The words “Faith manages” was in the closing text dedication of the episode “The Deconstruction of Falling Stars,” which was shot after Babylon 5 was officially renewed for a fifth season that allowed J. Michael Straczynski to complete his novel for television. I think Babylon 5 is very much responsible for the trend of serialized storytelling that followed it and can be clearly seen in hit shows from the 2000s like Lost and the reimagined Battlestar Galactica. When Babylon 5 first premiered thirty years ago with the original pilot version of The Gathering in 1993, which sadly has yet to be released stateside on any official home video format, there was nothing else on American television like it. I imported my copy on Laserdisc from Japan twice, one in the 1990s and once a year ago because I am a fan of the show. I even have the VHS recording where I literally edited out the commercials in real time during the broadcast as I did during the entire series because I loved the idea of the novel for television. Hearing about it at Creation Conventions, which were the forerunner to the Comic Con in nearly every city, back then you still had to dig to get your sci-fi fix. Star Wars was still slowly being revived and Star Trek was the dominant science fiction and space opera franchise on television. Like Star Trek, Babylon 5 has both elements of science fiction and space opera within it, but not to disparage anyone and anything else, Babylon 5 was meticulously crafted by J. Michael Straczynski to have a definitive beginning, middle and end. Airing in the states in syndication on the Primetime Entertainment Network or PTEN, a kind of forerunner to the now defunct The WB Network, Babylon 5 aired in New York City on WORTV channel 9 on Friday Nights at 8pm. It made for an awesome double feature with The X-Files that aired originally on Friday Nights on FOX. I would just watch/record one and then passively watch the other, but in 1995 WORTV Channel 9 became an affiliate of UPN aka the United Paramount Network, launching with Star Trek Voyager and whether it was by chance or not, one had to work at finding new episodes of the series so I remember watching in the afternoon and or late at night often because I would want to get the best possible recording as I edited out the commercials in real time and if I messed up and pressed pause too soon or too late, I had only one more chance to get it right or wait for the eventual repeat. In the States Babylon 5 had a loyal cult following at the time in part because Mr. Straczynski made himself available to fans by posting to Usenet and America Online. Having Harlan Ellison as a creative consultant helped because Harlan had a regular weekly bit on SciFi Buzz on what was then the Sci-Fi Channel, now known as Syfy, and when Harlan talks people listen. Eventually Sci-Fi had another magazine type show called Sci-Fi Vortex hosted by Roger Lodge and Mr. Straczynski, Bruce Boxleitner, and Bill Mumy were among the guests that appeared on the show. It was in the third season of Babylon 5 that I think people started to take more notice and slowly merchandise in the form of action figures, micro machines, pencil sharpeners in the shape of spaceships from the show and eventually domestic U.S. distributed videos on VHS and Laserdisc were released as well as DVD, but always with a bit of caution. It is safe to say that Warner Brothers took a measured approach toward this franchise, which succeeded in nearly every arena it entered. I reviewed the show professionally when the fifth season aired on TNT following the end of PTEN and continued through the TNT movies and Crusade.
When Babylon 5 was shown letterboxed in the evening on Sci-Fi Channel, one could truly appreciate the symmetry and craft of how Mr. Straczynski built this series up until by the time one reaches season four if you were not hooked before, you will be I can assure you. My favorite episode remains War Without End Parts 1 and 2 from Season Three. It is a great example of how the tapestry Mr. Straczynski built yielded an abundant crop of absolutely fantastic genre storytelling. Through a character on The Big Bang Theory, Chuck Lorre implied Babylon 5 was derivative. I disagree because everything stands on the shoulders on something else. Star Wars was influenced by Flash Gordon, Akira Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress, Frank Herbert’s Dune and Isaac Asimov’s Foundation with the “Hero’s Journey” archetype the late mythologist Joseph Campbell and Campbell drew from at least in part by the work of Carl Jung, but please don’t soil this epic review with mentions of how Hitler used Jung to justify some of his insane rhetoric. Lucas used imagery from Triumph of the Will for the closing award ceremony at the end of Star Wars and the Empire was akin to space fascists, but Lucas was and is not an antisemite and neither was Joe Campbell. Babylon 5 drew inspiration from the classics of science fiction and fantasy books and cinema to include Lensman, The Lord of the Rings, Forbidden Planet, A Canticle for Leibowitz, the mythology of H. P. Lovecraft and many other things, but Straczynski made Babylon 5 original onto itself and gave science fiction fans another universe to play in and it is a beautiful thing. It is not what you do, but how you do it. Outside of Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers and Babylon 5: The Lost Tales, I feel like the franchise has been this sleeping giant to the point where I wondered if Babylon 5 would ever return and if so, would J. Michael Straczynski be there to shepherd it because with very few exceptions, a lot of revivals failed to capture what made them so great to begin with for more reasons than I could list here, but it is easy to name where a revival worked and even expanded upon the source material in unexpected ways like David Lynch’s and Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks: The Return aka Twin Peaks: A Limited Event Series and George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road. Now I can add a new title to that list with the release of J. Michael Straczynski’s Babylon 5: The Road Home.
I was so pleasantly surprised at what Straczynski accomplished with Babylon 5: The Road Home. In my humble opinion, it is arguably the best of the Babylon 5 movies because it stays true to everything Babylon 5 was and still is and still manages to bring something new and unexpected. It also pays great respect to those who went “beyond the veil” before this film was produced with voice talent that captures the essence of the characters in as good away as I think can be done without digital trickery. The animation style is similar to the style Dave Filoni used on Star Wars: Resistance, but Babylon 5: The Road Home looks better and it works too. On 4K Ultra High Definition Blu-ray Disc, the picture quality was jaw dropping. It has to be seen first hand to truly appreciate it. No YouTube Clip or still shot captures the level of detail and rich color that UHD BD brings to the home video viewer. The 1080p full HD Blu-ray Disc version that is also included within the black plastic case and also looks good, but on an OLED display in 4K I cannot state enough just how amazing it looks. It is demo worthy in my humble opinion. The film is encoded on disc in HDR (10) and features a well mixed English DTS-HD Master Audio Soundtrack for both discs. Spanish Language Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and English Subtitles for the deaf and hearing impaired are also included along with French and Spanish Language Subtitles encoded on both discs as options.
A feature length audio commentary with Series Creator J. Michael Straczynski, Star Bruce Boxleitner and the animated film’s Supervising Producer Rick Morales is included on both the 4K UHD BD and the 1080p Full HD Blu-ray Disc presentations and it is both retrospective and screen specific with Rick Morales pointing out how Mr. Straczynski’s background as an animated TV series writer on programs like The Real Ghostbusters helped the production because J. Michael Straczynski knows professionally what animated television writing needs and he can provide that instinctively. Indeed the attention to crafting the animated feature with returning cast members Bruce Boxleitner, Claudia Christian, Peter Jurasik, Bill Mumy and Patricia Tallman working with the new talent portraying the characters whose original counterparts have departed, but it almost feels like their spirits have given their blessing. There is a joke or two that I think kind of breaks the fourth wall, but not in an obnoxious way. A featurette (17:57) entitled Babylon 5 Forever is also included on the 1080p Blu-ray Disc, but not on the 4K. Finally a Digital Copy code for a free limited time only redeemable streaming edition is included with the code on the insert within the keep case, but I cannot type about it now because while you can redeem it early, you cannot watch it until street date, which is on August 15th courtesy of Warner Brothers Animation and Warner Brothers Studio Home Entertainment.
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(C) Copyright 2023 By Mark A. Rivera
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