Those dead-eyed monstrosities stare deep into my soul and give me a case of the howling fantods, so yes, agree.

I also take issue with buying something that does nothing. “Oh I’m going to put this on that shelf and never touch it again”. It screams cash grab. They’re made of brittle plastic so you can’t play with them. And as you say, they’re ugly.

People hate Babylon 5?

It's literally got the best character ever.

The first season is a little rough; at first it feels like an inferior Star Trek ripoff, a lot of adventures of the week, the effects and sets are cheesy even by Trek standards, the acting is a little stilted as some of the actors are still finding their strides.

Just before season 2 it gets its shit together and gets GOOD. I'm going to accuse it of having some of the best character arcs ever committed to video tape and some details that are going to make you say "They wrote this in 1996. How did they write this in 1996? How did they know?" upon viewing today.

consider that the CGI for the first season of babylon 5 was made on Commodore Amiga 2000 they were fucking amazing.

I agree with you as a contemporary but I do think it's important to remember that while DS9 started slower it ended up delivering excellent narratives on the same topic.

They are both worth a watch though because Bab5 had a grittiness to it that most other sci-fi wouldn't embrace until the resurgence of Cyberpunk. Bab5 contains several love letters to Gibson buried in its themeing that even DS9 (the grittiest of Star Treks) didn't come close to matching.

The same one that was installed on people's devices without their knowledge or consent? I think you're avoiding the real issue there.

it was bad for the studio. its production budget ballooned to $175M, total cost $235M. the most expensive movie ever made at the time. it lost money at the box office.

i enjoyed it.

May I see your Waterworld and raise you a Poseidon Adventure?

A lot of fun movies get a bad wrap for being unserious and I fucking hate it.

I found it quite preachy, but still watchable if you don't think about it too hard.

"Oil = bad". "Smokers = bad". Hopper aside, the bad guys were as shallow as you can get in character development.

Plus at 2h15m it was about 45 minutes longer than it should have been, and Kevin Costner is a polarising actor for some due to his lack of charisma.

All that said, I watched it twice. Once partly to admire Jeanne Tripplehorn's dress, which should have got a best supporting role.

Where did they get the cigarettes? Were they 20 year old stale cigarettes?