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.