Babylon 5 Animated Movie Coming From Warner Bros.

[zarius]

Given that our Helen O'Hara was once Grand Admiral President (or something, we need to check that) of a college Babylon 5 fan society and that James and/or Chris dig out this Spaced quote, on any mention of the show, we can predict how some of this week's Empire Podcast might go, given that series creator J. Michael Straczynski has announced an animated movie based on the show.


The series, which ran in syndication and on US cable channel TNT for five seasons or 110 episodes and seven TV movies (the vast majority of which were written by Straczynski), featured the titular five-mile-long space station in neutral space, a port of call for travelers, smugglers, corporate explorers and alien diplomats at a time of uneasy peace and the constant threat of war. Ancient races brought conflict and a variety of the younger species banded together to finally end it.



Straczynski has been developing a reboot series for US network The CW, but with the tricky issues around the sale of that Network, there have been few updates on it.



The movie, meanwhile, per Straczynski, is finished and ready to go. More details are expected soon.

www.empireonline.com/movies/news/babylon-5-animated-movie-on-the-way/

[burrunjor]

A bit torn about this, as I do absolutely love Babylon 5, but my fave character Gkar's actor is sadly no longer with us, and on top of that they haven't had the best track record with their movies either. Still we'll see what way it goes.

[zarius]

May 4, 2023 13:25:22 GMT burrunjor said:

A bit torn about this, as I do absolutely love Babylon 5, but my fave character Gkar's actor is sadly no longer with us, and on top of that they haven't had the best track record with their movies either. Still we'll see what way it goes.

At best, the animation should help them realize things too big for live-action budgets, like the telepath war

I can see them possibly using this format to also provide closure on Crusaade.

But yes, I don't want a repeat of the pointless fillers that were the VHS movies in the 90s, only one of which was in any way essential to the continuing story (A Call to Arms)

[iank]

Half the cast are dead! It's not just G'Kar, it's Delenn, Garibaldi, Franklin, Vir, Zack, eff me!
I mean, better than a reboot, but yeah the movies were tripe so one can only hope this is better than that.

[zarius]

May 5, 2023 1:56:33 GMT iank said:

Half the cast are dead! It's not just G'Kar, it's Delenn, Garibaldi, Franklin, Vir, Zack, eff me!
I mean, better than a reboot, but yeah the movies were tripe so one can only hope this is better than that.

They're going to use replacement voices for the deceased cast


www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/babylon-5-the-road-home-voice-cast-unveiled-1235483312/

...It's another multiverse movie. 

[iank]

Not sure how I feel about that. Probably be very jarring, especially with the likes of Delenn and G'Kar, who had such distinctive voices.