Babylon 5: Previously unreleased concept art and interviews with 16 FX artists

[Coolhand]

 Otherwise, if ya wanna skip the resolution to the telepath storyline, slap "Sleeping in Light" at the end of Season 4, and you're all good.  

hmm, i went from thinking it the best thing ever to really disliking the show in season 5... I have 1-4 But I may have to buy the final box-set one day just to be able to do this.

Anyone ever manage to get through the legend of the rangers series? (not that there's much point as it made a one-way trip to cancellation city), and what about the new direct to dvd episodes released a couple of years ago?

*goes back to watching Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors*

[Coolhand]

Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers was not a series but just a pilot movie.  Do you mean Crusade?

oops, thats the one, I did find it somewhat forgettable.... I quite liked all the TV movies though. Just realised I haven't even seen the Legend of the Rangers, is it worth a look? not sure if LotR (LotR? hmm) was meant to be a pilot of a series or a one off movie like the other longer productions.  

Do you mean Babylon 5: The Lost Tales?  I have that DVD.  Of the two episodes on The Lost Tales, I prefer the second one, "Over There", to the first one, "Over Here".  The second seemed to be stronger in its storyline.

Sounds about right, I remember one of them being quite good, the other with Lochley (yawn) and the monk, priest, whatever, a bit dull.

I was hoping that they'd expand on the effects work and redo some (all) of the shots for the old series.

IIRC, they shot the live action in widescreen but rendered the Lightwave effects out in 4:3, so not only do the CG effects shots look old, they also had to crop the top and bottom off the frames so everything looks even nastier and chunkier than it did before. I'm halfway surprised that an amature or hobby team hasn't picked up the baton...

[Coolhand]

As a fan of the genre itself its a shame it wasn't given more of a chance, I don't think it would have been as good by a long way though. Its like a level of magic and greatness that is fleeting - it just happens and when forced to extend a series further it just loses something... As well as series cut too early, we can probably all think of shows that just should have ended way sooner than they actually did.  

There's a real magic to those first 4 seasons that was lost when all the mysteries were wrapped up, everything since that tried to take the series in new directions just felt like something bolted on, lacking the same wonder, mystery and characters that made it so compelling beyond iffy sets and other cheesiness thats part and parcel of 1990's tv show.

In terms of characters there's nothing that came since that compares to the fantastic arcs of G'kar and Mollari.  Also Sheridans arc of discovering who the masters are, what the game is really about and leading the rest of the noobs to kick them out of the galaxy... Great stuff, and a very tough act to follow.