Babylon 5: The Legend Of The Rangers was produced in 2002 as a
pilot for a possible sequel series taking place in the Babylon 5 universe.
Written by B5 creator J. Michael Straczynski, the film takes place after the
major Shadow War of the original Babylon 5 series, focusing on a group of
Rangers, the elite paramilitary force which serves the Interstellar Alliance,
the United Nations-like group that was founded after the war. Dylan Neal stars
as David Martell, a hot-headed commander in the Captain Kirk vein who’s almost
booted out of the Rangers because he did something really terrible: he brought
his ship and crew back home alive. One of the Rangers’ credo is that they never
run from a battle, even to the bitter end.
Yet in the best tradition of Sci-Fi shows, Martell is given a second chance,
thanks to a good word put in for him by the legendary G’Kar (the late Andreas
Katsulas, in his last outing as the beloved Narn alien). Martell is given
command of the Liandra, a small space cruiser whose last crew never returned
from their mission, with the ship itself having been discovered abandoned.
Having been spiffed up by the space port workers--who didn’t do much of a good
job, judging from the run-down manner that Martell finds the ship in--the
Liandra is sent off on her latest mission as an escort to the far larger battle
cruiser Valen. Escorting diplomats to a remote space colony, this first
assignment is seen as being nothing more than a milk run--at least until they
come under attack by a mysterious force.
An unknown alien race known only as The Hand have returned from their centuries
of exile to exert their will and generally make life miserable for everybody. To
die-hard fans of B5, who were extremely impressed with the might of the evil
Shadows on that series, The Hand may seem like a bunch of lame second raters.
Indeed, this entire movie is somewhat predictable, and in the hands of the
uneven cast of actors who’ve been selected--aside from Katsulas, who was always
very good--the material just lays there. But, to be fair, the actors are working
from a script that, at best, plays like a generic Star Trek episode. One wonders
if the quality would have improved had this been picked up as a series. B5: LOTR
isn't completely terrible, but it's also not very inspired, nor is it very
imaginative either.
The worst aspects, such as the virtual hologram room that the weapons officer
fires her guns from, are straight out of Buck Rodgers. The sight of actress
Myriam Sirois suspended in space, shooting laser beams out of her hands and feet
is too utterly ridiculous to even take seriously, and presents one of the major
missteps of the film. The other is dragging out yet another "ancient evil alien
race" to be the villain, which was seen before--and done much better--on Babylon
5. Legend Of The Rangers was the second attempt at a spin off series to Babylon
5 (with Crusade being the first) and although this version wasn’t successful, I personally think that the B5
sequel series idea still has merit, and hope JMS tries again.
--SF
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