Story: Legend of the Rangers
Written By: J. Michael Straczynski
Season: Movie #5
In 2002 Straczynski and co. attempted a second spin-off of Babylon 5. All that was produced was a 90 minute TV movie that aired on the Sci-Fi Channel and was not picked up to series. The reason it wasn’t picked up to series is simple, this is pretty bad. I don’t even see real potential in it. The thing about Babylon 5 is that it was one major story being told over 5 years. Crusade also had a story that was meant to unfold over 5 years, though it seemed less thought out and didn’t manage to get past it’s initial 13 episode order.
This has no story, it is just a pointless revisit to the Babylon 5 universe. It has features Rangers on a mission to escort some diplomats, though they are really just tagging along with the real ship carrying diplomats, because they are in a worn out old ship that is supposedly cursed while the real ship is a big bad ass new machine. Why send the old ship at all? I guess to rescue all the diplomats when the big ship is destroyed.
Straczynski struck out here. The movie is lame with no story to justify it’s existence, and acting that is some of the worst in the history of the B5 universe…and it has had some pretty bad acting. The effects are probably the only good thing in this, because they look better than anything that has really come before in Babylon 5, but even these look cheap compared to something like Star Trek: Enterprise that was being produced at the same time. And if we are being honest, producing better looking effects than previous Babylon 5 shows is not a really hard task…they’ve always looked awful. But I’ll just say that for the first time, I didn’t wince at the look of the jump gate.
Bad, pointless, weak story, dumb characters, worse acting. Really no reason to recommend this, and Straczynski should’ve learned to leave well enough alone, and move on.
NEXT TIME: Over Here, Over There
Written By: J. Michael Straczynski
Season: Movie #5
In 2002 Straczynski and co. attempted a second spin-off of Babylon 5. All that was produced was a 90 minute TV movie that aired on the Sci-Fi Channel and was not picked up to series. The reason it wasn’t picked up to series is simple, this is pretty bad. I don’t even see real potential in it. The thing about Babylon 5 is that it was one major story being told over 5 years. Crusade also had a story that was meant to unfold over 5 years, though it seemed less thought out and didn’t manage to get past it’s initial 13 episode order.
Straczynski struck out here. The movie is lame with no story to justify it’s existence, and acting that is some of the worst in the history of the B5 universe…and it has had some pretty bad acting. The effects are probably the only good thing in this, because they look better than anything that has really come before in Babylon 5, but even these look cheap compared to something like Star Trek: Enterprise that was being produced at the same time. And if we are being honest, producing better looking effects than previous Babylon 5 shows is not a really hard task…they’ve always looked awful. But I’ll just say that for the first time, I didn’t wince at the look of the jump gate.
Bad, pointless, weak story, dumb characters, worse acting. Really no reason to recommend this, and Straczynski should’ve learned to leave well enough alone, and move on.
NEXT TIME: Over Here, Over There
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