Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers: To Live and Die in Starlight

Rangers !? These people are cowboys. Gone is the intelligent, cool, skilled ranger. In the original series Rangers were a highly trained group of multi-talented people, kind of like a special forces unit. They were trained in Minbari ways, had a lot of personal control and subtlety was an important part of the way they worked. This group of rangers seems to have practically no knowledge of Mimbari ways, little self control, and no subtlety.

The ship is ridiculous. The Whitestar ships were beautiful and elegant. This one is poorly lit and silly. Some of the control stations are in hallways -- that's where you want crucial system controls -- in the hallway so the operators can block people rushing from one station to another. That way they can get blocked when something hits the ship and all the actors have to do the old "Star Trek" "something hit the ship boogie" (yes, they do resort to that in this movie). The ship is constantly losing weapons systems. It seems like their ships should be better equipped than that, but then again, if they didn't keep losing weapons there would be no other way to make the "plot" work. With properly working weapons it would be a half hour movie !

I am an avid fan of Babylon 5. I love the series and all the other movies. This movie is nowhere close to the same quality. The acting is stilted, the characters are shallow and the special effects are lame (the lady "punching" the projectiles is really funny).

This movie has been promoted for months, yet it has the feel of a movie that they didn't have enough time or money to do properly.

Oh Marcus, we miss you!

For someone who can come up with the concept of B5, and write most of the episodes, JMS sure can't write a movie to save his life. At a time when the B5 franchise needed a masterpiece, JMS gave us bad rip-offs of his own work. Take "Thirdspace," add some ancient shadow-like enemy and throw in a dash of young James T. Kirk and you basically got this pilot. I'm not sure why JMS threw out such tripe like "The Hand" when he knew that every B5 fan in america would call him out on it, but he did it anyway. All of the reviews, except for those that live only to praise JMS, have said that this "pilot" "telemovie" or what have you, sucks. They are right. Due to the ignorant mismanagement on the part of the Sci-Fi channel, it aired opposite an NFL playoff game. Due to hackneyed writing, however, it virtually sealed the deal of no series.

I admit it. I am a Babylon 5 junkie. No, better stated... Babylon 5, the series, is a spiritual journey for me, one which largely outlines my own belief structure quite succinctly. This does not make me a Babylon 5 fan(as in fanatic) however. I do not attend conventions. I do not collect memorabilia. I do not keep a cherish autographed picture of Bruce Boxleitner in my closet. No, the show is enough for me.

So now I have to ask myself. What was J. Michael Straczinski thinking when he wrote Babylon 5: Legend of the Rangers? I eagerly anticipated this premiere, largely because I felt if left to his own devices (which was clearly not the case on Crusade), he might create something that measured up to the genius of the series. Not so. In fact, the premiere of LotR (not to be confused with LotR of the big screen!) was a tragedy. Hackneyed, confused, and sometimes laughably bad, this will not earn him more fans.

There are a few bright spots. An early scene between Martel and Dulann hints of Straczinski's ability to humanize his relationships. And Andreas Katsulas is always a pleasure to watch; his imposing presence as G'Kar always made Babylon 5 a joy and his presence in this film is much the same.

Tragically, we see too little of both of these things in LotR. Instead we are treated to some truly bad acting in the form of Myriam Sirois as Ranger Cantrell. This character is as superfluous as she is poorly conceived. As weapons officer, she has little more to do than to make laughably ludicrous punching and kicking motions in the virtually reality weapons chamber. This outlines a big problem in and of itself; the need to include gratuitous special effects, even if there is no logical reason for their existence. The virtually reality weapons are the perfect example of this. They make no sense, they look absolutely ridiculous, and they appear *far* too often.

Contrast this to the original series, whose special effects were notoriously "fake" looking, quite obviously conceived on a limited CGI budget. But that was part of the charm of the show; our attention could be drawn temporarily to the eye candy of the effects while our concentration remained squarely on the relationships.

If the show actually goes to series after this premiere, I will give it a shot. After all, if I had based my opinion of Babylon 5 solely on the basis of the premiere (Babylon 5: The Gathering), I'm not sure I would have watched the show either. But Mr. Straczinski, really. I know you can do better than this.

I think people were unfairly harsh with legend of the rangers. It was effectively a pilot and had many kinks to work out but several of the characters were worth exploring further. Some of the actors were quite talented and have had strong performances in the years since, particularly Dean Marshall who many may recognize from the Stargate franchise. Yes it would have needed more refinement to be a full fledged series but it was a decent starting point, for something that will never get to be.

No, this wasn't as good as the classic Babylon 5 episodes, especially of Seasons 3 and 4, but that isn't the point. It was in the middle of the B5 saga and yet the beginning of its own tale. Add to that, every new main character was had to have a back story from before the start of this movie's plot so the creator, JMS, did a wonderful job of creating an exposition for a long term series - a better series than most of what has ended up on Sci Fi. B5 fans and sci fi fans in general should give it another look. Yes, there are many things I would have changed - some close shots of White Star ships, a brighter looking Mimbar, the weapons officer not tumbling like an angry cat, and no more than half of the "We live for the one..." quotes. But it's better ever time I catch it in reruns and this certainly deserved a better fate.