Jeff: Welcome to Babylon 5 for the first time, not a Star Trek podcast. My name is Jeff Akin and I am the one who was.
Brent: And I'm Brent Allen and I am the one who will be.
Jeff: and we're watching Babylon five for the first time for you. The one who is
Brent: That's right. Jeff and I are two veterans, Star Trek podcasters looking for the important messages that Babylon five is delivering in its own unique way.
Jeff: that's right. We're looking for those Babylon five messages, sci fi messages. And I want to rewind and I want to remind everyone, this is not. A Star Trek podcast. Those aren't Star Trek messages, but we've decided that to keep us honest, we're going to play a game called the rule of three. That game limits us to no more than three references to Star Trek per episode in total.
Brent: And Jeff, we took a break from this game on our last episode, but if we happen to make one of those references, what are the folks going to hear?
Jeff: They're going to hear this.
Brent: Well, this week we are diving into the Babylon five movies, and we're going to start at the very beginning. Which is a very good place to start with the movie in the beginning, Jeff. Now we didn't, we normally, this is the part where I say, you know, there's another game that we like to play at the end of the show where we make a prediction about what next week's episode B, and this is time to pay the Piper where we review that prediction, see how right or wrong we absolutely were.
The thing is, we never made a prediction about what this. Movie was going to be. However, you and I have both known the title of this film for a very long time. I don't know when I first became aware of it. Um, you know, while we were doing the show itself, you knew ahead of time what the episodes were, and I don't know how far in advance you were looking at them or being aware of them.
Um, I always heard it for the most part. I always heard it first time right here on the show. Right. Um, I don't know when I first became aware of this, this title. I've, I feel like I've known all of the movie titles for a very long time at this point.
Jeff: I think so.
Brent: So that being said, you hear a title like in the beginning and you have thoughts about what it could be about.
Jeff, do you just remember what you thought when you heard in the beginning was going to be about, like what you thought it would might be about, about, about, let's say about a lot.
Jeff: You know, I thought this was going to be about the beginning. But the question is the beginning of what, right? And so my guess was just the beginning of the Babylon project itself. I thought we were going to see Babylon one or whatever. They probably didn't call it Babylon one, but kind of see that and just the politics behind it and everything.
It's our introducing the players that would make their way, you know, onto Babylon five proper. And it would basically be the story of the people heading into what would become Babylon five. So I thought it was just going to be the origin story of. You know, how everyone kind of ended up on the station and how the station came to be.
What did you think it was going to be about?
Brent: I honestly. I knew that this was exactly what this was about.
Jeff: Really?
Brent: This was the Earthman Bari war. Now I didn't have that. It was Londo telling the story from the future. I didn't have, um, I didn't have all the details of it, but it was, it was clear as day to me that in the beginning was about the Earthman Bari war.
Now, to be fair, I can't recall if anybody ever told me that. Oh, well that's covered in the movie in the beginning, which is about the Earthman Bari war. Somebody might've said that I'm fully confess that I may not have come up with that on my own, but I just, I, I have never not known that that's what this movie was going to be about, or at least had that in my conscience that this, it just makes sense to me, you know?
So yeah, give it, give it what it is. So with that, we do know it is about the Earthman Bari war. However, Jeff. We do know that occasionally people come in and they listen to the show without actually having seen the episode or in this case the movie prior to coming or maybe it's just been a really long time since they've watched it.
They didn't watch it in preparation, which totally cool and very much okay. Jeff, will you take a few minutes and remind us specifically what in the beginning was all about?
Jeff: I was there at the dawn of the third age. An age that was born in pain. An age defined by war. And war is pain. Pain that bore the third age. So. Much. Pain. So, super old emperor Londo Malari II is chilling on his fancy emperor throne, being all emperor y when a couple of kids that were up to no good started making trouble in his neighborhood.
But old man Malari is no Walt Kowalski. No, he knows exactly how to be a kinda cool but creepy uncle for kids. He ends up making the little boy emperor, and that little boy demands a story. And as a good Centauri citizen, Londo obliges. The Dilgar War has ended, and the humans are players on the galactic stage.
A familiar face, General Lefkord, is meeting with another familiar face. A very young looking Londo M'Lari. Earth wants to get out there and meet all the other races, especially the Minbari, who Londo advises they stay away from. They ignore his warning, he calls them arrogant, and we're on a fast track to another war, also likely born from pain.
On Minbar, we learn the Rangers are alive and not really so well. They become more or less a punchline in Minbari society. Their leader, Lenon, is raising the alarm though. We're approaching the time of the prophecy. The Return of the Shadows. But even the Grey Council, led by Dukat, pretty much laughs them off.
They're convinced the Vorlons will show up when it's time, and they've been hiding out for centuries. Dukat, awesome as ever, though, does agree to go to Zahadum to see what's going on there. But he's playing a tight game. Living in a corner of his quarters, or his sanctuary. is none other than Kosh. Later, when Delenn meets them, after becoming an official member of the Grey Council, we find out that Kosh 2.
0 is also there. In a moment that we all know excited Brent, we got more of the story behind a late delivery from Avalon. Captain Jankowski and the Prometheus come upon a gaggle of Minbari ships, including the Grey Council's. His orders are to gather more information and get out of there. No first contact, but just like Lieutenant Commander Sheridan warned, he gets all excited and orders the ship closer.
We all know what happens here, right? They approach, Minbari open their gun ports, and all hell breaks loose. And we get a familiar shot of David McIntyre following orders. And D'Len absolutely freaking out. And then, war. Earth is all about this, though. They go to Londo. They want to buy weapons. But he wants to keep his neck far away from this.
So they go to the Narn. Their guy, someone named Jakar, is all too eager to sell the Centauri weapons that they captured during their war. In a short scene, we see a young Susan Ivanova with her brother. In a short scene, we see a young Susan Ivanova wish her brother Ganya well. She gives him one of her earrings and vows to not wear it again until he returns.
The Minbari are just decimating humans in their colonies. It's so one sided that even Delenn, who was so eager to withhold all mercy from them, is starting to feel pretty uncomfortable about it. When the Koshas share a pre recorded message from Dukat, and they all know the humans are vital to the upcoming Shadow War, they hatch a plan for a secret rendezvous with Earth to offer peace negotiations.
They send Lan'an, who speaks some English, and Earth sends Sheridan, Dr. Franklin, who just got busted for not sharing his notes on Minbari biology, and Jakar, because they traveled in a Narn vessel, right? Well, the Centauri learn of this, and they think it's an arms deal. So Londo orders an attack on them, busting the whole thing up and killing Lan'an.
Thinking the humans killed him, the Lend sentences them to death until Sheridan passes on a message from Lan'an, proving that things were going well, and everything was on the up and up. Before that meeting happened, though, we see a familiar story play out. Sheridan's ship attacked And the commanding officer killed, he takes command of the Lexington.
On their last legs, he mines an asteroid field and blows the black star out of the sky. And with that, and Delenn being a sole voice for peace, the war escalates dramatically. As the Minbari fleet's approach urged, the president calls for a last stand for a line to be drawn here. No further. Of course, everybody knows that it will just buy earth a little bit of time.
Then they're going to be able to evacuate as many people as possible. Hopefully saving a couple hundred or so from total extinction. Then we hear a familiar voice, Jeffrey Sinclair, he's leading this charge. We see the highlights of the battle of the line from the. We see the highlights of the Battle of the Line from And the Sky Full of Stars.
And then, the Minbari surrender, ending the war. The story ends with the President announcing the Babylon Project. Blondo, having told his story, resumes his role as Emperor and sends the kids away. He orders bottles. And bottles, and more bottles of booze to drink while he watches War Without End on his cool floating in mid air TV.
He asks for the prisoners, Sheridan and Dillon, to be brought to him in an hour, just long enough, to almost finish the episode he's watching, and we fade to black.
Brent, what did you think as you were in the beginning?
Brent: So Jeff, um, for those who've seen our reaction video, um, I am going to do my best. To not just rehash all of the conversation that we had while we were watching that movie because you and I did it together, right? Like, like, typically we do our reactions separately and we come together and this is the first time we're discussing the episode.
This is not the first time we're discussing this film. You and I had lots of actual discussions, so I'm going to do my best to not rehash that. I will, I will start by saying this. I liked this movie. I thought it was a good made for TV film.
Jeff: mm mm,
Brent: This is not the summer blockbuster. This is not something I'm going to go to the movie theater.
Um, when it's first out and go see if I'm not already a fan of Babylon five, you know, um, but this film wasn't made to be that. This film was made for TV. It was made to go on TNT. It was made to catch people up on some stuff that's happening. It's made to fill in a few gaps. And I think it served all of its purposes perfectly.
Um, I really wish we could get the, an HD upgrade of this film, just like we have this show, because a lot of times that took me out of the episode. Like things were just, they were just more blurry than they needed to be. They were, you know, and I'm sorry, I'm going to be critical of this film, but I want everybody to know I liked this film.
I, I very much enjoyed this one. Um,
however, here's the other side when I had to go back and watch it a second time so I could take my notes, I actually found a lot less enjoyment out of it. Like, I don't know about you. Like, I thought it was good the first time around. I was like, okay, yeah, I'm in this. Oh, that's cool. That's cool. That's cool.
Once I knew what had all happened and where it all was going, it felt very whole homes, not the right. Answer, but I don't know, maybe just the, the curiosity was out of it for me. You know, I, I just, I didn't find necessarily the rewatch ability side. And I say that I got to tell you right now, Jeff, with so much trepidation, because I know this movie is well beloved out there in the fandom and I, people are firing up their keyboards right now to just bash me over the head.
For saying that, and, you know, cause it's, it's such a great movie and I, I thought it was good and it served its purposes and I did enjoy it. I'm glad we got to watch it. It answered a lot of questions, you know, um, that, that were peripheral, always peripheral questions, uh, answered some things that happened in the show that we never, you and I questioned right up to the very end.
You know, why did Dylan have to look in cautious face that one time? Why did, why is Ivanova only wearing one earring? And we, we've heard, Oh, just work for the movies. It's in the movies. Okay, cool. You know? Um, so I, I appreciate those tie ins. I appreciated so much that this movie was, was encapsulated in war without end.
Jeff: Yeah.
Brent: I really loved that idea. I loved, uh, that it literally led right into that scene, you know, um, and showed us what was happening. And, oh, by the way, this means as Londo is telling the story, he has hours left to live if that. So anyway, those are kind of my, my opening thoughts. I've got a lot of details on this.
I will say,
I don't know what kind of messages you pulled out of this episode though, Jeff.
Jeff: Mm.
Brent: I did find a really cool thread that I can't say was the message of this movie, but I think would make a really good case study.
Jeff: Okay.
Brent: Does that make sense? Or a really interesting case study to really, truly dive into more than what you and I are going to do here tonight.
So anyway, and we'll get to that, you know, towards the end of the episode. But Jeff, how about you? What did you think? What were kind of your initial thoughts on in the beginning?
Jeff: I think I can sum pretty much the whole movie up with one phrase. Previously on Babylon five i, I, I feel a, a lot of the things the same as you. This just added, there was so much more meat on the bone, right? This is what, this was a lot of stuff that was interesting but not needed. And then a lot of stuff that we needed as well, you know what I mean? And it's not that it wasn't wanted, it was just stuff that was like, I didn't necessarily need to see, uh, Franklin getting busted for not sharing his notes.
And it's cool that they showed that at the same time. So, I think it did a really good job in what it was supposed to be. I feel that the acting In this film was amazing. Like apparently it's not, what's his name? Rowan Deatkinson or whatever. Who's the problem. It was Byron. It was just the character that was the problem.
He was great in this thing. And we'll talk about it in a little bit, but what a showcase for Bruce Box Lightner, like just, Oh my God.
Brent: Yeah.
Jeff: Because two weeks ago we watched him be like old man Sheridan.
Brent: Uh huh.
Jeff: And here we see like young, you know, still got that spirit. Right in his step, Lieutenant Commander, and they're two totally different, like he just plays them to a T.
I loved it. But I had the same experience as you. When I watched this the second time, sat down to take notes, I had to watch this movie in three sittings.
Brent: Ooh.
Jeff: I just had a hard time getting through it, and, and, and, I, I, I want to be as clear as you. It's not that I didn't like it, but it was just like, Okay, like, I saw it. You know, and, and it's not that it left other things like, like it with the episodes when we watch the episodes, what's next, what's this going to lead to
Brent: hmm.
Jeff: wasn't really the point of this one, you know, so just the, uh, the allure of it, I think was different. I think like a lot of the episodes and we'll find this out when we start watching them again, have tremendous rewatch ability.
I don't know that this movie at least really, really has has that at least it doesn't initially for me.
Brent: I will, I will say this on that point, Jeff. I can absolutely understand why veteran Babylon five watchers, you guys out there are so excited for new folks like you and me to watch this movie.
Jeff: Oh, totally. Yeah.
Brent: you've been watching us go, well, gee, why is Vaughn only have one earring in and oh, well, gee, exactly what happened there at the battle of the line.
Like we saw a few little clips here and there, but, but what was all that? And why did Dylan need to do that? One thing.
And all those questions that we have and it's just go, it's there in the movie. It's there. I'm so excited for you to watch the movie. And. It's a decent movie. You know, it like, it really is. It's a good movie. Um, it's, it's fun. It's action packed. I mean, it's, how could you not love a movie that is couched exactly like the princess bread, you
Jeff: Like, we were riffing on the Princess Bride while we were watching it. It was like so beat for beat.
Brent: Right. I mean, the, the, the, the best beat is when like the little kid just interrupts the story. He's like, ah, there's kissing. I thought you said there's going to have war and battle and cool stuff in it. And the grandpa's like, Oh, just wait. Just, do you want to read you? Come on. It's getting there, you know,
Jeff: It's gonna be fine.
Brent: right?
Columbo's all in there. Yeah.
Jeff: I think one of the things I really took away from this also, TNT. Was truly invested in the series. like you, it's, it's difficult. We have, you know, got a big screen TV that we watch this on that I watched it on for the second time. This isn't made for that at all. The copy that I have, like, I don't know, about halfway through the sound starts to really drift and it gets really hard to watch and listen to.
So, but that's not how it was. Made right. Like it was meant to be on my 19 inch Zenith, you know, TV that I had back, you know, when this came out. And I imagine it looked amazing. The, the battle scenes, like the battle line stuff. Holy crap. It looks so good. The music was so excellent. It's like TNT clearly was going to make Babylon five work.
However it could. So I love that about this. So yeah, all in all it did everything I think it was supposed to do. I think it did it really, really well. I think everyone who showed up gave it their best. I probably look forward to watching this two years when we get to the end of the series again, I
Brent: I would, I would be okay watching this in like chronological order, like wherever it actually falls in, in the timeline, you know, like, like, cause I, as I understand it and people out there will, will let us know in the comments of this was made between seasons three and season four or. But yeah, that's what I meant between season four and season five.
But I know everybody really, as soon as atonement hit, that's what everybody wanted us to watch this episode. Uh, you know, because that's when we met Ducat and we saw that whole scene. And then of course that was plugged into, uh, into this film, but. Uh, I, I wouldn't mind watching it there or even back with, with war without end.
I, I, I would be glad to do that at that point, but yeah, two, two watchings back to back right now. Here's a question I have. I want you to imagine you're a person who's never seen Babylon 5. You are the average person on TNT. TNT has just bought this and you say, Hey, we need to catch up people who don't know what Babylon 5 is about, right?
Does this film serve that purpose to bring, yeah, imagine you didn't know anything about it and you're going to start with season five, right? Um, maybe, maybe a few syndicated reruns, possibly.
Jeff: Which I'm pretty sure they did when it went out to TNT
Brent: I would maybe prop that they had to, right? Like,
Jeff: get their money's worth.
Brent: yeah, at least show season four or something like that. Like, uh, but does this film do, does this film do what it needs to do to catch you up, to send you into season five?
Think about what season five is as well.
Jeff: I don't think you could walk into season five with this, but I think you could walk into season two and it would be amazing, but because there's so much that happens in seasons three and four. That it weren't part of this
Brent: does it wet your appetite enough to make you want to watch the show to go back and start from the beginning and watch the show?
Jeff: I think back to when I first watched it, it was either, it was one of the very first, like first season episodes, early first season episodes, or in the gathering was the first thing I ever watched in this, in the, in the mid nineties, and I did not watch more. I was like, I'm out. If I had watched this, there's a strong chance I would have got hooked and started watching.
Brent: I completely agree. Completely agree. When I say this is mission accomplished, this, this would have sent me back to midnight on the firing line and given me stuff. And what would've been really cool is so, you know, about the tri luminary, you know, about what happened with Sinclair, you know, about all of that stuff.
And to watch that begin to slowly unfold So yeah, this would make me want to go back and watch it. And I would really enjoy picking up those pieces. Oh, that was in the movie. Oh, I know what that is in ways that you and I had no idea when we were doing our first watch or you first ones out there when you were doing your first watch, when it was still in the P 10 network.
Jeff: And with one exception, I don't think it like would have ruined anything. I think it would have been. Exactly what you said. Oh, cool. Oh, that's that thing. Oh, that's that thing. They did do one thing we'll talk about in a minute. Cause I have one other observation I want to make from our opening thoughts that I had, but one thing I think they did screw up.
My opinion, but um, but it hit me when we were just like closing these these opening thoughts We watched in the beginning the first time together. We're like, this is great. Watch it the second time. We're like, that's good That's good. Do you remember a couple months ago now? We watched in the gathering in the gathering We watched the gathering with the, our buddies over the sci fi remnant podcast.
Well, we watched it ourselves and we talked about it with them.
Brent: we, we watched it for their show. They wanted us to come on and do something with their show. That's why we watched it. Yeah.
Jeff: so we cut together a reaction. I don't remember if we put it here on YouTube. Um, I know it's on our, on our Patrion, but we did not like the gathering the
Brent: Not on the second time. No,
Jeff: and same with this one, I wonder it'd be interesting to see how it works with the other
Brent: here's the thing. I didn't like the gathering infinitely more than I didn't like in the beginning.
Jeff: agreed.
Brent: Does that make sense? What I just said? Like,
Jeff: Yeah. Like the, in the, I need to stop the gathering. That was not good. It was not good, clearly served its purpose, you know, but I also understand why it aired and a year later, the, the series started like, it was not,
Brent: And they made some changes that were definitely needed.
Jeff: badly, this was awesome. This was great. So I think, I think it was really good, but to dive into some of the conversation, they straight up said that Sinclair is Valen.
Brent: Did they?
Jeff: So they did the scene from, uh, and the sky full of stars with the tri luminary on Sinclair. Then Dylan and dude run off. And she's like, he, they're like, he has a Minbari soul. Oh my gosh. He has a Minbari soul. That wasn't given up until the first episode of the second season. So already like, that's a big, that was the big secret hole in your mind for the first
Brent: Cause that, that was the question of the whole first season
Jeff: what, what happened?
Brent: happened? Yeah.
Jeff: What is this whole thing? I can almost forgive giving that up. Because after that, she says, not only is it a Minbari soul, he has the soul of Valen. She just outright said it like that was the whole thing. Like when it was in, um, uh, the first episode with Naroon, where you were like, is he, is, is maybe he Minbari?
Is that then like, he has Valens? It's Valen's soul. Like that was such a great journey for us to go on. Like those little clues that came up, it made that first episode of the second season so much more exciting when. Linear was like, Hey, I'm going to give you 14 minutes of exposition on what would have been a few more episodes.
But here's where I go. Yeah, cool. We figured that out. And then to find out it was Valen and they just dumped it in this movie. Now, maybe if I watch this movie and then I go watch Midnight on the Firing Line and work my way up, I will have kind of forgotten that detail by the time it comes around. But also I was just, I don't know, maybe because that was such a key part of my journey.
I was like, to earn that, man. You can't just give it away.
Brent: here's the thing, Jeff and, and the, it, it has been thoroughly documented the way you watch the show, the way I watched the show, the things you pull out of the show, the things I pull out of the show, the things you remember, the things that I remember. Um, are very different, so I'm not going to sit here and say that this is ubiquitous to all the watchers out there, you know, you would probably pick that up and have that spoiled through all the way through.
I promise you, I would have seen that in the film and I would not have known what that meant, who that was, how that connected that when I saw it in the show, it still would have felt like new news to me in the show.
Jeff: That's
Brent: You know, it, it, it would have, it wouldn't have have, uh, maybe if anything, it would just, it would say the little triluminary thing glows when somebody has a soul of Valen, whatever that means, because I don't even really know what that means.
Jeff: exactly. Oh, he must be some dude. Okay,
Brent: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, he's one of us. So I think that's, that's the way I would interpret it, but you know, who knows? Who knows?
Jeff: So there's that, you mentioned this happened during war without end. What a, what a pull in the tent those episodes are, you know, like everything really seems to revolve around war without end
Brent: As it should, which, which is really interesting because war without end was not, as I understand it was not the original plan. Like this, the show was like, I think supposed meant to end with that. Whole piece when we still thought that Michael O'Hare was going to be with us through the full five seasons and you know It just that got fast forwarded when everything happened with him and and JMS was able to come back around it So it is pretty phenomenal to think how central that story is to what you're just saying Knowing that that that was jettisoned at one point and then sort of salvaged that it still revolves around that idea.
So Jeff I have a question for you
Jeff: Yeah. Mm hmm.
Brent: this this Movie opens with a voiceover by Dylan and Jakar has like a piece of it. I think even maybe Ivanova had a piece of it. No.
Jeff: Just the two of them. Yeah.
Brent: Okay. Fair enough. That's not my question though. You and I have seen all of these episodes where Jakar gets an opening voiceover for an episode.
Dylan gets one, Ivanova gets one, Garibaldi gets one, even Lockley gets one.
Jeff: hmm.
Brent: I don't know that Sheridan and Sinclair ever got an actual voiceover. They probably did. I just don't remember it off the top of my head. Here's my question for you. I want you to rank your top five. Rank those, just rank those five.
Jakarta, Lynn, Lockley. Rank them as far as your favorite like episode voiceover start person.
Jeff: Off the top of my head. It's going to go Garibaldi, Jakar,
Brent: Mm hmm. Ivanova. Lockley.
Jeff: Lockley. Is that everybody we said? Oh, okay. Let me, Garibaldi, Jakar, Ivanova, Delenn, the last one, Lockley.
Brent: Lockley. Okay. So Lockley is going to find a way at the bottom just because of volume.
Jeff: But that and I, and I think that when she had them. They served the story well, but they weren't big.
Brent: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think to me it's got to be Jakar. There's just something about Andreas Katsoulis his voice that just that just seals it. But but then for me, it really goes to Ivanova. I love when Ivanova does a voiceover. And then I mean Dylan and Garibaldi are 3a and 3b. To me, you know, um, I really, um, Jeff, here's, here's the one thing I got for you also coming out of this episode.
Um, did you notice the thing in this episode that didn't happen?
Jeff: That's a, that's a really wide open question.
Brent: Yes. And I want, I want to, I want to congratulate JMS for showing an amazing, what I assume was an amazing amount of restraint. And I really want to see the draft of his, of his movie where he killed the kids because he didn't kill the kids in this film.
Jeff: They
Brent: They made it all the way to the end alive,
Jeff: That's that alone is a Babylon five, like marker kids made it to the end.
Brent: Kids, kids, kids that now wonder if TNT like gave him a note, like the kids can't die anymore, dude. Stop it,
Jeff: Lawnda's literally looking out the window and shoves the kid out of it at one point and he's like, that's why I keep these things closed. And they're like, no, you can't, you can't do that. James is like, but that's my thing. That's totally my thing. I did, you know, in that opening voiceover though, and I alluded to it in my opening recap piece of the episode.
I think they said pain for real. Like 12 times
Brent: Yeah,
Jeff: in that. And not once did we get a,
Brent: right,
Jeff: they were all like, he's just, I, I don't know if it was the directing. It definitely was not the acting. Those two are incredible actors. It's either the writing or the directing, but that was just an awkward, weird opening voiceover that. In retrospect, I don't think fits whatever. I just thought it was really weird.
Brent: So here's the, Jeff, if this was an episode, we'd know how to go. I don't know how to go through this movie.
Jeff: I know. Right.
Brent: I don't want to go point by point through the movie because we would be here for far too long and people have, have seen the whole, you know, they've seen the movie. Um, let me ask you this quite, let me ask you this question.
You're the kid Londo hands you the crest, your emperor for five minutes. What is your one order? And by the way, those of you listening out there, drop it down in the comments. Send us an email, Babylon five, first gmail. com. Let us know what your one order is. I'm really curious. I want to know, but Jeff, what, what's your one order?
Jeff: it wouldn't be a story. I can tell you, I can tell you that no way. Um, you know, I, I have some really like inappropriate thoughts on like, I don't know what that, uh, the, the, the au pair or whatever that lady, I don't know what her role was, but I imagine he had some thoughts there, which also, this is as a side note, a French Centauri.
I imagine Marcus would have something to say about that.
Brent: Oh,
Jeff: He had some not kind words for that. I don't know. Cause it's like the, the easy thing to say is, well, I'd order, you know, peace with the Alliance or something like that. But that little kid doesn't know any of that stuff.
Brent: right. Yeah,
Jeff: I'd order like, Hey, go put out those fires. Open the windows. It'd
Brent: that's the one right there. Open the windows,
Jeff: Like, come on, we're in a palace for goodness sake.
Brent: right?
Jeff: What would you order?
Brent: Pizza. No,
Jeff: Uh huh.
Brent: I think I'd open the, I'd order the windows open. Like if, if I'm in that little kid's shoes. You know, like the windows that, that one. Um, I also, I also very much think that my order, because I, you know, the emperor, and I'm thinking of this as an adult Brent, not as Brent as a little kid, you know, uh, you hand me this.
I know we all know how the emperor is. know what it's like to be president's group. Like.
Jeff: Uh
Brent: Let's go.
Jeff: huh.
Brent: I got six things. Let's go.
Jeff: One for each of ya.
Brent: Right. Right. Um, I thought it was very interesting in this film. Lando asked the first question he asked the kids, what are your names?
Jeff: Uh huh.
Brent: Which, aka another way to say that is, who are you? And then he goes, what do you want? And I'm like, Oh, they said the questions. They said the questions. Yeah.
Jeff: It was so smooth how they did it. Also, and I love that they acknowledged it. Londo was like, you've answered that a lot better than I did. When I had a chance,
Brent: Right. Yeah. Right. Great. Great film. And the structure of this film though, like for, for what that one example you just said, I love seeing how our, our main actors, uh, come into the movie, how they interact within the film with interacting with each other in the past.
Jeff: yeah,
Brent: And then seeing, at least with Londo, we get the current day Londo and seeing how he's responding to the things that had happened in the past.
Um, and it really much, it very much reminded me of watching like the flashback scenes from the show Lost. I don't know if you ever watched that show, you know what I mean? Cause it was always like, Oh look, we were all on the plane together and here's that time you ran past me while something was happening.
Well, I was trying to get the gate agent to let me let my heroin in or something like that.
Jeff: Yeah, but it is like they took those, just those little things, little things and turn it into a thing. I thought it was great, but I kind of mentioned it before, but as we're talking about those back and forth things, we talked about how Babylon five does old person makeup really well. They do young person makeup really well.
Also,
Brent: this was before de aging technology as well.
Jeff: like this is practical.
Brent: yeah, this is, this is, they got up underneath the wig and they pulled those wrinkles up. I have a big question about that. And we talked about this during the, uh, during the recording. Big question. The one that sticks out to me more than anyone else.
Is Sheridan is Bruce box Lightner. Okay. Because when we see Bruce box Lightner, his head, his hair is high and tight and cut right now, I don't know when they filmed this movie. I know it came out between seasons four and five, but I don't know when they filmed it. If they filmed it between seasons four and five.
You know, Sheridan in season four with this cool goatee, perfectly quaffed hair, he begins season five, cool goatee, perfectly quaffed hair to cut his hair and have it regrow to where it doesn't look like anything has really changed. Like that's phenomenal to me. I don't know what they put. They put miracle grow on that dude's head or something.
I don't know what's going on, but dang, it looks so good. And he, he looked like he was 12. Yeah.
Jeff: did like just the way he carried himself. What really got me was his voice. We talked about it in, I think it was, um, I think it was objects at rest. We talked about it, how he just had that gravel.
Brent: Mm hmm. Mm
Jeff: You know, and especially in sleeping in light, but like here, he just sounded so like upper register and eager and just had, you know, and, and was so like, like, uh, just so optimistic and well, hey, we want to put you on the Prometheus and well, you know, that guy's not a great CEO and he could use stuff, but golly darn it.
I want to stay on the Lexington. Cause I made a commitment and it's just like, wow. Like, but that it's not out of like, that's. Yeah. Totally in character for him. That's how he would show up
Brent: And that's totally in character for how Bruce Boxleitner acts and how he would portray him.
Jeff: Totally.
Brent: You know, cause here's the thing, Jeff, think about this for a moment. Were you super aware of Bruce Boxleitner before watching Babylon 5?
Jeff: Not super aware.
Brent: Okay. Were you super aware of Peter Juricic when you, before watching Babylon 5?
Were you super aware of Andreas Katsoulis before you watched Babylon 5?
Jeff: not super aware. No.
Brent: Okay. Were you super aware of Claudia Christian?
Jeff: Yeah, I was pretty darn aware of her
Brent: Really?
Jeff: Yeah, cuz it but she has a ton of voiceover work. I'm aware of and then she did some movies that were pretty pretty okay
Brent: Cool. I wasn't at all,
Jeff: Okay.
Brent: but, but I mean, but think about just those few people that I named, you know, but particularly like Peter Jurczyk and Andreas Katsulas and Bruce Boxleitner. I'm gonna put those three, honestly, even Jerry Doyle,
Jeff: Mm hmm.
Brent: you know, had some phenomenal, phenomenal moments. I mean, you and I have gushed.
Over Richard Biggs's performances, Stephen Franklin, as for as much crap as we give Stephen Franklin, we've never given any crap to Richard Biggs,
Jeff: at all. He's been
Brent: you know, um, Marcus Cole, Jason Carter. Thank you phenomenal with the way he I think he portrays that role like so many great actors that you and I have really been.
Either introduced to or made very familiar with,
Jeff: Mm hmm,
Brent: you know, because here's the, I guarantee you, you and I hear Andreas Katsoulis his voice in anything and we're immediately picking it out when you see, I mean, we've, we've spent, I feel like the last half of season five. Just gushing over Bruce Boxleitner and his acting not.
I mean, more than that. I mean, this goes back to season three, season four of just how this, he is such a good, good actor, like how he doesn't have more pub. Now. I just don't understand. Like, cause he's so good, you know, and Peter Jersick. Oh my. I mean, I need more stuff with him in it.
Jeff: For real. Yeah. It's, it's wild. And I think that's the thing in a lot of TV, right? Like long form television. There are people who take lead roles in different shows that you never see again, you know, and, and a lot of it has probably has to do with compensation and, you know, contracts and things like that or whatever they're, they don't need to, but also it's like, wow, that person was amazing.
Why isn't there IMDb 17, 000 pages long
Brent: Right.
Jeff: when you have other people like Claudia Christian, like Atkins, you know, Byron who do have those 17, 000 page IMDb things that a lot of it's unknown stuff. It's just interesting.
Brent: Jeff, if I may, I want to, cause I want to, I feel like we haven't talked a lot about the movie itself
Jeff: We have not, you're
Brent: and I want to, I really want to hit this, this movie. Um, well, let's talk about, let's talk about this in two parts. Okay. This next piece, what are the things from this movie that, 'cause we talked about earlier, the answered questions that called back to previous parts of Babylon five that really made this movie enjoy.
And then what are maybe some new questions that this film introduced or maybe some things that it didn't clarify as much as maybe. You wanted it to, start with the first one. Cause that one's more fun.
Jeff: well, I think I think some of the like just off the top like a late delivery from Avalon Atonement and the sky full of stars points of departure. These are all episodes that We saw like they literally took footage out of a lot of these plopped it in and then we got all this extra Context and content around them David
Brent: I want it to, uh, so referring to late delivery from Avalon, here's the thing. Uh, the Michael York character or whatever the heck his name was.
Jeff: McIntyre.
Brent: Of course you would remember that.
Jeff: I put it in my recap. That's the only reason I know
Brent: uh, okay, there it is. There it is. Um, you know, his whole thing was like, he was the one who fired first. He pulled the jury. It wasn't his order, but he was the one who pulled the trigger and whatever.
But when we saw this. It wasn't just him.
Jeff: No,
Brent: It was actually a whole bunch of other people.
Jeff: yeah, I
Brent: It was not him at all.
Jeff: I'm not going to take away from his trauma and PTSD or anyone else's that has been involved. I mean, you could be told to fire, right? And then, but you're still the one firing and that there's real impacts. And I acknowledge that. And it's awful. And I hope, I hope people are able to get help and not think they're King Arthur. That said, I have less sympathy for him after watching this than I even did before. And I did not have a lot. After watching Avalon, this, this did not do much to help a late delivery from Avalon's case. I liked the, Oh, good.
Brent: no, go ahead. Good.
Jeff: I really liked how they used atonement in, in this one, to the point that I actually went back and watched a couple scenes from atonement. Cause I was like, this is so seamless in the film. These have to have been redone. They have to have been read. No, like, yeah.
Brent: Was, was Byron in atonement?
Jeff: he
Brent: Cause you, you and I talked about whether or not he was there or not, or if they just reshot this piece, he was, it was
Jeff: was, yeah, which I, but it was so, and I think that's like one of JMS is superpowers because we saw it in war without end war without end Babylon squared, this like seamless weaving of everything that just made perfect sense here. We see it, but on just such a grand scale across four seasons of Babylon five, he interweaves this, you know, together in such a way that's, that's awesome.
Almost perfect. Almost perfect.
Brent: So one of the, one of the things that it, um, went into was a little bit of clarification of the history of the Rangers.
Jeff: Mm hmm.
Brent: So you and I've heard a lot from the community about the history of the Rangers and where they go. I know that when we first heard about the Rangers from Sinclair, when we had that video from him in season two, my impression was he started the Rangers right then and there.
Jeff: Same. Mm
Brent: Right. Um, and we had, we had heard through various levels and we really, you know, and here's the thing we'll, we'll tell the folks out there, folks, we read the comments, we see your comments. But what Jeff and I really try to do is we let the show try to tell us what's happening and not you guys. So also because a lot of times the comments that we hear didn't get contradicted by other comments and we don't really know which ones of those are right or wrong.
So that's but we really try to let the show. So until the show tells us something different, we go with what our initial impression is as far as the show goes. Right, Jeff? Like, that's, that's kind of how we go. So we thought this and then, um, I don't know at what point we realized that there was this big, long history of the Rangers, but in this one, when we all of a sudden we get this, this Ranger one, this, this endless shock, nah, guy who is the leader of the Rangers and that they've actually been around for all of these years.
Cause what we, what did we get? We got in deconstruction, fallen stars. We know the Rangers exist way into the future. But we didn't necessarily know they existed in the past. And I, did we know that Sheridan or not Sheridan that Sinclair went back as Valen and started the Rangers back then? Did we know that?
Cause I don't feel like we did.
Jeff: don't think we, I don't think we knew it. I inferred it. I know I inferred it, but I don't think we knew that.
Brent: I don't, I don't think that was something that we got until really in this, uh, in this deal, but we have this whole, like. Kind of this snippet of the history of the Rangers of they were around back then they helped out there was this prophecy that they were gonna come back and they just sort of delved into this like I'm gonna say Nightwatch, but I mean that from the Game of Thrones style not from the Babylon 5 style of Nightwatch
Jeff: Mm hmm.
Brent: And they kind of just devolved into this laughable entity that nobody took serious anymore Right.
Um, and turns out they were, they were ready to come back. So I really enjoyed kind of getting that long running bit of it. I do wonder sometimes if folks don't,
I know I have trouble distinguishing when I read books and when I watch shows and movies that I have trouble distinguishing where I know information from. Like, Oh, is that a book factor? Is that a show factor? Is that a movie factor? Is that a, I got that from a, from an interview fact once or something like that, sometimes I have trouble distinguishing that and I feel like sometimes when we were given those conversations, that's where
Jeff: It got a little fuzzy.
Brent: Yeah. Um, but the one thing we don't still really know is what is the difference? If there is a difference at all between until Zah and endless shock. Nah, yeah,
Jeff: Yeah. So on our discord, there was some really, I would say he, I was going to say heated, but not, but passionate conversation around this. And there are two camps on what entails a means. Now we did get endless shock. Nah, Ranger one. That's a clear thing. What's clear is Valen. As I said, I think it's clear, but I think this is from the disc, the discord conversation.
So owning this as fan fact for us at this point, but Valen was until za. Then after that, they didn't call themselves that out of respect for Valen. Like there's Valen and then there's analyst shock. Nah. And then it wasn't until Sinclair that we used until Za again, but we don't know that at this point. I like your point, though, on the Night's Watch from Game of Thrones.
I made the same observation. Because even in that, in the end, they were needed. Like, the threat was real. And what they were there to do was necessary. Just like the Rangers, the endless shock here. And it also reminded me of one of my favorite book series from when I was a kid, the dragon writers of Pern, very similar thing happened where the reason they existed didn't happen in a cycle.
And so everyone's like, Oh, we don't need the dragon writers anymore. And so they became a joke and whittled down to one little group. And then the stuff came back and all of a sudden they needed them. It's, it's one of those, Stories that so many, uh, different shows do it. Like we talk about those sci fi stories that every show does.
It's almost like a fantasy story. You know, all the fantasy ones do, but I loved, I loved it in here. I loved Lenon as a character. Because, like, he just, he had so much belief,
Brent: Mm hmm.
Jeff: Like, he knew, and he was so pure about this prophecy. And as I say that, I can re I recall really having a hard time with a lot of the Minbari prophecies because they seemed to unfold at the speed of plot.
And they often didn't make a lot of sense. And it was specifically times when Delenn did things when I said they didn't make a lot of sense. I think there's a difference in her dissolving the gray council and busting the staff and be like, it's the prophecy. And then what two seasons later, it pays off when she, you know, when they have their little civil war and they reform the gray council.
But it's like, what was that as compared to Lenon? Who's like, no, like tick tock, tick tock. It's time. It's very clear. He said, a thousand years, it has been 987. So
Brent: Let's go.
Jeff: where are my guys? Come on.
Brent: right.
Jeff: I liked him as a character quite a bit.
Brent: I liked him and I really wanted him to be draw.
Jeff: Here's one of my all caps notes on here. Where is draw?
Brent: Right,
Jeff: Like, come on.
Brent: He's still teaching in the school. Um,
Jeff: draw? Why did we get nothing on Epsilon three? Like, come on. Like so many opportunities
Brent: yeah. So one of the questions that I've posed and we've had is what is the nature of the one, right? We live for the one, we die for the one. And I, I know I, I said this in an episode, I don't know how far back now, if you're telling me that the one is Ranger one, just whoever happens to be in charge, I don't know that I would sign up to live and die for that person, whomever it happens to be at the time,
Jeff: Right.
Brent: right?
Um, if you're telling me that it's Valen. Maybe, but he's been gone for a really long time. I'm not living and dying for him. He's not around anymore. Maybe, I don't know.
Jeff: Depending on
Brent: I'm, I'm, I'm a faith person. So like I kind of get it, but also not necessarily in this case, cause it's different,
but I want to propose a new answer that I think this movie might have set the answer for,
Jeff: Okay.
Brent: and this is, and, and by the way, if, if you and I were to ever to go to a con and JMS was on the panel. You know, my first answer would be hi, I'm Brent. Um, thank you for not calling the cops. And if you need me, I'm right over there.
Um, but my question would be, what is the one? Can you please talk about what the nature of the one is? Is it a specific person? Is it this triumvirate of three? Or is it a whole different idea? And here's the thing. In D'Lynn's sati ceremony, when she's doing the whole thing with Ducat and the staff and all that kind of crap, right?
Uh, Ducat asks her, uh, what is her purpose or what does she do? And she says this. She says, she serves the truth. And what is the truth? The truth is that we are one people, one voice, one people, one voice. And I think I said a while ago that what the one is, what if the one is everything? Everyone,
Jeff: Uh
Brent: we are the one, this one voice, this one people now to Dillon in that moment, they're talking about the Mimbari folks, the Mimbari society that as Mimbari, we are one voice and we are one people.
Oh, by the way, we've just seen a whole thing with the great council and we've seen Lenon talking to the one dude from the great council. They are not one,
Jeff: No,
Brent: you know, they are very divided. So, um, but I love the idea. You know, I love that concept that we are, you know, we are going to move as one group of people.
We are going to move, we are one. Okay, let's expand that much larger than just the Mimbari. I really wonder if that kind of is a nod to the one. We live for the one. We die for the one. We are, we are the one. And, you know, you can imagine how much crap they got when they started in infusing humans into that group.
And, oh, by the way, when the lens starts infusing. Pac Mara and other beings into the one.
Jeff: I think that's brilliant. And when I think about it, the one who was is Valen, right? Sinclair Valen. And he brought the Minbari together, formed the gray council, three, three workers, three warriors, three religious to make them one that kind of fell apart. So fast forward to the one who is the Len.
What did she do? She broke up the gray council and then reformed the gray council. In a way that better represented contemporary reality and then the one who will be. Sheridan, who then took all that Minbari idea of being the one and created it as the interstellar alliance. If we think about the declarations of principles that Jakar wrote, that was the point.
We are one. That's what Jakar said. So that makes perfect sense. Sinclair just brought them together. Delenn refined and modernized it. And Sheridan made it galactic.
Brent: Now, I just want to, I just want to be super clear. I'm positive. If I were to actually go ask JMS that he would look at me like I'm a big dumb, dumb idiot. Like I didn't pay attention to a show because I told you what the one is. The one is the three people in Sinclair, Dylan and Sheridan. That's what the one is.
Jeff: And I proved it in that terrible episode, Comes the Inquisitor. I mean, what more Do you,
Brent: episode. Hush your mouth, Jeffrey Aiken.
Jeff: I'm staying on that.
Brent: That was a good episode.
Jeff: Okay.
Brent: Anyway, but I, I really, you know, I think, I think that, that, uh, that, that winds up, um, so yeah,
Jeff: They gave us more context on how Sharon got the name star killer.
Brent: Yeah.
Jeff: We got to see him blow up the black star. Now I, I tend to remember things pretty well, but also like we've been watching this show for a while now. I thought that that happened like around Jupiter
Brent: Hmm.
Jeff: or something like that, but that's my memory.
I could be, I could be wrong, but either way it was, it was not how I thought it went down. Right. I kind of just envisioned him as like being tactical and deciding this thing and not like, Oh my God, my CEO is dead and I got to figure something out right now. But that's a total Sheridan way of doing it, which I thought was cool.
Brent: We get the answer to Ivanova's ring, one
Jeff: do we do
Brent: you explained it very well in your recap. So I won't dive into it other than just to say, Oh, Oh, it really is. But it's
Jeff: heart. It's heartbreaking.
Brent: same time. You know, like, I'm, I'm not going to wear this one earring in memory of my fallen brother.
Jeff: I told him I would not wear it till he came back I will not wear it
Brent: Yeah.
Jeff: if I remember her her story that happened. I thought it was cool, too How he was there at the the the black star like that's he's the one really who kind of caused all that to end up Happening. So I was a neat tie between Sheridan and Ivanova, but I think Yeah.
Brent: for gaia's death.
Jeff: Well, I actually, he wasn't at that point because the CO was still on board at that point. But yeah, he was, it was close enough. It was close enough that when Ivanova was Lieutenant, they were serving together. Right. And so like, I'm sure if there was anything that going on there, they hashed that out. But I think if I remember her story, right, that whole thing went down, battle of the line happened or no, not battle line, but that whole thing happened.
And it was, that's when the war really began. Took off and that's when she went and joined earth force. So she must have been I don't know like 19 or 20 Probably when when and that scene that we saw and then she's like, oh, well
Brent: And talk about de aging. She looked gr I mean. Heard young Ivanova look great,
Jeff: Yeah, totally late teens, early twenties, that short hair. She just
Brent: Mm
Jeff: almost cherubic face
Brent: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. And this is, and this is a Claudia Christian who's been on the show for at least four years at this point
Jeff: Exactly.
Brent: like she doesn't look the same at the end of season four as she does in season one, you know? So
Jeff: Sheridan says a thing though, like I have to call out. So there. At this point, he has not yet, I don't think he's blown up the black star yet, but they're, they're in one of those kind of awkward, uh, scenes they used where all the soldiers were kind of lined up in this big black auditorium. And then there were left court.
And then the full metal jacket guy who were up there yelling at him about how hardcore the Minbari were. he turns everything he's talking to his CEO at the time. And he's like, um, I've never believed in the idea of an undefeatable enemy. Where Brent, have we heard that before? I'm thinking Captain Kirk, Admiral Kirk.
Brent: it. Don't say it.
Jeff: I don't believe in a no win scenario. I, he'd said that. I'm just
Brent: Yeah. Yeah. I
Jeff: word for word, word for word.
Brent: I know.
Jeff: Like there it is.
Brent: You can send all your angry emails to Jeff at Babylon five.
Jeff: Yeah. Go feel free. Also not wrong. Hey, you said a thing. During our re our, our watch, our reaction that I wanted to ask about. So I was going to say droll, but Lenon and Dillon go in, he's showing her Kosh, right? Hey, look how legit this is. What a big deal is. And then Kosh two comes out and you said that's okay.
Yeah. But you said that's all cash.
Brent: Yeah.
Jeff: Do we, do we know he has a different name?
Brent: Yeah, we do.
Jeff: Okay. I,
Brent: So, so, Kosh. One is Koshneranic
Jeff: Yes,
Brent: Okay, we know that
Jeff: mm hmm.
Brent: Kosh to Electric Boogaloo is Kosh Olkesh
Jeff: Okay. Okay,
Brent: they're all Kosh, right?
Jeff: right
Brent: Now, why do I know that? Is it something the show revealed to us at one point?
Jeff: think
Brent: don't know. I Based on the fact that you're unaware of this I'm gonna go with no Here's what I'd have though.
I have there. I don't have them right here right now. My wife made me do
Jeff: Oh your figures
Brent: I have a whole collection of figures and I have caution. Eranic is one. I think I have all cash as another one that's in there as well. Also, people have peppered our comments with these two names that there's all cash and that there's, there's a neurotic.
I want to say also, maybe it's something that we talked about in our council chambers with our, our folks at the council. On patreon, uh, I want to, and it might've been a time when you weren't there or you had already left or something like that Um, but yeah that that is just like that's one of those I was saying earlier Like I don't know where I know this bit of information from like is that show information or is that from something else?
It just that's all cash That's that's the dude.
Jeff: hmm. Mm hmm. Okay.
Brent: before he turned into a big giant a hole or maybe he still was and
Jeff: Yeah, maybe he
Brent: Kosh to hold him it at bay. Yeah.
Jeff: they kind of balanced each other out
Brent: Yeah,
Jeff: Another thing we learned about Londo. I mean God, you know, we've I think we've said it On this show and others have talked about it too that i'm i'm really coming to believe that babylon 5 is the story of londo Malari.
Brent: I've heard that from lots of people and They're not necessarily wrong either.
Jeff: from my experience. You're not wrong at all And in this in this movie did more to add to that just just I mean just and just putting so much more On him he in a scene that I thought was weird in the moment, but then they paid off. He's like All that blood in the Earthman Bari war, that's all on my hands.
Brent: Mm hmm cough
Jeff: oh, he refused to sell them weapons. But no, it's because he went and kiboshed the peace, the peace meeting that they tried on that, uh. That's snowy world where they met, uh, Lenon and I know, yeah, that's all the Tauntaun running in the back. And that's how they got Lenon up to the ship.
They, they cut open a Tauntaun and put them inside of it for a while. And I mean, you thought it stunk on the outside, but I thought that was, I mean, it was, it was sad. It was tragic, but that's what things are with Londo. I thought it was really cool. Addition to the story that like, not only am I Londo, the guy who started the, the Centauri genocide of the the Narn not only am I Londo started the shadow war I'm also Londo that almost genocided the humans by proxy that dude's been through some stuff.
Brent: I Want to save some thoughts on that for a little bit later Hearing just a few minutes, but before we get there Can we talk about Sinclair for a moment?
Jeff: Yeah.
Brent: So we get another, and I don't know if this is an answer or just more of an expounding upon the whole thing that happened with him. We saw the other side of like, why he got taken and how he got, got pulled in it.
It literally was just a grab that guy.
Jeff: Yeah
Brent: Um, just happened to get him, but they, they brought him in bigger than that though. We even got the discussion of like, we'll erase his memory. So he doesn't know, like we got that. Right. Um, But what we really got here was a showing of the triluminary and how they held it right up to him and all that kind of stuff.
I'm sure that we saw that back in and the sky full of stars.
Jeff: we did.
Brent: I know we did. I don't remember it.
Jeff: it's a long
Brent: Um, I, but here's the thing, even not remembering it then, I didn't know what it really meant.
Jeff: It's exactly it meant
Brent: know, now that I know what it means and I see them doing it earlier with Dylan and she's going into like her ceremony and all that kind of stuff.
And they're like, Oh, she's got to fill it. I really want to see that thing go around the entire gray council circle. I want to see who all is also a soul of a, a child of
Jeff: Yeah,
Brent: This kid is, this dude is a child of veil. I think that's the, you're a child of Valen. If it makes it glow. You know, and what does that mean?
What, what is the, what are the Children of Valen? What does that mean in Mambari society? Do you know that you're a child of Valen if you're in Mambari society? Or is that what? Obviously we don't because we find an atonement like she had no idea, you know? So, um, we get all of those people. And you remember when we were talking about like Dylan and how There's this prophecy.
Well, was the prophecy really made about her or did she make the prophecy about herself?
Jeff: Yeah
Brent: Because she was like, well, I'm a, this is me. Then I'm going to fulfill the prophecy. Like
Jeff: But being a child of Valen, was it actually her?
Brent: that, the answer is both, I think, you know? Um, so I, but I, I loved that. We got that. And you know, I got to tell you just to, just to hat tip the production team on this again, hat tip JMS. I questioned in the middle of this episode or movie. Did they bring Michael O'Hare back and film new scenes for this movie?
Jeff: Yeah.
Brent: No, they didn't. They pulled this either from footage that was in an episode, or they pulled it from, uh, footage that had hit the cutting room floor. I'm not sure which one it was, but it probably all was what was actually in the episodes. The way they interwove that and cut that together, Oh, beautiful.
Beautiful.
Jeff: Some of the, some of the stuff they wove in, some of it from in sky full of stars. Some of it from, um, Avalon. The lighting was clearly less, you know, like it was a little worse than what it was for the, the film, but they minimized those quite a bit, but yeah, like there's the scene where like, He's getting drug underneath this great.
And he's like, what's going on? I didn't remember that in, in the sky full of stars. Again, we watched that forever ago. So it might've been there, but I'm like, did they film that? He got a credit. He was actually credited in the film. And we talked about that during the reaction of like, is that because they film stuff or why my, my gut tells me it's because a JMS wanted to make sure he got paid.
Brent: I was going to say it would be completely on brand with what we know out of JMS. And this is such a, uh, a kudo to him
Jeff: Yeah. Big time.
Brent: that he would not just reuse stock footage that they already own, but that he would put him in there as a person who gets credited, probably also, as you just said, ensuring that he gets paid for his stuff and what he's doing, like,
Jeff: Super cool. Although. Claudia Christian, not credited.
Brent: No, really?
Jeff: not credited in that film at all.
Brent: Really
Jeff: Found that really weird.
Brent: Interesting.
Jeff: And I'm curious, like, with the timing of everything, how did that work? Was,
Brent: hmm.
Jeff: was she already out of a contract and they couldn't credit her because there wasn't one? Was this her basically being like, yeah, I'm happy to help out and film a scene for you?
Like, how did that go down? I'm very curious. It doesn't matter, but I'm just curious about it. I think one of my last thoughts on the stuff that kind of we were left with was that peace meeting that happened on Hoth. So Jakar, Sheridan, Dr. Franklin all go and watch Minbari get killed from a Centauri attack basically. Fast forward 11 years or whatever and, uh, they're all in the station together and you'd never know they, I mean, granted, they probably been on hundreds of missions, you know, over their time, but I don't know, to me, it just feels a little hollow that there was no, especially between Sheridan and Jakar, that there was never any sort of a, like they had that really touching goodbye.
I think it was an objects in motion. That was just like, he called him John, you know, when he went, Oh, you never called me John before. And it's like, yeah, they, you were there together and that didn't get a mention. Also, I get it. I get it. And then, and then like my last real thought on everything. I, I am so famous that I'm infamous for my critical view of Delenn.
In, in so many of the ways that she's shown up in this show. And, uh, you know, one of the, one of the moments that our community really. United against me was when I talked about she's coming from an emotional place. She's not thinking she's literally either escalating the war with the shadows or you know with earth and this thing because she's just letting her emotions take over and she's not not thinking about stuff and I stand by that.
Very much so no mercy. No mercy. She screams at Minbari Byron and Here we go. Here's the war but I loved the scenes that they peppered in here where she was watching the slaughter and she was Just like oh Shoot.
Brent: Well, she's looking at that the way Londo is looking out that window.
Jeff: yes. Yeah, that is a great and difference is she did something about it
Brent: Londo eventually
Jeff: Eventually, but like she tried to pull a peace envoy together, you know, and then, and then all the way up to battle of the line, she was looking for ways, like, how do we stop this from happening? And then finally, Kosh was like, you know, the, the truth, the truth, you know, we'll, we'll reveal it, we'll, you know, reveal itself, or I forget the exact line he said, I can find it here, but that was a big point that you brought up during the reaction.
Did that explain that explains chrysalis? Right. Chrysalis where she's like, you got to show me. And, and to the end of the series, we're like, why, what did he have to show her?
Brent: Yeah. Yeah. The one thing that we still don't know, and I'm going to keep harping on this and people drive, create, I'm driving people crazy out there about it. Yeah. Why was it that Sheridan had to be saved by Kosh that forced Kosh to reveal himself to everyone, to go full frontal,
Jeff: Yeah,
Brent: just reveal himself to all, like, what was it?
What is it about Sheridan? What did they know about Sheridan in that moment that it had to be him? They got saved.
Jeff: it's a good question because what we find out in Zaha doom, the episode Zaha doom is if it wasn't Sheridan, it would have been Garibaldi or it would have been like, you know, they're like, it would have been somebody else. And so did you really have to save him?
Brent: and the soul thing
Jeff: Oh, no, we got a couple more movies
Brent: Borlans for that,
Jeff: to make that happen. Yeah. We've got a couple more movies coming up. Maybe, maybe that one, a good answer. My big question still hanging. No, do not do that. My big question that I will hold my breath on. Where's the great egg. Come on, you don't drop something like that, that early in the series and just let it go.
Come on,
Brent: you know, somebody came in, dropped a bomb. They all got cut and now they're done.
Jeff: my soul escaped
Brent: Yeah. So now we're going to kill you because you're just a carcass walking around. You're a zombie.
Jeff: and a kid. So you got to die.
Brent: Hey, real quick. Uh, I found this out and this very clearly came from the community out there somewhere. Do you know, are you aware of who those kids are in that girl and like how they specifically relate to Londo and the palace and why they're there in the palace and all that sort of stuff?
Jeff: I heard this as well. Yeah.
Brent: So, um, well, we'll just say it because it is what it is.
Apparently, there's a thing in Minbari society that like you take people on and you care for them, I guess, even after you kill them. So they were from the house of Rifa.
Jeff: Yep.
Brent: And Londo was taking care of them for, you know, everything that happened with Rifa. Mm
Jeff: what's cooler than that. So we have some incredible people in our community who have shared, uh, some books and some comic books and some different things with us. I started reading legions of fire, the, the Centauri trilogy. I was told it's okay to start reading that at the point. We're in the girl that was there.
I believe her name is Senna. And Senna is Rifa's daughter. Those kids are hers. And he, uh, after the bombing of Centauri Prime, uh, in the fall of Centauri Prime, she basically threw a rock at him, was like, uh, you suck, and then he killed her with kindness and brought her under his care. And so, like, Just shows that she's stuck around the whole time, which is a pretty, so basically he's emperor living with the house of Rifa pretty huge.
Brent: Actually, how many are we up to right, Jeff?
Jeff: We got one, we have one more.
Brent: It feels very Klingon.
Jeff: Yeah.
Brent: very Klingon.
Jeff: You take them on.
Brent: Well, Jeff, unless you have anything else, I think we've kind of hit that spot of the episode where, or the movie, I guess, where we really try to take this and boil this all down and whole boy. I'm glad you're the one who has it this week, because there's some stuff in there, but this is where we, we do the, the analyzing thing.
We look for the sci fi messages that are contained. Within this episode, particularly where they done on purpose, uh, those things. And we've really come to say this on our Stargate show, Jeff, uh, the things that give us hope that things can be better in the future. They hold up a mirror to society or just show us how to be better human beings to one another through the sci fi story, Jeff, um, you get to do this.
And then you're going to take this and rate this on a scale of zero to five white stars. As far as how strong that message is, uh, what do you got for us this week, man?
Jeff: I have a couple of
Brent: was a movie. This is just a movie like it wasn't anyway, go ahead.
Jeff: Yeah. Well, and to be really clear, it was a movie with an intention. Of introducing people new to the series to the series, right? This, I don't think this was a thing of like so many episodes of Babylon five where JMS was like, I'm going to drive a point home. Like, I don't think that was the intent of this, uh, this film and that's fine.
There was still quite a bit that came out of it. One that I really thought on quite a bit and I don't know. I don't know that it is the like message in this one, but there was this theme throughout the Londo part of the story, the modern day Londo that he had basically barred and shut all the windows.
In the palace because he, he, he couldn't handle seeing the destruction. He said that seeing his Centauri prime, seeing his, his homeland burn would crush him. But what's fascinating is he also said that he spends all of his time staring out the one window that's open. So it's that piece of. The literal worst thing I could ever see.
It's so bad. I have closed off every opportunity to ever see it. And I never stopped looking at it because you have to look at those hard things and the hurtful things. That's how you heal, right? There's that epic line from never ending story. It has to hurt if it's to heal and it works for stuff like that too.
I thought it was just fascinating and it took, it took the voice of a child. We'll say the voice of innocence
Brent: Mm
Jeff: of open him up to that, you know, and I think, and I think the fact he, he ended up being open to it, he was reflecting on it the whole time. So I thought that was a really fascinating.
Message and I do think there was some intention to that one because it was such a theme throughout those Londo and, uh, in the kids scenes as a note, we got some of the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. That was the battle of the line piece and it was such a desperate needs of the many. A couple hundred of us might escape so that we don't go extinct and that's what led to the battle of the line.
Always have to call that message out. But I think the real message in this is The way I saw it was the price of arrogance, hubris, and bravado. We see General Lefcourt and his aide in that room with Londo, and then later on, I forget his name, but I call him the full metal jacket guy, because Earth military went full, full metal jacket here.
But they were just like, hey, so we helped beat the Dilgar? So we can like, we're untouchable, we're hardcore and we're going to go. We're, I mean, just, just, uh, we'll get, you know, just like the steel line from Spock, you know, just that cowboy diplomacy, but ramped up 10 times in that bravado, that inability to pause, right.
We saw it with, uh, David McIntyre's group on the, on the Prometheus of, you know, just like, I know I'm not supposed to do this. I'm supposed to just see him and leave, but I'm not gonna. Cause, cause dang it, I'm, I'm earth force and earth force can do that. You know, I almost expect him to put on a cowboy hat, you know, at some point.
Now there's anything
Brent: And shout America.
Jeff: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, whoa, almost a Dr. Strangelove thing as he comes down on the bomb. But I mean that blindness, the inability to listen and to listen to those who came before you, Londo is in, in one of his most reasonable times in the whole series.
Like, bro, do not just stay away from them. There's nothing good that can, I'll show you what nothing good come from, come from what? And, and dude even sounded like that when he was talking, you know, I mean, they didn't make light of this at all, but that inability to listen to blindness, the bravado, that just arrogance
Brent: Mm
Jeff: got them to the point that the president had to weigh the needs of the many against the way of the few, the against the needs of the few.
And those many, again, just being a couple hundred, they were a breath away from total extinction because they thought their stuff didn't stink. It was mind blowing to me. I think that,
Brent: hmm. Sorry. I'm gonna stop you there. There's a really neat thing where Londo is talking about the arrogance and the hubris of the humans right at the very beginning of the film. And and he says this line. He says, um, arrogant men never listen. I mean, boy, talk about holding a premiere to society, uh, arrogant men, never listen.
And he says, but it has never been exclusively a human trait. And in that moment, the scene cuts in flashes to the min Bari.
Jeff: yeah, immediately,
Brent: I was like, dude,
Jeff: and then we talk about that so much, like in the first couple of seasons, the Minbari are like this high and mighty wise race. And as the series went on, you're like, Oh man, they're, they're messed
Brent: they're, they're actually awful. Yeah. They are. They are. So what? Everything they say that they are is not actually what they are. They've diluted themselves so bad.
Jeff: In fact, like they, and the humans in this film are like more, uh, diplomatic, more play at the same table than to reference our other. Show Stargate SG one for the first time, which is still not a Star Trek podcast, but they're the go out old, right? Like what's my weakness? Arrogance just these guys actually talk to other people and like try to you know Form some alliances and do some stuff.
I think I think there was some intention to The message around the window. I think there was intention behind the, the, the arrogance of, of humanity. But I also think that this was a episode of an episode, a film focused on inviting people to watch the show scale of zero to five white stars. I'm going to give
Brent: Uh, stop. Stop. Stop. Stop.
Jeff: this one as many as I think after you stumped for a few more.
Brent: Okay. You have white stars. You get to make the final decision. I cannot influence that in one way or another, but I'm going to make my best attempt to influence that I found in this film, watching it for the second time. An underlying theme throughout the whole film that I don't think was the message or anything of that.
But I think if you would ever come back and do like a case study of these different things that happened that are all around this kind of central theme. And I, I wonder if this might not impact your white star rating because I found it really fascinating the more I thought about it, it was this underlying theme of misplaced guilt.
Whether that was internal or external, there were a lot of people throughout the course of this film that were carrying a lot of guilt that they didn't need to carry. All right. Londo Londo's carrying a whole lot of guilt over the Earthman Barry war. This was my fault. I'm the one who kept it going. Yeah.
He had that whole thing where he did that thing. This was not his fault though. This was, but he's, it's all my fault. It's all my fault. Like all of it. No, it's, it's really not. He, he is holding onto that in a way that really he ought not. Dylan, Dylan is feeling guilt over the war and this really, I think a lot of this is really colored for me from the episode atonement, probably more so than what I know in this episode, but I see how those two things fit together.
And to me, that's one story. So, but Dylan is feeling a lot of guilt for her part in, in this war of, of she was the deciding vote. She was the deciding factor. She, in a moment of emotional. And, and I. Side note, a lot of the people that gave you grief over talking about the land and how she was acting emotionally, their defense was, well, she had just gotten, became human like a year or two ago, and she's still learning how all these emotions work.
Let's reference atonement when she's actually still full memory. She has emotions and she goes wild off. Okay. Anyway, throwing a defense out for my guy over there.
Jeff: Good point.
Brent: Thank you. Um, Ivanova Ivanova feels a guilt in a way over Ghana. That she had absolutely nothing to do with, and she feels this, this need to go out and drive to, to, to, uh, not avenge, but to, to make that better because, you know, she's, she's feeling something there that she ought not be carrying.
Maybe it's put on her by her dad. I don't know. And finally, Franklin, and this was the one that this is the one that I think that really made it all come together for me. Franklin, uh, and we haven't really even talked about him at all in this episode. He's got all these notes on the Minbari. And he's refusing to give it over because they're going to use it to genocide these folks and the the general guy comes in and he's like, if you don't give me those notes, every drop of blood that spilled is on your hands and you're responsible for it and it's on you and this is your fault and you're going to jail and you're an awful.
That's not unfrankly,
Jeff: No, not at all.
Brent: not at all. I, again, doing a case study of each of these pieces, I think would be a fascinating project to go through and do, but I did see this, just a lot of this again and again and again, throughout the course of the film about misplaced guilt and why and how dangerous it is when you carry misplaced
Jeff: Yeah,
Brent: and Dylan when they figured out that actually I can do something about this. You know, now Dylan had her part. In the whole Minbari war Londo had his part, but it's not his fault.
Jeff: right.
Brent: You know what I mean? It's, it's not her fault. So now what do you do with that? Well, that's maybe for another discussion, but Jeff, I just want to slide that in there for you. As you think about how many white stars you're going to rate this film.
Jeff: I guess it's a really good point and I think to the point of the lens specifically I I yes, she should be carrying some guilt But I talked about it even when we talked on the episode atonement that whole idea of you were the deciding vote So it's your fault. That's bs The other people voted that way also had they've had you voted earlier.
They would have been the outcome is the same. It doesn't rest on, on you. Everything you said really makes me look at the idea of Londo looking out the window. Again, because Londo is carrying that weight. I mean, he straight up accuses Sheridan and war without end. You know, you forgot about us. You left us here. And this happened, but he's staring out at that all the time because he's probably carrying that guilt because, because he's doing the drocks will essentially, you know, and so he is, he's carrying a lot of guilt in a real way.
You could say as much as Babylon five is the story of Londo Mallari. It is also the story of misplaced guilt. And, and how, and how Londo specifically responds to it time and time again. No, it's, it's, it's really good. Um, that's a good point. And I, and I'm going to bump up my rating actually as a result, cause I think it strengthens so many of the thoughts I had and adds to it.
It'd be
Brent: Five white starts. There you go. You heard it folks. Five white stars for this. No, no.
Jeff: Now I'm going to give it three and a half, three and a half white stars.
Brent: Just out of curiosity. What did you have it at before?
Jeff: I was, I was, I was going to say two and a half, maybe three is where I was before, so I think it's a solid three and a half, um, I think to really get the messages out of this one, we got to do some digging, um, You know, and that's the thing that we've, uh, over time learned to, uh, do a little differently.
Brent: There's, there's only so much that you can do on a first watch,
Jeff: Exactly.
Brent: you know?
Jeff: Well, Brent, I got to rate this episode. You have the overwhelming and difficult task of ranking this movie. We're going to rank these movies as we watch them. Uh, Brent, where in the definitive, immutable, completely objectively accurate ranking of the Babylon 5 films. Do you put in the beginning
Brent: Well, I got to think about this because, because this doesn't fall into the season. This is like, we're going to treat the films as like their own little season. We're going to rank the films. Well, I think I have to put this at the beginning of every, or I got to put this where all the, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Cause we actually have two movies under our belt now.
Jeff: We do don't we
Brent: Yes. And the gathering by default is the number one movie
Jeff: that's our listing as it is right now. There you go.
Brent: And this is going to take that spot. Hands down. No questions asked. This is our new number one, Jeff
Jeff: I can't disagree. In fact, I almost think we need to, uh, Avalon not in the, uh, what was it? Long dark. We need a long
Brent: long, dark it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Although I do have to say I enjoyed. I enjoyed watching Avalon every week. Just fall another slot as it just, as the season went on, like the last, like 10 episodes of the season or whatever it was.
Jeff: Oh man. It's like, you just poking them. You're just like poking everybody. It's like so much fun. Well, Brenda does it for in the beginning. Next week, we're going to be watching third space for the first time. We've never seen these movies before. We might know their names, but we haven't looked up any synopses.
We don't. Look at thumbnails. Brent, do you have a prediction on what you think third space is going to be about?
Brent: you know, in the beginning, just really felt like a, give me, felt like a giveaway for what it would be. I have no idea what this could be about. Like none, a third space. Um, Yeah. Okay. So there's normal space, there's hyperspace, and then there's third space. We're going to find out that there's this whole other realm, universe, whatever that they, Oh, maybe, maybe that's where the rent like beyond the rim is. We're going to dive into whatever beyond the rim is in that third, the third space, what it likes.
There's regular space, hyperspace, and then a third space. And that's, that's where the, so we're going to visit, we're going to visit Sinclair. No. Maybe. Yeah. Well, see, cause it's not Michael here. Um, yeah, I don't know. Yeah. Maybe they're trying to go get, uh, go get the first ones back. We got to go find them.
Jeff: yeah. Maybe it's a deep dive
Brent: Techno majors.
Jeff: all it. That's this because I had almost the exact same. I'm just like normal space, hyperspace, third space.
Brent: Right.
Jeff: I don't know what else you could do, but how about you take techno mages?
Brent: Okay. Okay.
Jeff: One of us take Technomages, one of us take Beyond the Rim.
Brent: I want to take beyond the rim. You take techno majors. Although I love techno majors. I really do.
Jeff: this'll become a strong number one if it has Technomages in it.
Brent: It absolutely will. Do you remember how much we didn't like that episode
Jeff: I know! But we always loved, we always loved, was it Elrond or Elric? Elric, we always loved him. Mike Lansara.
Brent: Yep.
Jeff: Well, we will find out next week what third space is all about. Thank you all so much for joining us. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you are watching us or listening to us. If you're able to leave us a rating, leave us a review.
And the most important thing, the thing that we would appreciate more than anything else is please, please share this show with someone who either loves Babylon five already. Or needs to get into it for the first time. So until next
Brent: Hey, Jeff.
Jeff: what's up
Brent: Jeff. I would love to take a walk with you.
Jeff: a walk. What? Oh,
Brent: Yeah. You know, on a beach. Just for five minutes.
Jeff: seriously, man, get the hell out of here.
