Babylon 5: In the Beginning - Part 3

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures I've reached the end of In the Beginning, the Babylon 5 prequel movie that takes place years after the series ends.

This is the last of three parts, but if you'd rather read PART ONE or PART TWO, you can click one of those convenient links. Or maybe even click both of them; you can never have too many tabs open.

Once again I'll be sharing screencaps and SPOILERS as I go through the story writing my opinions and observations, so I'd recommend watching the movie first. In fact I'd recommend watching the first four years of the series first, as there'll be big spoilers for those as well. Blame writer jms for that, it's not my fault!

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Previously, on Babylon 5: In the Beginning:

Quick thinking by tactical genius John Sheridan has given humanity a single morale-boosting victory in the Earth-Minbari War, but other than that it's all been bad news. The difference in technology is so vast that the Earth ships just don't stand any chance at all in a straight fight, and the Minbari are a stubborn, ruthless enemy determined to wipe out the entire human race. There was a chance to end the war, as Sheridan, Franklin and G'Kar were sent on a secret mission to meet with Lenonn, leader of the Anla'Shok, to discuss a truce. But Londo mistook it for a secret meeting with the Narn and ordered an attack, killing the respected Minbari and all hope of peace with him.

And now, the conclusion:

ACT SIX

Act six begins with Emperor Londo looking out at the burning ruins of the city outside. He's taking a short break from the story he's telling to talk about the window instead, and how it's the only one in the palace not blocked off. He couldn't face the idea of catching a glance of the devastation unprepared, but now he spends all his time looking out of the one window that's left anyway.

Whenever Emperor Londo talks he always has my full attention, the guy's all gravitas, so I'm moved by his misery even though I still don't really know what caused all this destruction. Maybe I have to read the Centauri Prime novels for that. I probably should someday.

Then he mentions that he's had four wives in his life and he cared for them all deeply, which is surprising new information. I mean we knew he chose to marry a dancer (mentioned in A Voice in the Wilderness), and then had three arranged marriages afterwards (revealed in The War Prayer), but he never gave me the impression he liked any of them. In fact he threw a party when he got permission to divorce two of them (in season 2's Soul Mates). A party that ended badly when one of his wives attempted to assassinate him there!

Londo turns around and sees that Luc's gotten bored of hearing about wives and windows, and his attention has strayed to the imperial seal in his hands. So he gets back to talking about space battles.

I'm not sure this shot of Londo face superimposed on the action works too well, but eh, it's fine. I'm more bothered by the fact that all this CGI space action is just spaceships, energy beams and explosions. There's no context to any of it, except that there's a war and humanity is getting its ass kicked.

Oh wait, hang on, humanity just got itself another kill! Turns out that ramming Minbari cruisers works just fine, though it's not an ideal strategy due to the loss of your own ship and crew. But if you ever wanted to know the size of a Nova-class dreadnought compared to a Sharlin-class warcruiser, you're in luck here! They're both big spaceships.

I always thought it was a bit of a shame that the Nova-class turns up in this movie, as it's basically the iconic Omega-class with the rotating bit removed and more guns stuck on. I would've preferred if the harsher, more utilitarian design of the Omega was a consequence of the war, indicating that the Earth Alliance focused on producing as many utilitarian but powerful battleships as possible to rebuild their fleet. But nah, it turns out they've been around for decades.
 

Emperor Londo's narration continues, but we get a break from the montage of CGI space battles when it cuts to a live-action shot of civilians hiding in a bunker. A man steps up with a rifle, to the dismay of his wife... and that's it. There isn't even dialogue here. The scene only exists to illustrate Londo's point about humans refusing to give in, and it gets the job done I reckon.

Hey, there's a human ship design that never showed up again after the war! It's the Olympus-class corvette, and it looks absolutely gigantic (though it's apparently smaller than the other two capital ships.)

These particular Earth vessels are currently charging right at a sky-full of Minbari cruisers, even though they can't actually lock onto them due to their stealth tech. I suppose the plan here is to fire everything at once under the theory that some of it will have to hit the enemy ships.

The plan didn't go well.

The trouble I have with scenes like this, is that the Minbari fleets aren't just powerful enough to win every time, they're powerful enough to win quickly... so why is the war dragging on for years? Season four showed a fleet fighting its way to Earth in just a few months and those battles seemed a lot more evenly matched.

The montage also includes this moody planet shot, where the silhouette of an unnamed Minbari stabs the silhouette of an unnamed human. We've had a character delivering a monologue over a montage a few times in Babylon 5, but this is more expensive and elaborate than usual.

This is also the only shot we've ever gotten of ground combat in the Earth-Minbari War. We definitely never get to see Garibaldi or Dwight Schultz's character from The Long Dark in action, which is a bit of a shame.

Anyway, things are looking very bleak right now, so the President of the Earth Alliance herself takes over the movie for a bit to deliver a speech that's as inspiring as it is depressing.

Actress Tricia O'Neill had already appeared once in Babylon 5, as the mother in the episode Believers, but I mostly recognise her as being Captain Rachel Garrett of the USS Enterprise in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Yesterday's Enterprise. She's gone from captain to president in eight years, that's not bad.

The President tells people that the Minbari are probably going to arrive at Earth soon and they're probably going to kill everyone. So she's asking everyone with a ship that's capable of fighting to assemble in orbit to buy time for the evacuation. They're going to try to get as many people to neutral territory as possible and every ten minutes counts. That's the gist of what she says anyway, except she says it better than that, because jms is pretty good at writing speeches.

This is the Battle of the Line and we've heard about it a few times already. A few surviving ships ordered to defend their world at any cost.

Oh damn, that's more than a few ships. People complained about the copy and pasted fleet that showed up in Star Trek: Picard, but I can't actually see the planet behind all the Hyperion-class vessels in this shot.

Though the ships aren't all identical, as if you look very carefully, about a third of the way from the left there's a Starfury with a bent wing flying with just three engines firing.

Delenn's on one of the ships in the Minbari fleet approaching Earth and she's not all that happy about being asked to witness this genocide. She's got all her sad candles out.

I thought that was Morann in the background for a moment but it's actually Coplann, finally making another appearance. Robin Sachs had a great voice so I could tell the moment he opened his mouth. I suppose it makes sense he'd reappear now as he was in the Battle of the Line flashback scenes in Points of Departure.

Even Coplann sounds a bit weary of the fighting right now, and at this point Delenn is only left with questions. But they both need to be in the council chamber with the others as the war reaches its end, so he tells her to bring her questions with her and get moving.

ACT SEVEN

First though she decides to go to Dukhat's sacred place again, which means we get another shot of this door. There are a few familiar sets in this story and a few brand new ones, but the most distracting new set elements for me are the new doors on this Minbari ship. They're very distinctive.

A desperate Delenn asks the two Vorlons for any kind of advice on what to do to stop the war, because they're cutting it kind of close at this point, but they're less than helpful. Especially Ulkesh, who somehow manages to be more menacing in his uncooperative silence.

But as she's leaving Kosh decides to give her a hint, saying that "The truth will point to itself". Well thanks guys, that was very helpful! Then the door behind her opens by itself to let her own, which is a bit creepy. Maybe one of the Vorlons used their telekinesis to press the door controls.

Back at Earth, the human fleet detects a scouting party, which means the rest of the Minbari fleet's not far behind. A squadron leader orders the Starfuries to stay in formation and hold the line...

1-08 - And the Sky Full of Stars

... and it's Jeffrey Sinclair! Not that new viewers would know that. They'd likely be confused why we're following this guy all of a sudden instead of Sheridan. But the people who've been watching for four seasons know that the destruction of the Black Star was the big moment in Sheridan's backstory, and the Battle of the Line was the big moment in Sinclair's.

They weren't able to film any new footage of Michael O'Hare unfortunately, so his role in the movie could only start here, in recycled footage from season 1's And the Sky Full of Stars. Fortunately the CGI's all brand new and looks much better than it did back in that episode.

1-08 - And the Sky Full of Stars

And the Sky Full of Stars gave us a really limited glimpse of the battle, as they couldn't put nearly as many ships on screen together back then. Plus the CGI was given a dreamlike step printing effect that turned it into a bit of a blurry mess, and they weren't using superimposed explosions yet so everything exploded into sparks. It made humanity's desperate last stand look more like a firework display, and not in a good way!

In the Beginning's take on the Battle of the Line has a little more scope to it:

The Minbari ships arrive through hundreds of jump points, and the fight is on.

Sinclair has a few lines to his buddy Mitchell warning him about him flying into a trap, which doesn't make much sense to me in this context, then after that it's just scenes of mayhem and energy beams. Soon even the sound effects cut out to let the music carry it on its own.

The film apparently had a budget of around three million dollars, four times the budget of a typical 40 minute Babylon 5 episode (enough to make a couple of average Deep Space Nine stories), and it seems like a lot of that cash went straight to the CGI. Trouble is I feel like the whole movie's been teasing a proper space battle that I'm still not really getting. I mean sure there's plenty of ships exploding, there's been ships exploding since the teaser, but aside from the Prometheus' fleet opening fire and running for it, the Lexington's fleet being ambushed, and the Centauri ship attacking the listening post, it's all been montages the whole way through. I'm not being carried along with the action, I'm not following Luke Skywalker in his X-Wing or the Enterprise taking on Khan, I'm just observing the flashy (and tragic) light show.

2-01 - Points of Departure

The Grey Council have been watching it too, observing the slaughter of Earth's final defenders on their HD holographic screen. These scenes have been borrowed from Points of Departure and none of the early season two visual effects composited in behind them have been upgraded for the movie. Fortunately all the rubbish explosions are obscured by the actors so the CGI matches pretty well.

Delenn has a chat with Coplann about the humans' bravery, with Coplann pointing out that they're going to die either way, so it's probably just desperation.

Sinclair's Starfury is hit, knocking out his weapons, so he decides to set a course for the main cruiser to ram them. A giant Nova-class ship took out a cruiser in that montage earlier, but somehow I don't think his tiny fighter is going to be more than a fly on its windscreen. Then again, it worked in Return of the Jedi!

2-01 - Points of Departure

Delenn decides that they should bring one of the humans aboard for questioning. They're about to launch the final attack on their world so it'd be nice to have some information about their defences.

This is footage straight from Point of Departure and in that episode there was no hint that Delenn had any doubts about the war. This time though we have more information, plus Kosh's words playing as a voice over, so we know she's actually trying to find some way to end it.

The truth points to itself, so she chooses to grab the fighter that's currently trying to ram their ship.

There's at least one reused clip of the original Amiga CGI from And the Sky Full of Stars here, but for some reason this particular shot of Sinclair's Starfury being captured is all new, and it doesn't really look like an improvement to me.

1-08 - And the Sky Full of Stars

Here's the original shot from four years earlier for comparison.

Coplann finds Delenn standing in the corridor a little later, she's seen too much death at this point and can't stand to be in the council chambers any more. But he's got some news for her: they were using the Triluminary to probe their prisoner and discovered something that the Council needs to see.

ACT EIGHT

1-08 - And the Sky Full of Stars

About an hour ago we got a scene of Delenn joining the Grey Council, with her putting her hand in front of a Triluminary as part of the ceremony and it lighting up. This was footage taken from the episode Atonement, which used the scene to set up the big reveal at the end of the story that Delenn has a human ancestor. But in this movie it's been used to set up a different big reveal borrowed from And the Sky Full of Stars, where the Triluminary reacts to Sinclair in the same way. That's smart use of recycled footage.

The Council believes that it shows that Sinclair has a Minbari soul. In fact they believe he has the soul of Valen himself, the guy who made the prophecy they've already mentioned a bunch of times. And they're exactly right... kind of.

Right from the first scene with Lenonn I've been wondering why this movie has had so much talk of the Shadows and the prophecy, when it has absolutely nothing to do with the war. I forgot that it has everything to do with the ending.

This screencap is from a new scene filmed for this episode, with an out-of-focus stand-in playing the role of Sinclair in the background. Though hang on, we've already seen what Delenn looked like during Sinclair's capture and she had a triangle on her forehead.

1-08 - And the Sky Full of Stars

I suppose it's not really a continuity error, as we saw in Signs and Portents that the triangle likes to come and go on its own.

It seems incredibly convenient that the random pilot they captured turned out to be Valen, but that's a time loop for you. Sinclair could never have been Valen if they hadn't picked him up, as it's the connection he forms here with the Minbari that sets him up for that destiny. And Delenn would've never been born if she hadn't chosen him, so there's no timeline where she could've picked anyone else.

This does raise the question of what would've happened if Sheridan and Franklin had been interrogated earlier, seeing as they were on the ship with a Triluminary on as well. Points of Departure gives a little information that the movie misses out, saying that the Grey Council captured more humans afterwards and they all had Minbari souls as well. Which makes sense as the Triluminary is actually part of an alien device designed to transform humans into Minbari. It's reacting to their human DNA, not their Minbari souls, and that's why it lit up when it was near Delenn as well, as she's Sinclair's descendant.

The Minbari decide to wipe Sinclair's memory of his interrogation so that the other Minbari don't find out, and then prepare to surrender. Minbari don't kill Minbari, even if they're currently in an alien body, and Valen's reincarnation as a human must be a sign that the race is important to the upcoming Shadow War.

So that's the end of Emperor Londo's story. The war's over now, everyone's gone home. Luc wants to know what happened when people found out about Sinclair being Valen, but Londo explains that he can't expect to hear all the stories at once. He'll have to tune into Babylon 5 season 1, starting tomorrow at 7 PM ET, only on TNT.

But he does give them bit of an epilogue, and we get a clip of the Earth President announcing that they've approved funding for the Babylon Station, part of a project designed to make sure nothing like this can ever happen again. It is, she believes, their last best hope for peace.

And then the Babylon Station blew up during construction. It takes a while to work these things out sometimes.

We've already seen that Babylon 4 was green and Babylon 5 is blue, so now we know that Babylon Station was red a pattern is definitely starting to emerge. It seems likely that when they got started on Babylon 2 they gathered together all the larger pieces of wreckage that had survived in reasonable shape and told their painters that they'd have to start repainting it all orange. That's like 150,000 litres of orange paint just for the ball at the front!

As the Emperor's audience gets up to leave, Londo tells the woman that he would've liked to go on a walk on a beach with her for five minutes, but he apparently can't.

You know, something's just occurred to me. There's two cute kids in this movie that get to live happily ever after. Nothing bad happens to them at all, they just get to hear a nice story from the Emperor. That's pretty unusual for jms, as he typically has their parents murder them, or has them die from a horrific plague, or something like that.

But before she's safely out the door, Lyssa finally speaks up to ask if Sheridan and Delenn had a happy ending too. She doesn't care about Franklin, G'Kar, Morann, Sinclair, Ivanova, or any of the other characters, just those two. Up to this point the movie could've been shown right after Atonement and it would've given away nothing new, but Londo goes and drops some late season 4 spoilers, saying that Sheridan became the president of a great alliance and Delenn was always at his side! (Everything else she's achieved in the meantime is irrelevant). But their story isn't over yet and their fate remains to be seen.

Then once the kids are finally gone, Londo gets a few drinks and puts the TV on.

It's Sheridan and Delenn from the flash-forward in War Without End, Part Two! One final surprise bit of recycled footage. They're in his dungeon right now, awaiting their execution. So the movie ends on a cliffhanger that isn't resolved until the end of season three! That's... an interesting choice.

For people who've already seen the first three seasons this cliffhanger actually answers a question they may have had about the movie: how long does Londo have left before G'Kar comes in and chokes him to death. The answer is: exactly one hour. It turns out that Londo chose this particular story, about Sheridan and Delenn, and people making brave sacrifices to save their planet, because he knew the whole time that he would have to sacrifice himself to save them very soon.

The scene also answers another question, something a bit more important to the overall plot: did Sheridan change the future by defying fate and going to Z'ha'dum? The clues have all pointed to 'no', but here we get absolute confirmation. Everything is playing out exactly as we saw, nothing has changed.

Then the camera pulls back away from a window for a change, and that's the end.


CONCLUSION

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Prequels aren't everyone's favourite thing, but for some reason they just keep on making them. Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Prometheus, Stargate Origins, Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome, Star Trek: Enterprise... Babylon 5: In the Beginning. They offer you a chance to see how everyone had already met each other when they were at high school, they answer questions you may have never asked, and they leave you wondering 'If this was so important how come no one ever mentioned it again?'

In the Beginning does commit a few prequel crimes, mostly by sending Sheridan, Franklin and G'Kar on a secret mission where they also meet Delenn, but I think it actually avoids feeling like an interloper in the overall arc. It helps that it actually has pieces of a few episodes grafted into it; it's hard for a scene to contradict something that happened in the series when it's actually a clip taken from the series. This movie isn't about flipping everything on its head, it's about finally letting fans see the Earth-Minbari War that's had so much influence on the series so far.

Though the end result is a movie that tells its audience things they already know while showing them things they've already seen, and some people might consider that to be a bit of a flaw. Personally I'm really glad it avoids the 'everything you know is a lie' trope, because I don't want everything I know to be a lie! I'm cool with learning new information that alters my understanding of events, but when a series blatantly retcons its backstory for the sake of a surprise twist I start losing interest. I'm looking at you, Doctor Who.

Sure In the Beginning comes off a bit like one of those compilation movies made by stitching a series of episodes together into one story, but I think that the majority of it is actually new footage and it puts all the familiar flashbacks into their proper context for the first time. It's definitely not a clip show like Star Trek: The Next Generation's Shades of Grey. It's more like Battlestar Galactica's The Plan, except with more of a plan, and the recycled footage from separate episodes shot by different directors over a span of four years actually blends fairly seamlessly.

It does need Emperor Londo's narration to work though, because it's not really a traditional kind of story. You can tell that by the way the main human protagonist is introduced late and disappears way before the end, because he's just not relevant to events anymore. It's not any one character's story, it's actually the most accurate fictional historical war drama ever made... assuming that you trust the narrator. I think we can, because we've already see a few of these scenes before, and Present Day Delenn and G'Kar vouch for it at the start. In fact I got the feeling Londo's insight into what was going on in secret Grey Council meetings is a lot more limited than what we actually see on screen, though who even knows with that guy? Does he know that Sinclair went back in time and became Valen? All I can be sure of is that the guy's got so much gravitas and he's such a good storyteller, that I couldn't help but give a damn about everything he said.

Londo keeps switching perspective to show both sides of the conflict at once, and both sides are fairly sympathetic. No one's fighting for personal greed, or power, or conquest. Luc wanted a story of bravery and heroes and villains, but he only really gets two of those things here. Lefcourt and Jankowski were arrogant and foolish, but they didn't intend any harm. Fontaine had Franklin's house searched and locked him up for the crime of 'not helping us develop horrific bioweapons', but it was the Minbari who set the terms as 'us or them' and he was playing by their rules. Coplann and Morann shied away from taking on a serious threat while getting way too into beating up an enemy who couldn't defend themselves, but even they aren't really portrayed as villains. They were just stuck on the ride along with everyone else. In fact I think the biggest villain is Ulkesh, just because he was rude to Delenn and I already know what he's like. The dude wouldn't even tell her his name!

The movie's really about the people involved learning the hard way that arrogance, a lack of information, and a failure to communicate can combine to cause catastrophes. I mean if the Minbari would've just picked up the phone the war could've ended at any point. In the end it's an origin story for Babylon 5 station, showing why it exists, while also teasing the main conflict in the show and introducing many of the major players. In fact on paper it seems like an ideal place for new viewers to start, especially as most would agree it's a better movie than The Gathering (7.7 vs 6.5 on IMDb).

The trouble with putting In the Beginning first however, is that it spoils things like Londo becoming Emperor, Delenn's new appearance, Sheridan and Delenn getting together and having a son, and Sheridan being president of a new Interstellar Alliance. Plus on top of that it also spoils the mysteries that build up during the first season, and that's one of the best things about those early episodes! So much in season one is linked to the war, Delenn and Sinclair's arcs in particular, and watching this first means you never have to wonder about what's really going on. Sure Babylon 5 has a habit of dropping huge spoilers for later events to get you curious about how things are going to get to that point, and you could argue it merely transforms the 'hole in your mind arc', making it about Sinclair finding out what the audience already knows. But that just makes it even more disappointing in the end, because Sinclair gets reassigned to Minbar before anything comes of it! Plus there's a big difference between hinting at things to come and referencing things that existing viewers already know about, and people are sensitive to that. Things like Sheridan and Delenn in the dungeon at the end can make new viewers feel left out and confused, or worse, entirely unable to take the scene seriously. I've read reviews by new viewers who were put off by the movie, feeling that a lot of it was just extra backstory for fans that leaves too much unexplained.

On the other hand, there's an argument to be made that watching the movie at the end of season four is leaving it too late. By season three the focus of the series had shifted and so much had happened that it seemed a bit weird that episodes like A Late Delivery from Avalon and Atonement were going all the way back to the war. Plus the film keeps mentioning the Vorlons, Valen's prophecy, and the coming darkness, and that all stopped being relevant six episodes into season four. The movie does nothing to lead into season five either, besides a mention of Sheridan becoming president. So maybe the best time to watch this actually is actually before The Gathering... but only when you're ready for a rewatch after you've already seen the whole series once. It's a good intro to a second lap, giving you a bit more context for events so you can understand what Delenn is up to, why so many anti-alien groups keep popping up on Earth, and just how isolated the different races were before the Babylon Project.

Anyway I really liked the movie, even if I've been struggling a little to figure why it works so well for me. I mean besides the good acting, good writing, good directing, and the epic story that ties strongly into the first three years of the series without contradicting anything. It helps is that jms kept his sense of humour in check this time. Not that the film's humourless or dry, but any comedy comes from the Londo framing device, which is always tinged with tragedy. It also helps that they had a bit more money to throw around than usual. Though I think the real secret to why this was so compelling for me is that Londo's a good storyteller and I already had an emotional investment in the characters.

PTEN's collapse screwed up the five year arc a little, but it also gave us this, so things didn't actually turn out so bad overall. Though now I want to see what happened in the Dilgar War!

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NEXT WEEK

The Babylon 5 movies will return with Thirdspace at some distant point in the future. But next on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm covering the first episode of the series' ultimate season: No Compromises.

Thanks for reading all those words! You should reward yourself by leaving your own thoughts in the comment box below, you've earned it.