Customer Reviews

Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(25)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

I've been a Fan of Babylon 5 since the beginning and I honestly think the best episodes of that show were some of the best hours of television I've ever seen. That said, Rangers kind of sucked the big one. Sucked it pretty darn hard actually. There are many things that I could chose to pick on about this movie. But I'm going to keep this short by concentrating on the two things which most severely cheesed me off. Number 1: That the Rangers, a group run by Delenn and Sheridan, a group which spent much of its existence doing reconnoissance, would have a policy of death before retreat. How frickin silly is that? Talk about lame. Number 2: The awful, awful, silly, embarrassing, lackluster battle room sequences where some chick threw punches and karate kicks at holographic space ships to activate the ship's weapons durring battle. These scenes literally embarrassed me and helped me to understand why some people find science fiction impossibly corney.

In truth, though, I think JMS is a hell of a writer and I sincerely wish that Rangers had gotten good enough ratings to be green lit as a series. After all the original B5 pilot really wasn't very good either and look how that turned out.

Ranger David Martell (Dylan Neal) has committed a horrid offense - staying alive. The Ranger code strictly states that at no time shall a Ranger back down from a fight. But with his ship out-gunned, David doesn't force a fight, thereby living to fight another day.

A funny thing happens on the way to his court marshal. Saner heads prevail, and he is allowed to stay in the Rangers. He was in line to be given command of a new ship just coming off the assembly line. He does still get to command a ship, but he is given command of a 20-year-old Minbari ship rumored to be haunted.

His first assignment is to provide support for a larger ship taking a group of delegates to an undisclosed location. Even with all the secrecy, they still fly into an ambush, and David and his crew must use every trick up their sleeve if they are going to survive this encounter with an ancient race.

I had only watched this movie once, the day it first aired. I was less then impressed. I bought it mainly so I could complete my Babylon 5 collection. The movie was actually better then I remembered.

The story presented here is entertaining. It had been long enough since I had seen it that I couldn't remember much about it and was pulled into the action again. The acting by a group of unknowns is top notch, and the characters are interesting enough that I wish the series had been picked up so we could learn more about them. Fan favorite Andreas Katsulas (who unfortunately passed away recently) returns as G'Kar, the only character from the original series to appear. His performance, as always, is great. And the dialog is witty. I was laughing out loud at many of the lines. This is some of the sharpest writing series creator J. Michael Straczynski (JMS) has done. This is all supported by great special effects.

Unfortunately, the flaws I remembered were still here. If this had been the pilot for a new series, it would have worked well. It introduces us to a new danger and sets a potentially interesting story in motion. However, since this was all we got, it feels empty. Adding to this is the sense we've done this before in the original series. I'm sure a series would have gone in a new direction, but here "The Hand" just felt like a retreat of original series villains The Shadows.

The almost fatal flaw of this movie, however, is the weapons systems. I mean, seriously, what was JMS thinking. In order for this ship to fire, the ammunitions officer must go into a virtual reality chamber and use Kung Fu moves. I'm not kidding! She has to punch and kick at pictures of the ships in order to fire the weapons. While the visuals are unique and interesting, the idea that a ship would have a weapons system like that is laughable. It pulls me right out of the movie.

This movie was never popular with fans, and in keeping with that, this is a bare bones release. We get the movie in widescreen and surround sound with nothing in the way of extras. I'm a little disappointed. I would have loved to hear JMS attempt to explain the stupid weapons system.

This is not the place to get introduced to Babylon 5. If you are interested in a great science fiction show, start with the season sets. This is a movie only a fan will love, and even then, most fans don't.

Worse than Infection? That's saying quite a bit. I have to agree this film has some serious problems, for example, the Kung Fu weapons sequence is literally embarrassing, even if you watch it alone. Yet even the idea of a gunner immersed in a VR system (sans the kicking and screaming) was interesting -- with some work it could have been interesting. Moreover, the chemistry between the crew was much better than that in the original pilot, especially between the captain and his second in command.

Rather than chronicle the flaws in this movie -- and they are legion -- I will just say this: the critics of this film are correct in every detail. I cannot find a single particular where you would be wrong (right down to the quality of the video); however, if you step back and see the totality of this pilot (and what it could have become, warts and all) it becomes more enjoyable. The story is predictable, but that was exactly the the technique used by JMS in the original B5: to give the audience a predictable story, with stereotypical characters, and then slowly have them begin to behave and evolve in ways you never would have expected.

There are even a few moments which, far from being embarrassing, bring it all back (the last scene where G'Kar says his famous line about B5, and they show the Babylon station, actually got an emotional reaction from me and the people I was watching the show with.

Deeply flawed, but as G'Kar would say, not without hope.

I'm a HUGE fan of both "Babylon 5" and "Crusade." I've got all the original novels, even. It's great sci-fi.

Needless to say, I was totally stoked about "Legend of the Rangers" when it aired on SciFi Channel, but as I watched with one of my friends (also a major fan), I could only allow my jaw to slacken in disappointed amazement.

This is a bad movie. Worse than "Grey 17 Is Missing." Worse than "Infection." Preposterously bad. The acting is terrible. The dialogue is incredibly terrible. (If someone said "We live for the One, we die for the One" one more time, I'd have gone the kind of mad Lovecraft wrote about.) The effects . . . well, they're actually quite good. But effects do not a good movie make.

I'm still buying this one, of course, because I'm a completist. But if you are not a seriously devoted B5 fan, I would suggest that Netflix is the way to go on this one. Better yet, just skip it altogether.

If you're as much of a fan of Babylon 5 as I am, you'll be compelled to check out this movie, which was a pilot for a follow-on series. The pilot didn't sell the show. (Crusade also took place in the same general timeframe, after the Shadow war and other events of the 5-year B5 series. Crusade was destroyed by TV network stupidity, not by the creator's vision or a lackluster script--a subject that I go into in my review of that box set.)

I'm not sure who's at fault in The Legend of the Rangers, but this doesn't work very well as a standalone movie. If you love the universe already, you're going to watch this no matter what I tell you (and it's definitely worth seeing _once_). But if you're trying to catch up to learn what the shouting is all about... cast your eyes aside. This isn't the best of what the Babylon5 universe has to offer.

It's important to remember that this was a pilot, so there's a lot more exposition than in an ordinary movie. The characters stand around with an uncomfortable amount of conversation in the "As you know, this is What Has Gone Before," and make rather bald statements meant to convey "This is my role in the show; don't you think I should keep the part?" That makes any storytelling awkward -- a rule that applied equally well to the original Babylon 5 pilot, which had something like 18 characters to introduce in a 90-minute show. The Legend of the Rangers doesn't have quite as long a casting call, but it somehow (and not very smoothly) has to bring you up to date on the whole B5 history, and introduce the bad guys who our crew will be battling with, presumably, throughout the proposed Season One.

The only character in the movie to bridge between old-and-new B5 stories is (the late, sigh) Andreas Katsulas as J'kar, who at this point has spent several years on his own universe walkabout. The movie switches from "okay" to "darn, this is good after all" in nearly every one of his scenes.

Despite my criticism of the storyline, I think this might have made a good TV show. The premise of the rangers is still a very cool one -- spacefaring knights of the round table -- and we all do like to watch the "captain with an attitude, who somehow engenders incredible loyalty among his crew." (A bad guy says, "A ranger wouldn't kill me." "Yeah, well, I've been having disciplinary problems lately," replies the ship captain.) If it had been approved, I would have given it a chance.

Bottom line: worth watching once. Maybe twice.

Some folks are cutting this show a lot of slack because it had potential. And I agree; there was definitely the potential for this movie to become a pretty decent series.

But it didn't.

All we have to judge is what's on the screen. All the guesses about where the show was going, how the actors would mature, and the overarching themes are moot. Because what's on the screen is pretty bad.

Sure, it may be average for a pilot. It may even be good for a pilot. Watching "The Gathering" after seeing a couple seasons of B5, you cut it a lot of slack. We don't have that luxury with failed pilots, and it's just silly to say that we should enjoy "Legend of the Rangers" for what might have been.

Pilot or not, this is a bad movie.

Fact is, there's nothing fresh here. It's formulaic, with characters who come not out of Central Casting, but out of Wardrobe. Plot and dialogue were both flat and predictable. The premise was weak, but not laughable. The acting was bad, but not awful.

And the less said about the spastic hissy-fit weapons system, the better.

As a fan, I was disappointed that such low-grade, paint-by-numbers schlock was branded with the B5 name I've come to know and love. I've seen worse, but not under that logo, and not without Michael Pare.

Was this a noble attempt at reviving the B5 franchise? Sadly, no. It was an attempt at reviving the franchise, alright, but there was nothing noble about it.

I liked this movie. The characters clicked together very well, better than one usually sees on a pilot show. I thought the notion of a direct link between the ship's weapon system and a person was interesting, but the dramatization of that notion did fall flat, even ludricously so. Actually, the biggest complaint I had was the idea of yet another ancient very powerful evil force; that was too reminiscent of the recently (more or less) resolved Shadow Wars. I think it would have been better if the crew had been left with more doubt as to just what was threatening them. I really wish this show had been given the chance it deserved.

Ok, to start off, I've been a B5 fan since the I first saw the pilot. I could be accurately called a "fanboy" of the work of JMS and of the B5 universe. So, I have to assume the writing for this movie was solid and good.

The director? Name didn't ring any bells, but checking his link in the extra info section, he's directed some of the very best episodes of B5 that I enjoyed the most. So I have to assume he "got" the uninverse, knew what he was doing, and brings a minimal amount of "suck" to the table.

The stars? Well, Andreas was in it, that's about all I can say...

The effects, actually, sadly, the effects are the strongest suit of this feature. But pretty pictures don't make compelling TV.

So I'm forced to blame the actors for it sucking as much as it did, or it was a fluke of the director or writer that just happens. And suck, it does. While I understand what they were going for in the holographic kickboxing = weapon controls, very anime of them, it just did NOT work, on any level. It it agonizingly bad to the point of making ME embarrassed FOR them.

Rangers never run? Since WHEN? Rangers ran all the time in the series, when the importance of the information they carries outweighed any personal loss of honor for appearing to flee. They weren't running FROM the fight, but TO a more important goal. It was a lame way to make the ship's "leader guy" something of an outsider.

Did I mention the horrid holo-fight? Words can not describe how lame it is, I mean it.

But will I get this? Yeah, I'm a completest, I don't have a choice, but I won't like it. I'd wager that about 70% of the sales of this item are people the same way.

I loved B5 and Crusade. I hated this. Well, maybe hate is too strong a word. I strongly disliked it.

I'm gonna make this short and sweet.

The plot stunk. The idea a race as old and powerful as they presented in the pilot could've gone un-noticed by the "first ones" and not have an influence in the Shadow wars of the original B5 series is completely ludicris to me.

The acting was far from normal B5 universe quality. That hologram targeting system thing was totally and completely disaterous. Gawd awful!!!

The story never went anywhere. The whole time I was waiting for the movie to progress. It never did.

The special effects where fantastic though. A+ work there.

There are two words which should be your only reason to watch this nearly two hour film which had the potential of being yet another spinoff from "Babylon 5". Andreas Katsulas. That's right folks, the only worthwhile reason to see this film is to watch Andreas Katsulas step once more into the role of Narn diplomat G'Kar, and see him do a much better job performing his part than any other member of this cast. While the concept of a small Ranger gunship on deep space patrol is truly intriguing, its execution suffered considerably from both inept acting and technical details (The only notable exception of course is Christopher Franke's excellent score.). I was troubled with the obvious parallels between the human Ranger captain and his Minbari first officer with another well-known team from science fiction television, namely a young human starship captain and his pointy-eared half-human/half-alien first officer; the comparison was quite simply too obvious, and I wonder why Straczynski himself didn't realize it before completing a shooting script (Thankfully he's paid more attention to both story and character development in the new "Babylon 5: The Lost Tales".). Diehard fans of "Babylon 5" will enjoy this film primarily for Katsulas' superb - and sadly final - portrayal of G'Kar; others will be inclined to skip this for the "Babylon 5" films, "Crusade" and Straczynski's latest, hopefully still ongoing, effort, "Babylon 5: The Lost Tales".