interesting view on the history. Of course, over here in Europe, we go into great detail when looking at WWII in history at school (at least the European part) and to be honest, I have to agree with the poster - all this feels kind of surreal and inaccurate.
I guess this is already some consequence of history-rewriting going on in some parts, combined with strange coincidences. But in general, yes, the whole story, especially when told in such few words as the original article, doesn't make a lot of sense.
On a different note: I totally agree on his opinion about Bablyon 5. There are few other series that managed to capture me as much as B5 did. Especially seasons 2 and 3 are brilliant and I would highly recommend everyone with even just a slight liking of Sci-Fi to give at least these two seasons a go.
If you want, you can start at S1, but it's quite slowly building up story, so you might get bored out, but in the context of the whole series, quite many episodes in S1 do make a lot of sense too.
I recommend reading David Irving's Hitler's War and Churchill's War as an antidote to the Churchill hagiography. You'll be able to filter out Irving's opinions and still see another perspective on the war. One in which Chamberlain and Halifax are statesmen who might have been successful in avoiding armed conflict, but for the determined war party of Churchill. I'm not here to make that case -- just saying, there are mighty few revisionist histories you can pick up at Borders, and you should read them.
> One in which Chamberlain and Halifax are statesmen who might have been successful in avoiding armed conflict, but for the determined war party of Churchill.
No one disputes that it would have been possible to avoid armed conflict with Nazi Germany. The relevant question is "at what cost?" Given Hitler's ambitions, do you really think that he'd have stopped at the channel?
It is reasonable to suggest that Chamberlain bought some time for Britain to re-arm and that trying to defend the continent was a bad idea. But that's very different from suggesting that sustained peace was a reasonable possibility.
Obviously we'll never know, and we can speculate all day. But I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that yes, Germany would have calmed down eventually.
Empires have a tendency to reach their zenith and slowly recede after that. When you have occupying powers like Nazi Germany they're likely to fall apart eventually due to internal strife. The Roman Empire did, so did the Soviet Union, partly.
Had WW2 not happened we might just have had a Cold War with four actors (USA, UK, Germany, Soviet Union) instead of 2. The world might not be too different today, with Germany either toppled from within, or having had their version of the civil rights movement.
Then again they might have tried to take over the entire world. But I think it's somewhat naïve to extrapolate states at their most violent beginnings to how they might have evolved in the future.
If some hypothetical world police would have stopped the USA at its beginnings we might very well read in our history books today that if it wasn't for that, the US would have proceeded to eradicate the rest of the world's indigenous peoples. And that it would still be keeping millions of people as slaves.
In reality the fate of states is more complex than the plans of any one man. Even if he's the Führer.
> The Roman Empire did, so did the Soviet Union, partly.
The Roman Empire didn't "calm down" for hundreds of years. Even the USSR took a couple of decades. And in both cases, they ran into opposition.
If you're going to argue that a legacy-obsessed Hitler would have calmed down within a year or so despite encountering no significant opposition, you need something more than "it could happen".
So we should can the history book writers in favor of JMS? I could have told you that a decade ago!
Also, S1 is the best B5 there is, rise of the psycorps, nightwatch, captain getting kidnapped by creepy intelligence guys to be mindfucked, it's just like WWII!
S2 is more like the beginning of WWII. If I remember correctly, the Nightwatch is a program initiated by president Clark (or his administration) and he isn't in the office during S1.
At the end of S1, events are set in motion (not spoiling anything here, but the end of S1 is super-awesome and constantly sends shivers down my spine when I'm watching it), but it's not quite there yet.
Also, there are many non-story-relevant episodes in S1. But as I said: It's building up background. Just very slowly for first-time watchers.
That's not surprising as that's how TV series worked back then: Most episodes are closed in themselves and there basically is no overall story progression.
IMHO it was B5 that broke with that tradition and nowadays series are just like very, very long movies.
the B5 part of my answer is non-related to the history-rewriting part. B5 isn't quite the accurate replacement for history books, but I do agree that some of the story has its root in the WWII parts of history.
Well S1 is "just" about introducing characters and setting up scenery and context - which are broad indeed. Covering such ground while trying to create an engaging experience would be very hard. Something had to give - story or spectacle and decision was made (I guess).
B5 has to be the best mix of great writing and proper execution I have ever seen. Had to have lots to do with Straczynski doing stuff his way.
On this note - what are other similarly well executed series that I'm unaware of, genre is irrelevant?
I guess this is already some consequence of history-rewriting going on in some parts, combined with strange coincidences. But in general, yes, the whole story, especially when told in such few words as the original article, doesn't make a lot of sense.
On a different note: I totally agree on his opinion about Bablyon 5. There are few other series that managed to capture me as much as B5 did. Especially seasons 2 and 3 are brilliant and I would highly recommend everyone with even just a slight liking of Sci-Fi to give at least these two seasons a go.
If you want, you can start at S1, but it's quite slowly building up story, so you might get bored out, but in the context of the whole series, quite many episodes in S1 do make a lot of sense too.