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Babylon 5: In The Beginning (1998)
Three and a half stars
TNT, 4 a.m. Wednesday, June 9
Full IMDb listing
The majority of an old and sweeping alien city is in ruins, and the rest of it is on fire, save for a palace, still resplendent in its past glories. All of its windows are boarded up, neither to replace nor protect glass but merely to keep the palace's inhabitants from looking out and seeing what has become of a once powerful, thriving and fabled empire. In stark contrast to the grim scene outside, two children giddily chase each other through the halls of the palace and into the room with the building's sole open window, until their governess catches up and nervously tries to pull them away. They have wandered into the throne room and must leave before the Emperor learns that they have been there.
But the Emperor has been sitting in his throne all along, alone, unnoticed, wrapped in the room's innumerable folds of darkness. He, like his world, has been beaten down and thoroughly defeated. While his strength and power are still palpable, he's merely a shadow of what he once was.
The presence of children in this grim environment appears to brighten him slightly. He takes his Seal of Office from his neck and clasps it around the boy. "You are now Emperor," he says, with a gentle smile. "You may make any one order, anything you desire. Make it a good one," he suggests. "What do you want?"
The boy looks at the seal in wonderment and thinks hard. "Tell me a story!" he finally commands.
"You did far better with that question than I did," the Emperor replies, and it's full of regret and self-condemnation. And then Emperor Londo Mollari — once merely Ambassador Mollari of the Centauri Republic — begins to tell us all the story of the Humans and the Minbari, two alien races whose pride and arrogance caused them to wage a mutually-disastrous war against each other which would ultimately lead to the creation of the Babylon 5 space station and the Coming of the Third Age of Mankind.
It is an altogether appropriate opening for "Babylon 5's" first feature-length production made for TNT. It is instantly engaging and compelling, hinting at one section of a far broader and more detailed canvas, setting the "Babylon 5" story in its intended context as a legend, a fable to be passed down from generation to generation and species to species. The "Babylon 5" TV series is a wonderful curiosity in the world of science fiction ... indeed, in the world of fiction, period: It's a creative universe in which most of the history has already been worked out in advance, and all of it was created and shepherded by one man, J. Michael Straczynski (pictured). One struggles to think of other works which are so vast in scope and yet so self-consistent, one in which the continuity you're viewing today is informed by events and characters that won't be introduced for months or even years to come. The pursuit of other examples results in my sitting here in my office leaning back in my chair for a while, then getting a soda, then noodling on a nearby musical instrument, then drinking another soda, more leaning back, and then I type "Tolkien, or Wagner's 'Ring' Cycle," just to end the paragraph and move onward.
In reality, there's nothing quite like it. Such a richly preordained universe would quickly grow tiresome if all it contributed were endless loops of self-reference and premonition. In "B5," however, events of the future and the past serve to inform the actions of the present, and the result is a far more richly-textured dramatic experience, particularly in the area of characterization. Even if you haven't seen a single one of the nearly 100 hours of story that aired before "In The Beginning," you sense that it's there, in the depth of the elderly Mollari's sorrow and regret and the burden that Minbari leader Delenn shoulders. There's a sense of scale in "In The Beginning" that's missing from almost all TV presentations. It's biblical. Not even "Noah's Ark" was biblical, you know?
Honestly, this is all far too good for TV. Even the cinematography. It's hard to watch any amount of a made-for-TV presentation without getting the impression that TV cinematographers are morbidly afraid of vampires and werewolves and such. If there's any sort of shadow on the set where a monster might be hiding, they've got to obliterate it with a 1000-watt fill-light to protect the cast and crew. On "B5's" screen, characters are allowed to move in and out of light, to be obscured and highlighted by shadow. The special-effects are voluminous and at times betray the fact that this entire movie was shot for about as much as a single episode of "Deep Space Nine" episode, but unlike the effects of any of the "Trek" franchises, "B5's" have to be evaluated on the level of bad film effects rather than good TV effects. That's intended as a compliment, by the way.
It is, of course, a nifty coincidence that "In The Beginning" (as well as the rest of the "B5" made-for-TV movies) are being marathon-aired within spitting distance of the release of "The Phantom Menace." They are, of course, much alike: prequels to a long-existing story. In a way, though, "In The Beginning" is more satisfying than "Episode I." The characters are more emotional and engaging, there's more depth on the screen and "B5" newcomers will find "In The Beginning" a more self-contained and thus satisfying experience than "Star Wars" virgins (meaning: the Amish) would "Phantom Menace." Though it does end a bit abruptly, and in two or three spots appears to take irrelevant detours which only a "B5" faithful would appreciate, the remaining four-fifths of "In The Beginning" is a terrific movie.
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© 2000 Andy Ihnatko. May not be redistributed without permission. Studio PR types wishing to send Andy tapes, promotional clothing, or high-end video gear in hopes of securing a positive review are advised that such efforts are futile, but they're free to try to determine how high Andy's price actually is. Mail any and all pelft to Box 279, Norwood, MA 02062. He could use a new subwoofer for his home-theater setup.
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