Babylon 5 Movies Guide by Rae Augenstein

Listed in chronological order
Year / Title	Synopsis
2278 / 2243 In the Beginning	While David Sheridan, Delenn, and a time-traveling John Sheridan are being held hostage on Centauri Prime by the Drakh, an aged Emperor Londo Mollari tells the story of the Earth-Minbari War — and his intimate involvement in it — to a pair of young Centauri children. It seems that Londo was Ambassador to Earth in the 2270s and was present when Earthforce decided to attempt a first contact with the Minbari. The Minbari Grey Council, meanwhile, is welcoming Delenn as a new member, and is also discussing whether they should contact Earth. Young Delenn and Dukhat think they should, but the rest of the council disagrees. Taking the Grey Council ship to Earth, they are intercepted by an Earthforce cruiser that opens fire, damaging the Minbari vessel and killing Dukhat. The Minbari ship limps away from the scene, and the Grey Council votes on what to do. Delenn casts the deciding vote to go to war against earth. We see a teenaged Susan Ivanova saying goodbye to her brother Ganya, who served on the same ship as Commander John Sheridan. Ganya, and Sheridan’s captain are killed shortly thereafter in an attack by the Minbari flagship, the Black Star. Sheridan’s ship itself is crippled, but he sets a trap that lures the Black Star back and ultimately destroys it, making John a hero. This is the one uncontested victory of the war, though it will have ramifications for years to come (cf: There All The Honor Lies). [NOTE: When Sheridan talks about this in Season II of B5, he clearly says this battle took place in the Asteroid Belt in our own solar system, shortly before the Battle of the Line. In this movie, however, it’s early on in the war, and in a different solar system entirely.] Sheridan, G’Kar and Doctor Franklin get assigned to a secret diplomatic mission to meet with Delenn, who now regrets the war, and negotiate an armistice. This is betrayed by the timely intervention of Ambassador Mollari, resulting in the death of one of the Minbari and the capture of Sheridan and the others. Sheridan says a phrase in Minbari that the dead Minbari had taught him specifically to exonerate him if he was captured, and Delenn lets him go. Interestingly, none of the people involved — G’Kar, Delenn, Sheridan, or Franklin — seem to remember this event after it happened, though I suppose it’s possible Delenn and Sheridan might not have recognized each other. Meanwhile, back on earth the Battle of the Line begins, and we’re introduced to Lt. Jeffrey Sinclair, then a fighter pilot. We see his capture and release, and get a foreshadowing of his importance to future events, and time itself. Back in the present, Londo finishes his reminiscences, and dismisses the children and their nurse. He then peers in on John and Delenn in the holding cell, and orders more wine. A lot more wine. [NOTE: Though a fun romp, this movie introduces a lot of irresolvable continuity errors into the B5 Timeline — some minor and some major — and in the process doesn’t tell us much we didn’t already know from the series itself. In essence, it functions as a retroactive pilot episode for the series, set before it, but made during its fourth year.]
2257 The Gathering (Pilot)	Babylon 5 awaits the arrival of the last alien ambassador to live on the station, Kosh of the mysterious Vorlon race. He is poisoned on arrival. After telepath Lyta Alexander scans the unconscious Vorlon, it seems that B5 Commander Jeffrey Sinclair is responsible. The investigation eventually shows that a Minbari using a changeling net to impersonate various station personnel was actually to blame. As the Minbari is being taken away, he leaves Sinclair with a cryptic message: “You have a hole in your mind.”
2257 The Gathering: Special Edition	Essentially the same movie as ‘The Gathering’ above, but with an updated soundtrack that matches the rest of the series’ music and with additional or expanded scenes. For instance, there’s an early scene of Garibaldi breaking up a Dust deal in the embarkation lounge, a scene of Dr. Kyle discussing his recent abuse of stims, and Carolyn Sykes’s discussion of the battle of the Line with Sinclair runs easily twice as long, and is quite good. Garibaldi’s alcoholism is even foreshadowed. The Special Edition (Soon to be released on DVD) is generally better than the pilot, above, but it still suffers from a weak middle act in which not much happens. Still, it gives us a glimpse into what JMS actually wanted the show to be when it started out, as opposed to the show we got when all was said and done. (Still pretty good, just different.)
2260 Thirdspace	A million years ago, the Vorlons attempted to find a newer, faster way to travel through space. They invented a new kind of ‘Super Jumpgate’ that allowed them to pass through another dimension called ‘Thirdspace’ instead of conventional hyperspace. Alas, Thirdspace was inhabited, and its denizens were a thanatous, life-hating race that immediately attacked the Vorlons. The Vorlons eventually managed to defeat the thirdspacers, but were nearly destroyed in the process. In the battle, the Thirdspace gateway was lost, and drifted through space for a million years. In 2260, coming back from battling Raiders with really cheap-looking helmets, Ivanova’s squadron discovers the Vorlon device, and they have it towed back to B5. IPX finds out about the thing, and sends a research team headed by Dr. Elizabeth Trent (Shari Belafonte). Captain Sheridan gives her permission to experiment on the thing, but wants full reports as to what’s going on. Trent realizes the importance of what she’s found, and doesn’t deal squarely with Sheridan, who doesn’t trust her anyway. Meanwhile, people on the station like Ivanova (with ‘Big Hair’), Vir, and Deuce (William Sanderson, Cf. Grail) are having strange dreams. Riots are breaking out on the station with more frequency the longer the artifact stays nearby. Eventually the Thirdspace jumpgate is activated, and the evil aliens immediately attempt to invade the universe. B5’s fighters and Whitestars manage to hold them at bay temporarily, while Sheridan sneaks through the gateway into Thirdspace and plants a small tactical nuclear weapon on ‘their’ side of the gateway. He escapes back into ‘our’ universe just as the bomb goes off, once again proving that Captain John J. “Starkiller” Sheridan never met any problem that couldn’t be solved by a suitable application of Thermonuclear weapons (cf.: In the Beginning, There all the Honor Lies, Z’ha’dum). Meanwhile, Zack talks himself out of having a relationship with Lyta, Lyta walks around in a daze a lot, Dr. Franklin and Zack end up fighting rioters on the Zocalo, and Vir has dirty dreams. Then it all ends and Dr. Trent goes home. Curiously, this ‘movie’ takes place between the first and second acts of Atonement. [NOTE: This movie is Claudia “Ivanova” Christian’s swan song from B5. Though she is in the final episode, ‘Sleeping in Light’, it was filmed months before this very weak TV movie was shot for TNT.]
2262 The River of Souls	When archaeologists excavating a vault come under attack, one of them escapes with a sphere containing thousands of souls. He brings it to Babylon 5 where he attempts to make contact with those inside, the remnants of a society named Ralga. An accident releases some of the souls into the station’s power grid, and projections of those inside the sphere begin to appear around the station. A Soul Hunter arrives to retrieve the souls, who don’t want to return to captivity. A power surge meant for the Soul Hunter hits Lochley, and during her unconsciousness she communicates with the souls. She learns that while the Soul Hunters meant to catch the society on the verge of their death, they instead interrupted a transformation that was about to take place: a transformation to a kind of ethereal being. They hope Lochley can help the Soul Hunters see that they had made a mistake. Other Soul Hunter ships begin arriving to help recapture the Ralgans, believing that their immature 4000-year-old colleague is too inexperienced for the task. The souls congregate in the ship’s fusion reactor, ready to blow the entire station to avoid recapture. The young Soul Hunter offers himself as a sacrifice, willing to join the Ralgan colony in their sphere in order to learn from them. The Ralgans accept, and his soul is taken into the globe. The other Soul Hunters leave with the sphere, satisfied.
2265 Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers	This movie is currently in pre-production status, so any information posted about it here is speculative and must be taken with several grains of salt. In the year 2265, six years after the end of the Shadow War, but two years before the events of Crusade. G’Kar and the Rangers help to restore order among the races that were crippled by the war.
2267 A Call to Arms	As the ISA celebrates it’s fifth anniversary, John Sheridan decides to visit his pet projects, the Excalibur and the Victory, two new ‘Destroyer Class’ ships utilizing Vorlon, Minbari, and Human technology (cf. The Movement of Fire and Shadow). The ships are far beyond schedule in construction, which is being partially overseen by Mr. Garibaldi. Meanwhile, Galen the Technomage (Peter Woodward) has discovered that the Drakh have a working Shadow Planet-killer, and are planning to use it against earth. With the approval of his superiors in the Technomage Circle, he is allowed to warn Sheridan of this, invading the ISA President’s dreams. He’s also invaded the dreams of Dureena Nafeel (Carrie Dobro), a thief, and Earthforce Captain Anderson (Tony Todd). Ultimately, all these people come together at B5 and the crew of Anderson’s destroyer is divided between the ISS Victory and the ISS Excalibur. Anderson commands the Victory and Sheridan takes the Excalibur. Garibaldi, meanwhile, attempts to pump information out of the chief engineer of the Excalibur Project, who has been revealed as a Drakh agent. Alas, Sheridan and Anderson are too late to prevent the Drakh attack on earth, but they were able to forewarn Earthforce via Captain Lochley. Thus, Earth is at least somewhat ready when the Drakh come in shooting. Captain Anderson realizes that if the Drakh reach earth with their planet-killer, his family will die, so he pulls a ‘Captain Sheridan’ maneuver and kamikazes the Victory into the huge alien vessel, destroying it. This turns the tide of the battle, and the Drakh run, but not before releasing a Plague Virus into Earth’s atmosphere. This ‘Drakh Plague’ will wipe out all human life on earth in five years, unless a cure is found. President Sheridan vows to use all the resources of the ISA to find a cure, and figures for some reason (that is never adequately explained) that the cure must be on one of the abandoned worlds formerly inhabited by the First Ones. This is far and away the best of the B5 movies. [NOTE: This movie serves as a ‘segue’ for the events of ‘Crusade’ and introduces two of its principal characters, Galen and Dureena. Also, this movie has a completely new sound, thanks to the superb soundtrack of completely new music written by Evan Chen. This is a nice change of pace for those of us who never much cared for the Christopher Franke music on B5.]

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The Movies