2023/06/28

Legend of the Rangers was first aired on January 19^th, 2002 on the Sci-fi channel. Directed by Mike Vejar and of course written by JMS. The thought behind this movie was that it was a pilot for a new TV series. However, because of poor ratings this never happened. A reason for the poor ratings probably is because it was airing opposite of NFL playoffs! I rewatched it and I came to the conclusion that it perhaps is not a great movie but it actually was entertaining enough to warrant a TV series, in my humble opinion anyway. The movie isn’t perfect but the set-up was quite interesting! An alien race, much older than the Shadows, reducing the Shadows to insects in comparison to this new (much older) alien race also called The Hand. What perhaps most of you don’t realize is that it is set before the start of Crusade! Crusade is set in 2267 while the movie Legends of the Rangers is set a few years before, 2265. Don’t know what the reasoning was but I found it to be curious.

Regarding the cast, the captain is David Martel (Dylan Neal) who gets the command of the Liandra after he almost gets thrown out of the Rangers because he didn’t pursue an enemy while his ship was dead in the water, he thought about the safety of his crew. Alex Zahara is Dulann, a Minbari, his second in command. Myriam Sirois is Sarah Cantrell, the weapons officer. Dean Marshall as Malcolm Bridges, he is the security officer, you might recognize him from Stargate Atlantis. Jennie Rebecca Hogan was a Narn Na’Feel, she would have become an interesting character in my opinion. I can some up a few more names but honestly they weren’t of any interest in this movie, perhaps if it had become a series these characters would be fleshed out more. The last one I want to mention is G’Kar (Andreas Katsulas), he made the movie a bit better, he shines in every scene he’s in, the scene where he is asked to come to the captain is just hilarious: Citizen G'Kar saying to the other diplomats: Of course. LOVE to stay, can't, have to go, kiss-kiss, love-love, bye! Tried the find the scene on YouTube, but no luck!

Right at the beginning of the movie G’Kar is informed about this new unknown race which have the Rangers worried. Immediately the tone is set and it piqued my interest. We see David Martel’s crew return after a screwed up mission, at least they still live but according to the Rangers commander, Martel is not worthy of being a Ranger because he did not let himself and his crew get slaughtered. G’Kar defends him, making compelling arguments and he is the only reason Martel remains a Ranger and he even gets a ship, although it is a cursed ship according to the rumors: the Liandra. Martel and his crew get an “easy” assignment, they need to accompany the ship the Valen to bring a number of diplomats to a certain planet for a meeting. G’Kar is also with them. The meeting is all about this unknown alien race. But they do get attacked, and the Valen, which is a much bigger ship than Martel’s ship, becomes inoperable, their captain sends the diplomats into a life pod, so the Liandra can pick them up. Meanwhile the Valen crashed into an attacking vessel! Dulann is in sickbay after the first attack. He keeps seeing ghosts from previous crews and they are trying to tell him something. The ghosts tell him there was a traitor in their midst and Dulann deduces that this is the case now also. And he is right, it is the diplomat called Kafta (Mackenzie Gray), he works with these powerful aliens.

The enemy tells Martel to surrender the diplomat Kafta, otherwise they will be destroyed. Martel knows that they will be dead either way so he devices a plan, doing something he did earlier and he bets on the fact that they wouldn’t expect him trying this a second time because they were aware of it. He sends Kafta via the life pod to the enemy ship, strapped with grenades, keeping in a straight line with the life pod and the enemy ship, so the communication seems to come from the life pod but actually comes from the Liandra, with a device the security officer become someone else (like he did earlier with G’Kar), in this case Kafta. And when the enemy is about to receive Kafta, Martel orders the detonation of the grenades!

It was quite entertaining actually, you probably have to be in that mood, knowing what to expect, that it is definitely not in the same league as Babylon 5 itself. What I thought was disastrous about the movie was the weapons officer, hanging in space, firing at the enemy! This was ludicrous, I really couldn’t believe JMS had thought this up! Also really annoying at some point she really gets berserk firing at the enemy. I’ve seen some stupid things watching movies and TV series but this was one of the worst things I’ve ever seen! I wish they would re-release the movie and drop that bit entirely. If you showed this scene to a person whom you wanted to convince to watch more SCI-FI, this person would think you were crazy, would uncontrollably laugh at you!

Final Word:

So yeah, it could be better, still it is entertaining, the premise is very interesting, an alien race even more powerful, more advanced than the Shadows or the Vorlons. A few characters were interesting, most of them are not ….yet, it is only 90 minutes, what can you expect. And it is Babylon 5, I welcome anything in this universe and I really believe JMS could have made this an interesting TV series. Sadly it didn’t happen. Only thing that really bothered me was the weapons officer firing shots with her fists and feet, in space, looking all angry and frustrated. But other than that, just enjoy it for what it is, for what it could have become, it certainly did have potential.