LouHomey From my favorite movies..

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Walter Sloane Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Stuart Fisher I think Babylon 5: River of Souls is probably the weakest of the Babylon 5 spin offs. The idea behind River of Souls is good, but that movie feels unpolished and just not as well put together as all of the others. And yet it is The Legend of the Rangers that has the lowest score on IMDb.I think perhaps people don't like this one because it doesn't do very much. It's really just a film about "events behind the scenes". It is about what happens to one group of Rangers on a mission to escort some diplomats. It doesn't deal with the bigger picture at all really. I think this is just fine though, and although it doesn't deal with the bigger picture it does deal with some of the fundamental philosophical ideas and goals of the Alliance. That is what G'Kar's role is all about here, and as always Andreas Katsulas plays G'Kar brilliantly.In some ways The Legend of the Rangers feels a bit like an episode of Star Trek. It's simply the crew of a ship facing a situation that has developed. They then have to use their combined talents to figure out how to deal with it as best they can. Once again this is not a bad thing.One other aspect I like is the way combat is dealt with. In almost all the space battles I've watched there is usually some shooting and then a pause while the commanders decide what to do next. Then there is some more shooting, often followed by another pause (usually when the shields are down to almost nothing). This is of course completely unrealistic. It's one of the reasons why I think the Borg would have wiped out the federation. You never see the Borg having a conversation about what to do next! In Legend of the Rangers the weapons officer is given complete control of the weapons and she doesn't press buttons or wait for commands from the Captain to fire. Instead she enters a form of virtual reality where she becomes one with the ship. This allows her to use the weapons to attack and defend just as you would use your arms and legs if you were physically fighting someone. It is completely realistic and convincing.Overall The Legend of the Rangers is a really good addition to the Babylon 5 universe and I would encourage the doubters to re-visit it. You just have to approach it with different expectations.

bpeck13 In the overall Babylon 5 (B5) saga, this movie is optional. Does not add nor detract from the B5 series. Having a minimal background knowledge of the B5 series helps some, but not necessary. I do believe this was supposed to be the pilot movie for another spin-off series from B5, but that didn't work out. I bought this DVD as I wanted to see the entire set of B5 movies.This is the ultimate against-all-odds movie. The two ships are escorting some dignitaries to a conference. One ship is top-of-the-line, hot off the press. The Liandra is so decrepit, it is barely hanging together. They are attacked by an unknown enemy who is massively superior. The top-of-the-line ship is destroyed by the enemy. The Liandra not only survives the attack, but due to cunning strategy and refuse-to-give-up attitude, the rag-tag crew and ship end up winning the battle. The classic good-always-triumphs-over-evil story.The story is a bit slow at times, but overall, it is a good movie and worth seeing.

John_Warwick I have noticed some criticisms of this film which I don't agree with like...The Hand' don't come off at all either. We are told they are billions of years old, and only their servants show themselves in this movie. Despite their superiority though, their technologically superior ships (which tear the Valen to pieces in seconds) have a really hard time taking out a damaged patrol vessel and its escape pod slinging captain. Their leader, glimpsed in transmissions is hardly menacing: he simply wears a horned hood and speaks in a vaguely legalistic sense. The Hand are a carrot dangled before us we should want to watch the rest of the series to see them. The Minions of the hand are not supposed to be menacing they are races of aliens who are far more primitive than humans yet have been given 'Toys' by the hand to do their bidding, as explained in the film.I believe the idea was to make the minions appear to be defeatable and believe that there was some hope until we saw their masters. If so it would have been more relevant to what we saw here. Sometimes the bigger picture reveals the hidden brilliance.

Pavel Stuchlík I watched this film after finishing the whole five seasons, all 13 episodes of Crusade and the other five films. I had already got the general idea from Babylon 5 forums that this film was not going to be good. But since I am a forgiving and merciful person and a big fan of Babylon 5, I thought I'd go soft on it.However... the disappointments prevailed.To start with- the Rangers. Every other comment touches the same problem: the Rangers here are nothing what they ought to be. These guys are impulsive (especially Ne'Feel and Sarah) and irrational and one of them (Tirk) is just plain stupid. How could such people command a Ranger ship (and a strange one indeed)? How could they even BECOME Rangers? And since when does the Grey Council judge them?To continue with- the Hand. You may remember Delenn telling the B5 crew about the First Ones, Shadows being the eldest. You may remember Lorien, the eldest of all. And here we have a race, billions of years old, powerful beyond imagination, sensing their chance to conquer and destroy (or just destroy), whose ships fall to simple explosives in a life-pod...To further continue with- the VR shooting and other minor points. It seemed quite interesting when Sarah first jumped inside, but the sheer impracticability of it and the ridiculous scenes that followed killed the idea off. After the ambassadors get on board, they complain and after that, they somehow disappear from the scene. And G'Kar is simply abused and flattened here.To end with- I could dismiss the darkness and mist around the base on Minbar with thinking "it was at night, probably in industrial quarter". I could judge it as a pilot knowing that JMS has some tricks up his sleeve he would show later. I could appreciate the CGI. I could do all that and I still cannot find enough compassion for this film.I am truly sorry it had to end like this.