Babylon 5 is the Silmarillion...

more or less, be it on a universal scale.

1. Mimbari belief that the Universe is conscious and it has created sentient life to answer questions about itself, kinda like Eru.

2. First Ones ( Shadows, Vorlons e.t.c ) are the Elves, the First Born.

3. Younger races e.g Humans, Mimbari, Sentari, Nanrns are Men the followers.

4. The majority of the First Ones crossed the rim millions of years ago ( Eldar ) but the Shadows and the Vorlons stayed behind ( Sindar )

5. The 1st war with the Shadows is the war against Morgoth.

6. The Earth civil war and its attempts to dominate the Mars colony is the downfall of Numenor and their enslavement of the men of Middle Earth.

7. The Shadows return, Sauron's attempt to enslave the people of Middle Earth.

8. The Shadows finaly defeated and the Last of the First Ones cross the rim leaving the Galaxy to the Young races. The last of the Elves leave Middle Earth to Valinor heralding the time of men.

I've missed quite a few things I know like 'Lorien' but I think that's the jist of it.
Maybe this is common knowledge to the rest of you but I finaly pieced it together after watching a few re-runs.

Actually I've never watched Babylon 5, so I was completely unaware of the allegories.

The writers say repeatedly that LOTR has nothing to do with their B5 writing.
Save a Crusade line quoted by the Technomages (from Galdalf) I'd have to go with their statement.

It's pretty much identical to The Silmarillion except for the absence of the Ainur. The First Ones take on that role as well as the role of the elves.

Did I mention that the First Ones are all immortal?

I have never seen Babylon 5, but it does make it seem very possible the writers may have taken some ideas from Tolkien...

The writers say repeatedly that LOTR has nothing to do with their B5 writing

Of course they would say that, because if they admitted to it, they would lose the show or their ratings would go way down. And they be exposed as a fraud, and Tolkien fans would get really mad, and, and, and....

[juntel]

"The writers say repeatedly that LOTR has nothing to do with their B5 writing"

Hmmm... Strazinski (sp?) never denied the LOTR connection, although he never said it was a rewritting of LOTR (or the Sil).
It's quite obvious he was inspired by it.

Zahad'um? The Shadows?

But it's only inspiration. From there, he created his own world, in his own way.

Lorien? Maybe Illuvatar. Lorien did say the Shadows stayed on Zahad'um because he himself was there, and wanted to be near him.

Personally, I see the Minbari as being closer to the Elves, and not the Vorlon. Vorlons are closer to the Valar (or at lest the Maia).

But no comparison is perfect.

[Captain Stern]

1. Mimbari belief that the Universe is conscious and it has created sentient life to answer questions about itself, kinda like Eru.

2. The first life in the universe were 'The First Ones', these were The Shadows, Vorlons and more we do not know the names of. All of these races were immortal. This is identical to Elves 'The First Born.'

3. The majority of the First Ones 'crossed the rim' millions of years ago but the Shadows and the Vorlons stayed behind. Exactly what the Elves did, the Noldor and the Vanyar as well as a portion of the Teleri crossed the sea to the west, yet the other portion of the teleri stayed behind in Middle Earth.

4. The Vorlons and the Shadows finnaly cross the rim and leave the younger races alone in the Galaxy. The last of the Elves sail over the sea to the West, leaving men alone.

Notice that the main events in both stories are identical. The Ainur are the only thing missing in Babylon 5 but The Shadows take on both the role of Morgoth and Sauron. Another big diference is that the rest of the first ones didn't return from beyond the rim because assuming they didn't have Valar to rebel against.

[juntel]

yes, i see your point, there's a great similarity, and the resemblances you underline are unmistakable.

One reason i see the Minbari closer to the Elves is because they seem to interact more openly with humans, even though not totally; whereas the Vorlon were much more enigmatic.

Another reason, is of course Beren and Luthien, whose predicament can be compared to that of Sheridan and Delenn.

In no way can I imagine a love affair between a human and a Vorlon!

So, in the B5 universe, there is The First One, Lorien (first sentient life of the universe), which was followed by the First Ones, and later the other "races": humans, minbari, centauri, etc...
But in the Sil, there has been four phases (or more): Eru, then his first "musical" creation (the Valar), then the Elves, then the humans.

So, there are points that go for one association (Elves-Minbari), and others that go for another (Elves-Vorlons/FirstOnes). But Straz made his own world, inspired from LotR/TheSil.
I think we're both right!

[Captain Stern]

'But Straz made his own world, inspired from LotR/TheSil. '

wouldn't choose the word inspired at all, almost all the ideas in Babylon 5 are those from the Silmarillion changed somewhat to make them fit in more in a galactic setting hence the view that mimbari can be seen as elves too. Strazzinsky didn't introduce any new ideas as far as i can see.

There you go, Sheridan and Delenn a rip off of Beren and Luthien.

In one of the last episodes of the last series we see that in the near future the civilisation of mankind has crumbled and they are very slowly rebuliding again from a medieval state, the downfall of numenor.

[juntel]

"Strazzinsky didn't introduce any new ideas as far as i can see"

Well, I see Babylon5 itself, the station where ambassadors from the different "races" come to cooperate (or not), as some departure from Tolkien's story.
One might see this as the coallitions made between men, elves and dwarves at Elrond's, in the Fellowship... But I think in B5 the "races" were more adversarial, and the stations (B1 to B5) were built even before the knowledge of there being Shadows lurking around...

Also the Sinclair/Valen relationship (which might very well be what was intended as the ending of the 5 year arch, but had to be modified because of the leading actor's decision to leave the show) is something I can't find in the Sil (or LotR), and is of considerable importance in the B5 story... (If you have a similar episode in the Sil or LotR, please do show me... I'm no expert in Tolkien's book, so my memory of his writings may not be that good! )

But hey! You don't have to convince me he's getting stuff from LotR. And he didn't even try to hide it (like below: the Shadows, Zahad'um/Khazad'um...).
And after the Shadow war, B5's and Sheridan's battle with powers back on Earth, this was very clearly "inspired"() by The Scouring of the Shire.

I used the word "inspired", because I think it's more than just a SpaceOpera adaptation.

As for the episode you mention, you are probably talking about the season finale of the 4th season, "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars".

What it describes is this: after the "victory" over the Shadows and the departure of the First Ones, and the construction of a new Alliance among the "races", which are all great accomplishments for Humanity (as well as the other races, but let's talk about humanity here), this humanity will, little by little, question and forget and reconstruct the history of their past, forgetting that great accomplishment, so that within a few hundred years they fall into another "civil" war that will devastate most of Earth, and humanity will be ousted from the old Alliance, and left to itself to reconstruct themselves from ruins...
Only after many other hundreds of years, or maybe thousands, and maybe even a million year, with the help of the still existing Rangers (who were there reeducation humanity in anonymity) does humanity picks itself up again, manage to get to the stars again, and eventually become as advanced as the Vorlon were...

So, that episode was about humanity not learning from its past, and isolating itself from all others over time, even though it participated in the greatest war in alliance against the Shadow (and the Vorlons!).

(But to give you more "proofs" of your allegations, here's another: Sheridan sacrificing himself on Zahad'um, dying, and brought back to life by Lorien: Gandalf and the Balrog?! )

[Captain Stern]

Holy Cow, there are so many comparisons i hadn't noticed before, Sheridan being brought back to life by Lorien is Gandalf being brought back to life by Illuvatar! I never made that connection bt it's blatantly obvious!

Sure ok there are SOME that were his own ideas but the vast majority are rip offs!

How about the 'rangers' of Babylon 5? They fulfill the exact same tasks as Aragorn's rangers in Lord of the Rings, they both scout for news of the enemy's actions.

[juntel]

Well, yes a lot is quite obvious, and as I said above the guy didn't try to cover it up, and he even acknowledged the inspiration (i'll stick to that word for now ).

But it's rare to find a work of fiction, including Mr. Tolkien's, that doesn't go back to some other work.

E.g., Beren and Luthien as the usual Romeo & Juliet duet (which itself is taken from other tales).

Nobody, not even Straz, will say that he even measures up to even one of Mr.Tolkien's nose hair when it comes to fiction and creation (well, there are over-zealous fans of Straz out there, so my statement isn't quite true...).

But the guy made a good story that entertained people for 4 years (ya, i know, there was a fifth year, which i don't care much about ), in a s-f setting that talks more to tv-people than medieval-like stories (although they did include a ridiculous episode with a character that thought he was King Arthur...). Yes, many elements were openly taken from Tolkien, but once the characters and modernized setting taken from Tolkien was done, the story was much his own.

Who would have predicted Kosh's fate in the third season... and then in the fourth?
Who would have though the Vorlons to not be the benefactors they were led to believe?
And even though the Lorien-Illuvatar is tempting, would Eru himself come among men openly, as Lorien did when he accompanied Sheridan? (In fact, Lorien is much less than Eru is; Lorien is the first sentient lifeform of the universe, not the creator of this universe, and even not necessarily the originator of all life).

So, one thing that Straz did was to take some of the god-like characters of Tolkien and make them less perfect, less powerfull, more organic and physical; less god-like... Lorien himself could only give Sheridan a measly 20 years, at the cost of his own energy (he nearly fainted when he revived him in one episode).

Anyways... much could be said further.

For info related to the subject, you may go the the Lurker's Guide to Babyon5, and more specifically in the Literary References Section, in which you'll find that he drew also from many other sources as well.

Also of great interest is The Mythic Well, by Annie Hamilton ("a comparision of some aspects of Babylon 5 and Tolkien's Middle Earth, and the "Mythic Well" they dip into").

Have a good one!

[Captain Stern]

I thought of another one

When Sheridan knows his death is near he does the same thing as Aragorn does and chooses to die. Also Delenn reacts in the same way as Arwen saying that she still has long to go and pleads with him not to leave untill he finaly makes her understanmd.

[juntel]

you're talking about the final episode?

Sheridan didn't have a choice: his reprieve was over. He had been given 20 more years to live, and they were spent.

Delenn more than any other knew that.

What Sheridan chose was to die alone, not to be found, which Delenn more or less accepted (or at least she respected her decision).


BTW, where would you make War Without End (and Babylon Squared) fit in the Tolkien world?


Whatever material Straz inspired himself from, he did make good and important personal contributions, enough to make this story his own.

Babylon5 as a place where political decisions and compromises between the different known "races" and powers of the "galaxy" were to be made, against the natural tendency of isolationism, protectionism, racism/bigotism, etc... was one of these important contributions: some kind of U.N. of the galaxy, but much less reliable and stable (the first three stations were sabotaged, the fourth disapeared - Babylon Squared, and they tried a fifth one... and it succeded).
But, as seen in The Deconstruction of Falling Stars, this was just a passing glorious moment in human history, and humanity, after sharing the stars in power with the other life forms of the universes, again fell down to their old ways of hating others, hating differences, down into the abyss of cultural and technological and spiritual oblivion within centuries... It would take many thousand of years for them to ever reach back their status among the great and the evolved (that was my favorite episode of the entire series... does it show? )

Of course, one can find such a predicament in the real history of humanity that we know right now.

Question could be then: can one really write something totally original, without reference to past history (or mythology) of one's or someone else's people?
I don't think even Mr.Tolkien could have managed that. Or even should have.

[easterlinge]

And of course, the Rangers are obvious.

But there's a possible explanation: maybe Commander Sinclair (aka Valen) was a Tolkien fan, and when (as Valen 1000 years ago) he set up an organization to watch for the return of the Shadows, what other name would he give it but the Rangers?

He must have noticed the parallels between Tolkien's book and his own mission.

I get the impression Valen had a lively sense of humour and would do something like that.

I suppose the Narns would be like one of the Edainic Houses that got slaughtered in the First Age, the Beorians or the Marachians. The Narns kept a watch for the Shadows, were nearly annihilated, but out of the ruin comes a hero (G'Kar), much like Tuor or Beren.

[Comic Book Guy]

Here are quotes from the Reviews from AICN on the latest Babylon 5: Legend of the Rangers. See if you can spot the rip-offs.

Anyhow, Just saw the Babylon 5: Legend of the Rangers Rough cut. It was without effects shots and no Music or sound effects.

However after some apprehension about the series, I was actually impressed. We all know about "Crusade" and it's eventual downfall. I thnk it was the theme music that brought that show down.. Anyhow, "Rangers" starts off on Minbar. David Martel is a Rangers captain that recieved criticizsm about "escaping a battle" when his ship was crippled. He goes back and is repremanded and G'Kar makes his apperance and saves the day.

The captain is somewhat demoted and given a piece of **** 20 year old Haunted space ship. This ship dissappeared of a couple weeks and suddenly came back..sans crew. He hooks up with his new crew made up of friends and new people. This inicludes a ass-kicking Narn female who is the engineer, a Cocky asian navigator, and a female human Weapons expert from mars who jumps down a tube and floats in space while punching and kicking laser shots to the enemy. (No I'm not kidding!) I found the characters in the film to be very fleshed out and believable, the cheesyness factor was kept at a minnimum. (except the punching and kicking zero-g martial arts weapons officer).

So they go off on a mission escorting "Alliance Ambassadors" to a secret location. Captain Martel's enemy from the Rangers School "they just don't like each other" is piloting the huge new ship called "The Valen" that is carrying the ambassadors.

Of course something goes wrong and ships looking strikengly like shadow ships attack and the Valen launches it's escape pods for Captain Martel's piece of **** ship to pick up. More space fighting ensues resulting in the Valen ramming one of the ships and being destroyed and MArtel's piece of **** ship getting away.

G'Kar and the other ambassadors are rescued and come aboard and more chaos ensues. Martel's 1st officer is injured but he's Mimbari and can see dead people on the ship (the previous crew that got killed I guess). There are some humerous scenes here and there when the ambassadors interact with each other.

Anyhow the ambassadors wre meant so see and Archeological Dig that found a city deep within the planet. Here, there is an ominous structure. G'Kar explains this to Martel. This "pyramid" is a gateway to another "dimention" where the new race called "The Hand" resides. It is said by one of the characters later (I'm not giving everything away) that this race was banished billions of years ago as is so powerfull that they make the Shadows look like "insects".

Anyhow, more evil Alien ships come back and Martel saves the say by destroying them in a cleaver manner that is quite entertaining. (I'm not giving that away either).

So there ya have it B5: Legend of the Rangers... is actually pretty good. Good characters upon which to build a series. The catpain is very much like Kirk and the scenes defiinately reminded me of the feeling the original Star Trek had on me. Hopefully it will have a good intro and soundtrack nd of course some effects such as rendered ships would help too.

After being dissapointed with Crusade this new series looks very promising.

It is better than Crusade, which...to me at least...pretty much represented how low Babylon 5 could go. But it's still no good. Mike Vejar...usually a very talented B5/Trek director...brings nothing interesting or inventive to the table here. In fact, his work feels hurried and unrefined.

The FX are somewhat improved over Crusade, but there's nothing particularly *special* about them. Far too much over-reliance on FX simulating a rumbling, shaking camera when ships fly past, land, etc. Nearly every substantive FX in the movie employs the shakycam, diminishing the impact of the conceit, and frequently distorting the image so severely it's often difficult to see what's actually happening on-screen. Which totally removes the viewer from the action.

Spaceship designs are very poor but Hyperspace now looks more like a PC screensaver than the red "hell" we saw in B5 & Crusade); jumps into & out of hyperspace look different (more swirly/swishys in the toilet bowl effects); the spinning centrifuge of Babylon 5 (the station is seen in the last shot of the movie, although we never board it) is considerably slower; and the cities of Minbar now look more like Blade Runner than the crystalline sprawls witnessed in the series set a few years earlier.

A lot of old, old, ineffective clichés. The main ship is haunted: the people (old crew) haunting it look like dorks dressed-up as a Scooby Doo zombie for Halloween. The characters feel like the line-up from some defunct Glen A. Larson series: a young, maverick captain & a slightly renegade crew of loyal-but-irregular Rangers. Including: a warrior vixen (think Tasha Yar, or Worf's woman from Trek: TNG); a big, loveable oaf Drazi, a mousy ship's doctor, and a guy whit a holosuit which allows him to imitate any character. We've seen all of this...or variations of all of this...before. Joe Straczynski (B5 over god) used to rail against SF clichés, but he seems to have has no problem slathering them on this time around.

Andreas Katsulas (reprising his role as G'Kar) does nothing but dispense sagely advice, which often is so oblique it's meaningless. He repeatedly interrupts Grey Council meetings (!?!?!?!?). He's generally a pest, and even annoying at times. His character is pushed sloppily through the plot, allowing him only a few opportunities to say something which passes as "important". And when he says "important" stuff? It feels like a tedious lecture, or a tiring pontification. A waste of a great actor and character. His presence feels tacked-on.

In one of the dumbest ideas seen on TV in some time: the ship's gunner-babe has to dive into a VR bubble to operate her vessel's defensive systems When she does this, we see her flying through VR-sim space like Superman (one arm back, one arm, thrust forward), hurling balls of flame out of her hands and feet (representing her ship firing at its opponent). We almost never cut away too see her ship actually *doing* anything in battle. It's all told from her point of view. This chick is flailing about (with poor wire work), discharging fireballs from nearly every orifice of her body, blowing-up stuff we can't see clearly. A really bad way to draw viewers into the tension of battle.

One interesting new "approach" for the series: the show tries to convey much of its action in a slightly pumped-up way. Christopher Franke's score...usually cacophonous & atmospheric...is very up-front in this movie. Reasonably strong melody lines roll throughout action sequences, like Michael Mann employed in Last of the Mohicans, or Jerry Bruckheimer utilizes in many of the movies he produces. But there's not enough visual energy (often due to a decided lack of coverage) to support what they're trying to accomplish. Speaking of Bruckheimer: there's a scene in this movie who is almost exactly like a sequence in Armageddon: the Rangers are flying through the tale of a comet & it looks just like the approach to Armageddon's asteroid (swishy blue tendrils of **** coming at them, etc).

Acting in the movie is all over the place. A few performances might have worked with better writing, but Joe gives 'em nothing to do. And, many performers are just plain *bland*.

New villains show-up. They're called The Hand. The show melodramatically informs us these guys are tougher & more bad-ass than The Shadows we saw in B5 ("They make The Shadows look like insects!"). Maybe The Hand looks good on paper, but they're stupid as hell. It doesn't take much to blow-up their ships (silver/blue starfish), and they're easily tricked. I'm not quite sure how these folks made it through kabillions of years of galactic history if they've always been this dumb. And, for serious B5 junkies, it's never explained whether this "The Hand" is the same "The Hand" referenced in the Sheridan/Ivonova dream of the original series, or is in any way related to "The Hand" which ran around trying to kill Michael Caine in a 1981 feature film (the only hand really needed here is the one which should be slapping Joe). .

There are a few flashes of cleverness or coolness throughout the movie, which suggest...somewhere down inside...Joe still has a bit of "B5 spark" left in him. But the entirety of the work doesn't do much to convince me he's the person to be mastering the franchise right now. I think there are many B5 stories still waiting to be told, I'm just not sure if he's the person to be telling them anymore. Maybe he's blown his wad. Or, maybe his muse ain't pulling her weight. This movie has been in the can for some time now but they've said nothing about picking-up Legend of the Rangers.

Cough*Hand=The Great Eye Of Sauron/The White Hand of Saruman*Cough

[Captain Stern]

I haven't seen this thread in a while

Apart from the names, I don't think this is nearly as incriminating as the original Babylon 5 series.

sigh...if these 'Hand' aliens are more terrible than the Shadows how can the mimbari take' em out so easily!?

Methinks they are milking the series for all it's worth

[sepulchrave]

I thought this site was about the Silmarillion... I must have made some mistake because (horror of horrors!!!) I seem to have ended up in trekkieland...Let me out of here!!! So some hollywood producer stole ideas lock stock and barrel from a great writer! Big surprise!!! Disneys been at that game for years, they built their fortune on ripoffs.
I will obviously have to tread carefully from now on! It's difficult to avoid stepping in steaming, foul-smelling piles of Trek as they are strewn around all over the place....where did I put that pooper-scooper?

No quarter shall be asked for, and none shall be expected.

[mirrille]

Babylon 5 is a good series!
Don't even try to compare it to Star Trek. The plot is more intricate, the characters more multifaceted, the scope is bigger, the politics more complex. I really recommend this one. If you ever get a chance to watch it, do.

So some hollywood producer stole ideas lock stock and barrel from a great writer!

I think you would have to watch the series. Some of these references are very obvious (e.g. the Rangers who are supposed to be there so that people will have a defense in their time of need, Lorien) In a case like this, they are expecting that well-read people will make the connection. It's called a tribute. It's supposed to make the series more enjoyable because there are all these neat references to things we recognize. Although if you are one of those people that hasn't read enough Tolkien, Shakespeare, or whatever they're quoting, you might not get it. Check out the link that juntel gave. There's alot of neat stuff in there. Another series that JMS really liked was "The Prisoner". Apparently, the show is peppered with Prisoner references, but only people who watched that show would get it. I never saw that show, but I'd like to. Be happy. People who didn't read LOTR would have missed alot of those references. It doesn't take away from the quality of the series as a whole, but it's more fun when you can see them. Just something extra.

[BeardofPants]

Oh Nurv.... Lookit I found!