The Legend of the Rangers

[alex_t]

I've just finished my first watching of "The Legend of the Rangers". Well, there is only one thing I can say right now - unfortunately, it is too good! Yes, it is good - much better then "Crusade" and "A Call to Arms". And yes, it is unfortunate, because there could be a great new series, but there is nothing - my appetite was whipped uselessly.

P.S. I was so scared that it would be yet another "great lost race" like in "Thirdspace" - good to know that JMS did not play same trick again

P.P.S. I read a lot about "The Legend of the Rangers" before, but frankly, it looks like that a lot of such info is misleading, LOTR is better then described.

[Boo Gee]

I think a lot of the bad vibes towards LOTR comes from that god awful 'kung fu' weapons station thing. Aside from that, I thought the show was pretty good and had potential. I don't think it was anyway near as good a ACTA or Crusade, though. I love those two.

[Morden]

Well, LotR wasn't so bad as many said. The overall story, the acting and the characters were far beyond everything we saw on the original B5-series, but all in all, it was OK and nice to watch. The idea of a race more powerful than the shadows (I hate this "insects"-comparison of Min. Kafta) and some of the very poorly acted and visualized holo-kung-fu-scenes (especially when Sarah is blowing the mines away) is what I hate most. I enjoyed the rest, especially of course G'kar. But I like ACtA and Crusade much more!

[Laiden]

If I find anything good about that 2 hour waste of time . . . I'll let ya know

[Dr Maturin]

Most of the actors weren't to my liking.

Aside from one Andreas Katsulas, of course.

[Shr'eshhhhhh]

I found it painfully bad. That said the Hand ships were fun and Andreas is always worth watching (even if he is doing a camp re-imagining of his former brilliance)

[Night Marshal]

Ok other than "the hand" and the weapons system. I liked LotR the charcters and the they have a good repore. All the charcter have a story to tell and I think if we would have gotten to know them we as fan would have liked them. I really liked the idea of Minbari telapaths that can feel the dead. The captain seems like a man of longing and other than the dumb Darzi I liked the whole crew.

[Harrdy]

I can't be the only one who liked the weapon system, can I? I mean, it would be more logical to have a "direct neuro feedback" scifi black box, but the way they did it involved a nice intermediate solution. How do you show what is happening inside the brain of someone? Terminator-like "windows" are just cheesy, more even than the space kung fu, no? I also like the "intuitive" approach of the system. The human body is well build for combat, thousends of years of evolution have done their share. Now we sit in chairs, strapped in front of consoles. There is no way our imagination can help us in combat situations, that way. The described system acts as an "translator", changing "real world" data into a combat situation, where you could use your instinct and imagination to fight... I would think that such a system would be immensely more useful than "strapped in a chair in front of a console" things. Ok, "direct neural interface" would be better... but see my rant above.

And there was G'Kar, of course... him alone would be reason enough to watch the movie... and he also was very funny and entertaining (no disappointment). The rest of the crew was ok, I had some problems with the Drazi, but I always have problems with such types in movies. The whole "we live for the one, we die for the one" storyline was quite nice. What's (in my impression) more importent than to die for a cause? To LIVE for a cause, to walk away when you would be defeated and fight another day... so I liked that storyline, too...

PeAcE

[jcbatz]

I just want the Region 1 DVD to materialize sometime before I die...

I saw it once, several years ago. The only thing I remember (other than the items already mentioned) was that every other line was "We live for the One, we die for the One." Got a little repetitive.

Once I own the thing, then I'll jump in with more of an opinion.

[WorkerCaste]

I can't be the only one who liked the weapon system, can I?

First, I liked the pilot. I was entertained and thought it had great potential. I liked the actors. I thought they came together pretty well for a pilot. I also, in response to your question, Harrdy, liked the concept of the weapons system. It seemed logical to me that something like that would be developed. On a large ship, you have more crew to dedicate to weapons. In a small ship you would need likely need to have some system that could be run by a single person. It would need to be intuitive and the person running it would need to be able to shift between weapons pods (for lack of a better term) quickly. Unlike Whitestars, there seemed to be many smaller weapons. The compromise would seem to be responsiveness and flexibility rather than power and accuracy. (One person running a single weapon can be more accurate than one person running many.) This ship was more about intelligence activites than battle, so the comrpomise would make a certain amount of sense. Given all that, you need a control system that can control multiple weapons firing in multiple directions. It makes sense to pick up commands directly from the weapons person's body, and it makes sense to use different points on the body to control different weapons. Next issue, training and replacements in case the weapons officer gets injured or killed. It's a small ship, so you can't have lots of trained backups. It has to be a system which anyone can learn and use. Ok, so controlling multiple weapons with different parts of your body isn't exactly intuitive, unless... the system is keyed in to motions that every ranger is trained in. Every ranger trains with martial arts; striking points on the body can be assigned to weapons/weapon groups. Intensity of "strike" can establish weapon power levels. It makes a great deal of logical sense.

Having said all that, I have to say that visually it just didn't work out. Maybe it was the "over-the-top" performance, or maybe my eyes just weren't ready for the concept, regardless of what my brain says. I think it was a great effort at a logical system, but it just didn't wind up working.

[SpooRancher]

Gotta do something about the suits at WB, don't we.

How about all of the B5 fans in America getting together and orchestrating a hostile takeover of WB?

I'm in!

[vacantlook]

I very much liked the weapon system. I loved the energy of Sarah jumping/falling down into position and the sounds of the targeting system confirming occular targetting and the such. I liked some of the scenes in there: "I'm reasonably sure it's going to miss us." The one problem I did have with it was the screaming scene where she goes kukoo. I don't think that that was necessarily a script problem either; it could very much have been a director's choice for how to film that particular scene. Either way, the screaming was over the top. Alas, I can forgive, especially since I like the concept and other elements of its production.

[JDSValen]

For the most part, I liked LotR. I liked Dylan Neal and Alex Zahara a lot, they had a good chemistry together. The other cast members were a little iffy, but it's so hard to judge because we are looking at something that was ment to be a pilot and not a stand alone movie. G'Kar seemed a little forced, but it was nice seeing him again. Plus Mike Vejar directed it. 'nuff said.

I was always wondering why the circle was controling the Rangers, considering that they were the military arm of the ISA and no longer had anything to do with the Minbari Federation. Where was Delenn (she was En'til'zha at the time) or someone else from the ISA? Delenn would've been a much better cameo than G'Kar.

The Liandra irritated me a little. First of all, why wasn't it a Whitestar? Second, the bridge was horrid. They all sit around a table????? Worst set design in B5.

Also, I did not like the weapons system. It provided some good shots/action, but it made no sense, and the one thing that B5 has always done is made sense.

I didn't really like the Hand all that much either. I'm guessing they had a similar relationship witht he Shadows as the Drakh did, but they just sorta came out of nowhere and I would've liked more of an explanation of it. Again, probably something that would've been better if it went to series.

As far as I know, JMS was going to use the LotR series to sorta tell the Crusade story. Crusade started as a hunt for a cure to the plague, but would've turned into something else at around season 3. This started out totally different, but would've developed into something with a similar story that Crusade would've been. Given what I know of Crusade, I can see little traces of that in LotR, but I prefer Crusade. Better characters, IMO.

[Jan]

I was always wondering why the circle was controling the Rangers, considering that they were the military arm of the ISA and no longer had anything to do with the Minbari Federation. Where was Delenn (she was En'til'zha at the time) or someone else from the ISA? Delenn would've been a much better cameo than G'Kar.

It wasn't terribly clear but the council that was disciplining the captain wasn't the Grey Council, rather it was the Ranger's council. (Sheesh, couldn't they have different colored robes? ) I imagine that tradition dictated they still have charge of the Rangers. Chances are, they wouldn't 'bother' the Entil'zha for regular discipline. I loved how G'Kar turned them on their ears when he asked about them stressing death instead of life.

I didn't mind the weapons system and, in fact loved the views of space around Sarah. It always shocked me that so many people allowed that to spoil the entire movie for them.

Jan

[alex_t]

I didn't mind the weapons system and, in fact loved the views of space around Sarah.

It looked amazing - human (girl, attractive) kinda hanging in space