the [CW] network, and they're eager to see this show happen."
Oh sh*t. Every show of theirs I've watched started out good, then turned to crap in a couple years. Not optimistic about the final outcome, but if JMS can keep control, maybe???
I don't think B5 can come close to being recreated without Katsulas & Jurasik's interactions. As JMS said, that river is no more.
Anyone have ideas about actors who would be capable of either role? Or do you think JMS will completely eliminate those positions? Per the link, JMS said "In the years since B5, I've done a ton of other TV shows and movies, adding an equal number of tools to my toolbox, all of which I can bring to bear on one singular question: if I were creating Babylon 5 today, for the first time, knowing what I now know as a writer, what would it look like?"
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G'Kar was so fundamental to the last three or four series that I can't see B5 without him working. Londo was good - and played excellently - but a heck of a lot revolved around the "growing up" of G'Kar (maybe "evolution" is a better word, I'm not sure) and that reflected in the maturity of the Shadow war / Second Naan war / rebellion.
He really was pivotal to the whole story thread.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
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The thing that always impressed me about Babylon 5 was that when a spaceship used it thrusters to rotate, you could see it use the opposing thrusters to stop the rotation. The people doing the graphics understood inertia. I've never seen that in any other show. Look at how the Vipers do their flips in Battlestar Galactica - to my knowledge (I could be wrong) you never see the opposing thrusters fire to stop the rotation!
The other exception is Space Cowboys, where you can see that with the shuttle thrusters as well.
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The Expanse does that as well.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
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Both the Expanse & Babylon 5 the ships look as if they are not designed for atmosphere, the Expanse more so I could be wrong haven't seen B5 for a while. 
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Ruling planet of palm utensils (7)
"I didn't mention the bats - he'd see them soon enough" - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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IMHO: No
At my previous company, we didn't have BAs - and when I joined my current company we didn't have them either. But that changed, a few years back, when a new head of IT came in and decided he needed to replicate the structure from his old place. We now have dozens of BAs and are constantly recruiting more.
What this has achieved over the last 5 years, is:
- Software Developers being down-graded to coders. To be honest, some are not troubled by this. They're also not troubled by sitting, on their own, in their bedroom for a whole weekend, playing computer games! 
- A layer of obfuscation. Having someone who neither understands the business nor the technology as the 'go between', inevitably results in Coders not developing what the business actually needs.
- Lack of ownership. Coders no longer feel responsible for working with the business to understand how a requirement can best be developed and delivered.
- A disconnect. Where we once had software developers working directly with business users to solve a problem, we now have the person who truly understands the problem, not talking to the person who can solve it.
What's even more puzzling is that we are trying to be Agile! I've never been convinced that Agile is better than other approaches - but I don't see where BAs fit in!
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An enterprise role is like a tool : if it is not used properly, it is useless, and can even be dangerous.
I would not generalize about businees analysts not being useful.
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I agree, the OP's generalization is wrong, but not for the apparent reason -- the developers are being used wrongly, not necessarily the BA.
IME, developers should have an understanding of what they are building, how it should work, and how it will be used. When managing a project, I have developers sit in on some of the requirements and design sessions, so they get first hand experience with the situation. This produces better results. The BAs and TAs have the lead in those sessions, but everyone participates.
BITD, we weren't developers, we were Programmer/Analysts, and we had Business and Technical Analysts. The roles were not as stratified and IMO worked better. One project where we had clearly defined Programmers and Analysts did not go well, too much miscommunication and lost effort.
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5teveH wrote: They're also not troubled by sitting, on their own, in their bedroom for a whole weekend, playing computer games!
Don't blame other people's hobbies for the reason you hate your own life.
Suck it up, or find a new job.
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You failed to include the when quoting me. 
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I thought you just had a nervous twitch from all the rage 
I didn't mean to sound so harsh in my message... but the sentiment remains: If we don't like the job we have, we either suck it up or we find a better one. No good blaming other people who are happy/content with theirs.
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Like all positions, there are varying degrees of people filling them. I've worked with different performers. Some of them are only good for documentation after the fact and require a lot of babysitting. Others do an amazing job of getting requirements out of customers that I'm pretty sure I might have missed. Good luck and patient!
Hogan
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Analyst to developer: I've been tasked with documenting the system requirements for you, so I need you to tell me the requirements and then I'll type them up in Excel.
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SteveH wrote: Having someone who neither understands the business nor the technology as the 'go between'
That sounds like your main problem. If the BA lacks domain experience, they need to be good at gathering requirements from those who have it, in which case they can offload this task from developers. But if they try to do it alone, or if those who know the domain don't give them the time of day, it'll be like you say.
For most of my career, I worked in more or less a waterfall model where the first thing to be written was the requirements document. Sometimes it was written by a BA type. Other times it was written by the developer, especially if it was an internal capability or could reference a standard and outline the subset of it that would be implemented.
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Back in the day, we wrote up the requirements doc as a team of users (engineers), developers (we just called them programmers), a liaison (programmer who was also an engineer - me), and managers (BAs maybe?). We'd work until everyone understood the requirements and signed off on it, then it was just a SMOP, but everyone was clear on what they were producing and how it fit into the whole. This, I believe, is what is now known as the Waterfall model.
BAs can be useful in keeping everything on track by keeping the big picture in mind and avoiding bunny trails that crop up when users and coders start to get excited 
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It was something of a red herring for me to call it a waterfall model, because there isn't much point in designing or coding until the requirements are reasonably firm. After that document was written, a meeting was held to review it before development began.
Yes, limiting the interaction between users and coders is important once development begins!
SMOP = simple matter of programming? 
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Yes. Simple Matter of Programming
I tend to reduce most projects to this model: make a clear plan, gather all needed resources, execute plan, so essentially I want to get to the SMOP even when it's not really programming 
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