Review for Babylon 5: In the Beginning

8 / 10

Introduction

“The first sensational Babylon 5 movie” is printed proudly on the DVD cover, which I guess means that this actually precedes Thirdspace in production. Of course that discounts the feature length pilot, The Gathering as a movie. Either way, the title of the movie is confusing, as In the Beginning suggests that it ought to be watched first of all. Nothing could be further from the truth, as there are a whole heap of spoilers for the Babylon 5 series proper, and it’s best saved till the end, maybe even after Crusade.

For In the Beginning tells the story of the Earth Minbari war, which given that it explains what happens to Jeffrey Sinclair essentially spoils all of season 1 of Babylon 5, and potentially up to season 4 as well, and it also explicitly discusses the Shadows and the Vorlons too. The story itself is told from the point of view of Emperor Londo Mollari of the Centauri Empire, a story that he tells in 2278, as his world burns, so again, spoilers. If you’ve seen Babylon 5, then you know how the back-story informs that show, the Earth Minbari war that was precipitated by a disastrous first contact, a war that came perilously close to exterminating humanity, before the Minbari inexplicably surrendered. This is that story, the events that unfolded after humans, arrogant at their victory over the Dilgar, ignored a minor Centauri diplomat’s warning and tried to contact the Minbari. As well as getting to see those legendary events for the first time, we also learn of an untold story, concerning a young Lieutenant Commander named Sheridan, and an idealistic doctor named Franklin.

Picture

The Babylon 5 movies have had the same treatment as the series, the original 4:3 transfer broadened out to a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer. You have clear and sharp live action film elements, albeit occasionally afflicted by print damage and minor scratches. The space effects shots are cropped and zoomed from the video masters, and any live action shot with effects is also going to be cropped and zoomed, as are the credit sequences, and crossfades between live action and effects. The movie of the week scope allows for more extravagant special effects work, but other than that it is little changed from the series for the film.

Sound

You get DD 2.0 Surround English, and German, and French, with plenty of subtitles. Just as with the television show, the movies were originally broadcast in stereo, so the surround doesn’t offer much more than that in the way of discreet placement of effects and action. But still, the general experience is quite immersive, and enjoyable. The dialogue is mostly clear, although volume levels are low. An occasional flick on of the subtitles might be required. Christopher Franke maintains the show’s style, one of symphonic electronica.

Extras

You get a static menu, and you get a page of text listing the cast and crew.

Conclusion

In the Beginning has a couple of things going against it. One thing is that it suffers from small universe syndrome, a necessary evil with the television format. You just have to buy that Sheridan, Franklin, and G’Kar all go on a mission together, and then 20 years later on Babylon 5, they barely recognise each other when they ‘first’ meet, if at all. The second thing is that most of this is already information that we know by the end of the Babylon 5 series. We know why the war started, we know how Sheridan got his reputation as ‘Starkiller’, and we know why the war stopped, just who Jeffery Sinclair turned out to be, indeed we’ve seen many of these events in flashback, and economically, this film reuses archive footage from the series where necessary.

Despite all this, In the Beginning works really well. There’s something to be said for seeing the events of this story in context, as part of a linear narrative rather than a flashback, and while we knew much of the human perspective on the war, the film adds more to the Minbari perspective, further developing the Dukhat character, and the role of the Rangers. On top of that, it’s paced well, and with the feature length focus to the story, it can really go to town with the special effects and battle sequences. And despite hearing about it several times during the series, actually seeing how Sheridan took down the Black Star is more edifying.

This isn’t my favourite of the Babylon 5 movies. I’ll always have a soft spot for the pilot movie, while of the subsequent films, The River of Souls has the strongest story, and works best as a standalone feature, but In The Beginning is the best of the rest.

8/10