Best order for the movies

[House of Mollari]

Hi, Im new here and a big B5 fan, having watched it from the start in the UK, after reading about it in an Amiga magazine all those years ago. Bought all the Videos then DVDs etc and really think it is the best Sci-fi ever been on TV. I have just start watching again and now enjoy all those bits that make sense on a 10th viewing.

My question is, as the title, what order and what is the best time to view the extra movies in sequence, within the five year arc? sorry if this is common knowledge but Ive never really looked into the best way to view these, although I have my own ideas of course.

On a slightly different note, I always felt that the series suffered after the end of the fourth series and think that the fifth series did feel like an add on, again I have never looked into this but persume it was because of cutbacks in the series if I remember rightly.

Finally, even The House of Mollari will miss G'Kar, so sad..

HoM

ps, sorry this ended up in the wrong section, unsure why?

[vacantlook]

again I have never looked into this but persume it was because of cutbacks in the series if I remember rightly.

As season four went on, it began to increasingly look like season four would be the end of the show because PTEN, the syndication package Warner Bros. sold Babylon 5 through to various local networks, was collapsing and folding. jms, thinking he wouldn't be able to get a fifth season, decided it would be better to end the show in a way that could be viewed as complete than to leave it hanging the way it would have been had he opperated under a guaranteed fifth season to come. This meant some of what would have been in the beginning of season five was put in the end of season four. Pretty much everything after "Intersections In Real Time" (the Sheridan interrogation episode), as "Intersections" was originally going to be the season four finale. But in the so-called 11th hour, TNT stepped up and said that they'd finance a fifth season of B5, but season four had already been completed by that point (with the exception of "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars," which was filmed first going back into production for season five to replace "Sleeping In Light" at the end of season four).

So, had the PTEN collapse not happened, season four wouldn't have been quite so thick with big episodes, and season five wouldn't have felt so telepath heavy on the front end.

[SLerman]

As for the movies, let's see if I can get them all.

In The Beginning is the prequel that covers the Earth-Minbari War. It was filmed during season 4, and does kind of give away a few things from early in the series. JMS has said, though, that it works fine for new viewers to watch it first, even before season 1.

The Gathering was the original pilot. Basically, it's the first episode of season 1.

River of Souls and Thirdspace are fairly outside the main arc. I believe they both take place during/around season 5.

A Call to Arms was the launching point for Crusade, and it takes place after the main series (can't remember the exact year; 2268 or so, I think?).

Legend of the Rangers also takes place well after the main series. It was supposed to be the pilot for a new series, but it never got picked up.

Did I miss any?

[Ranger1]

Yeah you missed Thirdspace, which takes place after the Shadow War, but before the declaration of war against Earth, so kinda puts it in the middle of season 4.

[Capt.Montoya]

The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5 has a "master list" which places the movies in their proper (or most approximate) chronological order.

http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/countries/master/eplist.html

Adding to vacantlook's summary of why S5 seems "weaker" JMS indicated somewhere that, had they known a 5th. season would be guaranteed, the telepath colony would have been introduced slowly during season 4. I think that would have worked better.
Also the Byron-Lyta relationship was originally intended for Ivanova (who would have taken Byron as a "substitute" for Marcus).

[vacantlook]

Also the Byron-Lyta relationship was originally intended for Ivanova (who would have taken Byron as a "substitute" for Marcus).

Yeah, it would have been something to have seen Ivanova, as the relatively newly full-fledged commander of B5 having to go against Sheridan on one side and Byron on the other in dealing with the telepath colony, and Ivanova having to call in Bester, whom she hates so much, to come in with the PsiCorps to try to take care of the situation.

Ivanova's doomed romantic relationship with Byron would have been fueled by her being afraid of not allowing herself to have a relationship the way she did with Marcus and her always keeping him at arms-length.

[Lope de Aguirre]

I for myself prefer:

The Gathering
Season 1-4
between S.4 episodes "Illusion of Truth" (4.08) and "Antonement" (4.09) belongs Thirdspace
then the rest of S.4 and S.5
then River of Souls, either A Call to Arms, In the Beginning and start the whole series agian or In the Beginning and at last A Call to Arms + Crusade and finally The Legend of the Rangers.

The two perfect run possibilities od Babylon 5

[House of Mollari]

Thanks for the comments on my questions.

I seemed to have watched them in the right order..ish.

Now, more than likely its been asked before but this has got me thinking. reading round the forum someone mentioned an abridged version of B5, didnt seem to popular but I see what he was getting at.

So my question further to this is could JMS ever re-edit B5 to give us the show he really intended? you know it would be a great to see it as intended, I know it might be hard to do but hey i would love to see this happen, maybe for a SE release.

Finally, Lurkers guide, never been there in years but it was nice to re-visit, last time I was there it was changing from I think Hyperion.com to midwinter.com, a long time ago, perhaps the start of the third age of mankind, maybe.

thanks

HoM

[Garibaldi's Hair]

I'm sure that will never happen, but with the script books he is perhaps getting as close to that as he ever will ... particularly once volume 15 has been issued, which includes the show's original "bible" with Sinclair remaining as lead mojo, and no mention of John Sheridan.

[Jan]

Minor correction to GH's post, mainly in semantics. The series 'bible' was made available long ago by the Fan Club. It was mainly information that a freelance writer would need to know. What will be in Volume 15 is a memo that JMS wrote for WB after the pilot was finished but before the series started.

The 'treatment' for the series was also released by the Fan Club and there were some fairly substantial changes in character details between that and the pilot and more between the pilot and the series. Reading them both, you can see how threads were slid from one person to another but that they didn't really go away.

The thing is, though, as people reading the books can attest, there were potentially several different paths that JMS had mapped out to get where he wanted to go. For instance when writing Zathras' dialogue for "Babylon Squared", depending on unforeseen changes between it and "War Without End", you can read Zathras's dialogue as being that they needed to take B4 to either the past or the future.

Fascinating....

Jan

[grumbler]

...you can read Zathras's dialogue as being that they needed to take B4 to either the past or the future.

Fascinating....

Jan

Indeed. My contention has always been that B4 first gets dragged into the future, where they pick up the battered and scarred Sinclair, one of the few survivors of B5's destruction back in 2262 (which we saw in Sinclair's flash-forward in B^2 - i never bought that "it was all a mirage" stuff as it is the only prophecy that never comes true). He got all scarred and old from fighting the losing battle that eventuially left the Shadows (and Earthforce?) as the dominant force in the galaxy, in my story.

Then, they go 1000 years back in time and reverse all that, leaving poor bereft Delenn to pick up the pieces in 2282.

Does B5 get "restored" by the change in history? My guess is no, based on JMS's writing style.

That is why i so look forward to the JMS memo. I wonder how much it blows into bitty pieces my "out of thin air" guesswork!

[Capt.Montoya]

My guess was that Sinclair would leave for the past at the series finale. The final scene of WWE would have been the series ending (or next to last scene).
But I never connected that with B4 going forward in time...

So thanks Grumbler, now my speculation is complete (and at odds with yours).
I now think that B4 would go forward in time to pick up Sinclair and take him to the past to become Valen. I had no specific ideas for how that would happen before.

This of course removes the "explanation" that the tachyon field aged him, which always seemed a bolted on plot point to me, and motivated my original speculation.

The scene with Garibaldi as "last man standing" always seemed to me a distraction. But that also served a purpose, to remark that the actions of the characters could change their future, motivating the jump into Z'ha'dum.

[cornholio1980]

as it is the only prophecy that never comes true

If you ask me, of course it did. B5 got destroyed, with a shuttle leaving it, in Sleeping in Light - just as was shown in B▓.

[grumbler]

If you ask me, of course it did. B5 got destroyed, with a shuttle leaving it, in Sleeping in Light - just as was shown in B▓.

No, that was Lady Ladira's prophecy that has the shuttle flying out just before the station explodes. From what i remember of the scene in BSquared the scene ends with Sinclair being carried away by the crowd. The whole Garibaldi scene never occurs, unlike every bit of prophecy we see elsewhere in the show (even Vir gets in a prophecy! )

Like the bolted-on tachyon emissions explanation, the "destiny that was aborted" explanation seems tacked on to cover changes that occurred in the main plot.

We will find ot soon enough, but if anyone wants to speculate on this and mull evidence, it is a great topic that will soon be going away, so let's have at it now while there is still time.

[House of Mollari]

We will find ot soon enough, but if anyone wants to speculate on this and mull evidence, it is a great topic that will soon be going away, so let's have at it now while there is still time.

What do you mean grumbler? Being new here i seem to have missed something, I think.

HoM