ok so after finishing watching babylon 5 i was wondering which of the movies are good. I have already watched in the begainning (because i heard it was most peoples favorite) but i was wondering if any of the other movies like thirdspace are any good?
The others are worth seeing, but not as good as ItB. In chronological (not production) order: The Gathering was the pilot. You may or may not have watched it before season 1. Thirdspace is like an extended episode in season 4. River of Souls is like an extended episode after season 5. Legend of the Ranges has a different aesthetic than the others since it was made by SciFi instead of TNT. The story is a bit weak, but it has some fun characters. A Call To Arms is a pretty good movie which sets up the spinoff, Crusade. It has weird music which is an acquired taste, but is otherwise a decent film. Crusade itself is a bit of a mess, continuity-wise, but has some fun elements in its 13 episodes. The Lost Tales is a set of two mini-episodes 10 years after season 5.
I don't think so. My memory is Legend takes place in 2265 or so (although it's never firmly established), while Arms takes place in 2267. The rumor mill said that if Legend had gone to series, it would have been used to wrap up the dangling threads from Crusade in some way. Of course, it doesn't matter much since the two movies don't overlap in plot much at all.
I think Call to Arms and In the Beginning were the best of the movies, but I really liked Lochley in River of Souls, even though the movie itself was not all that great. Loved the love-bat scene.
While there was a third story planned for Lost Tales, one featuring Garibaldi, due to the low budget, it was nixed. Well, actually, at the time JMS and his people thought there'd be a few more installments of Lost Tales, so in their minds it wasn't nixed as much as suspended until the next DVD (which, of course, never came).
thanks for all the quick replies from reading this i have gathered that the only babylon 5 movies worth watching are thirdspace, in the begainning, and call to arms. am i missing any other movies?
River of Souls is absolutely terrible. Legend of the Rangers (a spin-off pilot that was rejected) isn't great. A Call to Arms is a decent introduction to Crusade (though don't expect resolution or a sensible episode order there). I like Thirdspace; In The Beginning is by far the best. The Gathering is the original pilot. It is mediocre at best.
1. Call to Arms: love it. amazing CGI, bizarre new music I liked, Sheridan is a bad ass for the only time after S4, it's funny, it's got great action, it's huge and epic, and it actually is very important to the greater storyline. Oh, and it introduces my all time favorite character Galen! 2. In the Beginning: great story but it's a rushed montage of events we already knew. 3. Legend of the Rangers: people hate it but I dug it. Funny new characters, G'Kar, a good action heavy storyline with an interesting new villain... I even liked the weapons system which everyone despised. 4. The Gathering: just rewatched this and it's better than I remembered. It holds together pretty well and introduces the universe well. 5. Thirdspace: it's got a kick ass CGI space battle, and it's got a post-S4 Ivanova starring role. It's got kewl aliens and a Vorlon connection. On the other hand, it's about half filler and the whole possession storyline does nothing and is just silly. 6. River of Souls: terrible. Soul Hunters are just done horribly, it stars Lochely who I hate, and it's got a godawful cyber-brothel subplot. 7. Lost Tales: horribly cheap and stale. everything looks so fake and green screen. Half of the story is a horrible story starring the aforementioned godawful Lochely which basically introduces a Christian mythology to the series out of nowhere. The second half with Sheridan and Galen is better, but still so isolated and go-nowhere.
I don't think TLT introduced a "Christian mythology" so much as it introduced a being who was in part behind a portion of Christian mythology. Not a whole lot different than what SG-1 did with the Egyptian gods, really.
Thirdspace has the benefit of giving Pat Tallman a lot of screen time, which is never a bad thing to me.
To say nothing of the fact that we already had met a race who has fed and hidden behind a Christian Mythology for Millenia And there's the great elevator scene with Zack
Poor Zack... Thirdspace effectively made Sheridan blowing things up real good a tired cliche, which was unfortunate.
^That weapons system would have been far less ridiculous if the hot redhead had just stood still and pointed imperiously to shoot the weapons, instead of the sillyass kung fu dancing.