Review: Babylon 5’s The Road Home Is A Disappointing Multiverse Clip Show
If you've been a fan for years you will probably see it as mandatory viewing.
BABYLON 5: THE ROAD HOME REVIEW SCORE
Have you ever wanted to visit the alternate timeline where everything doesn’t revolve around alternate timelines? If not, the direct-to-video release of Babylon 5: The Road Home may get you there. The animation is gorgeous, and if you’re a fan of the franchise then the familiar voices will massage your nostalgia, but narratively The Road Home does little more than let you know that Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski has an extensive imagination for what could have been, along with possibly setting up the live-action reboot that may or may not happen.
The best thing about alternate timeline stories in established franchises is that it gives us a chance to see otherwise familiar characters and settings in a new light. The worst thing about them is that, with the freedom to kill and destroy characters and settings that would normally be off-limits, writers often rely too heavily on that novelty without offering anything else substantial.
In spite of all the Multiverse media we’re getting these days, Babylon 5: The Road Home is one of the best examples of the latter offenders to show up in recent memory.
Each time-jump follows a pretty similar formula. Sheridan jumps, Sheridan is shocked by everything he sees, something is about to kill Sheridan, Sheridan goes all timey-wimey and jumps to a new place, and everyone he leaves behind dies.
The story begins with President John Sheridan (Bruce Boxleitner) finally about to leave Babylon 5 to assume his role on Minbar as executive head of the Interstellar Alliance.
One of his more ceremonial duties – which he likens to the opening a shopping mall – is to appear at the activation of a new power facility. Unfortunately the new power system is run on tachyons and its activation reacts with Sheridan’s previous time travel adventure with the enigmatic Zathras (Paulo Guyet) and sends him bouncing through space and time.
Sheridan goes to the future, the past, back to the present, and eventually to timelines where things unfolded differently. It gives us the chance to see, among other things, an impressive space battle raging around Babylon 5, and the destruction of Earth in a manner that is, frankly, kind of hilarious. In both cases, the animated medium gives the film a chance to do what would be much more challenging to do in live-action.
This left me with the impression that, rather than an actual film, what Babylon 5: The Road Home was giving me was a clip show, just for the most part from episodes that had never happened.
We eventually learn that, in true Crisis on Infinite Earths fashion, that of course Sheridan’s dimension-hopping is threatening all of creation. To stop the worst from happening, Sheridan needs to… really not do much at all, honestly. That’s one of the biggest let-downs of Babylon 5: The Road Home: its chief protagonist hardly ever does anything, and when he does, it doesn’t matter.
Imagine if in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, every time Miles Morales went to a new timeline he just hung out. Had some chips. Scrolled through TikTok. That’s The Road Home.
Each time-jump follows a similar formula. Sheridan jumps, Sheridan is shocked by everything he sees, something is about to kill Sheridan, Sheridan goes all timey-wimey and jumps to a new place, and everyone he leaves behind dies. It isn’t until the very last jump, when Sheridan figures out what to do to stop jumping, that anything he does matters.
This left me with the impression that, rather than an actual film, what Babylon 5: The Road Home was giving me was a clip show, just for the most part from episodes that had never happened. Sheridan goes from one place to the next, having little to no impact on the events that transpire, but gives us the opportunity to look around and go, “hey they killed everyone!” and that’s about it.
Imagine if in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, every time Miles Morales went to a new timeline, he just hung out. Had some chips. Scrolled through TikTok. That’s The Road Home.
Babylon 5: The Road Home also feels more like a clip show than a movie because of how frustratingly short it is. The last screen media from the franchise to be released was the aborted Babylon 5: The Lost Tales series whose few episodes went direct to DVD in 2007. Yet after fans are forced to wait 16 years for more, The Road Home clocks in at less than an hour and 20 minutes.
Really the best thing about Babylon 5: The Road Home is the chance for long time fans to return to the narrative. It also hints at possibly setting up the live-action reboot at The CW, but considering how much about that network has changed in the past couple of years and how little news about the reboot has surfaced since Straczynski begged fans to get vocal about saving it, it’s tough to have faith that the restart will ever happen.
If you’ve been a fan for years you will probably see Babylon 5: The Road Home as mandatory viewing, reviews be damned, and I can hardly blame you. It’s not that the movie is particularly bad, it’s just not much of anything.
