Is Babylon 5: The Road Home a Fresh Start or Fan Service?
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- Опубліковано 18 вер 2023
- Babylon 5: The Road Home resurrects a classic space opera.
A fresh start for a reboot or fan service for diehards?
Watch this review to find out!
#Babylon5 #reboot #review #Babylon5theroadhome #B5 #Phintasmo
What are your hopes for the upcoming reboot?
Share your thoughts in the comments!
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Upon further consideration: In the Beginning may be much more accessible to a newcomer, but it does give away quite a few plot points from the series. Approach with caution!
Thanks for the feedback everyone!
I've gotta caution people about the re-made pilot as well. In the Beginning gives away a lot, and Joe also decided it was okay for a character to introduce us to Entil'Zha. in 2257. This was a mistake IMO. My advice is start with 1x01. It's not ideal but it works. Many of us did start that way, after all.
In the Beginning should only be watched after the show in my opinion. It is like the Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me movie, that also gives away big mysteries by simply showing the thing happening others would later try to find out.
well, that is your opinion, their like aholes, most of them stink.
Can’t something’s just be completed? Babylon 5 was constructed like a novel and the story was told fairly well it’s done. Any time JMS try’s to added on to it or expand it has really not worked. I think if JMS has an idea it should just be a new series
I liked the Lost Tales and felt that could have worked as an anthology series.
I feel like Crusade could have worked if it had been planned better and had better writing. And I am totally fine with another story set in the Babylon 5 universe. A TNG to B5's DS9.
I say give a Crusade-like show another shot, but let Babylon 5 lie.
@@planescapedCrusade was ill fated on TNT network from the start. There was just too much network meddling and they pushed JMS into limiting corners
It is completed, those specials and movies coming out later are clearly just fan service giving us a little more time with already beloved characters without really starting new meaningful story arcs. That is all he could get greenlit and budgeted after Crusade and Legend of the Raiders didn't land. JMS would love to do a new series for sure but that is not up to him but Warner. And their decision making over the past decade has been wildly irrational and silly.
Well, I for one would love to see a continuation of the original show (sadly that should have been done way earlier, because so many of the cast are dead now!)...hell, I'd have loved to see the Teep-War...still, a story set a century in the future would probably work, too (maybe the Drakh are back and need a good beating!)
But I am also not against a re-boot, but only if there is no gender-war crap inserted! So no, Sheridan and Sinclair are not women! Hell, B5 has strong female characters (Ivanova and Delenn especially, but also Lyta and Talia), so no change needed!
To be fair, the Shadow War was one of the best and most epic moments of the franchise.
The movie revisits the greatest hits. I see it as a farewell tour for the original show.
"Get the hell out of our galaxy"
A good review and I agree with your points - especially concerning the replacements to the actors who are no longer with us. That said, the voice actor for Garibaldi was pretty spot on. There were a couple of points where I honestly thought they'd sampled Jerry Doyle's voice or used AI, so I was surprised to find it was a voice actor impersonating him. Though I respecfully disagree (slightly) on two small points:
1.) "It was never as popular as Star Trek." B5 was actually beating DS9 in the ratings for the second and third years of each show - and in the awards categories, winning Hugo Awards for Best Dramatic Presentation in both 1996 and 1997 (beating DS9 on both occasions and also Star Trek FIrst Contact). That was one of the reasons why DS9 got a revamp for season 4, with a more dramatic theme tune, the arrival or Worf, the war with the Klingons and the station getting a massive weapons upgrade (and comprehensively moving away from Gene Roddenberry's more peaceful vision). Of course this also made DS9 improve it's game, by exploring darker character themes, like grief, loss, mental stability and questionable ethics.
2.) While "In The Beginning" does give a good overall showcase to the background of B5 and its characters (though it doesn't really go into the series we see onscreen) you might want to warn your virewers that it also contains some significant spoilers for anyone who subsequently wants to watch the original show (*cough*Valen*cough*).
I agree with 2; new B5 viewers should just watch it in broadcast order, though you could probably skip The Gathering if you're pressed for time.
I bought this on bluray cause I've been following JMS on twitter and he seems like a nice guy. I avoided B5 back in the day cause I thought it was a DS9 ripoff and only recently learned it was the other way around. I liked this movie, so now I'm watching B5 for the first time and enjoying it. So this is what got me into the series
I did see like 2 or 3 eps of B5 though, so I was amazed at how much this honored the source material and frankly as a Star Trek fan I am quite jealous that you got this, and the people who took over Trek after Enterprise didn't give 2 shits about honoring source material.
You are in for a treat, B5 really gets cooking in season 2 and then it’s off to the races.
If you are a DS9 fan I recommend the documentary they did for the anniversary (What We Left Behind). It’s a great retrospective with most of the cast. There’s a really fun section where they reassemble the writers room and brainstorm an outline for Season 8 episode 1.
There's no way Ivanova is doing anything other than riding fire into the face of death. Londo, for all his faults, isn't the "drink wine and accept death" sort either. Not sure how these two would team up to die in futile vengeance, but it probably involves h-bombs.
The Shadows really lose their menace as well. No longer lurking in the corner of your eye, they're just a pew pew swarm.
I'm a long time Swedish meatball eating fan, but I don't need more of this.
...That shot of the mass swarm of Shadow made me think it was a Starship Troopers riff. I wonder if it came off like that in the actual show.
@@VulpisFoxfire pretty much. Didn't really give me the "puppet masters who can make your brain explode" vibe.
@@argentaegis Not to mention that two of the Shadow's main gimmicks were out-of-phase invisibility, and their ability to manipulate others to do their dirty work for them. They *wouldn't* appear as a mass swarm like that..they'd be invisible (or Predator-outline) holes in swarms of *other* races attacking.
Should've been an army of genetically modified combat Drakh.
Shame they didn't do more with the Drakh until season 5 and the Crusade. They were the Minbari to the Shadow's Vorlon. Although I think It is because JMS didn't think them up until late into season 4.
I do not *_want_* a reboot. There are *_far_* too many reboots as it is. I would *_like_* a continuation from where the original show left off.
I too would love a continuation (where is the telepath war!?) but they’ve had multiple failed spinoff attempts over the years. It’s been so long now they need an entry point for new viewers that doesn’t require watching the old show.
Battlestar Galactica is the gold standard on this.
'Reboot' lately has been a misspelling of bastardization..
@@PhintasmoThat reboot battlestar galactica was one of the worst shows I've ever seen in my life. It wasn't enjoyable viewing, it was trauma for the viewer episode after episode. Not to mention once they ran out of original storylines that were single episodes in 1970 eight, but expanded into 4 or 5 episodes for the first 2 seasons, it became a wandering mess with 3 final episodes. Why anybody likes that travesty of a remake is beyond me, and if that's what you think Babylon 5 needs, I'll take a hard pass. The pilot movie of it was excellent, but they dropped some of the most important and intriguing parts, Instead of good scifi, they had a lot of sex drugs and stupid s*** to sell.
if they want new B5 content, the shoud do a show set 1000 years ago with valen first shadow war
Or 100 years further in the future - a divorce from the status quo could give it a bit of life again!
That would be very interesting.
I loved B5 and Lyta Alexander 🔥🔥🔥.
She was great!
Sometimes it’s not destination, but the journey there. What was set up was an alternate universe/timeline. JMS is working from that and given that so much of what he wanted to do, also time passing for him, he’s set up a new journey. Familiar but different too.
The most intriguing part
I disagree with telling people to start with the TV Movie In the Beginning. If you watch that first is spoils many of the reveals that take place throughout the first three seasons of Babylon 5. For me In the Beginning ties things together AFTER you've seen the TV Movie The Gathering and ALL five seasons of Babylon 5.
As for The Road Home it is for fans and that's fine. It was no doubt commissioned because of the new audience that have watched Babylon 5 since it debuted on MAX / HBO MAX, whatever you prefer to call it.
You know what, I just rewatched In the Beginning and I agree with you. It’s far more comprehensible to the uninitiated as a stand-alone piece, but it does give quite a few things away. I might put a sticky comment at the top to that effect.
Thanks for getting me to think twice about this!
Felt like a victory lap for the original cast. Hope the reboot is good.
This is as close to a reboot as you are likely to ever see... Sad, but true...
@@JaimeWulf ☹☹☹☹
Thanks for your review! My only nitpick is that I thought the voice acting quite good. You chose a clip when G’Kar is angry, but had you chosen one of many calmer moment, his replacement does quite well. Since this was a fan service film, I knew this wasn’t the original actor and had no problem with that. If there was a weak spot in the voice acting it was just the once or twice that Boxleitner sounded his age testifying to excellent work on his part as well.
Fair point, although I don’t think the G’kar voice actor sounded much like a calmer version of his counterpart either. Agree on Boxleitner, for the most part he sounded just like he did years ago.
Was happy for what it was and overall pleased with the voice actors. G’Kar was definitely the biggest issue, not just with the voice but also the animation. He wasn’t drawn as husky/built as he appeared in the series, a physically as well as intellectually intimidating presence.
That all being said, i certainly wouldn’t mind an animated series spinoff to tell some more of the B5 story/universe, maybe the psy war?
The Telepath War is the biggest missing piece in the mythology. If they were to do one more that’d be top of my wish list.
@@Phintasmo I think there's a possibility to square the circle there, depending on their intentions. One of the problems with a spinoff within the 'main timeline' is that you'll almost invariably be dragging in old characters that can't be easily worked with due to age/death. Additionally I think there's a pretty good case to be made that an alt-universe Psi Corps would be a far grander threat both because the ties between various races are weaker without the crucible of the Shadow War to force them together and because from what I recall Bester and the Psi Corps efforts were not fully aligned with those of President Clark and his Shadow benefactors. Clearing the way of shadows with an alt universe could both level up the Psi Corps and explain away a long list of notably absent original series characters.
I do think they'd have to be very very careful and spend a lot of time talking with the original cast and new cast to reboot the universe and get a suitable new cast spun up and fitting into similar-but-different roles with the new cast. Bester in particular would be a huge and challenging replacement but thankfully Walter Koenig is still with us to help guide the process.
Wow, I didn't know this existed, and I'm one of the bigger B5 fans!
They released it earlier this year. It’s wonderful to revisit that world again - I recommend it to any long-time fan! But not so much for a newcomer.
Short answer to the question in the title:
Fan service, through and through, true and blue, inside and out, without a doubt.
memberberries. its nice to get new b5,, but its just more shallow fan service.
I think B5 with all its shortcomings (that we learned to love) was one of the best scifi series of all times. What I think about a reboot is the same thing the producers of Warner said to Madonna when she presented the idea to remake Casablanca: this movie is untouchable.
If they made a spin off like the adventures of G'Kar and Lita, or what happened to Lando in the years under control of the Drax I would happily watch. But I don't want to see a remake.
It is like to ask someone to rewrite The Decline and Fall of Roman Empire, or Ab urbe condita libri: nothing could be added.
I think it is a fun prologue to the epilogue of Sleeping in Light, kinda like the equivalent of a Dr. Who anniversary Special. Purposefully backward looking and a little bit fan servicey. I would agree G'kar's replacement was the worst, the scene didn't work nearly as well without Katsulas' delivery. They also got a little self-indulgent with Zathras and his abilities. That alternate universe scene with Molari and Ivanova on the roof was probably my favorite of the film because Jurasik plays it _so_ perfectly.
I wish the voice actor budget had been just a bit higher as there were two notable living omissions from the cast IMO: One of the legacy ISN reporters from the series like Maggie Egan's Jane (who was the first anchor back on the air after President Clark was removed from power) doing the exposition report instead of some generic voice actor. Also Josh Coxx's ever faithful 3rd banana David Corwin who had a presence throughout the series since mid-season 1 was left out. He could have easily been incorporated during the last stand with Ivanova in CiC in the alternate S1 timeline.
If they want to do something completely different for the reboot, there is always the option of exploring the thread from Thirdspace, perhaps in this timeline they didn't find the alien artifact, someone from Interplanetary Expeditions does later and they tow it to a bigger population center (like Proxima III). It gets turned on and the aliens gain a foothold before the Alliance can respond, so there is no turning off the gate.
I enjoyed B5, but the dialog drove me insane occasionally. There were moments in the show where I'd be watching and wondering to myself "has JMS ever had an actual conversation with another person?" One of the big issues was how much the show felt the need to over-explain things, with characters often delivering exposition to one another about things they each already knew. It was painfully hard to watch sometimes...
I find the weird JMS dialogue often kicks in when a character is trying to tell a joke or be funny.
He can write amusing situations but some of his ‘witty banter’ is so clunky.
It felt to me like the first draft of a story. A sort of "Let's just poop this out in an afternoon, yep, that'll do" instead of the writing we were used to. The 'jokes' were abysmal.
@@Phintasmo The weird thing is, there were some characters for whom the writing was actually consistently quite solid. G'kar and Londo nearly always had great lines and delivery. For some reason, the Human and Minbari main characters always seemed to be saddled with particularly weak dialog. Especially Delenn. Fun drinking game: any Delenn-centric episode, take a shot every time she uses some variation of the phrase "they walked like giants." You will be amazed at how quickly you get wasted...
Delenn did have a bad habit of that.
For the reboot, id like to see the tech be updated a bit. Specifically the computer tech
I Assumed that the shadow war was only Delayed not prevented which would change how things played out as they wake up every millennium or two anyway
Well exactly! For all intents and purposes it wouldn’t be experienced by the characters in their lifetimes. Narratively it removes it from the story.
It happens every roughly thousand years so it's on schedule for the early mid part of the show's run @@Phintasmo
For me its far more interesting if you side step it altogether.
If you have it all happen anyway two or three seasons later it all starts to feel like more of a rehash.
I think there are new stories to be told about how the humans, Mimbari, Narn and Centauri all interact without Shadow/Vorlon puppet masters pulling the strings.
In the original series the course of all the major conflicts are very tied in to that stuff.
I assumed that you really can't assume anything.
"Nothing's the same anymore", remember? 🙂
The canonical timeline resulted in Sheridan becoming Valen. That was a result of the actions taken by the Minbari, including them ending the Earth Minbari war because of it. If the Shadows haven't risen, then the Vorlons haven't contacted Dukhat, and Delenn won't meet them, and she won't discover that Sinclair has Valen's soul, and on an on.
If you remove the first domino in this sequence, there needs to be a completely different sequence that results in his becoming Valen that doesn't involve the Shadow war, or alternatively, a non-Valen history or non-Sinclair Valen history for the Minbari, and a thousand years of changed history.
Basically, things would be so different as to be unrecognizable. There may be surface similarities, but other than that, they'd be completely different.
A lot of alternate timeline stuff crumbles with enough scrutiny, but I’m happy enough for a nod and a handwave most apparent contradictions.
Wouldn’t all of history be different if Sinclair doesn’t go back and become Valen?
Maybe someone else goes back and becomes Valen. Maybe that happens a thousand years from now and we don’t have to worry about it. Canon should be respected while not suffocating originality.
Super fantastic so happy they did this right
B5 was the greatest science fiction TV series ever, better even than Star Trek. I haven't gotten around to seeing The Road Home yet, but I am looking forward to it. I'm honestly not sure I'm looking forward to a reboot. The original was so excellent, why mess with it? If JMS has more story ideas, why not set them in their own milieu? Especially given that half the cast have past beyond the rim and the rest are twenty five years older than they were.
I feel like the original Babylon 5 is fairly conclusively done and nothing can really diminish it.
If they make a rubbish reboot it will only make the old one look better in comparison.
If the reboot is great on its own terms it only further cements the legacy.
One thing about Babylon 5 that changed all of television, not just sci Fi was the focus on long term story arc. If they want to make a reboot I suggest they find something as game changing as that was. I would argue that the road leads from Babylon 5 to MCU Endgame via long term story arc storytelling.
Totally agree. B5 paved the way for stuff like Lost that changed how people watch TV.
I can’t imagine what the next big innovation in storytelling will be.
Thinking of ones that have stuck in the years since B5: using internet short episodes to flesh out lore; having a stable of shows in the same universe with occasional crossovers.
Hmm. Oddly, thinking of things Boxleitner has worked on..granted, I haven't sat down and watched the actual show yet, but the artwork in this video is reminding me a lot of Tron Uprising. Are the animation teams related?
This fills in some things from between the end of the show and Sheridan going out beyond the Rim with the first ones (Elder Races)...
I enjoyed it myself...
I bought it on DVD. While I did enjoy it, I felt it had a few problems. The story seemed like a hurried first draft instead of a polished tale. The CGI was good considering the limited budget and I quickly got used to the animation style (The ships didn't move like B5 ships though).
The voice actor who did Sinclair was very good, however, due to the animation style and him voicing other minor characters, I got confused for a few seconds (I won't say were due to spoilers).
The voice actor who did Delenn was, I felt, the weakest of them all but the one who did G'kar, I felt, just didn't 'get' Andreas' speech patterns.
Saying that, I would look forward to another film, perhaps with more time and effort put into it.
EDIT) Fix typos and add a couple of bits.
Truth is, they had no choice but to make it animated, on the basis that most of the actors have either passed away or are now very old and retired. Also the IP owner doesn't have the financial backing to make a live action series again. It is funny, for a time (00s) it was more expensive to make cartoons than live action, but it has returned now to the point where it is the reverse again.
Very accurate observation. We might see something similar with cgi. It used to be a cheap alternative to practical effects, but with the ballooning cost of it in bigger movies I could see them swinging back to practical effects to some extent.
@@Phintasmo A lot of internet commenters would be happy about that.
I rewatch the series every year or two so I was excited to see this coming out. I was a little bit disappointed.
It was nice to be back in that world again, but the multiverse stuff was a touch underwhelming.
I went into this thinking, well, if it helps prove there is still interest in B5 through good sales of the disc, then it’s worth a punt. I watched it once; I may never watch it again…
I’m betting on the reboot (if it happens) will be something with a bit more substance.
I actually either dont remember or didnt even notice it ended in a non-shadow universe! (id largly checked out during that saccharin sweet ending. It was a serviceable nosyalgia shot up rill then though). That would make a great clean skate setting for a reboot series though
My thoughts exactly!
Good review. The only thing I disagree with is the hope for the reboot. The reboot pattern has been set and I'd rather B5 be left alone to dwell in its own awesome, than have a modern retelling that will sour its memory. Maybe it's an hyperbole, but it feels like someone deciding to add a modern touch to the Mona Lisa, or some other classic piece of art, to "update" it. Maybe the alternative timeline thing will make it a bit more dismissible if it turns out to be a poor rendition of B5, but that it exists at all? Well, we already have TKO and the cowboy episode of Crusade to ignore. That's enough I think, lol.
Best case scenario it’s as good as the battlestar galactica reboot. Worst case scenario we forget it happened - like the Legends of the Rangers TV movie
It definitely feels like fan service, but a decent job at it because this works as an extended episode imo.
I didn’t feel disappointed by it compared to my viewings of Rangers, Lost Tales, and especially Crusade.
Rangers is bafflingly terrible. I don't know what they were thinking!
I like the details of station and ships. Except shadow scenes. Shadow ships & beings Used be dark Black and omniscient, the details obscured, Red Eyes, menacing. New one lightened the color, lost some of that menacing feel. Still Anime B5 is great I like it. I hope B5 continues on in anime style. Legend of Rangers. Crusades. So many lose ends.
i dont want a reboot but a continuation. the books that tell the fate of many after the 5 yr story arc would be a very welcome edition in animated form or maybe an animated continuation of what would have been in the crusade series after it was cancelled after only 13 episodes. the fans would love it and WB and JMS would make alot of money
I don't think it's fan service.. as most fans will be in there 40s+ and probably won't watch a cartoon.. I haven't wtched it.. I'm happy with how B5 ended and happy to re watch the show as is.. its a complete story and doesn't need continuing.
I loved babylon 5, but the road home was very underwhelming.
I think it'd be interesting to see how well the younger races can mess up without needing the first ones there to 'help' with that!
100%! The dynamics between all the younger races is great from the start but it all gets woven into the Shadow/Vorlon stuff. There’s so much scope to make something really different but also pleasingly familiar.
@@Phintasmo exactly!
Ah it started so well then descended into this multiverse nonsense which i`m sick of because of Marvel. I get why JMS would go this route reusing some of the best episodes elements but we end up as confused as Sheridan. I didn`t have a problem with new voice it just shows you how good the original G'kar was - one of my favourite characters.
I would rather have seen a film about a new threat but hey got some new Babylon 5 let's hope the new series is up to scratch i loved Babylon 5 for it's great ideas and mature themes that went way beyond Star trek.
Fan service to introduce the reboot universe.
The premise of this feels very disposable to me. It doesn't expand on the lore and feels like fluff that wastes time like the lesser TV movies. A TV movie about the final days of Londo and G'Kar so we see what happened in a better context? A TV movie about the Telepath War from Lyta and Lennier's perspective? Sheridan and Delenn's son on a mission as a Ranger? Nope! Let's have a multiverse story that will not result in anything substantial. It would be one thing if Babylon 5 was still ongoing, but it's not. Having a throwaway story like this after the franchise was dormant for so long just gives me flashbacks of Stargate Origins and how disappointing that was.
I'm probably not going to see this animation series due to the constant upheaval of the networks. Follow any series and it is now odds on that it will change to another network half way through. For this reason, we were unable to complete watching Longmire, for example.
As regards the animation, the quality seems poor, especially when compared with that in Captain Scarlet which was released some years earlier. Without being able to hear all the character voices, I cannot comment on them. It is a real shame, because B5, in my opinion, was the greatest Sci-Fi series ever. Crusade was sadly cut short.
Star Trek, however, was badly flawed with poor storylines, repeat storylines (especially Voyager!), over reliance on technobabble, and indifferent characters. The very best of the ST series, Enterprise, was terminated early with an appalling episode set in a holodeck- a real cop-out.
It’s a one-off animated feature so not too great an investment of your time.
I did not know this was a thing! Now I gotta look into it!
its really hard to replace people like Katsulas or Furlan but they did the best they could it wasnt so bad for Delenn but G'Kars voice those are some big shoes to fill as well
Huge super fan but haven't seen this one yet. and I have watched everything in the past. The Gawd awful Rangers, and the sadly under funded and killed by JMS legends. I don't know why I'm waiting for so long. Likely since Season 4 and apart of 5, or In the Beginning movie. Personally since those nothing JMS has dreamt of has come anywhere close and you can only take so many excuses. Anyhow I'll sub!
Thanks so much!
If you are into comics JMS had a really good run on Spider-Man and his own series Rising Stars. These are better than nearly all his screen output since his B5 heyday.
I loved B5. I even loved Crusade. I even liked Legend of the Rangers. But I kinda hated this for many of the reasons you already mentioned: bad voice cast choices, inconsequential plot, trite 'love conquers all', Buffy the Vampire Slayer level dialogue. In addition things that set my inner nerd off were Star Wars level ship physics (those Starfurys moved more like Xwings than Starfurys), and ignoring cannon events (Lennier's betrayal completely ignored) and just general blah ness to it all. Bruce and Peter were great, but small comfort. I have less hope than ever for the reboot tbh
I was probably a little easier on it than you. It was nice to revisit familiar characters, events and locations after so many years, so for me it kind of worked overall as a send off to the old show ahead of the creation of a new one. But I don’t think I’ll be rewatching it in a hurry.
What parts of Legend of the Rangers did you enjoy? I spent most of it in slack-jawed disbelief at what I was seeing.
@@Phintasmo It's been forever, but I recall enjoying G'Kar (tho I do recall thinking he was acting rather un-G'Kar like, but compared to *this*...), I liked the concept of a 'haunted' ship. Asthetic was interesting. The whole "fighing in vr' was actually really dumb if you thought more than 2 seconds about it but it 'looked' cool. I did say I only 'liked' it lol
Canon.
I am vehemently against a reboot, especially when there is a perfectly good part of the lore that has gone completely unexplored - the Drakh war. Stick your main character on a Warlock and tell the story of the war, which is a tie in to both B5 _and_ Crusade. Show some god damn creative originality for once, instead of endless reboots.
I’d love to see that, but with so much time gone by it’d be a challenge to make a drakh war series accessible to a first time audience. Battlestar Galactica remains the gold standard of the successful reboot.
As a B5 fan, who rewatches the whole thing at least once or twice a decade I liked it. Ah, to reminisce on what could have been.
However season 5 already felt tact on (not to say it was bad), so any continuation needs to find its own story and direction. Not a fan of an alt. universe reboot though, like Star Trek did…
mostly it was trash, watched it once not likely I will watch it again anytime soon, animation of the characters was horrible but the ships where great. The Shadows turned into monster of the week, not scary, not sinister, more like swarming bugs. Acting was fine. I did not care for the story at all, I never was a time travel fan but B5 was 1 of the few show that did it well so I had hope it would be interesting but because I'm not a fan of time travel I was not expecting much and that was what we got, not much, the part with Sheridan and his dad felt like it took up half the movie. As for the possible reboot, I still have hope but I do think it would have been better to continuation of the story, I think the telepath war could be a cool story. We will see where it goes if it ever happens.
It seemed like a complete story. I would rather see strut-what’s it just come up with something
I was to scared to watch the film, so much time has passed & seeing what happened to Trek.
Sounds like they relay did make the film for the fans, ill give it a go some time.
Hmm...never heard of it...
What's with the animation going to what looks like below 10 FPS? Was that an issue with the screen-capture, or is the movie itself like that?
I enjoyed the movie!
It was ok, it didn't really show anything new or interesting and just fell back on lazy "Multiverse" stuff.
So over multiverses. They eliminate all sense of scale and make it impossible to care.
Multiverse and time travel. There are no stakes and if there were they don't matter. Everything is, and if you don't like it, you can undo it.
"Babylon 5: The Road Home": Billy Pilgrim, move over. it's "Slaughter-House Five" () again.
Rebooting B5 just feels like JMS telling us the first run wasn't good enough. Taking something I thought was great and telling me it wasn't. It feels like a self indulgent insult. I absolutely hate reboots. The worst thing about it is that it's coming from JMS himself. I will never understand this need to constantly rewrite history.
Beyond the cheapening effect of multiverses, B5 is a universe that has NO ROOM for multiverses. The timeline is single, that is why Sinclair is trapped in the past and all the future time travelling goes back to the past of the same timeline. That's the ONLY way to make time travel work. So for me, this break canon and cannot be taken as such. As much as "what if" world might be interesting, it is sadly overdone, and B5 one place where it specifically does not belong.
Time travel needs to be used really sparingly or it risks making everything feel inconsequential.
It sounds rude but I’d love if they’d use AI for the voices of those we lost. It reminds me of Rogue One and how they just couldn’t replicate Peter Cushing’s voice.
PS a great video.
Thank you!
The fan in me would love to hear the real voices recreated but I think it’s creepy and morally wrong to use computers to resurrect dead actors. Best we can hope for is a good sound-a-like.
@@Phintasmo Indeed. I was just thinking how technology can help that process. If it can be done correctly and without offense.
I didn't want Babylon 5 Animation. Multiverse and time travel is almost always pants. I might have liked Babylon 4. What happened in the first Shadow War. I guess that would have been a prequel (almost always bad with a risk of Lore contamination. There would have been no humans, so not so good either. Perhaps Babylon 5 ran it's course and there was no need for anything else. They should have moved on to new things, perhaps in the same Galaxy. Another ships crew or a replacement Babylon 6. Crusade could have been better.
What’s so bad about fan service?
Nothing wrong with fan service done right. But too much can alienate the uninitiated.
It was better than Legend of the Rangers and Lost Tales.
That's all I got.
at the end you asked what we want... but not who we are? missed opportunity
Compromise - who do you want?
I don't want a reboot, I just want a remastered option for updated cgi and visuals
Is that supposed to be Marcus at 2:11? I didn't see Jason Carter in the production credits, and I looked. ='[.]'=
Marcus and Sinclair both appear very briefly in a flashback but neither of them speak.
@@Phintasmo A shame. Jason Carter, outside his role as Marcus, is a great guy, and very good to the fans. Teh missus and I were fortunate enough to attend Dragon*Con during the height of B5's popularity, so they always got the cast in. My Sweetie was clearly a li'l star-struck, but Jason was great with her, especially when I took their picture together. I said, jokingly, "Look, Jason Carter has his arm around you." Jason picked that right up and said, with a grin, "She has her arm around *me.*" We own The Road Home, but haven't watched it yet, out of some small dread of what it might be like, but your video is a good preview. I've shared it with my Better Half, and I expect we'll watch it soon. =^[.]^=
There are also a few characters who look virtually identical to each other. Presumably due to lack of time or budget, assets were reused?
Eh...no! B5 without the central conflict, without the Shadows? Without the Vorlons? No!
That is not B5, because without those two there's no telepaths for example, because they were made (well: The teep-gene was seeded) by the Vorlons to counter the Shadows (jam up their ships!).
So no reason to speculate how the universe would look without them :(
For a reboot I think only the core elements are absolutely essential - a drama about a UN in space trying to prevent wars breaking out. Everything else is negotiable.
B5 was EPIC It's that good Star Trek had to steal it
As someone who grew up with Babylon 5, I found this movie... really disappointing actually. I only watched it once coz there were so many little inconsistencies and continuity errors. But the most *glaring* sin of the movie is that it tried to explain a mystery - or maybe i should say philosophical view point - of the show by literally spelling it out. Namely the scene where Sheridan went Beyond The Rim.
Can you cover the weird south park babylon 5 content?
Good suggestion! Let me see what I can do!
B5 has no reboot, B5 needs no reboot.
for me with so many of the actors now dead better to let their stroies rest. other stories in the B5 universe sure maybe a reboot but the big issue is the current state of hollywood i would not trust any even with JMS at the helm
I see nothing wrong with the original dialogue.
But... why isn't Sheridan blonde?
Considering the voice acting here, and the poor reboots of Trek and other franchises ... -- I don't want a B5 reboot by today's standards .
Battlestar will always be my gold standard for reboots
I think B5 needs a reboot. It was groundbreaking for it's time and I loved it, but it hasn't aged well.
Give it the serious gritty BSG treatment - and I think it could be awesome.
Hasn't aged well? The story remains brilliant and in many ways unsurpassed. IT is just as relevant as before.
The reboot is off the table, so that's theoretical. I didn't care for the Road Home, the story was bland, uninteresting and at no point got me involved.
I would like not a reboot but the conitinuation of Crusade, B5 was perfect and no reboot would improve on it.
From the spin off books I only read the Technomage trilogy and I liked it very much. That would be my second choice to film.
IN THE BEGINNING should NEVER be watched first for newcomers. It ruins the journey. The Gathering then Midnight on the Firing should be the starting point always
You can see that the studio/WB animation didn't really completely get the property. The Shadows were portrayed as Starship Trooper like bugs. This is the most ancient race still asserting influence in the Galaxy and they come off as very basic horde alien bugs. I get that doing that kind of characterisation is hard in a feature animation but it was completely mischaracterising them. Sheridan was also played as goofy and inept, he was wide-eyed and optimistic in the show but far from bumbling and inept as he is seen here. All the while the female characters are grrrl bosses. Look at Leyta Alexander. She was always very timid but prone to bouts of rage when loved ones were harmed in the series. However, in this animation feature, she is aggressive and gung-ho in the same way a 10-year-old boy would be for the entirety of her screen time. You can see the JMS' influence in the great story, wonderful ending, and denouement but the studio's grubby fingerprints are obvious in the misandrist identity politics (Sheridan's newfound ineptitude) and the trite grrrl boss feminist role modeling.
I’m glad someone mentioned the Lyta performance. The actress played it quite jarringly different. I wonder if that’s the direction she got, or it’s just been so long that she kind of forgot the character.
@@Phintasmo I suspect it was direction. I see that WB animation has similar themes across properties. Batman animated features come to mind. I saw Batgirl was equally "girl-bossy" in one of them. Seems like a general thing. Even South Park are lampooning it. They seem intent on making all female/women characters act like hyper-aggressive little boys. Shame as the original characterisation was far superior and three dimensional.
The Shadows using shields was strange and yes, Lyta wasn't 'our Lyta'' but I put that down to an alternate version who seemed to have a closer relationship with G'kar, perhaps they had already been on adventures together.
Isn't that rather on brand for JMS these days?
The last project that actually got off the ground in recent years was Sense8, which I was initially excited to watch, simply because he was involved, but I stopped after a handful of episodes, because it was so shockingly bad.
I just re-checked JMS's Wikipedia page, and hardly anything he was involved with went beyond the planning stages.
I will forever be grateful for his gift to the world that is Babylon 5, but I am not holding my breath for anything he puts out anymore.
@@MaiAolei Very good point. I forgot about Sense8.
OK. Changes history of the show? Big nope.
Changes the history of B5 in an alternate universe. The main one from 1993-1999 is as we saw.
Ug. Time travel episode. Worst episodes, worst plots, ho hum. Too bad they decided to destroy it.
I’m a sucker for a some time travel - I often unconsciously add a point or two for it
To each his own. I consider it the laziest form of writing, or maybe second laziest, with dream episodes being number one. It gives bad writers the ability to "do anything, at any point, anywhere, and it doesn't have to make any sense, or depend on anything that was previously set up in the story because, time travel/dream/ or the increasing crutch - it's mimetic or a cognitohazard (the crutch that's slowly ruining SCP entries above 3000 or so). Some are ok of course, when they are done well, but most of the time they are not. And when new writers use them it shows more often than not that they didn't have a full story, just some cool stuff that happens. @@Phintasmo
I got deeply disappointed:
1. The time slip stories are a lame excuse for the laziness to write a complete developed story and instead to write short stories without connection rhyme and reason. Different from the Deconstruction of Falling Stars that have several stories well threaded together.
2. All that Amit Goswami quantum bullshit is embarrassing to watch, B5 deserved better.
3. The solution (spoiler ahead) being "love is the most powerful force in the Universe" made me think I was watching a shojo anime: we are adults and we already know that not all endings re happy, and a lot of people deeply loved are dying in at least three wars currently in progress.
4. That foolish joke about Lost in Space repeated several times just added to break the illusion that we were back to B5. oh I miss Lando and G'Kar...
A waste of talent of those good voice actors that replaced our beloved Andreas Katsulas, Tim Choate, Jerry Doyle, Richard Biggs and Mira Furlan.
B5 used to be deep, provoking and not only a escapist fantasy: it was far better than just that, it was an epic.Well not anymore.
Babylon 5: The Road Home feels like it was created by an ai generator from script, voice acting and animation. It's a pretty flat show.
The multiverse mechanic is so ridiculously overdone it's become an instant joke, no idea how it keeps making it into otherwise great stories. I saw it included for this and quickly wrote it off as a lost cause.
For the love of Valen, stop including time travel already! Why do modern writers keep doing this??
It's a not happening at all according to latest news.
Please. *please* don't make the Psycorp anything beyond telepath police and school...
Good story? Sure.
Made sense? Not on any level.
Another disappointing restart attempt, and once again JMS, the Maker Formerly Known As Great, puts one over on us.
Still better than Legend of the Rangers - but that’s a low bar.
I hate multiverse crap. It is a LAZY writing crutch worse than Deus ex Machina.
It’s very played out right now. The Star Trek mirror universe on DS9 was probably the high-water mark for me.
Wasn't as good as any single episode in the series.
You could make that case. But broadening our view, I’d put it ahead of Lost Tales and Legends of the Rangers.
Grey 17 is missing?
@@Phintasmo I liked Lost Tales. I think if it had been done as an anthology series it could have worked. But as a one and done thing, it had problems.
I'm glad to see so many comments are unimpressed with JMS shenanigans. He's been trying to out George Lucas running his franchise into the ground since Legend of the Rangers.
With all the Woke writers out there to ruin all the great classics. Buy the 5 season set and don't worry about a remake because all they'll do is make it worse than Star Wars