Babylon 5: The Road Home

A welcome return to B5 for fans, but confusing for newcomers. A bit like an indy band getting back together to do a remix of fan favorites as a teaser for their new album.

The story was classic B5 epic stuff, but found time for some character moments and other stuff fans dig about the franchise. Most of the humor worked, though one Zathras remark felt a bit meta and probably could've been saved for the DVD extras.

The look of the uniforms, environments, etc. Was faithful to that of the original series and its spinoffs. The B5 station, ships, planetary surfaces, etc. Were a solid compromise of the series' CGI and the movie's animated style. Obviously, the animated approach allowed the movie to give the visuals a scale the original TV series couldn't.

It was of course great to hear the voices of Boxleitner et al again, and if I hadn't known better, I'd have thought they used archived audio clips from previous B5 projects for the voices of Franklin, G'Kar, Delenn, Garibaldi, etc.

Like most franchises, B5 has had its ups and downs. The Road Home is a vast improvement over Legend of the Rangers and Lost Tales. Whether the rumored reboot TV series is animated or live action, The Road Home is a fine place to restart.

I was a little apprehensive when I heard the big announcement that it was an animated feature, turns out I needent have worried.

So many franchises are barely recognisable to their original fans. Whether thats for better or worse depends which side of the argument you are on.

But with Straczynski keeping the helm steady, B5 managed to make the jump from live action to animation and still feel like authentic B5, along with providing us an entertaining and enjoyable standalone story as well as a secret door option for a reboot/continuation, without undoing or ruining what came before.

Seeing so many beloved characters back in the screen was heart warming. Knowing exactly how many have been recast because the the actors/actresses died young is heart breaking.

But seeing everyone go around one more time was a genuine treat.

For fans of B5 it's fun to see all of the interesting alternate realities and see old characters again, but the story doesn't make all that much sense and the dialogue is kind of forced a lot of the time. They just jump around a few hypothetical realities with no real rhyme or reason (for most of them, anyways) and eventually the movie decides it's time to stop. The movie has more flashbacks than are necessary, maybe just to pad out the runtime a little bit, since this is a pretty short movie at around 75 minutes.

The updated, higher-fidelity models for shadows, their ships, etc are very cool to see, although the animation falls flat sometimes.

At the end of the day it doesn't add a whole lot to the B5 mythos apart from exploring some alternate realities which were alluded to in the series and potentially setting up a reboot, but it's fun enough to rent for fans of the series.

You will like this movie (for the most part), if you like the original show, 3D cartoon animation in general, and if you don't mind that this is the 3rd multiverse movie of 2023 (after Flash and Across the Spiderverse).

My two major complains about this movie are the weak direction and the face design of most of the characters. Their eyes are too far apart and sometimes it is hard to recognize them (I confused Lockley with Ivanova a couple of times). Also the Shadows are not terrifying at all and they look like a generic bug-like enemy, as it is the first time we see them so clearly. The movie would have looked great 20 years ago, but now, these 3D models and the spaceship action scenes feel a bit amateurish and visually outdated, to the point where it looks more like a cel-shaded videogame. And I say that as someone who tried to create 3D cartoons back in 2004. That said, most of the characters are here, and there are many different settings, that must have been a lot of work to model and animate.

Thankfully, I'm here for the story, which I find it to be fine for a cartoon movie (but perhaps not for a live action movie). Plot-wise, it might feel a bit too convenient that Sheridan travels to the most important places, in the time of need for the plot to happen, but at least it is explained in a "scientific" way (unlike the convenient teleportation of only spidermen in the movie Into the Spiderverse). Of course, if you've seen the series, you must suspect that everything should return back to normal by the end, without perhaps any world changing events. So, it's not so much about Sheridan's destination, but about the journey. And as far as his journey goes, it is decent one and it has a few surprises, but it also has some flaws.

The dry humor is somewhat amusing, but it didn't make me laugh, and sometimes it was placed in serious situations where it didn't fit. For example, when Sheridan jokes about Celsius and Fahrenheit after everything he has been through... it feels very out of place. Also, I do think the Celsius and Fahrenheit debate should have been solved by 2260. Then, they waste time talking about Sheridan's story, but they don't believe him and THEN they call a telepath to confirm the story. Man, you are in a hurry and you talk like it's the most relaxed day of your life! Come on! It's times like these when the pacing feels off. If I was on a tight and unknown deadline, I wouldn't make jokes or engage in small talk... I would get straight to the point and get things done.

I love that the story visits almost every familiar character, and that wouldn't have happened in a movie otherwise, because most of the cast has sadly passed away. I'm glad that their cameos wasn't a mere a checklist to be shown for shock value or fan-service (like in the Flash movie). We get to witness many key events and alternative timelines, like what happened with the Icarus in Zahadum and the destructive creativity of the Vorlons if they lose the war. It is like a gallery of the best events that the creator, JMS, could come up with, to please the long time fans and to lure new audience. I suspect that the target audience was also kids, due to PG-13 rating, which is understandable from a financial point of view.

This is essentially a mini anthology of what-if scenarios that don't add a great deal to the B5 lore. This is good because it is a neat stand alone story, and it doesn't conflict with the B5 lore and there are no plot holes. But it also may be bad, because it could feel quite all over the place if you haven't watched the show. On the other hand, the many plot points may spark the curiosity of any new viewer that may want to learn more about what happens in the show. I guess it feels like a piece of a puzzle that you didn't know that it was missing. So, even though I'm not crazy about the visual style or some lighthearted story beats, we must accept that the only way to have more Babylon 5 on the screen, is through animation. And I would love to see the B5 comicbooks and novels converted in this format!

If this is a pilot for a new series (like the first B5 movie was), please, have someone to check the animation and the story quality. For example, the Shadows could run instead walking fast, Lyta could use her own weight to pull the lever (or telekinisis), the dramatic moments feel weak and lack a punch, and in the final scene when the camera moves away from the Babylon station... the background remains static! This is a mistake only an amateur would do. Of course, translating characters into "drawings" is a huge challenge. And the director has done many LEGO DC films that I like. So, I don't know what went wrong here. Again, if this is a pilot, it can be excused, because even the first B5 movie was rough around the edges and we moved past it. All that said, I prefer watching a series of this quality, than Star Trek Lower Decks or any of the Star Wars animated series. I tried them, and I find their stories, humor, character arc and action to be very weak and childish.

Animated movies are not cheap or easy to make and direct. And it is easy to judge and nitpick every tiny detail. But we should admire and respect the work and effort that went in on this project, despite its flaws. The Babylon 5 spirit is there, and that's what matters the most. And if this movie is a proof of concept that sparks an animated TV series of some lost B5 chapter... that would be awesome!

Overall, _The Road Home_ isn't a bad movie, per se. But it really is just for the fans, relying more on nostalgia for situations from the series than its own merits.

First, the good:

* The voice performances are excellent. Several of the original actors returned to voice their characters, and all of them fell right back into character as if they'd never left. The replacement voice actors for the (sadly) large number of actors who have passed since the show ended do pretty good at imitating the distinct voices of their characters, especially the actors voicing G'Kar, Zathras, and Delenn; while a fan can tell that they're not the original actors, they still convey the expected tone of the characters, and honor the original actors in the process.

* The effects animation, backgrounds, and ship designs are outstanding. Thanks to the advances in technology over the past 25 years, ships look even better here than they did originally. The additional detail on the Shadow ships is especially nice.

Aaaand...the not so good:

* Character design is ATROCIOUS. Most of the characters look almost nothing like their live-action counterparts. The only characters that are instantly identifiable visually are Lyta, Delenn, and Londo, and that's primarily due to the unique look of their hair and costuming, not any facial resemblance. The humans in particular look horrible, with Lochley and Ivanova being easily confused for one another until they speak, and Sinclair identifiable only by context and/or dialogue. Londo looks positively demonic. The designs for the Narns are horrible, barely even resembling Narns at all. It could be passable if there was a clear attempt at stylized designs, but they don't really look stylized, just bad.

* The Shadow character designs are thoroughly cartoonish. The Shadows of _Babylon Park_ look better than these. Every iota of added detail the Shadow ships got was at the expense of detail in the Shadows themselves.

* As bad as the character designs are, the character animation is worse. Stilted, choppy, not smooth in any way. It's the exact opposite of the quality of the effects and ship animations.

* I was particularly dismayed by seeing in the end credits that JMS is the only credited writer, because the writing in this is way below the quality fans expect from him. The story itself is almost entirely nostalgia, not covering any new ground at all in terms of themes and characters. A lot of dialogue is recycled from the show in different contexts, especially poor Zathras, who is reduced to half of his lines being retreads of catchphrases from the show, despite him turning out to be a central character here. Joe, you could have done so much better than this.

* Finally, a problem that even many fans might not notice, but which irked me to no end. The movie starts in the middle of the penultimate episode "Objects at Rest", when John and Delenn are leaving the station to go to Minbar. Two scenes from the episode are recreated: the POV of John and Delenn getting off the transport tube to face the crowd, and the trade of salutes between Sheridan and Lochley. These scenes are recreated faithfully visually, copying the staging, framing, and camera movement. (I noticed this primarily because I had recently rewatched the episode, so it was fresh in my mind.)

For all the faithfulness of the directorial recreations in these two scenes, the content was inexplicably different. In the transport tube scene, everything that happens immediately after the doors open is completely different from what happened in the episode.

For the salute, while the action is the same (aside from an added lame visual joke at the end that completely ruins the mood), the lineup of characters with Lochley in C&C is different for no apparent reason. In the episode, Lochley is surrounded by the "new generation" of B5 leaders: Ta'Lon, Dr. Hobbes, Number One, Zack, Vir, and Lt. Corwin. In the movie, she's surrounded by...a group of unknown, unidentifiable people who are clearly not meant to represent the same characters who were there in the episode.

The reason this bothers me so much is that it's horribly disrespectful to the characters and their actors, all of whom otherwise would not appear in this movie at all. I find it especially disrespectful to Stephen Furst (Vir) and Jeff Conaway (Zack), both of whom were on the show for a long time (Stephen since the very beginning) and have since passed. The likenesses of those characters are as valid to use legally as those of any of the others, so it's doubtful that there were any legal issues causing this. It's baffling and inexplicable. As with the writing, Joe, you could have done better.

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In the end, I can't recommend this movie to anyone who's not a dedicated fan of the show. Casual fans will not appreciate the constant references back to the series, and newcomers will be completely lost. And hardcore fans will be disappointed by the lack of originality. So who exactly was this movie made for?

I think the primary reason this movie got greenlit was as a test product, determining if there was still enough interest in the franchise to justify the reboot that was floated not long ago. If that's true, then fans of the original should definitely buy this movie, to show that there's still interest. But you may not enjoy it.