In the Beginning discussion

[ruuger]

And so it beings. Again.

This is the discussion post for In the Beginning. Spoilers for the whole of the series, including the spin-offs and tie-ins, are allowed here so newbies beware.

Summary:
The story of the Minbari war.

Extra reading:
The article for In the Beginning at The Lurker's Guide.

PS. Since it's been ages that anyone's posted any episode-related fanworks, I'm retiring the separate fanworks posts, and so if you have any fanworks about the episode of the week, leave the links to this post.

Comments

[selenak.livejournal.com]

General observation: this feels very much like filmed "missing scenes" fanfiction. Which isn't to say I don't enjoy it - most of the tv movies, definitely, and also in general. But as a movie in its own right, well, I'm not sure that it works. For starters, because the problem that arises due to the switch of lead becomes painfully apparant. The great emotional climax, the Battle of the Line and the interrogation of Sinclair, ending in Delenn demanding that the Council surrender, in this film has as one of its two participants a character who does not play any role in the rest of the film. If Sinclair as opposed to Sheridan had been given the male leading role here, it would work, but he wasn't because Sheridan became the hero of the show. So you have Sheridan as the male lead of this film but entirely absent from the great climax which has nothing whatsoever to do with him. Either way, it's a structural problem. (IMO JMS should have dared to relegate Sheridan to support in the film and make Sinclair central again as this particular story demanded. Ah well.)

This being said, Boxleitner does a fine job as young Sheridan, and Mira Furlan as young Delenn. (The writing for her however has a problem, about which more in a moment.) The Ivanova cameo is touching, and I love, love, love that Andreas Katsulas gets to reprise pre-enlightenment G'Kar here. Before I get to my main reason for loving this film despite its structural flaws (three guesses, and the first one doesn't count), here's my Delenn problem, writing-wise: IMO it's apparant that at this point JMS had fallen so much in love with the character that he was trying to relieve her as much as possible from her part of responsibility for the Earth/Minbari war. So we have Delenn calling for it, yes, but almost immediately regretting it. And then... she does nothing. For a long time. Then she does something, the secret meeting, but afterwards two more years of war pass in which she does absolutely nothing despite being convinced the war is wrong. Now, this is the same woman who later will break the Grey Council when disagreeing with their non-intervention policies. Also, the original vote on the war had half of the Council being against it, with Delenn's vote deciding on the pro-faction. Why doesn't she ally with the original objectors to sway the Council later on if she is disillusioned with bloodshed that quickly? Again IMO, the story would have been stronger if JMS had allowed Delenn to be sincerely pro-war and actively get her hands dirty for a longer time and only become convinced that what the Minbari were doing was wrong in the later stages, as opposed to being a (mostly) passive objector who does nothing against better knowledge.

And now: Londo. Oh Londo. Just to make sure my heart gets broken again, we get both pre season 1 Londo and old Emperor Londo, and while he's witty in both parts, the tragedy of what happened in the framing narration chokes me up all over again. (BTW, that Londo inadvertendly prolongs the Earth/Minbari war is the kind of retcon that DOES work for me, because that is his lot in the B5 tale.) So many quotable passages. "Stupidity and arrogance in the same package. How very efficient of you." And the entire beach speech makes me tear up every time. As does "...but I loved Centauri Prime".

Lastly: I'm not very keen on David's Centauri trilogy, but his novelization of In the Beginning rocks (and goes some ways into remedying the Sinclair situation), not least because his first person Londo narrative voice is superb. Also, I like his fanon that the children Londo tells the story to are in fact the grandchildren of his friend Urza Jaddo and thus he has fulfilled his promise to Urza.

[ruuger]

That's a very good point about Sheridan vs. Sinclair. I haven't rewatched ItB yet, so I don't remember exactly - weren't all of Sinclair's scenes in the movie reused from the show? If so, I wonder if they even tried to give Sinclair a bigger role and did the fact that Michael O'Hare apparently retired from acting after leaving B5 have anything to do with it?

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Yes, all the Sinclair scenes were re-used. Though given JMS was able to get Michael O'Hare back for War Without End, I should think he'd have been available for the prequel as well...

[nhpw.livejournal.com]

Lastly: I'm not very keen on David's Centauri trilogy, but his novelization of In the Beginning rocks (and goes some ways into remedying the Sinclair situation)

This. The missing scenes with Sinclair go a long way to fill in the blanks, and other things that are commented on specifically in the book made me think as well. He makes note of a couple of things WRT Sheridan's presence on the Minbari ship that I really appreciated - calling attention to the fact that if Sheridan had given the Minbari his real name, they would have known who he was and killed him on sight; and that Delenn's first real, sustained look at a Human, any Human, was when she looked at the face of the man she'd eventually marry.

[nhpw.livejournal.com]

Oh, also. Re: Sinclair. I'm not positive (I don't actually own the movie so it's been a while since I've seen it with the commentary) but I think JMS says in the commentary for this that they did try to get Michael O'Hare, but O'Hare wasn't available and so they re-used the old footage.

[4thofeleven.livejournal.com]

My excuse for why Delenn did so little is that some of the Council were killed or injured alongside Dukhat and so weren't present to vote for the war. It was a close vote only because they were missing, and their replacements were all hawks - so even if Delenn worked with the original objectors later, they'd only be a small minority once the full Council was present again...

But yest, awkward plot element. Of course, we are getting this information third-hand - filtered through both Delenn and Londo, so there's also that excuse.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Good excuse! I can believe that, and excellent point about the double narrative filter. It's Delenn's story as told to Londo as told to children, so of course it's not straightforward history.

Mind you: I do love the idea that Delenn told Londo, of all the people, even that much about her culpability for the Earth/Minbari war, and I've said before that it is my fanon her real reason for wanting him to share the ceremony in "Ceremonies of Light and Dark" was that she wanted to tell him the secret then. He was the one person in no position to judge her and yet with the ability to understand which Lennier, whom she saw as the purest of the pure, did not.

Fanworks

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Brief Encounter (http://archiveofourown.org/works/17059): a crossover with Doctor Who. The (Seventh) Doctor intervenes in the Earth/Minbari war.

Mercy (http://thefiringline.livejournal.com/25440.html): Londo, Delenn and the mercy of the universe. A conversation between them before she's brought to Timetravellin!Sheridan.

[andygrrrl.livejournal.com]

I haven't had a chance to rewatch it yet; but when my partner was trying to introduce me to B5, we started with "In the Beginning" and it really, really doesn't work for that. Honestly, I love ItB --now-- but the first time I saw it I was bored to tears. I agree with selenak, it works much better as fill in the blank fic than as a proper prologue to the series as a whole. When I first watched it, I kept wondering who is this Londo guy and why does he have such wierd hair? Why am I supposed to care?

Now, though, I love it so much, because I am a giant Londo fangirl. Though I (once again) agree with selenak about the Delenn storyline. I like Delenn's darkness and I wish we had seen more of it here.

Hopefully I can rewatch it properly soon and have some more thoughts!

[alexcat.livejournal.com]

And the big confusion to me is that they stopped the war because Sinclair had Minbari DNA and now it's because they know he'd Valen? Does not work for me and never did.

I really enjoyed seeing Londo... even as a beaten and defeated old man, he still had his biting wit about him and his love for Centauri Prime. It does make a good scene filler movie for sure thought to see it as a series beginner would spoil some of the main story lines and would confuse the watcher about much that they see later.

I would have liked to see more Sinclair too since he was actually so important to the Minbari anyway. Sheridan as hero actually does come off as an afterthought though I will say that Bruce was good as the young officer.

Did anyone notice that Robin Atkins Downes played Morann? I had not noticed this before. There are many actors who I see in this series that I see in the Star Trek spinoffs too. I rather like trying to figure out where I've seen this one or that one while I'm watching.

[ruuger]

Did anyone notice that Robin Atkins Downes played Morann?

Yeah, and if I recall correctly, he played the same character in "Atonement" too. Since both ItB and "Atonement" were filmed before S5, I guess we can thank his performance here for the fact that he was cast as Byron :D

[alexcat.livejournal.com]

LOL! I think he makes a much better Minbari! We all know how I love Teeps!

[aris-tgd.livejournal.com]

I really like the way that JMS and Christopher Franke use sound. The bit during the fighting in the asteroid belt after the Lexington gets hit, and the blaring of the klaxon is the last thing we hear as we dissolve over to Delenn and Ranger One's conversation... I love that bit.

And the war montage after the failed meeting always makes me tear up. That and the announcement for the Battle of the Line.

This is always going to be one of my favorite B5 productions, but I agree it's not the best introduction to the show. If I'm making someone watch the whole show for the first time, I like to put it after "Atonement", or sometime in the beginning of Season 5 when we need a break from the telepath arc.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

I always reccomend it after "Atonement" as well. And great point about the sound use.

[swashbuckler332.livejournal.com]

I really like the elements of this film that I think work, but I think it is often hobbled by the lack of a more developed Sinclair arc as selenak points out, and I also feel that there are moments where some characters meet that don't sit all that well with the continuity of the series as a whole. I also never thought much about how Delenn's arc is altered by this film, but after reading selenak's criticism thereof, I am forced to agree.

That said, I do feel that the framing sequences and narration with Londo are beautifully performed by Peter Jurasik and work very well to bring a lot of these elements together (I pulled out my old laserdisc of the original TRON in preparation for the seeing the sequel and was surprised to recognize the doomed Crom was Jurasik).

The music score, which was released on Sonic Images, is fantastic and is one of Christopher Franke's most organic.. The Requiem for the Line is present and developed, but not overused, and the cue "The War" is a standout.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Christopher Franke's music is one of the glories of the show, and he really was in wonderful form here.

[4thofeleven.livejournal.com]

Got to agree with Selenak, this ends up feeling a bit too much like a fill-in-the-gaps exercise. It’s got some great moments, of course – Londo’s speech about the humans followed by the President’s speech before the Battle of the Line – but it never really forms a particularly coherent whole.

On the other hand, that might actually be an asset if you’re going to show this to new viewers – it drops enough little hints about all sorts of things without clarifying them that something’s bound to catch their attention. I remember lending my copy to a friend who’d never seen the show, and having to spend the rest of the week dealing with his demands to know more about various things that are mentioned here – the mention of the Shadows really intrigued him.

Unfortunately, I lost touch with him, so I never really got to find out what he thought of the series after seeing enough of it for ITB’s references to have context. I always wonder what people who start off here make of Londo, knowing something of his fate from the beginning. To a degree, I think it is helpful for new viewers to know right from the start that he’s not just a buffoon, and ITB does a decent job of dropping hints without outright spoiling his story.

And I do love that, as in The Gathering’s opening voice over, he’s the narrator of the whole story…