Babylon 5: In the Beginning, on TNT
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Caution: spoilers.

This is the first Babylon 5 TV movie aired by TNT in 1998, a few weeks before the network started airing the fifth season of the show, which had previously aired on PTEN for the first four seasons. I'm reviewing it after watching it again on DVD in 2024. After re-watching it all these years later, I honestly have no idea how well the movie stands up on its own, if you've never seen B5, but I do think you'll have a much greater appreciation for it if you've already seen the first four seasons. The movie does a really good job of filling in an important part of the history of the B5 universe. And it makes me want to re-watch the series itself.

It's framed by scenes set in 2278, when Londo Mollari is emperor of the Centauri Republic. (Centauri Prime is in flames, and the movie does nothing to explain this. Nor do I remember if the series ever explained it, which is one reason I want to re-watch it.) Londo tells the story of the Earth-Minbari War to two young children named Luc and Lyssa, as well as an unnamed woman who I assumed to be their governess; but for all I know she could have been their mother. But that's not important. Londo's story begins in 2243, when he was a liaison to Earth. Earth's military wants Londo to provide them with strategic information concerning a mysterious race called the Minbari. He advises them to leave the Minbari alone, but the humans don't heed his warning. They send a ship called Prometheus to try to gather information about the Minbari. One military officer offered then-Commander John Sheridan the position of first officer aboard the Prometheus, but he declined, since he didn't trust the ship's captain, and didn't want to be put in a position of having to go against his orders. In retrospect, it probably would have been better if Sheridan had been on the ship; he might have prevented the war that was ultimately initiated by first contact with the Minbari. There was a cultural misunderstanding that led to the Prometheus attacking a Minbari ship, and killing Dukhat, the leader of the Minbari's Grey Council. This, of course, enraged the Minbari, including a new addition to the Council named Delenn. So, they retaliated against the humans, and showed no desire to ever stop retaliating. And their ships were far superior to the humans' ships.

But I've gotten a bit ahead of myself. The movie alternates between scenes of the humans' perspective and the Minbari's. Before the war even started, a Minbari named Lenonn, the head of a group of spies called the Anla'Shok, pleaded with the Grey Council for more resources to prepare for a different coming war, against the Shadows, which had been prophesied 1000 years ago. Meanwhile, we also learn that Dukhat had secretly been in contact with representatives of an even older alien race, the Vorlons, who would be allies in the war against the Shadows. After Dukhat's death, Lenonn reveals the Vorlons' presence to Delenn, and they show her a holo-recording of Dukhat that revealed the humans would be a key ally in the war against the Shadows, so Delenn would have to find a way to stop the present war against the humans. Meanwhile, the humans were dealing with Narn ambassador G'Kar to buy advanced weapons to fight the Minbari. And Dr. Stephen Franklin, who had had contact with Minbari before the war, was arrested by a superior officer for refusing to share his notes on Minbari physiology. Eventually, Delenn arranges for a secret peace talk between Lenonn and the humans, who send Sheridan, Franklin, and G'Kar. That meeting ends in disaster, for a reason I won't spoil, but the war intensified after that.

And I keep getting things out of order. Like, prior to the attempted peace talks, Sheridan had come up with a plan that let the ship he was serving on destroy the Minbari's flagship, which was apparently the only victory the humans ever had in the war. Anyway... the Minbari eventually make their way past all of Earth's colonies, and attack Earth itself. The president of the Earth Alliance calls on all ships capable of fighting to hold the line against the Minbari's advance, to give escape ships time to take as many civilians as possible to safety. One of the people fighting the Minbari was Jeffrey Sinclair (whom fans of the show will know would later be the first commander of the Babylon 5 space station). He gets captured by the Minbari, and they make a shocking discovery about him, which I won't spoil, but it's enough to make them stop the war by surrendering to the Earth forces, right before the Minbari would have won. They erased Sinclair's memory of the event, and the reason for their surrender would remain a great mystery for years. But anyway, after the war, the Earth Alliance began the Babylon project, to create a place the major races of the galaxy could come together to work things out peacefully, to prevent any more wars.

Whew, I've said a lot, but I've also left some things out. I will say it ends with a scene of Emperor Mollari, after finishing his story and dismissing the listeners, ordering a guard to bring him two prisoners in an hour. Who those prisoners were, I won't spoil. But I will say I don't remember why they were prisoners, if that was ever explained in the series, which is another reason I'd like to re-watch the series. Anyway... I do think I'd like the movie a bit less if I weren't already a fan of the series, but I also feel like it's not completely necessary to have seen the series before this. It tells a pretty good story, in and of itself, with plenty of intrigue, and tragedy, and ultimately hope for the future. (Tinged with concern and curiosity about whatever's going on in the even more distant future.) And it was nice to see a bit of the pasts of familiar characters from the show. And I just think all the pieces of the story fit together really well, and explain a lot.