Babylon 5: A Call to Arms (1999)

The Drakh, allies of the Shadows, seek revenge against humanity after the Second Shadow War.

Director:

Michael Vejar

Writers:

J. Michael Straczynski (creator), J. Michael Straczynski

Stars:

Bruce Boxleitner, Jerry Doyle, Jeff Conaway

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Bruce Boxleitner	...	John J. Sheridan
Jerry Doyle	...	Michael Garibaldi
Jeff Conaway	...	Zack Allan
Carrie Dobro	...	Dureena Nafeel
Peter Woodward	...	Galen
Tony Todd	...	Leonard Anderson
Tracy Scoggins	...	Capt. Elizabeth Lochley
Tony Maggio	...	Drake
Michael Harris	...	Bishop
Scott MacDonald	...	First Officer
Wayne Alexander	...	Drakh
Carlos Bernard	...	Communications
Burt Bulos	...	Navigation
Ron Campbell	...	Drazi
David Coburn	...	Minbari Ranger

Storyline

Five years after the events of the Babylon 5 series, a technomage named Galen predicts an imminent attack by the Drakh, the old allies of the Shadows. Through dreams, a thief, a captain, and a president are brought together to head them off. The president is John Sheridan. Because of his irrational behavior, Sheridan's friends begin to wonder about his sanity. It's up to all of them and two prototype battlecruisers, the Excalibur and the Victory, to stop the fleet and their planet-killer. But is there more to the Drakh's plan?

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Plot Keywords:

woman wearing a gas mask | sequel | fourth part | gas mask | space opera | 

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Drama | Sci-Fi

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Certificate:

TV-PG

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

3 January 1999 (USA)

Also Known As:

A Call to Arms

Company Credits

Production Co:

Babylonian Productions, TNT

Technical Specs

Runtime:

94 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

During the evacuation from the planet-killer, a Warlock destroyer can be briefly seen.

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Goofs

The ship's badge of the EAS Charon is clearly seen in the background of a few scenes, which displays a "K" (it's model series letter). In addition, an identical "K" upper left arm patch can be seen on several crew members uniforms, but when the Charon is seen crossing the screen in one scene, her model series letter clearly displays a "C" on the forward hull.

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Quotes

[first lines]
ISN Reporter: Meanwhile, on Earth and Minbar, preparations continue for next month's celebration marking the fifth anniversary of the Interstellar Alliance. Aside from one brief conflict with the Centauri Republic early in its first year ISA President John Sheridan has delivered on his promise to maintain peace among all its member worlds...

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Connections

Follows Babylon 5: Thirdspace (1998)

User Reviews

It's a shame, but after this great start it all kinda fizzled after this film ended

This made for TV movie was actually made to set the stage for a Babylon 5 spin off series, CRUSADE. In this movie, a huge showdown with the evil minions of the Shadows (the Drakh) is about to occur with the Earth. However, no one is aware of this and the only clues to the impending holocaust are weird dreams and visions that are experienced by Sheridan and two others who he has never met. One is the captain of an Earthforce ship, the other is an annoying and difficult to like alien named Dureena. Dureena is a thief "with an attitude" (quite the cliché) and I never warmed to her character in this movie or on the nine episodes she was in on the show CRUSADE. In addition to these characters, Galen (a reappearing character on CRUSADE) also makes his first appearance. Unlike Dureena, his character did improve over time--so the idiots producing CRUSADE decided to take him off the show. In fact, after this excellent movie with an excellent premise, it seemed like TNT (who produced the series) did everything they could do to kill it, such as moving the show about, alienating the head writer and not bothering to publicize it. It's a shame--in seeing this movie, you have a good idea of what COULD have been had the series continued receiving network support.

Overall, this movie is quite watchable and exciting, but many of the familiar characters (Delenn, Londo, Vir, others) are absent. Plus I don't know if I am being too picky, but during the big battle with the Drakh, things seemed to really drag and take forever--this part could have been tightened up a bit and would have resulted in a higher score.