104 of 112 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Mediocre but not without promise... sort of., January 18, 2006
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.
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62 of 65 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not Quite as Bad as I Remembered, June 14, 2006
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.
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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Serious Problems, but . . ., April 19, 2006
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.
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