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Babylon 5 Movie Starts Filming in April
An anonymous reader writes "According to comingsoon.net, the first theatrical Babylon 5 movie, "The Memory of the Shadows" starts filming in April. The story was written by series creator J. Michael Straczynski."
Steven Beck will direct a big screen adaptation of the popular sci-fi TV series Babylon 5. The movie, titled The Memory of Shadows, is intended for theatrical release and was written by series creator J. Michael Straczynski. Production Weekly reports that the project starts filming this April in the UK.
In "Shadows," the technology of the ancient and extinct Shadow race is being unleashed upon the galaxy by an unknown force, and Earthforce intelligence officer Diane Baker, whose brother was recently killed in a mysterious explosion, it out to find out who is behind the intergalactic conspiracy.
Joining her is Galen, a techno-mage who has been charged with keeping the technology out of the hands of those who would abuse it.
Well, this is news that is long awaited. It looks like this may be a follow-on to the Crusade spin-off series since it is dealing with leftover Shadow technology. Plus Galen, being present in Crusade, draws a link between those two. There have been rumors that Lando might show up in it...and where he goes G'Kar goes too. JMS also made some comments a while back about having to rewrite the script some after Richard Biggs died (Dr. Franklin) so clearly it looks like some B5 crew from the original show might show up beyond the ambassadors.
Can't wait to hear more news.
*Waiting for JMS to release some info directly still
There were actually five Bab5 movies (/me fires up the FTP client):
I: In the Beginning (Earth-Minbari War, editorialized by Londo)
II: Thirdspace (Set Between winning the Shadow War and the assault on earth, the B5 crew finds a portal to another dimension left by the Vorlons)
III: The River Of Souls (Elaboration on the Soul Keeper concept introduced in one of the first episodes)
IV: The Legend of the Rangers -- which, by the way, I quite liked. I think it's been much maligned. Ranger movie
V: A Call To Arms -- this set the backplot for the spin-off Crusade.
These were all TNT (?) Movies of the Week.
-My first thought when reading this :)
I think Babylon 5 is without a doubt the best sci-fi series I've seen. And the last time I watched it through, I had located some of the best sites (IMO) on the net with references/story/background/everything for each B5 episode and read everything before watching an episode.
Especially reading the Lurker's Episode Guide added a lot to the series.
Lurker's Guide.
Timeline from Babylon 5 History Page
JMS says lengend of the rangers was killed by Osama bin Laden. After 9/11, the NFL postponed their games. That meant the football season ended later. Which caused B5:LotR to go up against a football game on the east coast. This game just so happened to be the most watched football game ever. So the east cost ratings weren't good enough for a series, but on the west coast, with no game, they were.
Tim Choate (Zathras) also died recently in a motorcycle accident. :-( link
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
While you're waiting for the movie, check out the fan-created flight sim, complete with a detailed story, realistic physics, and great ship models:
http://ifh.firstones.com/
Enjoy!
"By the by, anybody else find Zathras to be the funniest time-travelling alien ever?"
:(
Yes, sadly Tim Choate who brought the character to life on screen passed away 2 and a half months ago.
He will be missed.
Last episode? The episode you're describing was the season finale for season 3, right at the height of the shadow war story arc. There were two complete seasons after that...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
If it doesn't have Claudia Christian, I'm not gonna see it.
This guy is clearly a troll... As noted below he's talking about an Season 3 episode, while the entire series ran for 5 seasons.
Additionally, IIRC Starcraft came out in 1998, while the Babylon 5 show he's talking about aired two years earlier in 1996.
Crusade was buggered over by TNT. Anyhow, keep in mind that the first season of B5 was episodic and only hinted at what was to come. Crusade was the same; JMS actually planned to have the ship find the cure early in the second season, discover some massive plot involving earth and shadow technology and end up essentially on the run from Earth Force.
Which lead me to fear this film will be more Crusader than Babylon5, and I for one did not really find the whole Crusader spinn-off that great.
It became to much of a Star Trek clone.....(One ship travelling through space encountering weird aliens...)
Wheres the fun in that? B5 was all about grand campaign and universe-spanning alliances.
The thing about Crusade was that only the first 13 episodes were filmed, which are usually where you
introduce the viewers to the series, basic premise, characters, etcetera. The show didn't have a chance to get started.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Two scripts were written by JMS but not filmed - episodes 14 and the season finale. They were published at a long gone website and I had a chance to read them.
In episode 14, the ship finds the ship that attacked the Captain's ship long ago (when Galen
rescues it), and the Excalibur manages to toast it. In the season finale, they find another one of those, track it down as it flees to its base, where they are confronted by defending fighters, which are... get this... starfuries! Yup, that ship was built by humans using Shadow tech.
JMS hinted that the plague thing was just the way to introduce the series, and that a cure would be found early (possibly as early as season 2!), but Excalibur would become a FUGITIVE ship in the meantime...
No, not like trek.
"Trust me - I know what I'm doing."
- Sledge Hammer
The Psi Corps Trilogy:
Dark Genesis
Deadly Relations
Final Reckoning
The first two books actually take place before most of the actual series, but there's some really good backstory involving the founding of the Psi Corps, and Bester's upbringing. The last book actually takes place near the end of the series, and ties up a lot of the litte loose ends left by the series. While the third book is the only one directly dealing with the Garabaldi/Bester situation, the first two are crucial for a plot point near the end of the book.
Legions of Fire (aka: The Centauri Prime Trilogy)
The Long Night of Centauri Prime
Armies of Light and Dark
Out of the Darkness
I'm still reading through these books, myself. This trilogy focuses on the events on Centauri Prime between the episdodes The Fall of Centauri Prime and Sleeping in Light. While there aren't as many unanswered questions regarding that storyline, it's been a good read so far, and hopefully the few unanswered questions (especially from War Without End) will get some answers by the time I get through the third book.
There's also a couple stand-alone novels that fill in some more of the series' backstory...
The Shadow Within shows what John and Anna Sheridan were doing during the expedition to Z'ha'dum. It's a good book, but not quite as essential to the overall plot as some of the others. You do get some pretty neat insight into one of the characters from the series, though.
To Dream In the City of Sorrows shows us what Sinclair was up to between the end of the first season and War Without End. Much like The Shadow Within, it's really more about filling in the backstory than resolving loose ends, but it's still worth checking out. There's also a trilogy of books revolving around the Techno-Mages, but I have yet to get around to those. For some reason, I was never a fan of them beyond their one episode in the second season of the show. I always felt them to be a little out of place in the B5 universe, and their frequent occurance in a lot of the more recent B5 stuff just seems like they're being crammed in. This is possibly why I'm not overly stoked about the brief description that we have of TMoS so far. It just seems like it's more likely to be a random story that just happens to take place in the B5 universe, instead of an extension on the original series. What I really would have liked to have seen is more elaboration on the Telepath War that takes place between the last two episodes of the series. There's some information about it in the last book of the Psi Corps trilogy, but not a whole lot.
The Lurker's Guide (already in the threads)
B5 quotes
More quotes
I Found Her - Free great B5 game (worthed a look)
Probably much more interesting links. I *really* liked B5. It helped me see things differently and actively participated in my "growing up". I published a Babylon 5 book of quotes if you're interested. Like many others, I fear a movie won't be good enough. One of the strengths of B5 was telling a story over countless episodes, not only 2 hours. Time will say.
"We create the future, with our words, our deeds and with our beliefs"
- Lady Ladira, B5: "Signs and Portents"
Animoog.org
Heck, Dr. Who even invented "The Matrix" in 1978, thanks to Douglas Addams.
Wow, three mistakes in one sentence. The Matrix-like episode, "The Deadly Assassin", was written by Robert Holmes and produced in 1976. This was before Douglas Adams (whose name you misspelled) had anything to do with the series.
Of course, this gets posted at 0, so no one will see it.
Last episode? The episode you're describing was the season finale for season 3, right at the height of the shadow war story arc. There were two complete seasons after that...
IIRC, on one run of the show on Channel 4 in the UK, Babylon 5 was originally only aired up to season 3, and they couldn't get the rights for seasons 4 and 5. So it's not beyond the realm of possibility for some people to think that S3 was the last season of the show.
A B5 synopses page contains a summary of the next-to-last S3 episode, and at the bottom there's a bit of explanation of what happened with Channel 4.
"Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of"-TMBG