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

I love Babylon 5. I have seen every episode of the series and the movies as well--so it's obvious that I really care about this show. Heck, I even saw the spin-off series, CRUSADE--that's how much I love the show!! And, in light of this love, it really hurt to watch such a seriously flawed and inferior product as THE LEGEND OF THE RANGERS. I guess that after having written so much that the series creator, writer and executive producer J. Michael Straczynski finally was due for a fall as this is easily the worst of the Babylon pantheon.

So why was it so bad? Well, the fundamental idea of a new spin-off series wasn't the problem--this movie could have led to a decent series. However, the characters and writing just weren't up to snuff. Particular problems were a very, very predictable plot through at least the first half in which time and again I found myself guessing exactly what would happen next. In fact, my wife and I were both very accurately telling what would happen next because it all seemed so unoriginal and clichéd. Fortunately, it did improve later and I did like the escape pod sequences. In addition, the weapons officer and her gimmicky way of fighting was just embarrassingly bad and silly. She was completely one-dimensional and the fighting sequences made me cringe--they were THAT bad.

So what you have left wasn't without some merit and I guess it is a passable 90 minutes of entertainment--but just barely. My advice is that if you are a Babylon 5 geek (like me), then by all means watch it. Otherwise--skip it and watch the series.

By the way--take a look at all the ratings for this film. Like many popular sci-fi TV shows or movies (such as Star Trek or Star Wars), there are a small number of mindless zombies who declare that EVERY episode and EVERY movie is an artistic masterpiece--giving ALL OF THEM 10s!!! Now if you liked this movie, I have no argument with you. But, to take an obviously flawed movie that is clearly inferior to the previous series and films and STILL give it a 10 is just ludicrous. These zombies, I assume, are like cult members who CANNOT objectively rate anything from the series and think by giving EVERYTHING a 10 that they are somehow "helping" the show or being loyal. I am sure my harsh words will draw many "not helpful" ratings, but I don't care--the casual viewer needs to know that some reviews can't be trusted.

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!

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.

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.