Babylon 5 - The Movie Collection (DVD)

Before we get started I should let you know that I had never seen a minute of Babylon 5 before this collection landed in my hands, but there is a HUGE audience out there for the show, making these films well worth my time.

If you haven't any clue what this show is about it, join the club, but I can now tell you that it follows the creation of the Babylon space station and the events leading up to, and after that creation.

Treated as an intergalactic United Nations the space station serves as a meeting place, offering neutral ground where different races could get together and hash out the details of the universe. After Babylon space stations 1-3 were sabotaged and the fourth mysteriously disappeared we come to Babylon 5 and our stories begin.

The Babylon 5 movie collection contains five of the televised Babylon films detailing key events in the Babylon timeline and offering up scenarios that take longer than just 45 minutes to tell. If you are like me and have no real clue as to the timeline the Babylon 5 series actually takes you will find these films a good introduction, unfortunately I didn't find them all that interesting. While they managed to hold my attention for the 90 minutes they were on, I couldn't imagine myself watching them again.

The science-fiction genre has grown by leaps and bounds since Star Trek was first introduced to primetime television and the appeal of these shows to audiences is undeniable, and evident as you watch these three films and realize that the budget for each one of them increased dramatically from the first movie, where digital backgrounds and images looked like video games, to the final movie, where they actually looked presentable.

Beginning with the 1993 pilot episode The Gathering followed by its prequel In the Beginning you are introduced to an intriguing storyline of beginnings, explaining where key characters came from and what the future has in store for them. Unfortunately the same intrigue isn't followed in the final three films, which simply offer up scenarios for the characters to fall into just to create a 90 minute movie.

The curious thing about these five movies is that while the visual effects improve dramatically from the first movie to the last, the storyline has the opposite curve as it was much more intriguing and interesting in the earlier movies as compared to the final movies.

It is truly unfortunate they had to work this way considering the visual effects do turn out to be quite amazing in the final movie, A Call to Arms.

As far as special features go, each movie comes with a feature-length commentary featuring creator J. Michael Straczynski and various cast and crew as well as disc five has a special featurette titled Creating the Future, which only runs for about nine minutes but attempts to give insight as to how the creators developed the Babylon 5 future in comparison to present day.

The Babylon 5 series and these movies are not for everyone, but I do think it is nice for fans of the show and those looking to get involved to know Warner Home Video has put together an impressive package for the five Babylon 5 movies that will make it much easier for consumers to watch them over and over again.