Babylon 5: The Lost Tales

(Should this be on the Movie Pages?)

Watched the DVD over the weekend. It's funny that Sheridan calls the Minbari minimalists when he sees the spartan meeting room where he gave his interview. Both stories on the DVD were minimalist (or done in a minimalist style). They had a minimum number of main characters returning from the TV series (two). They had long scenes of dialog with little or no action. The sets were simple, green-screened, or totally bare (Sheridan's interview). I don't know if this was done on purpose for artistic effect or because of budget constraints. I don't have enough information to make a judgement either way. I haven't watched all the extras yet; maybe Straczynski explains it in one of them. I get the feeling that people expecting to see spaceship battles and special effects action might be disappointed.

It harks back to the original Star Trek series and even The Twilight Zone. They both had limited budgets for sets, props, and special effects which, even back then, made them look simple and amateurish. You had to look past the production values and look at the stories, for they were about the conflict and interaction between the characters which is the basis for all good science fiction.

It's the same with The Lost Tales. If you ignore the CGI and the sets, you could drop these two "episodes" into appropriate places in the story arcs of the original series. They had the same feel and content of original episodes. The characters were true to their development in the series. They showed us the same internal and external conflicts they experienced as we watched them grow and evolve the first time through.

(I just wish there had been more!)