I have never met anybody who didn't like Zathras. Apparently, once he was in costume, Tim Choate would stay in character all day, to preserve the mind set of the character ( and his several hours in make-up each day). He was often very funny on set, but off camera. But Zathras not mind, Zathras used to being butt of joke. A truly endearing performance.
I love Zathras, and his nine siblings: Zathras, Zathras, Zathras, Zathras, Zathras, Zathras, Zathras, Zathras, and last but not least, Zathras ( he is my fav, because of his depth of personality! )
@@syntaxusdogmata3333 WHAT? Are you kidding? Zathras was jealous that Zathras was always the life of the party and was able to get all the hot girls! And, as for Zathras, he was always the black sheep of the family.
Kosh: “Who are you?” Zathras: “I am being Zathras, not being Zathras. Zathras is often mistaken for Zathras but is not to be mistaken for Zathras. No one listen to Zathras. Zathras has sad life, probably have sad death. But there is symmetry.” Kosh: “I regret asking.”
It's been a while since watching B5. And I had forgot that one line that made me laugh, and it still does. "You are finite, Zathras if finite, this is wrong tool". lol
Always kind of wished Zathras and Lorien had met each other on screen. Figured they'd just politely nod, siliently, to each other, then get on with their business.
We should all take a moment to appreciate how Stracynzki wove this story to pay off over multiple seasons like this, especially considering the number of things that forced him to change story points (like Sinclair's actor having to leave the show due to his struggles with mental illness.)
Zathras was like Holiday Dressing or that special Fudge only made on holidays. If you had it everyday you'd get tired of it, because it's a rare event it's more loved and appreciated
At 4:15 - 'You are finite, Zathras is finite, this.... is wrong tool. [picks up another widget] Never use this....' I just gotta believe Mr Choate was just given a few notes from JMS: 'Here are the bullet points you gotta hit. Do what you want, we trust you.'
For years I'd occasionally search and never found anyone had posted that scene. Shook my faith in the interwebs. So glad it, and the rest, all collected in one place. O7
@@John2Ward Eureka! What a capital idea! The people at work and the general population have no clue what's about to be unleashed. You folks in this thread gave me a good belly laugh. Bless you.
Fun Note: @4:51 this scene has no cuts or breaks. This scene was one long perfectly execute form of acting by Tim Choate. This is the reason why Claudia Christian performance looks so good at the buffutle points. She forgot her lines but did not want to break character because Tim Choate exit for the scene was not planned. Later.
One of my all time favorite characters over the decades I've been watching sci-fi fare. He's the kind of guy who can drive you absolutely bonkers, (ask Susan Ivanova), but when the chips are down and everything's on the line, he's the kind of guy who will get you through the crises. Tim Choate played this role to perfection.
"Zathras dress like this, you dress like that.." "You met Zathras, not Zathras..." "Zathras trained in crisis-management..." this was a fabulous character, will be missed.
I just got a feeling that Zathras's race communicates with both speech and pheromones that only Zathras's race can detect. And that's why we get the "Whos on First" routine between Zathras and Ivanova.
such a massive and shocking tragedy to lose Tim Choate in a motorcycle accident (IIRC). His and Richard's death's were the two no one saw coming AT ALL.
I thoroughly enjoyed Babylon 5 when it first came out. I preferred it over Deep Space 9, largely because it had more humor. Zathras was a favorite character. So was Zathras. But Zathrus..... well...... not so much.
@@AuthorDodgeMerrin For years I'd occasionally search and never found anyone had posted that scene. Shook my faith in the interwebs. So glad it, and the rest, all collected in one place. O7
@@rickfalletta1979 Happy to do my part for the B5 community. If there's any other scenes you look for but can't find, let me know, and I'll see about getting it up.
Ah...Zathras. No, the other one. One of the very few beings in the universe who could pat Susan on the head as if she were a child without suffering an immediate and horrific death.
Absolutely loved Zathras. Tickled beyond reason that not only is Zathras in the new animated movie BUT still using same line 'None listens to Zathras' :(
I get the feeling they are all the same Zathras, but from alternate time lines, he's probably gone insane, maybe something akin to Temporal psychosis from star trek.
Me: I don't know how to pick a favorite character on Babylon Five. Ivanova, Delenn, Sheridan, G'Kar, Marcus, Garibaldi, Vir... the list of great characters is just too long and I feel bad even trying to decide. Also me: Zathras. Zathras is my favorite character on Babylon Five.
Zathras is amazing. To be the comic relief while still being massively important to events and without just coming over as inherently stupid... genius writing. I have just been hit by a revelation! Jar Jar Binks was supposed to be the Zathras of Star Wars. But they cocked it up so bad he became the Wesley Crusher of Star Wars instead.
когда впервые увидела серию с похищением Вавилона-4, как же это было увлекательно. Но когда пришла очередь поучаствовать в похищении главным героям, просто был восторг от истории! 😍 обожаю эти серии и Затраса, конечно)
One of the favorite comments I've heard about the scene of Zathras explaining the different versions of the name for different Zathras brothers: "Ivanova's not hearing it, we're not hearing it, and Superman isn't hearing it either." I think this was on the (unfortunately now-defunct) Hyperion web site of Babylon 5 episodes. Anybody know if that web site was resurrected somewhere else?
This was so confusing, BB4 was taken to the past and given to Minbari in English and all the background of Humans. When the Minbari see them in BB5 it's like they see them for the first time they did not know who they were.
1,000 years is a long time, and a lot was lost as a result. Delenn said they had only a few surviving records from that war, and even those were hidden by the Gray Council. So the majority of Minbari would not have recognized anything about the humans when they met them again, and even the Council had grown complacent to the point where most if not all of them had never bothered to look at those records. If I remember correctly, she also said that they did recognize Babylon 4 when it neared completion which is one of the reasons they chose to help finance the construction of Babylon 5.
@@qaskew24 I read that Babylon 4 was eventually discovered some years after the events of the series in a decaying orbit around a gas giant. I don't remember what happened after that discovery. What I'm about to say are only my personal theories and don't come from any official source. After the Minbari won the war against the Shadows, they probably stopped using the station almost right away. I'm pretty sure even at that time the technology was rather primitive compared to their own, so they wouldn't really want to keep it around. There's no telling what happened after that. Perhaps it got moved to a remote system to be stored, then forgotten about, or maybe Valenn deliberately made it lost in an effort to prevent people from learning too much about the future. Whatever happened to it after the war, the Minbari wouldn't have a reason to preserve the language of an alien race with which they have no contact, especially during a time of immense rebuilding after a terribly destructive war. Eventually the station, the language, and any information on the species that built it was simply lost, forgotten, and/or ignored.
The station would have had Interlac in its library. Now, the question may be asked if the Minbari knew Interlac back then, or this is where Interlac first arose in their history.
I met Zathras once, you know. Nice guy, but don't get him drunk or he'll rant endlessly about Zathras. No, not that one, the other one. The one called Zathras. Or was it Zathras? I get easily confoosed.
With the original plan in mind, where Babylon 5 gets destroyed and the B4 is pulled into the future and become Babylon Prime to fight the Shadow War, his explanation of what he is doing feels so much more ominous. But that would have been a 10-year plan and given the tv-landscape at the time, it was a miracle they got the five years in the first place.
@@robertbusek30 yes. Because the Network was shutting down. He left some storylines (Londo) open, but overall finished most of the story in season 4. but after Season 1 there was also a big change. Apparently B5 would have originally ended with its destruction and then a new show, Babylon Prime, would have seen Sinclair & team pull Babylon 4 through time into the future and then another 5 seasons would have seen the end of the shadow war, with Sinclair's and Delenn's child aging up and becoming a sort of messianic figure. But after season one not only was Michael O'Hare sick and had to be written out, but Straczynski realized that this 10 year plan was unrealistic, so he rewrote the entire thing. This is apparently from the scriptbooks that came out a while back, but tbh I also only have second hand information.
Good they had family explanation, but wouldn't that mean a lot of Scenes he would have not taken it they where meaning him and bit one of the the brothers.
there are ten of us... all of family Zathras ... each one named Zathras ... slight differences in how you pronounce ......... Zathras .... Zathras ... Zathras ~ oh this scene is too funny
zathras was a true man. so kind and wise. not like zathras. now he was a piece of shit. always borrowing money and never paying it back. but i think kosh liked zathras the most. he always had kind things to say about him. and sherdian wasn't a big fan of zathras. apparently, he tried to spy on delenn while she was in the shower. not that i blame him but still, that's another man's wife.
Anyone here a Dr Who (or older Who) fan? During the Capaldi Era, before it all went woke, he did a part talking about Beethoven called the bootstrap paradox, ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-u4SEDzynMiQ.html&ab_channel=DoctorWho , Now my question is this, If Zathras is the father of all 10 Zathras's? Which i assume is true, Is he a bootstrap paradox?
I haven't seen any Capaldi episodes, but I recently saw a video on the bootstrap paradox. Personally, I don't think Zathras fathered himself or any of the others as a result of time travel. The one that I wonder about; however, is the Triluminary. It seems to be stuck in a circle starting with Valenn, then going to Delenn, and finally Sinclair who takes it back again.
@@AuthorDodgeMerrin Not necessarily, Sheridan is part of the three as well. Sinclair/Valen is, as Zathras told, the beginning of the story, Delenn is the middle of the story and Sheridan is the end of the story. I do get where you get it from, with the machine, just you can't mention Sinclair and Delenn without talking about Sheridan. Now that you mentioned it, it does make me wonder as well who is the parent of who?
@@crazylarryjr I was referring to the device the Minbari used to interrogate Sinclair and later Delenn and Sinclair used to change themselves. Zathras' description of the story has always made me wonder a bit, though I'm probably overthinking it. He says Delenn is the middle of the story and Sheridan is the end, but to me those two are happening more or less simultaneously. Sinclair/Valenn being the beginning works out easily enough, though.
