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

This film's quality should not be linked to the rest of the Babylon5 universe. It's probably awful for more than 100 reasons, but i'll just list the first 3 that come to mind...

1-Cast ) The acting or characters are uninteresting. There is nothing new here at all. The crew are the usual suspects in terms of mixed species, colors, ocupations. The captain reminds me of the lead guy in farscape, he's so boring. I think i'd rather see really bad acting just so I have something to laugh at.

2-Plot ) JMS is a master of writing story arcs. Building upto episodes that you think are gonna be great, and they are better than you hoped. Even a quality show like SG1 has really bum climax'. I can't think of a single dissapointment in the plots in b5. Unfortunatly this movie raises the bar. It kinda says that all that happened in b5 was big, but this is bigger! *accompanied by the sound of a whoopie cusion deflating*

3-Ships )Starship design is a highly personal thing. Some people love the enterprise D, some people hate it and love the enterprise E. I ain't met anyone that likes the ships in this film though. You can probably lend the blame to Warner Brothers for loosing the ship models, but they are releasing the DVD's and I want to get rid of the Crusade VHS yucky format too so I gotta be nice to them. Blame sierra even tho they supplied their game project files, cause they didn't finish that b5 game due to being gimped.

Any B5 fans out there that havent seen this film, I advise caution...

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.

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 read what D-J-Phillips wrote and I have to agree with him This pilot is not that bad, and actually let me dare say that David Martail has a huge potential to be the next John Sheridan, he even shines more confidence than Mathew Gorden in Crusade, B5 needs more fans to support any new production that comes, the legend of the rangers can be a good pilot for something better, this new aliens (the hand) need not to be another shadow, may be the story will twist and they end up to be bluffing, or that new race has found those old ships and is using them to frighten everyone else.

I always said that if B5 is to be revived then new story lines have to be developed and they need not be around the B5 universe itself, give the station a rest, and explore new options.

It is as londo said "a very big universe" and lots can be discovered and done