The Babylon 5 Period 1998
In the beginning of 1998 Doctor Rock, having earlier decided to install an ISDN connection to the internet, and in the process of developing network service machinery (which he found he had some small aptitude for) decided an extensive investigation of the Television Series Babylon 5 would be a righteous use of resources.
Conclusion
Although I myself wasn't the biggest "fan" of B5, but I immediately recognize it as the landmark piece of sci-fi, not just a turning point of tv-scifi production but an epic story well told with exceptional characters portrayed by an overall cast of amazing actors (my one disappointment is that they couldn't have squeezed DeLancie in there at some point). Otherwise I would not have watched every episode in it's single run on Australian TV religiously, ever since those first few quirky bars of the original Stewart Copeland soundtrack on the quirky pilot ep (and I might point out as I have from day one , I really would like to be able to get a copy of Copelands soundtrack, it must still exist somewhere on tape).
It was like reading an incredible book with mindblowing special effects and an amazing score, that took 5 years to finish.
Further Developments in the search for the original Stewart Copeland Soundtrack
As I have mentioned always the original Stewart Copeland soundtrack to the Babylon 5 pilot has been a personal B5 Holy Grail to myself. Well I've made this discovery that should have hit me in the ear as soon as I heard it.
The central main theme of Stewart Copeland is roughly split in 2 on the pilot, with half of it used at the front, and the other half used at the end. So with a lot of smoking hemp and with the NTSC playback VCR I could sample the bits into the computer and join them together with soundforge effectively re-constructing this central main theme.
I don't think anyone has done this yet as to appreciate it you must be interested in both Copeland AND B5, and not many people seem to be that. At any rate here it is as best I can put it together under the circumstances.
It is almost entirely complete as what seems to have been Copelands's core premise to the music, there is some 15 secs of preamble to it that you can hear on the pilot at the end as "Babylon 5 is opened for Business" and some more at the beginning but alas other than what I've got here is obscured by dialogue.
I could never find anyone from the B5 production team who could (or would) admit to any knowledge at all of the soundtrack, and clearly Copeland was not on the project after the pilot, what does it all mean. The closest thing to an admission that I found from anyone ever knowing what happened to it was that "It would have Dated the production" but I disagree and am certainly not convinced this is the real reason. Other times I had proposed the use of other bands in bar scenes and these proposals were said to be impossible because of "too many egos involved". Possibly JMS had differences of opinion over the music with Copeland that could not be resolved. It's yet another mystery.
Anyhow here it is, I hope the join isn't too noticeable, my main fear is Mr Copeland is going to one day find out about this and hit me for inexact timing, Please forgive me, but I'm only a drummer, I'm not an engineer. (and I cannot run as fast as Mr Sting).
The Doctor Rock reconstruction of Stewart Copeland's theme music for the Babylon 5 Pilot (750kb in size MP3 Download not streaming)
End Credits Theme, Stewart Copeland's music for the Babylon 5 Pilot (650kb in size MP3 Download not streaming)
A few pieces of rough Real Video
Some Representative video from the Babylon 5 series
This is THE most classic piece of radical rock science fiction. This realy should be how scifi is done, it's exactly how I would do it, but more of it
The betrayal of Sheridan in a rock bar Babylon 5 (season 4), 34kbps Realvideo Stream
The outstanding, truley classic and poignant monologue of Justin, the middle man
Justin monologue, Babylon 5 (season 3), 34kbps Realvideo Stream
Did I ever mention, I was at the battle of #babcom2 irc.warnerbros.com
Battle Of #babcom2, Bizarre Scifi by Doctor Rock, Text
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