Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

First off: the special effects have never looked better, especially given how bad they looked on the DVD release of the original series. That said, this is a disappointing offering. The low budget of this direct-to-DVD release really shows; the scenes in which characters talk about the people who won't be able to make the 10-year anniversary of the Interstellar Alliance are painful. Okay, the actors who played G'Kar and Dr. Franklin have passed on, so that's understandable. But then Garibaldi's trying to make it but might not be able to get away from Mars; Emperor Mollari doesn't want to leave the palace and sends a Centauri prince in his stead; and then it turns out Delenn is indisposed too (undoubtedly her turn as Crazy French Lady on "Lost" has raised Mira Furlan's asking price significantly). From the original show, then, we get Boxleitner, Scoggins, and Peter Woodward (who, in case you don't recognize the name, plays the technomage Galen); the rest are unknowns. (Props to Keegan MacIntosh, who plays the Centauri prince, for at least essaying something of an accent.) Christopher Franke returns to do the music and uses rather less of that "broinnngggg" synth sound he used to use. The sets are spare; one scene takes place entirely in the "viewing room" of a Minbari starship, i.e., an empty soundstage lit with a couple of spotlights. The Babylon 5 station itself consists of a couple of rooms and a corridor and is so stripped down that it's only recognizable because of its weird door shapes. All the sets look virtually abandoned due to the almost total lack of extras. There are fake people in the vast B5 docking bay -- standing stock still -- and there's a huge crowd scene entirely off-camera. In one sequence, it's clear the wardrobe budget was tight, too; they couldn't afford to spring for vacuum suits, leaving Sheridan piloting a Starfury in a suit (shades of "Gattaca"). Lampshades are hung, but it's impossible to ignore all the corners that were cut. I could still be sucked in if the stories were any good, but unfortunately they are not. Most of the actors are a little rusty or stiff (except for Woodward, who is great) and both stories are very slowly paced, with little action -- and in some places they are padded beyond credulity. I was ready to throw a shoe at Lochley and the priest with their incessant reiteration of each other's conclusions. There's a stunning space battle sequence and another dramatic CGI scene in New York, but the space battle is only a few seconds long and both scenes turn out to be, essentially, dream sequences. Footage is reused in flashbacks to things we just saw a few minutes previously. What we have here would have been a single episode of the original show (at 40-something minutes), and the utterly silly first story would have been the B-plot, just a problem to annoy Lochley as she prepared for Sheridan's arrival -- and it would have been far better that way. Even so, it would have been only an average episode at best. I was a big supporter of B5 when it was originally on the air and still have my original "Accept No Substitutes" shirt that JMS offered to GEnie members. I am sure that JMS did the best he could with the resources he had, and can see that the series has the potential to improve in future installments as the actors settle in and they have the budget to build some additional sets. Unfortunately, this first release is not exactly going to bring people back for more. It may be argued that even low-budget B5 is better than no B5, but really, the show (while groundbreaking for its time) has been more than surpassed by its successors, any one of which you could watch instead (Firefly? Galactica?). Since this release fails to capture much of the original show's feel, it's not really even good for nostalgia. Two stars: one for attempting it at all, a second for the excellent CGI work (which doesn't look low-budget).