Brand New Babylon 5 directed-to-DVD: The lost Tales

10 years. 10 years since the world changed, 10 years I changed. It been like I never left the place. Babylon 5 is the place of begining and ending. I wonder what this will be........~ narrated by John Sheridan, President of ISA.

I preordered this item on Amazon.com months ago and got it in early August. I planned to post my thought after I wacthed it immediately, but I decided to settle my feeling for a while. In this DVD, there are two short stories in parallel, setting in 10 years after the founding of Interstellar Alliance(aka ISA). The first is to deal that Colonel Lockley, commander of Babylon 5 spacestation, encounters a supernatural cricis and the second is about a decision that President Sheridan has to made to prevent the doom of Earth on his way to Babylon 5 to attend the ceremony of 10 years anniversary of ISA. Comparing with the other Babylon 5 TV movies, the last tales doesn't present an action-exiting storyline to catch my eyes due to the finite budget?! maybe........I thought.........I am not sure.

The first story involves two elements: a powerful allien race trapped on Earh or on a poor man and a dialectic usually used in Catholicism. I am familiar with the first element because this material is hot in lots of sci-fi works, especialy in Star Trek and its spin-off series. Therefore, I feel that this story has no innovation and creation......it is a normal sci-fi episode.......I watched a similar work that J. Micheal Straczynski (aka JMS), the creator of Babylon 5, made 10 years ago. Yap! The River of Souls I mention. However, I can not understand the relation betweeen the allien trapped on Earth and so-callled the Catholicism dialectic. On the finale, Lockley told the alien trapped on a man that you can not escape from Earth and walk among the sky because you do not believe the heaven and stars. And guess what? She convinces the alien not to interfere the poor guy whom he/she trepped on. It's so amazong.......! All right! I feel that this one is so~~~~~~~~~~ boring.

The second story is quit simple: onece again, Galen, a member of Technomagic, first appearing on the fifth TV movie of Babylon 5, A Call to Arms, appears and wants Sheridan to kill a key Centauri person if necessary to prevent the doom of Earth. On this episode, JMS uses Adolf Hitler as an example to be a comparison with that Centauri person. It's interesting. JMS tries to tell us - If we took care of Adolf Hitler when he was young, he would not launch the world war II. I do not agree this viewpoint because the reasons caused the WW II are too many. Can we prevent WW II by taking care of young Adolf Hitler? I don't think so. Well! Sheridan makes his own decision but Gaken does not satisfy. And..........the end of the last tales. Actually, the story tells us that a small error may be a big trouble in the future if we do not care about that.

Well! I'd like to say that the Lost Tales presents the quility visoul effect in 3D computer graphic model, such Babylon 5 station, New York city in late of 23 centoury, space ships, and a scence of battlefield between Earth and Centauri. but gives us a normal story telling. If there is another Lost Tales DVD concerning Micheal Garibaldi ans Lando Mollari, JMS has to do more his best to show that he is capable of making an epic, a classical Sci-fi work, Babylon 5.