Rating: 
Summary: Lack of Widescreen on The Gathering
Review: One has to wonder why they released this disc with The Gathering in Pan and Scan and not widescreen. Perhaps by doing this WB was hoping to appeal to the people who wonder what all the commotion is over stereo sound on TVs and who would run a 21" monitor at 640x480 resolution. Oh well, I guess we owe thanks to all the people who feel that if something is in widescreen they are getting cheated. I hope that if the rest of the series is released on DVD that it will be in boxed sets and widescreen, but somehow I feel that won't be the case.
Rating: 
Summary: Babylon 5 Fans - BUY THIS DVD
Review: I'm a long-time fan of Babylon 5, and agree with Dillbert cartoonist, Scott Adams, that Bab 5 is the greatest TV show, ever. Nevertheless, I was a bit disappointed that there were no special DVD features, other than subtitles. If you want to see the entire Babylon 5 series brought out on DVD, then prove it by buying this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Babylon 5: A must see for all Sci Fi fans!
Review: Babylon 5 was (and still is) a ground breaking Sci Fi series. It features a 5-year story arc which revolves around the characters of the series. The stories are great and the characters are memorable and three-dimensional. A great show!This DVD contains the pilot movie and a second movie involving the history of the Earth-Mimbari war. Both are great to watch and are an excellent primer for the entire series. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Great that they finally released a B5 DVD, but.....
Review: At DragonCon '97, a science fiction/fantasy convention in Atlanta, one of the Babylon 5 producers assured the audience that B5 would be among the first sci-fi shows released to DVD to maintain its image as a cutting edge science fiction program. The DVD release would be done very carefully to preserve the quality of the show. That story naturally was a load of garbage. Suffice it to say, I've waited for close to five years for the release of B5 to DVD, and what does Warner Brothers produce when it finally gets around to releasing it? Garbage. The movies are intact on the disc. That is the main reason I'm giving it three stars. However, watching In The Beginning on a Sony 20" television is an odd experience because the images are so terribly grainy that it really in some ways is not worth owning. There are color variations in the live action shots in The Gathering. Some of the brightness settings in In The Beginning are off enough in some parts to where the television needs to be adjusted, then it quickly goes back to looking okay again for awhile. Makes no sense. It makes me think that the person who compiled this DVD was half asleep while they were doing it. I'm disappointed that Warner Brothers video has such a low opinion of this show as to release such a poor quality DVD of B5 to the market. Even some of the small scratches and other imperfections that pop up in old films are present in my copy of The Gathering. These should have been cleaned up using a computer, but WB video did not seem to care. Also disappointing about this release is the lack of extras. I know that there were one or more behind-the-scenes specials, segments, planning and design artwork, and other things that could have been included on this DVD. No worthwhile extras are on there. It's like, "We gave you the movie, what else do you want?" I want the extras, too, simply because it's natural to have extras on DVDs. The fact that they are missing supports my earlier comment that WB video does not care about this show or its release to DVD. Here I thought they would foolishly want to make more money off of B5 instead of just angering a few fans and scaring away the rest. I guess they don't care about the dollar issue either.
Rating:
Summary: WB will not release anymore B5 DVD's unless this disc sells
Review: Warner Bros. has flat out said that if this disc does not sell, and sell well, they are not going to do any other DVD's in the B5 universe. So, buy this DVD and buy 5 extra copies for all your friends and tell anyone else you know who watches the show to do the same. Hell, most retailers don't even know about the release, so word of mouth is the only way this disc will sell. WB is not advertising this release, kinda makes you think they want it to fail. Look, I know this is not exactly the greatest DVD for those of us used to quality shows and movies getting quality treatment on DVD. Unfotunately, WB is the worst studio when it comes to making and releasing DVD's, and they own the rights to 'Babylon 5', so we're stuck with this DVD. WB simply doesn't know how to put out quality discs, which can also be noted from their continued use of the cheap snap-case and flipper discs(double sided). This is why 'The Gathering' is in pan-n-scam, and there are absolutely no extras on the disc. Which is sad, considering even the mediocre, by B5 standards, 'The Gathering' is better than a lot of the (stuff) Warner Bros and other studios try to say is quality TV or Movies these days. (...)
Rating:
Summary: Watch IN THE BEGINNING first!
Review: I want to strongly disagree with those who say that new viewers shouldn't watch the excellent B5 prequel movie "In the Beginning" until they've seen the series. It is true that this prequel reveals the "secret of Jeff Sinclair" -which in the series hadn't been revealed until the beginning of the second season. However, the handling of that revelation in the TV series is quite anti-climatic, since by the time the story is told, the actor playing Commander Sinclair had departed the series. It's much more interesting to SEE what happened for yourself in this movie, rather than hear about it second hand later. "IN THE BEGINNING" also gives lots of other hints about events that would happen later in the series, without spoiling them. This actually enhances the experience of watching the series. I think a problem with season one of Babylon 5 was that the main story arc was too well hidden-- it looked too much like a conventional sci-fi series with loads of stand-alone episodes that don't appear to have any long-range significance. Season One is lot more fun to watch if you have a few hints that the story is actually GOING SOMEWHERE. And it's quite entertaining to watch Commander Sinclair trying to put the pieces together, when you already know what his secret is. Besides, if you want to get someone hooked on B5, you want to start by showing them something GREAT. "In the Beginning" is a great TV movie- and is much more likely to get someone hooked than episodes of Season One (by far the weakest in the series). The effects are great, and it's always a blast seeing "old Londo". The appearance by Sheridan and Delenn at the very end whets one's appetite without really revealing anything. Remember, Babylon 5 has always been chalk full of hints of future occurances. Heck, in the very first episode of the series, we learn how two of the main characters will eventually die. It's a great show, and "In the Beginning" is a wonderful place to start. I'd have given the thing 5 stars, but I'd have preferred to have seen some extras on the DVD. A commentary track, in particular. It's not like writer JMS has nothing to say about this series. As for the series on DVD, if it's released on DVD a season at a time (or a half-season) I'll buy it. There's no way I can afford to buy it if they release it as a set of 2-episode DVDs, so I would definitely steer clear of that (unless the episode DVDs have AMAZING extras, in which case I might buy SOME of the episodes).
Rating: 
Summary: Disturbingly Poor Video Quality
Review: Being a tremendous fan of Babylon 5 I preordered this title as soon as it was listed. The Gathering is by far the most disappointing of the two B5 movies on this DVD. The colors seemed muted to some degree, and there was a very noticable lack of resolution in the image, which tends to crush some of the fine details. As a consequence, objects further back in the scene take on a fuzzy appearance and are difficult to discern. I also found the picture to be very noisy, especially with respect to blacks and dimly lit scenes. I also believe the picture was overly soft. I compared The Gathering on this DVD to my laserdisc copy of the same title and I found the latter to be far superior in terms of resolution, color, and noise. The second of the two movies, In the Beginning, fared much better but still had some problems. The original aspect ratio of this movie is 16:9, and appears to have better detail and a sharper image. But the lack of color fidelity and noise issues pervade this title as well. Like The Gathering, my laserdisc of the In the Beginning was visually more appealing than the version supplied on this DVD. The only thing the DVD version has going for it is that it is an anamorphic widescreen production. Readers must bear a few things in mind regarding my comments. I watched the DVD on an ISF calibrated CRT front projection system on a 106" diagonal 16:9 matte screen. The video is line tripled to 720P with a video processing computer. Folks with small TV sets up to 36" diagonal will probably not notice all the flaws that I see on my large front projected screen. I did see the same problems watching the DVD on my Sony 36" direct view HDTV set, but not to the same extent. Videophiles with reference quality setups will be very disappointed in this DVD. The average consumer with typical gear will most likely find the DVD to be acceptable, but not exceptional. So your mileage may vary depending on your equipment. Warner has some work to do to get the image quality up to snuff.
Rating:
Summary: Great Movies, so-so DVD
Review: Alright, enough has been said about the movies themselves. I'm going to focus this review on the DVD itself. The Good: I'm absolutely thrilled that I have ANY type of Babylon 5 DVD content right now. Based on the word around the net, it appears that this DVD has been a hot seller in the past week and I hope that sends the right message to Warner. As much as I am dying for extra scenes, commentary, excerpts from the Lurker's guide, or whatever, I will gladly purchase all of these DVDs if they have reference quality video, 5.1 surround, and season boxed sets (with extras on the last disc). The Bad: These DVD's look like they slapped a badly converted Laserdisc onto a DVD, and said "here you go" to the B5 community. The live action video is extremely grainy, while all of the CG work is beautifully rendered and looks fantastic. I'm not completely sure how to explain this disparity, since the live action shots are inherently anamorphic widescreen. If this is the way the video is going to look for the series, Warner will have done their customers (and JMS) a HUGE disservice. I would have ranked this at 5 stars based on the movie content alone, but I had to remove 1 star for the apparent lack of effort on Warner Bros part. P.S. For future releases, I would like to recommend something done on the recent Star Trek: The Motion Picture DVD, where the Lurker's Guide info could be a subtitle track that provides scene specific information for the viewer.
Rating: 
Summary: In the shadow of the studio.
Review: Fabulous series, dropped ball packaging. Considering the amount of mazuma these studio big shots rake in for simply repackaging someone else's creative product, you would think they'd do a better job. J. Mike Straczynski and his merry band of latex-wearers have turned out an incredible, operatic, sweeping science-fiction saga. Now, the studios pee all over it with mis-packaging! You can't watch "In the Beginning" in the beginning. It ruins weeks of plot development if watched out of sequence. And why on Minbar do I have two DVD sides here? Both of these movies will easily fit on one disc side, especially given the lack of soundtrack options and "extras". OF COURSE they don't give a flying Farkle about our preference to have the series only in anamorhic widescreen, and packaged one season in a box. But we know they care about the long green so I will not be buying any episodes two-to-a-disk, like the Star Trek TOS DVD's. To the studios: fill the discs right, or keep 'em. "Millions for defense, but not one penny for tribute!", Captain John Sheridan.
Rating:
Summary: Here is why is is the best Sci-Fi:
Review: While I can't speak to the science of Sci-Fi, I can say this: the characters are real, living and breathing people. The creator of this series was meticulous in fleshing out the characters and they all have believable personalities and motivations. This is not Star Trek. Characters are not racial archetypes, nor do the episodes end with joviality and a learned object lesson for all. This is a dark universe, with tangible evil and realistic good. See this series, give it a chance and let it engulf you. You will be glad you did.
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