The Road Home (Babylon 5)
Aug. 25th, 2023 12:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnAnimated movie of Babylon 5 with many of the old actors who are still alive. I think my verdict is: I am glad we have this movie; I don't think it's a good place to start watching B5; I liked it a lot; a few parts dragged and a few parts I really loved.
-I liked most of the new voice actors who were brought in to replace those who aren't still alive. G'Kar's was particularly great, and I really liked Sinclair's too. Delenn's was the exception -- I felt like she was never able to quite pull it off.
-I felt like a lot of the humans didn't look very much like their live-version selves, specifically because their faces were drawn as elongated from what they actually were in real life. I felt like this was most pronounced for Lochley, who has what I would call a reasonably square-shaped face that became quite elongated in animation, and I would never have recognized her had it not been that I had the subtitles on. I also didn't really recognize Sheridan, which annoyed me, but there's a specific reason there: Bruce Boxleitner reminds me of someone I knew who died not long before I started watching B5, and I suppose it would have been hard to make a drawing that wasn't considerably more detailed that reminded me of this person.
-Something I was surprised about is that the movie doesn't make any move towards dealing with any of the complexities that were left behind by the series. (LENNIER, AHEM.) It clearly did not want to get into that; it just wanted to be its own thing, and possibly spawn more stories. Which is great! I wanted some more complexity, but I can see how at this point, the former made more sense.
-That shot of alt!B5 blowing up!!!! :( :( :( :( That's... the other end of the prophecy, isn't it...
-That whole sequence/alt-universe with Sinclair being all "you know what a last stand is?" and how Garibaldi is like "Nice guy, what's his name again?" "Can't remember" and G'Kar and Lyta only being able to do the last lever together as they were shot to death and, and, IT WAS JUST ALL GREAT AND ALSO AWFUL
-Ivanova and Londo were great together, although I guess I had imagined she would feel a little... more intensely?... about seeing Sheridan. But I guess given that the world's about to end and she's extremely drunk, that makes sense.
-when I realized the Vorlons were going to hit the Earth with the Moon I was like, omg!! That is uniquely horrible and also totally sounds like something the Vorlons would do! But I repeat myself.
-Gotta admit that during the scene where the moon actually does hit the earth I was super distracted by going "...would it actually work like that?? It would not actually work like that, would it??" (Let's just chalk it down to the Vorlons being Magic and Not Bound to Actual Physics.)
-Also gotta admit I laughed when Sheridan was all "Lost in s--" and Zathras was like "can't say that, copyright is powerful!" Yes, it was super corny, and I will blame the Locked Tomb books and that they have significantly upped my tolerance for breaking-fourth-wall anachronistic references :P
-The plotline of Sheridan finding his way home through ~love~ I was very worried I would hate, but the plotline was saved by it not being his love alone that did it (ugh), but Delenn following him. That, I could get behind.
-At least it did not, like Fringe, reference "the quantum entanglement of love." In fact the quantum stuff, while sort of cringey, was not... actually too bad. Though my bar is very low at this point.
-The line where Lochley says quantum particles are like people in a relationship and "can't commit" and Sheridan looks at her, okay... I totally want the backstory on THAT. (My headcanon is that Lochley couldn't commit to Sheridan, and she's doing a bit of self-deprecation there, with a person who would get the joke... I don't think this reflects on Sheridan, because in canon he's pretty good at commitment.)
-omg, bb!alt!Sheridan who hasn't encountered the Shadows or the Shadow War is so YOUNG, and you can see primary!Sheridan thinking the same thing
-Of course you lied to alt!Sheridan about having heard the name Z'ha'dum, alt!Delenn. If we get a reboot can Delenn get called on her crap a LITTLE more??
-Oh, but: basically the whole movie was worth it, for me, to get the alt!ensemble B5 shots at the end, where Sheridan is talking to Delenn, Sheridan ( :D ) and Lochley ( :D :D ) are bickering, Londo and G'Kar are scuffling, Lyta is trying to teach Lennier telepathy. (I just wish Vir had been in that scene, but I can see that sticking in another character would have been tough, and I'll just be happy I got me some Lennier.)
I hadn't even realized until then that THIS is what I had been missing the whole rest of the movie -- this is what B5 is to me, it's not any one of them, but it's all of them together. And I think it was not an accident that JMS ended not with primary!Sheridan or even primary!Sheridan/Delenn alone, but all of our ensemble together. <3 But also, this is what the rest of the movie was leading up to: the title The Road Home, I think, is referring not just to primary!Sheridan's journey home, but for the viewers' journey here, to the home of B5, and showing that it can be home even when it's different. (I suppose this was intended to set up the reboot which... is the reboot still defunct? Because now I WANT IT like BURNING) <333333
-Also!! This movie is eligible for Yuletide, isn't it?? Yeah! ALL THE ALT UNIVERSE FIC, I WANT IT
-I liked most of the new voice actors who were brought in to replace those who aren't still alive. G'Kar's was particularly great, and I really liked Sinclair's too. Delenn's was the exception -- I felt like she was never able to quite pull it off.
-I felt like a lot of the humans didn't look very much like their live-version selves, specifically because their faces were drawn as elongated from what they actually were in real life. I felt like this was most pronounced for Lochley, who has what I would call a reasonably square-shaped face that became quite elongated in animation, and I would never have recognized her had it not been that I had the subtitles on. I also didn't really recognize Sheridan, which annoyed me, but there's a specific reason there: Bruce Boxleitner reminds me of someone I knew who died not long before I started watching B5, and I suppose it would have been hard to make a drawing that wasn't considerably more detailed that reminded me of this person.
-Something I was surprised about is that the movie doesn't make any move towards dealing with any of the complexities that were left behind by the series. (LENNIER, AHEM.) It clearly did not want to get into that; it just wanted to be its own thing, and possibly spawn more stories. Which is great! I wanted some more complexity, but I can see how at this point, the former made more sense.
-That shot of alt!B5 blowing up!!!! :( :( :( :( That's... the other end of the prophecy, isn't it...
-That whole sequence/alt-universe with Sinclair being all "you know what a last stand is?" and how Garibaldi is like "Nice guy, what's his name again?" "Can't remember" and G'Kar and Lyta only being able to do the last lever together as they were shot to death and, and, IT WAS JUST ALL GREAT AND ALSO AWFUL
-Ivanova and Londo were great together, although I guess I had imagined she would feel a little... more intensely?... about seeing Sheridan. But I guess given that the world's about to end and she's extremely drunk, that makes sense.
-when I realized the Vorlons were going to hit the Earth with the Moon I was like, omg!! That is uniquely horrible and also totally sounds like something the Vorlons would do! But I repeat myself.
-Gotta admit that during the scene where the moon actually does hit the earth I was super distracted by going "...would it actually work like that?? It would not actually work like that, would it??" (Let's just chalk it down to the Vorlons being Magic and Not Bound to Actual Physics.)
-Also gotta admit I laughed when Sheridan was all "Lost in s--" and Zathras was like "can't say that, copyright is powerful!" Yes, it was super corny, and I will blame the Locked Tomb books and that they have significantly upped my tolerance for breaking-fourth-wall anachronistic references :P
-The plotline of Sheridan finding his way home through ~love~ I was very worried I would hate, but the plotline was saved by it not being his love alone that did it (ugh), but Delenn following him. That, I could get behind.
-At least it did not, like Fringe, reference "the quantum entanglement of love." In fact the quantum stuff, while sort of cringey, was not... actually too bad. Though my bar is very low at this point.
-The line where Lochley says quantum particles are like people in a relationship and "can't commit" and Sheridan looks at her, okay... I totally want the backstory on THAT. (My headcanon is that Lochley couldn't commit to Sheridan, and she's doing a bit of self-deprecation there, with a person who would get the joke... I don't think this reflects on Sheridan, because in canon he's pretty good at commitment.)
-omg, bb!alt!Sheridan who hasn't encountered the Shadows or the Shadow War is so YOUNG, and you can see primary!Sheridan thinking the same thing
-Of course you lied to alt!Sheridan about having heard the name Z'ha'dum, alt!Delenn. If we get a reboot can Delenn get called on her crap a LITTLE more??
-Oh, but: basically the whole movie was worth it, for me, to get the alt!ensemble B5 shots at the end, where Sheridan is talking to Delenn, Sheridan ( :D ) and Lochley ( :D :D ) are bickering, Londo and G'Kar are scuffling, Lyta is trying to teach Lennier telepathy. (I just wish Vir had been in that scene, but I can see that sticking in another character would have been tough, and I'll just be happy I got me some Lennier.)
I hadn't even realized until then that THIS is what I had been missing the whole rest of the movie -- this is what B5 is to me, it's not any one of them, but it's all of them together. And I think it was not an accident that JMS ended not with primary!Sheridan or even primary!Sheridan/Delenn alone, but all of our ensemble together. <3 But also, this is what the rest of the movie was leading up to: the title The Road Home, I think, is referring not just to primary!Sheridan's journey home, but for the viewers' journey here, to the home of B5, and showing that it can be home even when it's different. (I suppose this was intended to set up the reboot which... is the reboot still defunct? Because now I WANT IT like BURNING) <333333
-Also!! This movie is eligible for Yuletide, isn't it?? Yeah! ALL THE ALT UNIVERSE FIC, I WANT IT
no subject
Date: 2023-08-26 08:33 am (UTC)Of course you lied to alt!Sheridan about having heard the name Z'ha'dum, alt!Delenn.
As I said in my own review, it's not B5 if Delenn doesn't lie to Sheridan. :)
re: Lochley and Sheridan - as you kow, my own headcanon is she's the one who broke up with him, though that at this point they were both ready to, it's just that he'd have felt like a promise breaker if he'd made the first move. Anyway, given Lochley is probably the B5 character who most often shows up in the various spin-off attempts (she's in Crusade and in the majority of the tv movies), I think it's safe to say JMS would put her in a reboot version since he evidently became fond of the character, and due to her late arrival on the scene there's a lot still to explore. Here's my crossing my fingers that Lochley gets the "stays with the loyalist side of things and thus we see why anyone not a Clark lackey would" storyline I speculated about when rewatching s4 last year.
I so hope the movie is eligigble! I, too, want all the Alt Universe fic!
no subject
Date: 2023-08-27 03:07 am (UTC)yes! I was thinking of your lovely story and went back to reread it <3333 -- from Lochley's point of view, though, if she is the one who broke up with him, maybe she thinks she's incapable of committing?
Here's my crossing my fingers that Lochley gets the "stays with the loyalist side of things and thus we see why anyone not a Clark lackey would" storyline I speculated about when rewatching s4 last year.
Ohhhh that would be great!! I do agree that he would put her in -- I loved her character but she was a small enough part of B5 that I'm always a bit surprised to see her show up in everything else :)
I so hope the movie is eligigble! I, too, want all the Alt Universe fic!
Surely it counts for non-primary-universe characters under the same rules as comics with alt-universes... though I hear that they have had hard times getting those through in the past...
no subject
Date: 2023-08-28 07:05 pm (UTC)- "No one reads the press releases!" And this is the last time President of the Alliance John Sheridan skips reading the briefing / press release (one hopes).
- How in 2023 do you do Chris Franke '90s synth wrong? Have you no samples to mooch from, music squad?
Post-viewing thoughts: your comment about the Power of Ensemble resonated a lot. My favorite parts were the parts that had multiple characters interacting (usually without Sheridan, sorry Sheridan, I have favorites). JMS likes sticking two characters into a scene, but to pull that off in animation, the animation and the voice acting need to "click", I guess, in a way that worked better for me in larger groups. Or something.
I hope your interpretation of the title is on to something, because a.) I am ambiguous about a reboot, b.) "Delenn is Sheridan's home / anchor / person who will go out on a limb for him" was thoroughly covered by S3 and early S4. We got hit with that in "War Without End", pretty much beat for beat as it played out in B5:tRH; Delenn spectacularly backed Sheridan in the mid-S3 secession arc; Sheridan's answer to Lorien's "what do you have worth living for?" question was, of course, "Delenn." Turning away from that pairing in an alternate universe would be... wow, that changes... some things.
My spur-of-the-moment questions by the end of the final AU were, roughly in order: "If Lyta's here, where's Talia? And [character from pilot episode who didn't return]? I need to know what happened to the previous Babylon stations, especially Babylon 4, assuming they even got up to five in this universe... wait a second, how did the Earth-Minbari war end in this timeline?!"
Sticking a (presumptive) stable time travel arc into your epic Shadow / Vorlon / First Ones' War arc, and then delaying or eliminating the epic war arc, has consequences.
For reasons, I reread a decent chunk of Force Over Distance in the last week or two, so my reaction to the infodump on Sheridan-the-"quantum"-observer playing havoc with branching timelines was, predictably, that some fictional characters would think pulling scenarios from other timelines is a great plan they should get working on post-haste.
Less excited about smashing the Moon into the Earth since several authors got there first. I was more interested in Ivanova and Londo in that section. Of all the characters toasting the bitter end together... yes, it works. I also was wondering if the tsunami bit was specifically San Diego, since JMS has, ah, a bit of a grudge against the city.
no subject
Date: 2023-08-30 05:51 am (UTC)- "No one reads the press releases!"
Hahahaha I laughed ruefully at that, because he's so right. I bet JMS is pulling from his own life there :P
- How in 2023 do you do Chris Franke '90s synth wrong? Have you no samples to mooch from, music squad?
Ha, I need to turn in my music card but I don't think I pay enough attention to TV/movie music! Though to be fair I was also watching it while A. was trying to sleep so had to have the sound somewhat down.
We got hit with that in "War Without End", pretty much beat for beat as it played out in B5:tRH;
Oh yeah, that's true :) Well, maybe that's why I liked it? :) Cause I LOVED WWE.
Delenn spectacularly backed Sheridan in the mid-S3 secession arc;
True, but I feel like this is less impressive because I don't think backing him then had any risk or negative consequences for her!
Sheridan's answer to Lorien's "what do you have worth living for?" question was, of course, "Delenn."
Yeah, I have always thought that was a little silly.
Turning away from that pairing in an alternate universe would be... wow, that changes... some things.
I mean, I don't think he's turning away from the pairing! It seemed pretty clear that Sheridan gets together with Delenn in the alt universe too... eventually. I'm just saying that I think he understands that the ensemble is more important than the pairing <3
If Lyta's here, where's Talia?
I wondered that too!! Wait, was Ivanova in that last ensemble scene? Hm!
For reasons, I reread a decent chunk of Force Over Distance in the last week or two, so my reaction to the infodump on Sheridan-the-"quantum"-observer playing havoc with branching timelines was, predictably, that some fictional characters would think pulling scenarios from other timelines is a great plan they should get working on post-haste.
Ha! Well, always an excellent idea to read FoD :) In salon, it has been pointed out that Frederick the Great and Maria Theresa should not be trusted with branching timelines, they would definitely decide this was great :P
Less excited about smashing the Moon into the Earth since several authors got there first.
I was wondering if JMS had watched Moonfall, a really dumb blockbuster that I only know about because my friend who tells me to watch movies told me that this one was so dumb that it wrapped back around to entertaining. (I still haven't watched it, though.)
Remind me of the grudge JMS has against San Diego?
no subject
Date: 2023-08-31 03:30 am (UTC)Or because you do lots of music, you're more forgiving of alternate takes on themes! Keeping the sound down might also impact the experience.
I mean, I don't think he's turning away from the pairing! It seemed pretty clear that Sheridan gets together with Delenn in the alt universe too... eventually. I'm just saying that I think he understands that the ensemble is more important than the pairing <3
I could go either way on the odds they get together in the final alternate universe! Perhaps I am projecting my own increasingly flexible approach to canon. I might need to rewatch - oh no! Not a rewatch! - to get a feel for whether there's a pairing-vs-ensemble flavor going on, or if I'm just sad that this was very John-focused, and relied on Delenn showing up for John, when I would have enjoyed a wider array of timelines. Well, as you said: this may be eligible for Yuletide, and who knows how many AUs one could crowbar in, thanks to the central premise.
In salon, it has been pointed out that Frederick the Great and Maria Theresa should not be trusted with branching timelines, they would definitely decide this was great :P
Let's play Imperial Succession, but with a multiverse? They would enjoy that. It's unlikely anyone caught up in their wars would! :-)
Could've been Moonfall. The wiki page is... well, that sure sounds like a B-movie.
Remind me of the grudge JMS has against San Diego?
Last place he lived with his father and sisters, where he went to college. Got stabbed and almost died in San Diego, IIRC. Canonically a radioactive wasteland, allegedly due to a terrorist bombing (in the main timeline, at least).
no subject
Date: 2023-09-01 05:26 am (UTC)I might need to rewatch - oh no! Not a rewatch! - to get a feel for whether there's a pairing-vs-ensemble flavor going on, or if I'm just sad that this was very John-focused, and relied on Delenn showing up for John, when I would have enjoyed a wider array of timelines.
Oh yeah, I would have much more enjoyed something that was way less John-focused and also way less John/Delenn-focused. (I mean, quite apart from how I love ensemble many many times more than romance, you know how much their relationship bugs me! If it was a less unhealthy relationship... or if it wasn't so clear that JMS considers this unhealthy relationship his OTP (because I do think it could be fascinating to look into the culture clashes and so on, but not when all of what happens is narratively considered healthy!)... I might feel differently, but, well.) But I knew that going in, so I kind of was braced for that, I guess?