EpDis: In The Beginning

Refresher Links:
Lurker's Guide Main Page for In The Beginning
Lurker's Guide Extended Synopsis for In The Beginning

We now move onto the telemovies.

My favorite of all of the movies.

Jan

Same here, my favorite by far. It's hard to imagine the B5 universe without it.

"But in the end, they ran out of time...." -- Londo

Londo's monologue (particularly that final line) and the President's plea are considerably chilling and emotional.

Found it disappointing. Not in all respects, but in many. Watched the awesome trailer that came on some of the VHS releases in the leadup to it's release endlessly, got my expectations up really high, got my copy signed by Jerry Doyle and Mira Furlan ) ) then watched it for the first time and couldn't help feeling that it didn't mesh as well as I'd expected. The moments are there, especially when it comes to the awesomeness at the end and the music, but the pacing is odd from a storytelling perspective (key characters appearing and disappearing seemingly at random), the structure is odd (sometimes, as in the Franklin's notes scene, it feels like a direct transliteration of everything the characters said about the period during the series, at others, as with the Franklin / Sheridan / G'Kar plotline, it feels like filler based on some very unlikely conincidences that were never hinted at before). It has several grammatical stumbles in the dialogue, suggesting parts of it might have been filmed in a rush.

It's not a good introduction to B5. It spoils too much of the mystery of the Shadows, the Rangers, Sinclair's capture and Delenn's transformation. The subject matter leaves little room for B5's fun sense of humour and irreverance. I usually save this until after season 4, where I think it belongs.

Things I do like: The first contact scene is awesome, very movie-like. The Battle of the Line is awesome. Dukhat is awesome. The soundtrack is awesome. Londo is awesome as narrator. The effects are great, even where they don't always mesh. Mira Furlan is great. There are some really memorable lines.

I don't think prequels are a generally a good idea. This is okay, but I marginally prefer Thirdspace and A Call to Arms.

It had more of Kosh in it. Therefore I was pleased.

ItB was also my favorite of the movies. Excellent stuff!

I really liked In the Beginning. I thought Peter's performance was just excellent, his words so haunting as he moved in and out of darkness. I also liked it that we got to see the battle. The floating blood was cool! Of course, not all of it "floated"... I think we had one "drip", but it was still cool. I gave it an "A"!

RMcD said:

The subject matter leaves little room for B5's fun sense of humour and irreverance.

Click to expand...

Wait a sec. B5 has a fun sense of humor?

I've always thought humor is the one area that B5 never got right, and always failed to deliver. Some of the weakest and cheesiest moments in all of B5 are where they are trying to be funny...and it comes across as forced and always feels out of place. The humor in B5 in no way compares to other shows that really did a good job mixing it in (Joss Whedon's shows come to mind).

And truthfully, I don't think they really should have tried. Im OK with B5 not having a high, or even good, humor content. I think it should have been more of a serious drama and they should have left all attempts at humor out. BSG is just fine without trying to pull off campy humor here and there.

Boy, that wasn't totally on topic was it?

Although I do agree with your comments about how ItB felt very odd in its timing and delivery. I like it the best out of all the movies, and think its a great piece of the series, and one of its better moments/stories. However, I remember rewatching it with a friend and thinking "Man...there is a LOT of dialogue in this...its kind of...boring." It tells a great story, but I can see where many people might be turned off by its odd pacing.

Recoil said:

Wait a sec. B5 has a fun sense of humor?

I've always thought humor is the one area that B5 never got right, and always failed to deliver. Some of the weakest and cheesiest moments in all of B5 are where they are trying to be funny...and it comes across as forced and always feels out of place.

Click to expand...

I agree with the last sentence that some of their worst moments were times when they tried too hard to be funny.

However, I also always found plenty of humor in the show that just flowed from the characters (some more than others).

So while one thing about which Cartagia was absolutely correct was the observation that "Humor is so subjective.", and not everyone is going to find the same things funny, I always found B5 to have a decent sense of humor.

Zathrus was funny. Other characters' reactions to Zathrus were often funny. Londo was often funny. Ivanova in snide, sarcastic comment mode could be funny. While Ivanova in uncomfortable squirming mode could cross over into the "trying too hard" column, there were times when it felt natural for the character and worked for me (such as when Vir asks her for advice because he has never gotten beyond 2). Marcus could be funny (although, for some reason this was usually when he was teamed with either Stephen or Susan). Heck, even Cartagia could be funny .... in a dark and twisted way to be sure, but it sometimes made me laugh.

As far as I can remember, one of the funniest moments of the series was between Vir and Lennier. When they were complaining about their jobs and ended with "same time tomorrow" "yea" or whatever.

That was, for me at least, a bit of a comic gem.

Yeah, I liked the Vir-Lennier deadpan comedy team.

Going back and forth with stuff about: "They never tell us what's going on" .... "until it's too late" and ending saying "It makes me nervous" in absolute unison without looking at each other until after they hear the other say that line in together.

Or:
"Hell of a day"
"Hell of week"
"Hell of a year"
"Hell of a life"
"You win"

Comparing any show to Joss Whedon's (in terms of humor) is like comparing all foods with the finest and rarest of cheeses, so that's a little unfair -- but B5's humor was best when it was dry, sardonic wit.

For example, "First you will know fear, and then you will know pain, and then you will die. Enjoy your flight!" was possibly the line that hooked me on B5.

I thought Susan could be funny; she made me laugh, anyway! And Vir!! I loved it when he fell over after finishing that drink!

Boxie said:

I loved it when he fell over after finishing that drink!

Click to expand...

See, that to me was way forced. Come on. No one, after a tiny sip of a drink, would fall over like that. Hell the alcohol wouldn't have time to get absorbed into his system that fast. That is a textbook "forced" comedy scene. It wasn't realistic, they put it there to try to be cute.

Susan always brought a smile to my face and her deadpan humour is what really made me find her sexy.

Most of the reason I liked season 5 less than the others was that Ivonava wasn't there.

Was nice to see a glimpse of her on this film though.I rate it a B,not my favourite film but excellent none the less.

hypatia said:

As far as I can remember, one of the funniest moments of the series was between Vir and Lennier. When they were complaining about their jobs and ended with "same time tomorrow" "yea" or whatever.

That was, for me at least, a bit of a comic gem.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I like that too.

I agree with RMcD on that one. I found the movie to be utterly incredible, with so many key characters of B5 playing important roles 10 years earlier. Londo was responsible for enough mayhem in the series, to make him responsible for the failure of peace negotiations in the earth-minbari war stretched credulity to the breaking point. as did many other things, like sending sheridan star-killer in the hour of utmost need to negotiate with the enemy. no, didn' work for me.

Yeah, EarthForce keeps saying, "Well, Sheridan destroyed a WarCruiser. That means he can handle the Minbari if he has to." And then they send him out with one Narn and a doctor up on charges, or put him in charge of a not-terribly-well-defended space station, and tell him to keep it coming.

Admittedly he took out the Black Star while Lexington was pretty badly beat up herself, but he still had an asteroid belt and nuclear warheads to work with.

The top brass must have been gambling that his reputation would make the Minbari think twice or something. I don't think it really worked.

But the problem is that by doing this movie in the way it would likely have happened in real life, you suddenly find that all of the established B5 characters, with the exception of Delenn, are of little to no importance to the story.

So you get a prequel movie featuring a whole bunch of new characters we don't know, don't care about and are doomed never to even be mentioned in the show (since you have already made 4 seasons of it without mentioning them). Reducing all of the series' characters to the level of Sinclair's cameo would (for me) render the whole project redundant, not to mention how disjointed it would get by repeatedly cutting back from the main narrative (which doesn't now feature Sheridan and the others) to show the incidents already established as having taken place during the Minbari War ... Sheridan taking out the Black Star, Ivanova losing her Brother, Franklin refusing to hand over his notes etc.

I agree it is a stretch, but I don't really think it could have been done any other way.