Babylon 5 - The Lost Tales

A great piece of thought provoking storytelling

If you are an ardent fan of Babylon 5 and enjoyed the spin-off series Crusade, you may enjoy this entry to the Babylon 5 world. If you enjoyed the quieter episodes of Babylon 5 like the season 5 episode, "Day of the Dead," then this entry may be just for you however, if you preferred the more action packed episodes of Babylon 5 like "Severed Dreams," and did not like "Day of the Dead," this Babylon 5 episode may not be for you. That said, I thought these episodes were solid, thoughtful science fiction that may appeal to anyone who likes thought provoking entertainment. There are two 35-minute clips on this disk, plus extras. The extras would appeal to those familiar with Babylon 5. The first episode, "Over Here" is an episode that stars Tracy Scroggins as Col. Lochley. She is confronted with the dilemma of a crew member who appears to be possessed, and calls in a catholic priest. To paraphrase the character G'Kar from the episode "Mind War," this episode is not what it appears. Though this episode presents some of the current tribulations that the catholic church is facing, IMHO, this episode is not a religious episode. If we think of religion as a means to offer an explanation for what we do not understand or have yet to understand, then this episode offers an alternative explanation for demonic possession. However, the explanation is never expounded in the episode and it is left to the viewer to draw their own conclusions. The second episode, "Over There," stars Bruce Boxleitner and Peter Woodword reprising their roles, respectively, as John Sheridan from Babylon 5 and the technomage Galen from Crusade. A moral dilemma is presented to President Sheridan by Galen that pits Sheridan against his own principles. It is a classic story of right vs wrong and of doing the best that you can given any choice. Those familiar with Babylon 5 will probably appreciate this episode more than those who are not, yet it is a very good piece of story telling. The hallmark of Babylon 5 to many fans was its storytelling. Though this is not an epic 120 hour series like Babylon 5 thus limiting the possibilities for telling a detailed story, I thought that these episodes stood on their own because in the short stories that are told, there was enough there to make me think and consider things that I never thought of. I would have loved to see a feature-length film with this release, yet since I consider myself an ardent fan of Babylon 5, I thought that the stories told here were excellent entries to the Babylon 5 universe. You may note that I have not commented about special effects or green screen shooting, or cgi. This is because it is the story content that most appealed to me in these tales, and from that standpoint, I find that special effects, green screen shooting, and cgi only serve to apply more gloss to an already shiny surface and certainly do not detract from the stories. My suggestion is that if you like thoughtful material, buy this DVD. However, if you are expecting an epic story with lots of action, you will not find it here. If these direct to DVD releases continue, you may get the epic story. In this case, this DVD may be the start of that story that you may not want to miss. All-in-all, to me, this is a very enjoyable job of story telling and was well worth buying.

2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

What a find!

I've been a Babylon 5 fan for a long time. To me there is no excuse what-so-ever for the studio to have not continued the Excaliber series which was the next set of stories to be told. I did like the trend of putting together the two hour movies and releasing them along with the series. I have all of those on DVD as well as all years of the series.



I had never heard of this little treasure until I read a snippet in comp.os.vms newsgroup where one member was trying to get the studio to release things in HD and posted a message about this little set.



Most of the main cast is there. These are kind of complete. I don't know if they were actually made _after_ the series was completed, or if these are just episodes which were made during the life of the series and simply never aired. For a Babylon 5 fan, finding something new with most of the original cast AS YOU REMEMBER THEM, is a moment of warm fuzzy joy.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Wow. So disappointing...

While not a die-hard fan of the Babylon 5 series and movies, I liked them well enough to be excited by the arrival of this straight-to-DVD "movie." I put the word "movie" in quotation marks, because this is more like two superficially connected television episodes, the first of which bears hardly any connection to the B5 universe other than it takes place on the station. Tracy Scoggins, never the strongest actor in the cast, takes center stage here, and the story suffers for it. Constantly commenting about how crazy things are on B5, without actually showing much of it, as well as mentioning former characters who do not appear in the movie at all seems like so much filler. The story itself, a riff on religion whose main point seems to be that people have to be be filled with terror in order to return to the church, just feels trite. The story has one good visual effect, with the rest of it looking like it was filmed in a garage. Good sound design, though. The second story, with Bruce Boxleitner at the helm, at least adheres to the B5 story arc, but once again, cheesy, low-budget production values are distracting. Again, references to beloved, but non-appearing, characters feels like the story has been padded to fill time. Not good.

Low production values can be forgiven if the acting and script are first-rate; unfortunately, neither is the case here. I was left with the question: "If enough money couldn't be found to do this right, including making it look fantastic, why did they bother?" Why not admit that the whole thing is no longer sustainable, because the money isn't there, or critical actors are either dead or no longer interested, or there's just no more story to tell? This production seems like a gift to the fans, but it's a gift that doesn't deliver the goods.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Beyond Horrible!

For any true fan of the quality of Babylon 5 as a series, this "entry" in the B5 universe will be a disappointing slap in the face. The acting is cardboard, the sets high school drama club, and the story a cop out. Broken down as two "vignettes", part one is nothing more than The Exorcist III - In Space. Part two, well, honestly, I think part two was just thrown together to end the DVD. After five years of quality story telling, this just leaves a really bad taste of sell-out in the mouth.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

B5 Lost Tales? Didn't know that.

Don't miss any of the Babylon 5 Shows.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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