This is actually my favorite Babylon 5 story, this final TNT movie, and the show that came after it, "Crusade".
This is also the first Babylon 5 property that did not utilize the standard tangerine dream/Christopher Franke Soundtrack.
Instead, they used an unknown composer, Evan H Chen.
And I will admit that when I initially saw this movie I didn't like that they had changed composers. But it is only after repeated viewings and also repeated viewings of the Crusade series that I have accepted this change. The soundtrack for this movie and for the subsequent "Crusade" series was over the top, and pure techno. And as such, totally appropriate for both this movie and the series. It grows on you, eventually you cannot envision this movie and the Crusade show with any other kind of music. We don't even know where Evan H Chen came from, or where he went. These were the only properties he ever worked on.
Both this movie and the Crusade show utilize something that was only referred to once in the entire series, the Technomages. And they were also mentioned one other time in the very last Babylon 5 movie ever made, the Lost tales, "voices in the dark"
In fact they make a main character out of a technomage.
And the more that I have watched this movie the more I realize that the character of Galen played by Edward Woodward's son Peter, is actually the center of this film and the following series.
Even though he does not have a whole lot of screen time, but this only strengthens the mysteriousness of the character, who comes and goes as he wishes- he was absent in more than one of the series episodes and he is absent in maybe 2/3 of this film. But his presence, ever lingers. Because we know that he is always watching.
One of the images that I love that comes out of this film is a tiny camera mounted onto a tiny space craft.
Which is really the only exposition about Technomage gadgetry that we ever get to see. Clouding the character in mystery like this was the best thing to do, considering his nature.
The second half of this equation was Carrie Dobro as Dureena Nafeel, who provides a very rough but still sexy image of a thief, who can get out of any chains and can break into any locked room. Even in this film, her character is drawn toward the character of Galen, and they create an even closer bond in the regular series.
One thing that this movie does not really go into is the massive size of the Excalibur class ships, that was explored in the 13 episodes that we were granted for the show.
This was just one of those projects that Turner deposited a bunch of money into and then just kind of forgot about it. There actually was quite a large following for this show and this film at the time, but it just appears that the TNT network was finished with Babylon 5.
We only ever got one more Babylon 5 movie which was the voices in the dark/lost tales thing from 2008. Which I suppose was the 10 year anniversary, I wish there had been more Babylon 5 even in that form.
But so many from this show have gone beyond the Rim: Zack, G'Kar, Dr. Franklin. Vir. And even Garabaldi... they all went beyond the Rim, and they are all with Lorien now. And Garibaldi didn't like Lorien that much.
RIP.
I'm glad that I can come back to this movie and the show that was created after it. Even in the 13 episodes that we were given there is a kind of resolution in the very last episode, the one with Dr. Franklin. They finally revealed what the alien virus actually was which gave hope that it could have been eventually beaten, like Coronavirus was. And it also proved that the 13 episodes of Crusade were tied together more than they appeared. It explains how appropriate it was to have a technomage in this film and Crusade, and why that was such an important and unique plot point, the entire story revolves around it.
This is also the first Babylon 5 property that did not utilize the standard tangerine dream/Christopher Franke Soundtrack.
Instead, they used an unknown composer, Evan H Chen.
And I will admit that when I initially saw this movie I didn't like that they had changed composers. But it is only after repeated viewings and also repeated viewings of the Crusade series that I have accepted this change. The soundtrack for this movie and for the subsequent "Crusade" series was over the top, and pure techno. And as such, totally appropriate for both this movie and the series. It grows on you, eventually you cannot envision this movie and the Crusade show with any other kind of music. We don't even know where Evan H Chen came from, or where he went. These were the only properties he ever worked on.
Both this movie and the Crusade show utilize something that was only referred to once in the entire series, the Technomages. And they were also mentioned one other time in the very last Babylon 5 movie ever made, the Lost tales, "voices in the dark"
In fact they make a main character out of a technomage.
And the more that I have watched this movie the more I realize that the character of Galen played by Edward Woodward's son Peter, is actually the center of this film and the following series.
Even though he does not have a whole lot of screen time, but this only strengthens the mysteriousness of the character, who comes and goes as he wishes- he was absent in more than one of the series episodes and he is absent in maybe 2/3 of this film. But his presence, ever lingers. Because we know that he is always watching.
One of the images that I love that comes out of this film is a tiny camera mounted onto a tiny space craft.
Which is really the only exposition about Technomage gadgetry that we ever get to see. Clouding the character in mystery like this was the best thing to do, considering his nature.
The second half of this equation was Carrie Dobro as Dureena Nafeel, who provides a very rough but still sexy image of a thief, who can get out of any chains and can break into any locked room. Even in this film, her character is drawn toward the character of Galen, and they create an even closer bond in the regular series.
One thing that this movie does not really go into is the massive size of the Excalibur class ships, that was explored in the 13 episodes that we were granted for the show.
This was just one of those projects that Turner deposited a bunch of money into and then just kind of forgot about it. There actually was quite a large following for this show and this film at the time, but it just appears that the TNT network was finished with Babylon 5.
We only ever got one more Babylon 5 movie which was the voices in the dark/lost tales thing from 2008. Which I suppose was the 10 year anniversary, I wish there had been more Babylon 5 even in that form.
But so many from this show have gone beyond the Rim: Zack, G'Kar, Dr. Franklin. Vir. And even Garabaldi... they all went beyond the Rim, and they are all with Lorien now. And Garibaldi didn't like Lorien that much.
RIP.
I'm glad that I can come back to this movie and the show that was created after it. Even in the 13 episodes that we were given there is a kind of resolution in the very last episode, the one with Dr. Franklin. They finally revealed what the alien virus actually was which gave hope that it could have been eventually beaten, like Coronavirus was. And it also proved that the 13 episodes of Crusade were tied together more than they appeared. It explains how appropriate it was to have a technomage in this film and Crusade, and why that was such an important and unique plot point, the entire story revolves around it.