Sunday, August 05, 2007

Babylon 5 has long been a fan favourite and many had hoped for it to be redeemed.

Indeed, Lost Tales offers such a chance. Of course, surely the point is somewhat missed... B5 was a great show because of characters, story arcs and kiss ass space battles. This seemed to lack... at least two of those. Not only that but it wasn't really a movie but more, two separate episodes.

The first was almost entirely out of character for B5... while religion has played a part of the show in the past, it's never been a focus... here, we suffer some tedious diatribes at the hands of lacklustre Locklear about it in a setting that owes more to The Exorcist than it does to Babylon 5. Making Locklear the main character was a critical misjudgement... she was a one season wonder who had perhaps, two points of interest (neither of which were ineresting) and still she failed... fortunately, she wasn't forced on us like other late comer characters in other show have been.

The second episode, is SHERIDAN... and Galen. It flows a lot more naturally... Galen is a dick, Sheridan is... well, Sheridan. It was a lot more compelling than the first story - which was a lot more relevant. Unlike Locklear's debacle, this played into the general spirit of B5 and, of course... didn't have her horrible acting. Sheridan was solid throughout and the character was... as always, not just a thin excuse for Ivonava (yeah... Locklear wasn't close to being close to being half an Ivonava). While the dilemma this provided was interesting... it really wasn't exciting.

If JMS was doing his best to gain new fans? A lot of money? Well, JMS - you've smoked one too many crack pipes... even HARDCORE fans won't find this that pleasing. It's... at best mediocre. The first tale poor and the second ok... If it's building to something... perhaps it could be good but there's nothing in here to recommend it. It's just so bland... sure, there are some nice touches - quantum space? - like the improved CGI and much, much more detailed model of B5 but really... Pointless.

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