EpDis: The River Of Souls

Refresher Links:
Lurker's Guide Main Page for The River Of Souls
Lurker's Guide Extended Synopsis for The River Of Souls

I liked it and gave it a B.

I hadn't seen season five when I watched it so was a little confused over the Lochely thing but soon found my feet.

Loved the holosuit scene where she is pleased that her likeness is one of the most rented out but was disapointed to see homophobia take a grip.

No need for her to look pleased then disgusted at the true source of her popularity.

Apart from that,loved it.

Always wanted to see more Soul Hunters

The best part of the whole damn movie is the Love Bat.

Always felt to me like a very mediocre episode of B5 padded out to twice the length. Even the worst B5 has the occasional moment of greatness, but with all honesty (and I know this is going to sound like me being snarky and disingenuous, though I'm not) I don't think I've ever actually watched this the whole way through without dozing off. Seriously. Since I got the UK B5 Universe boxset, I've watched the entire B5 universe through three times with friends I've got into B5, and twice on my own, and I may have been tired from watching a marathon of B5 each time I've gotten to RoS but I always drift off somewhere about halfway to two thirds of the way through!

crazyhorse said:

Loved the holosuit scene where she is pleased that her likeness is one of the most rented out but was disapointed to see homophobia take a grip.

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I'm not sure it is particularly fair to accuse Lochley (actually JMS, really) of homophobia. There is a big difference between harbouring an irrational prejudice about gay and lesbian people and finding out that they are renting a likeness of you to have sex with.

I think what disappointed me most was that I wanted to see a movie involving that 2263 B5 crew that was hinted at in Objects in Rest - Captain Lochley, Lieutenant Corwin (surely that should be Commander Corwin by now?), Dr Hobbes, Narn Ambassador Ta'Lon, Centauri Ambassador Cotto, Security Chief Zack Allen, and perhaps a brand new Minbari ambassador to mix things up.. Throw a Soul Hunter in among them, keep the beginning and add a climactic ending, and you'd have a good movie.

The idea was okay, but I think they deliberately set their goals too low when they decided to spend the budget on relatively big-name actors. The direction wasn't inspiring, some (not all) of the effects were poor, and the station sets never looked so ugly. That doesn't mean there aren't some positives to be found in there.. I think Martin Sheen can't help being likeable, and this was the first time I really started to see Lochley as an independent character, rather than just Ivanova's understudy. But the B-plot, the forced humour, the lack of a strong ending, the fact that after the excellent opening it feels less like a movie and more like television than most episodes of B5, all make it difficult for me to enjoy.

GaribaldisHair said:

I'm not sure it is particularly fair to accuse Lochley (actually JMS, really) of homophobia. There is a big difference between harbouring an irrational prejudice about gay and lesbian people and finding out that they are renting a likeness of you to have sex with.

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She was happy to hear it was popular then changed her attitude when she found out it was through women.

I'm not accussing JMS of homophobia,the scene wouldn't exist if he was homophobic in my opinion.

She did react to it so I'd have to say she had an issue.

It was just something I picked up on,probably nothing

JMS, I don't think is homophobic in the slightest, Talia and Susa, and Day of the Dead implied Zoe and Lochley were more than friends at one time, Marcus and Stephen posed as husbands, and there was even one or two background scenes of guys having lunch or whatever together that look 'date-like".

I think it was just Lochley's problem.

and Day of the Dead implied Zoe and Lochley were more than friends at one time

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It did?

GKarsEye said:

It did?

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Well, it seemed to me at least

and Day of the Dead implied Zoe and Lochley were more than friends at one time

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I'm afraid that I missed that too....

Sindatur said:

and Day of the Dead implied Zoe and Lochley were more than friends at one time,

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I got that they were flat mates but no further than that. What I did pick up was the methods the two women were using to pay for the drugs and partying was less than honourable.

A_M_Swallow said:

I got that they were flat mates but no further than that. What I did pick up was the methods the two women were using to pay for the drugs and partying was less than honourable.

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That was the impression I got, though I thought that there was less emphasis on partying and more on survival. The partying part I thought was probably Zoe's way of softening the memories of what they had to do to survive.

Jan

I also got the impression that they were very close... but not necessarily sexually. It's clear Lochley was fond of her flat mate... even if just as a friend... because she still carries the mental baggage from it, all those years later (her security clearance is "Zoe's Dead").

I don't remember seeing Zoe in this movie.

They are talking about the abandoned script,River of Lesbian Love

I think Martin Sheen is excellent in this, he really makes it worth watching. Ian McShane doesn't get enough to do. The holo-brothel plot is fairly weak and I'm not entirely sure how those souls could commandeer the holograms and then have them walk around the station... and the love bat is ridiculously rubbish IMO. The worst of the movies, but with some reddeming moments.

I certainly got a bit of an ambiguous lesbian vibe off Day of the Dead. I do love writing that leaves things like that vaguely undefined. I like not knowing for definite to what extent the two of them were close. As JMS is fond of quoting, "to define is to kill, to suggest is to create."

Conversely River of Souls just felt like 45 minutes of incessant expostitional definition, padded out into a 90 minute movie. I found Martin Sheen fairly insipid, but I'd agree McShane wasn't given enough to do. It's pretty much when he drops out of the story that I always start to doze.

I'm sorry, I sound like a such a bitch. It's only because the best of B5 sets such a high standard that sore thumbs like this one disappoint me so much.

I thought TRoS captured the spirit and sense of being in the B5 universe very well, and infinitely better than To Live and Die in Starlight (a.k.a. TLaDiS). Martin Sheen was ~OK~. Ian McShane trashed the movie on the talk show circuit, but I thought he was very good in it, and so were Garibaldi, Zack and Lochley. The holo-brothel stuff seems just a way to show Tracy Scoggins in lingerie, and seems like something that TNT would have requested. As for the love bat, it was priceless when reprogrammed and used on the lawyer.

TLaDiS made me appreciate TRoS movie all the more. It made me look back on TRoS as "the good ol' days, when B5 movies could be good." TRoS, the worst of the movies? Hell no! That dubious honor is reserved for TLaDiS, no contest. Before TLaDiS, I gave TRoS low ratings, 4 out of 10 on IMDb. After TLaDiS, TRoS looks like gold in comparison (upped to 7 out of 10).

Lochley doesn't even have the kind of figure that's particularly flattered by lingerie. I mean, yeah, she's hot, but more like an athlete than a boudoir sex-kitten type of hot.