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BABYLON 5: LEGEND OF THE RANGERS - DID IT SUCK?
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- Опубликовано: 16 авг 2024
- Back to the Babylon 5 universe with another failed spin-off - Babylon 5: Legend of the Rangers. Could this have been any good?
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I need audiobook
I swear, losing Katsulas was one of the biggest blows to happen to sci-fi in my lifetime. God damn sad.
So true!
He died at 60 as a long time smoker, the same as my favourite fantasy writer David Gemmell, at around the same time. Sad year.
@@ctaylorcaldwell Many of the cast members had addictions/mental health problems. This never expands a person's life span.
Y'know, Andreas was a Romulan commander a few times in ST:TGN. So that make three B5/ST intersects : Andreas, Majel (one episode, but pivotal in terms of Lando/G'KAR) and Walter (who still gets a shoutout for making Bester the most punchable little shit in the galaxy). Have I overlooked anyone? Great Maker.
The only things I remembered about this were G'kar and the kung fu lasers. One of them was good.
Yeah. Kung-fu lasers are pretty great.
Kiss Kiss, Love Love, hate to go, have to leave. or something like that
Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting!
DEM LAZERS WERE FAST AS LIGHTNING!
👍
Ugh. . .I was _so_ excited when this was announced. Then I watched it. I was crushed. And you pretty much nailed it when it came to that weapons system. In addition to the aforementioned weapon system, perhaps the other elements I didn't like were things that the studio wanted that would have eventually been streamlined as the show took off. But we'll never know.
Now with Crusade, which I did get to read the unproduced scripts for the episodes that were coming up, I saw how that show was about to explode. It already had me with the aired episodes, and then when I read those unaired scripts, I was just so sad to see that we wouldn't get to get any more Crusade, not even in novel form. It was going to be amazing.
The space kung-fu killed it for me
Apostolis Pouliakis I completely forgot about the space kung-fu weapons. God that was bad. Damn you all for reminding me how much the sequels to B5 all sucked. Lol.
I think It could have worked if it was mechs fighting, but for space ships, it doesn't work at all.
using people as organic weapon components seems more like Shadow tech than Minbari tech that was heavily influenced by the Vorlon, unless the Shadows had some influence and this tech was quietly dropped when the Vorlon discovered the interfering and had a quiet word with the Gray Council...
Even as a young teen who was a sucker for kung-fu in movies, my reaction was just "It's not every day you see the dumbest idea in a franchise..."
all i can say is that you a far more tolerant man than I.
I have to admit I enjoy Legend of the Rangers, I can see the potential in it had it been picked up, though I suspect the tactical controls would have been quickly retconned and Cantrell would have just had a normal station to work instead.
The Gun Pod sadly did not work, however the original concept was quite a different one as you may discover from this interview with Chris Wren, one of the designers on set:
"The gun pod went through a lot of conceptual changes, some creative and some forced by
budget (sometimes right on set). Originally the script called for a complex chair attached to an armature, suspended in the middle of the spherical holographic room which Myriam’s character would sit in. It would move in all directions, track eye movement and respond to gestures as well as vocal commands. The room itself would be something similar to those seen in the Minbari cruisers during B5, but as it was a small self contained unit housing a single gunner the holograph would completely surround her for optimal viewing. It soon became clear this single prop/set would be more difficult and time consuming to
design and implement than many of the full standing sets in the show. But the concept was also an extremely difficult sell at the time, not only to the network but some of the artists and crew as well. Today of course, the idea of someone sitting in a chair and manipulating complex weapons systems is commonplace (Atlantis) but way back in the year 2000 it was thought the audience would find the scenario boring and confusing! Joe's initial script did involve the articulated chair. As the production company
basically put the kibosh on that idea he also came up with the tractor/gravitational field in an overnight re-write. The solution seemed for Myriam to ‘float’ suspended in a tractor field that kept her suspended in the room, but gave her enough physical resistance so that she could spin, roll, and move in any direction with just a little bit of physical effort. Like the use of holograms this made sense (in the context of the B5 universe) as Minbari technology seems to include a more or less total mastery of manipulated gravity fields. Basically the tractor field would "feel" a bit denser than water.
When this conceptual change happened, it affected the whole idea of how Myriam would
behave when inside the gun pod. The idea was that not just anyone could use the pod effectively. It required special training, but also a natural instinct, a "relationship" of sorts with the ship itself, and a natural visual acuity and coordination. Unfortunately, here some confusion set in and there were some conflicting ideas about how the pod would be used. With the chair gone, one camp saw Myriam using the pod as a very Zen sort of situation. She
would have an almost cold, unnatural calm as she fired and engaged the ships belonging to ‘The Hand’. Not quite like "using the force" but the idea was that her movements would be graceful, elegant, almost ballet like. The other vision wanted her to be more dynamic, aggressive, her movements more like martial arts. That's the idea that won out in the end, and that's part of the reason the Minbari beams got replaced with the energy bullets. Personally I would have preferred if the production had stuck with the traditional Minbari weapons, but it was thought the image of beams shooting from her hands during these more violent movements would be confusing to the viewers." (www.b5scrolls.com/#Screen1_17_3)
That makes a lot more sense now, although apparently no one on staff had watched The Last Starfighter if the simple idea of a gunnery chair was too hard to sell as part of an exciting action sequence.
There’s only so many times you can discover ancient evils.
Is that rusty I spy?
But they were even more ancient and even more evil.
I enjoyed Rangers quite a bit. I have it on DVD and watch it every few months.
My rule of thumb on the question of "did it suck" is: if I watched it more than once, it didn't suck. I've watched it 3 times. And yes, that weapons-system thing was godawful :)
Thanks for posting this!
Aside from the weapons system, I loved this pilot. I'd have much rather seen this as a series than Crusade.
And yes, the introduction of the antagonists was clumsy. This is the sort of situation better served with an intermediary bad guy; they could have spent the whole first season chasing one mad man whom you later find out is trying to 'awaken the ancient ones'.
"It's harmless" is the perfect description of this movie.
But I had forgotten that Andreas Katsulas was in this so now I do need to go back and watch it.
My thoughts: I always felt that the hand were a bunch of con artists trading on the trauma of the Shadow War, to be disposed of eventually.
About the weapons system, it was one of JMS's attempts to do alien stuff that didn't quite pan out. The idea wasn't bad, I think - it personalizes the ship, makes combat something more visceral when done right. B5. If that didn't work (it didn't according to the vast majority of fans), the concept wouldn't show in the eventual series. But that's what pilots are: to try new ideas, and see which ones worked and which ones didn't. The Gathering was full of small thing that were quietly ditched. Anybody remember the disco floor in front of the C&C window?
The hand...apparently even more eviler than skeletor
I always thought that The Hand was supposed to be revealed as the Thirdspace race eventually. That would at least explain that all of the sudden greater-than-Shadows ancient powerful race out of nowhere, and tie the series with the existing lore of Babylon 5. Simply making it just another First One race from our galaxy would essentially mean the copy of the Shadow War concept from the original series.
My favorite actually was the Narn Engineer. I loved that facade she put on about the engines being fine despite the chaos behind her.
In the novel "Endymion" by Dan Simmons, the Captain of a warship commands the space battle from a holographic projection. It is explained how he can control the ships weapon system by pointing at the target and doing gestures with his fingers. No space kung-fu though. I guess some studio executives wanted "more action" when they read the script, like they demanded a fist fight for the first episode of Crusade.
Crusade would have been an EXCELLENT show. The 13 we got was awesome. Such a shame turner had to cancel it. Time for a B5 reboot!?!?!
Generally, I loved the humour in TLotR. ;) Loved especially the alien characters - the Narn mechanic was especially amazing! :D
i love the tv furniture with illuminated drawers as a view screen and the two school desks for the crew !
Regardless of the weapon system; the movie was GOOD I mean it had potential; yes maybe this new alien species was not properly introduced still the movie could have been a proper starting for a new series
I remember very little about LOTR (Legend of the Rangers) but two things stand out for me:
GOOD: G'Kar
BAD: That abysmal kung-fu weapons interface! What were they thinking??
great retrospective, - and congrats to finishing your book!
I watched this when it was first aired in 2002 when I was, coincidentally, a young weapons officer. I remember thinking how ridiculous it was to just let your WEPS attack whatever he wants with whatever weapon he wants. Fast forward to the present where I command a US Naval Warship, and that opinion is reinforced 10 fold.
Which ship do you command, if I may ask?
you may have thought BABYLON 5: LEGEND OF THE RANGERS was decent, but you know whats more decent?
.
.
Caprica Caprica Caprica!
I approve of this post.
Thirded!
Babylon 5's outdated VFX is like heroin to me
Completely agree..! Always preferred CGI to models. Would love to see what CGI space battles would look like nowadays using up-to-date animation.
Models and CGI have their place. I disagree with anyone who says that the designs are too cartoony and need to look more like newBSG. I do wish it was possible to make the existing graphics high res because those ships are gorgeous.
It's quite amazing what they managed to do with it.... really, they did a good enough job on the models that all you really need to improve them is increase the texture resolution and throw in a more modern lighting engine... Just look at what they did in The Lost Tales!
It's like somebody really wanted the weapon control system from The Last Starfighter, but they didn't have the set budget for the 360°x360° rotating chair.
Personally, I see what they were going for with the weapons system - this is a people who, for about a thousand years, ever since the last great Shadow War, have been so far ahead of everyone else technologically (except the Vorlons, who don't interact) that they don't need to be efficient in combat - and at the same time, their society puts great stock in combat ability - around a third of their people are in the military. So it makes a lot of sense that ritual or symbolic considerations outweigh practicality even when it comes to controlling their ship guns.
As long as you don't think too hard about the precise practical details (what happens if the gunnery officer sneezes?) it makes a lot of sense that fire control, rather than being something done seated at a console, or using hand-held guns in a 3D space would be an extension of the high-status hand-to-hand combat.
It's exactly the sort of thing you'd expect to see from a very spiritual people, who put great store in ritual and deeper meaning, and who have computing resources to spare, and who value unarmed combat skills, and who have a significant technological edge.
JMS was so proud of the space kung fu thing
I will say, as any holotech comes out, the minbari might have created that wpn guidance system as a way to mesh it, ie, the ship had that system that would of been an experiment regardless of success/failure, and went back to a more standard system because it failed.
I enjoyed Legend but mainly for G'kar and the chance at more B5 but as you say it felt that the big bad was a bit forced. Would have loved them to revisit the Thirdspace race as they probably would be the only bigger than the Shadows bad guy that's been in cannon so as to not feel like power creep bad guy of the week
I liked the some of the ideas Legend threw up, a few of the characters had potential and I loved the look of the Liandra. It is a shame that we never got anything more from this pitch.
I think the kung fu weapon was going involve something more elaborate with actual physical controls but they didn't have the budget for it or something so they ended up going with what we got.
"Okay, so I'm playing the weapons specialist. What do I need to do?"
"We need you to flail around like a two year old throwing a tantrum"
"Won't that look really stupid?"
"No, trust us, it'll look great on screen"
I think it certainly had the potential to be good, though it can be hard to judge just off of a single episode as to how good (or not) it might have been if it had continued on for any noticeable amount of time beyond that (and I mean at least 2 season's worth of episodes; it's kind of hard to also really say one way or the other for Crusade as well, even though that at least got 13 episodes, just because that's still not really enough material to base any sort of final judgement on). If you look at the pilot episode of most any successful TV show out there and compare it to an episode from several seasons later, you'll more often than not notice a marked increase in quality.
I agree that the tactical system was rather strange. As someone else pointed out, it felt a bit like the shows producers were basing it off of a concept from the movie "The Last Starfighter" (with the rotating chair within the cockpit of the fighter the main character pilots) but somehow never really pulls it off as well.
And yes, there are some "loose threads" that I think are only loose simply because we only have the one episode to work with. J. Michael Straczynski was known for having huge multi-season story arcs in Babylon 5, with specific things that started on an episode in one season that wouldn't be wrapped up until literally years later in another season. I think that that's what happened here with some things - they started story arcs that wouldn't be concluded until much later, under the belief that the "movie" would be picked up as a regular multi-season series - but, unfortunately, that never happened.
LOTR sucked. There was just so much wrong with it I don’t know where to start. The ONLY thing redeeming about it was G’Kar, who was one of my most hated characters at the beginning of B5, and ended up being my favorite by the end. LOTR should never have been done. It’s like a blight on the B5 universe.
@Johnny Dominguez Yeah, I caught that too. But I figured that the video was about Legend of the Rangers, most here would catch that.
@@voltairedecent255 catched it, on 3rd reading
@Johnny Dominguez LOL. No worries mate.
Eh... I suppose it was mostly harmless but I remember next to nothing from it, except the space kung-fu. Which is rather telling, given that I remember everything else from B5 and Crusade...
I agree with your assessment. The weapon stuff didn't bother me as much as it did you, but I did think it was silly, especially since a computer could have done that job. There was a bit of retconning I didn't care for (its been a long while since I watched my DVD, so I can't remember exactly what bothered me there). And yeah, The Hand were pushed hard to be the new villain on the block, but it all felt like a bit of "been there, done that." But I did want the show to go to series, providing it didn't get screwed like Crusade did.
Actually, you're right Rowan. The Babylon 5 Movie, The Gathering has a ton of things wrong with it that got polished when the series launched. The same could have been with Legends of the Rangers had it gone to series production.
Honestly, Legend of the Rangers was something that didn't need a big antagonist like The Hand. Rangers are basically space cops at this point in the mythos. It should have just been a series of cop dramas in space with larger plotlines put on the backburner until they had something good or more appropriate.
No, no, it was terrible, atrocious in fact. The only good thing about it, and I mean THE ONLY good thing about it, was the idea of an ensemble cast of various races.
What, no G'Kar?
The legends are true, I herd tell of the goffy marshal art wepions system of this show was but I couldn't believe anyone could be dumb enough to ever think this was a good idea or its hype couldn't possibly cash the check as it where. But it's everything the legends said in more. We have peeked as a species my friends and it's only down hill from here
Regarding the "space kung-fu", I suspect someone on the writing or production team was a fan of Timothy Zahn (which should be a default state for everyone, IMO), as this idea seems to be lifted almost wholesale from his brilliant Conquerors Saga. Essentially, the idea in those novels, for those who haven't read them, is that the elite fighter pilots from the Earth-based faction, called Copperheads, have a "mind-link jack" where they plug their brains into their fighters (somewhat similar to a concept in Shadowrun). Their fights then, from their perspective, also have them suspended in a mindscape where they operate the fighters' systems with their bodies and senses, punching and kicking for the weapons and experiencing the tactical sensor outputs as tastes and smells. The thing is, *it worked* in the novels. Maybe it's just my opinion and it really sucks or maybe its a case of poor implementation in Legend of the Rangers. After all, not everything in a written work translates as well to screen as others. To be clear, I also think it looks goofy onscreen. So YMMV.
Next for the sequel: Legend of the Rangers: The KungFu Legend Continues.
When I first saw that scene with the weapon systems I thought she had some kind of super power.
The anime Outlaw Star had a crew member as the ships’s system and it works really well. So I don’t hate the idea here, but it’s poorly executed.
I absolutely loved Outlaw Star. That was a very underrated anime
No it's a horrible idea period. Computers are far faster and more accurate, plus machines don't get tired! People do! There is no dumber idea for a weapons control system lol. This idea ranks up there with building giant manned robots in human form to fight inter dimensional monsters instead of just blasting them with big guns lol.
@@MrBottlecapBill A crew member. No one said she was human. Even though she looked human, she was created to be a part of the ship's system. Usually she only went into the pod that connected her when top performance was needed. For all other instances normal controls were sufficient and she didn't replace the normal controls, but enhanced them.
They never went into the details because Outlaw Star was a Space Adventure show first with a bit of Science Fantasy. It worked within it's own universe and was fun to watch.
@@theonlymatthew.l The only weapon I know cooler than a lightsaber. The caster gun.
@@grayscribe1342 I was referring to the woman firing weapons with her hands and feet in Legends of the rangers, not outlaw star.
And, who knows, maybe the crew would have discovered a race that taught them how to build a weapon control system based on buttons and more direct/faster/accurate controls, to give them an edge ever their enemies in terms of accuracy, firing speed and reaction time. And all that while being far less demanding for the officer controlling it, so they could just keep it up much longer.
You know, when I clicked on the link to watch this video I planned to ask you about your thoughts on the Star Trek Picard teaser trailer... and that very trailer was the ad RUclips decided to play ahead of the video. I honestly laughed. But moving on to Legend of the Rangers, I have to say I have to agree that it wasn't the best of the Babylon 5 universe. It's low production values and somewhat baffling, silly choices (the kung fu weapons system you mentioned being one) led to the idea of the TV movie/series being poorly executed. The Rangers of Babylon 5 were an enigmatic guild of warrior monks with traditions steeped in the mythology of the show. Later they became an interstellar police force of the Interstellar Alliance. Legend of the Rangers cheapened that so badly it was difficult to watch because it reduced noble warriors to almost comic book characters. It had its high points, namely the relationship between Martell and Dulann, the comedic banter between them, and best of all the appearance of Andreas Katsulas as G'Kar, but overall it failed to deliver the epic feel of previous Babylon 5 series. So did it suck? I would have to say yes.
Maybe I'm just extremely cynical, but I still think B5 would have been better off if it had a full writer's room who could limit JMS, because he often went a bit too far with certain things. Case in point, Jason Ironheart.
When I got 'Legend' on DVD (YES - DVD: last centurys technology - how did we survive?) I rather expected it to be a tad ho-hum. However, it's actually quite good'; I've watched it a few times (YES - ON DVD!) since and it gets better with every viewing. As for a series, much like Crusade 'twud have had potential UNLESS/UNTIL the 'executives' stick their bonus-driven, imcompetent beaks in - just leave JMS alone to work his mojo. Great Maker!
This was the Last Jedi of Babylon 5. But at the time the only franchises that equally self destructed were the SW: Prequel Trilogy and ST: Enterprise - so it was a sad ending for the 90's golden age of SF television all around - now surpassed by even worse examples with the SW:Sequel Trilogy and ST:Discovery. It didn't help that some of the B5 "canon" novels that came out around the same time had some severe continuity issues as well. The kindest comment one could find on imdb back then was that it had potential based on his other work. The villains in Rangers were stupid both in how they were defeated and what they were claimed to be. That is, a billion year old ancient race G'kar heard legends about - ignoring the much better Shadows -- sorry but a billion years would be old even for the Vorlons. The younger races' planets would be working on evolving something more complex than bacteria.
I only caught part of this by accident. I don't remember any ads for this show.
What I saw didn't impress me.
Good analysis, thank you. I do agree that replicating the same type of plots didn’t quite work here. A clever story arc such as Babylon 5 doesn’t actually lend itself well into simplistic good vs evil which the Hollywood studios love to replicate. One of the traps I see subsequent series in franchise, like Babylon 5 and Star Trek, fall into is they try and magnify one element of the franchise not realising that the success was the combination of various elements.
No, it didn't suck. The Superbowl killed it. I liked it very much. And it aired on my birthday. The Rangers are one of the most interesting parts of the setting, of course there should have been a series about them.
i have to agree. The Gathering. . . was quit dull. first episode of B5 was vastly superior
There's so much wrong with The Gathering that I don't know where to start. I did see the remastered version with Chris Franke's music and additional footage, but that version is almost impossible to find these days.
The weapons system to me, is a perfect example of a great idea on paper but poorly executed in reality. Also if this had been picked up how long until the crew come across a scene of devastation and say "looks like a Hand job."
Haha I own this on DVD!
For me, I think it's a diverting couple of hours, but the cheap CGI effects, the weapon systems, the half baked ghost story, the recycled bad guys and the underutilized characters really torpedoed this project. I don't believe that JMS was truly into this low budget movie himself, as much is uninspired. The starship Liandra was also an unexceptional design. Again, its decent enough for a watch by B5 lovers.
One thing that really kind of bothered me about LoTR (besides the fact that Legends of the rangers and lord of the rings is the same acronym ;) ) the part about kicking him out because he wanted to save his crew and not proceed with a clearly suicidal pressing of the attack. That just didn't feel like the kind of thing that Valen or Deleen would have woven into the very soul of the Rangers. We know the people that formed and reformed the Rangers, they would not have been Hitler-esk in their insistence for no retreat.
Can you imagine Sheridan ordering rangers to throw their lives away in a tactically useless gesture? When it was clearly hopeless? Hell no!
It was a contrived plot device to set up a "they want to kick you out" but you are going to get a chance to redeem yourself. BUT we can't have any real flaws in our chiseled jaw hero so your flaw has to actually be heroic. Lazy writing.
Babylon 5 was a masterpiece that will never be reached again, this was a good attempt, but not that great. The firing system was such a bad idea
By this point B5 had been running for almost a decade and its actors were beginning to age out, so I think this show was aimed at drawing in a younger audience, hence the younger cast age. It was a fair idea, coming right when Millenials were beginning to come of age, but it just never worked. The actors weren't as talented, the script wasn't as good, and it looked like it suffered from a lower budget than the other TV movies, and frankly was carried by Katsulas's performance.
Overall I disliked Legend of the Rangers. I think part of the reason that Andreas Katsulas stole the scenes he was in is partly due to the inadequacy of the other actors (or maybe the writing). Granted, since he's a known character I'm probably being overly biased saying that. But I wasn't especially interested in or involved with the other characters. Plus, the pilot had the same problem as The Gathering, which is that it suffered from being too slow paced.
I'm the biggest B5 fan you will ever meet, but even I couldn't finish this when it 1st came out.
Darren Signal agreed. But I think you might have some competition for “biggest B5 fan” title lol
@@voltairedecent255 Nice to meet you
@@dcsignal5241 Good to meet you too.
i don't think "post shadow war syndrome" inherently. obviously it has potential for power creep and ass pulling, but i kind of like how in season 5, they still had problems they needed to deal with after the big bad was gone, and they didn't need to do the "oh these guys are even tougher and older" to pull it off
I didn't expect to, but I liked it.
The movie/pilot also suffered from bad timing as it was aired opposite the freaking Super Bowl.
If memory serves, that only happened because 9/11 upset the football schedule for the year, making LotR another casualty.
On the West Coast, where the Super Bowl finished before it aired, the viewing figures were second only to the Dune mini-series for Sci-Fi (as it was known back then)
@@rmsgrey Oh, definitely. I forget where it was stated but LotR's ratings improved as the evening went on were actually pretty good for what it was up against.
I thought the idea of the vr weapons room was ok, it was just the execution. The bad special effects for one. But what might have worked was instead of an actress thrashing about looking like she was having a temper tantrum or seizure, is they could have brought in an actual martial artist and made the moves more precise and practiced and thus sell the idea better this was a technology that had real practical benefit and that there were long training sessions that they endured to use it effectively....instead of having an actress looking like she was having a rage fit.
I was thinking about buying this to add to my B5 collection 🤔.
I just wanted to come here and say before i dive into babylon 5 when it hits hbo max.
That without legend of the rangers. I wouldnt be into babylon 5 for a 2nd time.
(I seen it as a kid on tnt but its was all random episode catching)
And lotr is super cool ...even with the odd king fu space fighting
The space battles were just ridiculous, agreed. How much less ridiculous would it have been to just give her a pair of literal guns instead?
I agreed with all your criticisms, honestly though I think it really did suck, and I'm someone who gives stuff I love a lot of rope before I let them go. I'm still holding on to Doctor Who even now, usually because each time it reinvents itself, whilst it fails in some areas (including areas it used to excel at) I tend to find enough to remain invested. I really didn't have that with Legend of the Rangers, I'm not even going to abbreviate it, it doesn't deserve even an abbreviation. Crusade I took issue with, but again there was enough there to keep me watching, and it had a good premise despite its failings. Legend of the Rangers doesn't have a good premise, it has a lazily rehashed premise. There were so many more interesting stories to tell other than 'but, there is an even worse ancient blah blah blah', the laziness is unreal. In the Season 4 episode The Deconstruction of Falling Stars, we are handed a number of interesting premises they could have gone with instead, a 'next generation', how has the galaxy endured after B5 was destroyed. Then there was the civil war, or the idea of humanity re-emerging back to the stars whilst dealing with a techno-sceptic theocracy trying to tie them down. If the show really did have to keep to the B5 era then they should have tried something more small scale I think, intergalactic politics worked for a whole series, but if you're doing something new why not focus it on something like the war between humans and telepaths for example, with Bester as the main villain. I think Crusade had the right idea, it just wasn't executed as well as it could have been, but Legend of the Rangers just wasn't the route they should have gone down, and I do wonder if there was some studio pressure in the writing to come up with a 'do the Shadows again, but worse' lazy rehash.
Really it was okay. The lead commander well.. no. I was thinking back and thought maybe the space Foo weapons system was from the last Airbender or Matrix then I realized they did not line up. The ship was pretty though. In fact if not for G’Kar’s appearance this would be forgettable.
I raised my eyebrows when the team of Rangers (remember? Highly trained specialists in combat, infiltration, and intelligence gathering) pass the triluminary one to another to introduce themselves, and at the end comes the Drazi, states his name and says "uuuuhhhh, I can lift heavy things, uuuuhhh"
I'm surprised, no adventures of Lyta and G'karr as a spin-off
I've gotta watch this again, before I can leave a knowlegable comment, but the weapons systems haunts me to this day. I'll get back to you, okay?
Everything about this episode is terrible.
I seen this one time to bearly remember but has not forgot it. Cant find it on tv.
This makes me even sadder because I rested easy knowing it was a giant disappointment even tho it was RANGERS. Now I gotta be sad knowing it really did just have a rocky start kinda like The Gathering.
The Panzer Kunst joke landed hard here tho 😆
The whole kung fu inside a spherical cockpit with 360 monitor walls thing reminds me of G Gundam, except it made a lot more sense there. That was a system for controlling giant humanoid robots which moved exactly according to how the pilot moved. Pilot doing wacky fighting moves in the cockpit=Gundam doing the same wacky fighting moves outside in the battle. It was silly, but you instantly get the logic of the idea. Not so much here.
Remember the scenes where they were using be metal poles and looked like the starwars kid meme? XD
I could see the Weapon system as updated version on of the system Sheradin and Delan used to watch and command the first battle against the shadows but instead of punching the tactical officer would mark targets.
That would have been much cooler. 3D touch screen with the computers already displaying friendly, non-friendly or unknown targets. The operator calmly and securely seated so they can work fast without exhausting themselves for no reason lol.
The whole space combat created for this - including the "submarine pings" - makes it clear that writers in Hollywood NEED THEIR HEADS SCREWED BACK ON ... and should be FORCED to study how science actually works! Jar Jar Abrams and Ruin Johnson are examples of "ruining franchises by ignoring basic (scientific) logic" ...
I thought The HAND were the ThirdSpace baddies. It would make sense and would link the series and movies.
(2:40) The holographic battle controls could have worked better if they didn't have someone literally punching and kicking. I could see something like people pointing with their fingers and otherwise making cool gestures/hand signs. But, the punching and kicking? Yeeeaaah, that was a little over the top. They were trying to make it "actiony" and exciting! Aaannnd, they failed. :P :/
looking at the weapons scene my thought go to. man I like the holo projection of what around the ship but not the kungfu action. maybe a chair and give it more of a ww2 belly gunner look. something like the last starfighter Gunstar with the spinning chair and 360 circular movement that would leave most people dizzy. just put a floating chair for her to sit on before the holoprojection have it float so it sit in the middle of the screen and have it spin and move as she fire weapons with lots of light and bottom that let her know weapons is ready to fire and what weapon to fire.
You actually used Panzer Kunst, a reference to Battle Angel Alita and the cyborg specific martial art that lets the cyborgs use their technology much more effectively in combat to a near magical degree.
Yeah mate, love me some Battle Angel :)
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I just did not expect that. The world for that Manga is deep and one of favorites.
There was another spinoff that failed somewhere in the production phase called "the legacy of Shadows" (I think). I'd be interested to see what you could dig up on that
That was proposed cinematical movie. JMS didn´t want to replace deceased actors as studio was suggesting.
I NEED more space kung fu
Performing martial arts in order to fire projectiles and energy weapons at your opponents worked in G Gundam but that was an anime. And more recently in the Pacific Rim movies. It totally doesn’t work in the space opera setting and looks absolutely silly.
This would have worked better if Lorien had remarked that there are others yet they are not ready to leave.
I remember watching this for the first time and thinking "This has potential", then came the kung fu weapons system, and I thought "Well... you got to give the attractive, potential love interest, redhead something physical to do"... so there's that. As a standalone, yes... it did indeed suck. I does not live up to Babylon 5's rich storytelling, but as a spinoff, it was nice to see G'Kar and the station again, and be in that universe, even for a short while.
As an avid fan of B5, having attended every convention I could find in the UK with the actors attending, lol, I kinda felt let down by Legend of the Rangers. It felt cheap to me, the characters didn't feel as well thought out and didn't gel as well as what we'd seen before on B5 and Crusade and I found myself wondering why they attempted this at all. I'd have been more interested in a prequel set during the Earth/Minbari war to be honest. As for Lovecraftian looks, Third Space nailed that feel in spades :)
One of the few times a prequel would have been a good idea. Most of the time it's not (Enterprise, for one example) because you shoehorn yourself in with established lore.
More backstory on the Dilgar war with the limited weapons and tech of the time would have definitely been interesting, especially because we really still don't know much about it, aside from that crazy scientist lady we see in Season 1 of B5.
They should have gone all the way with the holographic controls and have them run on a treadmill to go to warp speed
I thought it had promise
I enjoyed the Ranger movie. Wish it got a chance.
The Space kung-fu weapons system was the stupidest literary device in all of scifi.
Yeah, that killed any even remote traces of interest I had in the show. And the honestly grotesque over-acting of the weapons officer just sealed the fate.
I have only seen that kind of system make sense in G Gundam where the Mobile Trace system is designed to allow a martial artist to pilot a mobile suit for the MF tournament.
Watched it once, never will see it again.
This one had me scratching my head, what they were thinking when they created it and if it got hijacked half way through.
Why didn't they reveal they hid until the First Races left and they couldn't believe the latest generation kicked their predecessors arse!
I'm a huge Babylon 5 fan and I have to say I disagree with your final thought. While Crusade had potential and I'd love to see where they went with it, Legend of the Rangers sucked like a blown out airlock. As well as the cringeworthy kung fu cannons the Narn and Drazi characters get boiled down to the basic level stereotypes. Drazi speak dumb, Drazi dumb. Narn angry. I think it's the prime reason we never heard anything of B5 for years after. I wouldn't have even aired it. Sub Uwe Boll crap. It's existence angers me.
Now I remember why I forgot the show.
We live for the one, we die for the one -
They tried to say it so many times (like fan porn), it became moronically comical.
And also, they implied that as a matter of the Ranger's code, it was better to die a meaningless tactically useless death rather than living to fight another day - turning it into a truly laughable mantra anyway.