Summary
- Babylon 5: The Road Home is a celebration of the beloved series, designed to be accessible to new audiences while also satisfying longtime fans.
- The animated film allowed creator J. Michael Straczynski and director Matt Peters to break new ground and explore different timelines and situations that were never seen in the original series.
- The original cast of Babylon 5 returned to voice their characters in the film, capturing the essence of their roles and creating a nostalgic and enjoyable experience for fans.
In Babylon 5: The Road Home, John Sheridan is transported through multiple timelines and alternate realities and must try to find his way home. Babylon 5: The Road Home is the seventh movie and first animated installment in the Babylon 5 canon. The original Babylon 5 series follows a crew of humans and aliens as they face political intrigue, racial tension, numerous wars, and their aftermath while on the Babylon 5 space station in neutral territory.
Babylon 5 was created by J. Michael Straczynski, with the pilot movie airing in 1993 and the first season nearly a year later in 1994. Babylon 5 ran for five seasons and expanded beyond the original series into movies, tie-in novels, and comics. Although now on hold, a reboot was announced in 2021, produced by Straczynski, and was still in development until the WGA strike.
During San Diego Comic-Con, Screen Rant spoke with Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski and SAG-AFTRA strikes, and the movie covered here would not exist without the labor of the writers and actors in both unions.
J. Michael Straczynski & Matt Peters on Babylon 5: The Road Home
Screen Rant: Babylon 5: The Road Home. This is an incredible film and I love the series, but we're in the 30th anniversary of the series, and I think this is such a great way to kind of honor that, but it also shows that we can bring a whole new audience into this world because I feel like this is a great standalone film that you don't need the history of the previous show. Joe, this is the 30th anniversary of the show, but how long has this film kind of been in your head, the story for this film?
J. Michael Straczynski: That all happened after Warner Brothers called, they said, "We want to do an animated film," and I thought rather than looking back to what I could have done before, looking back and fertilizing old ground, let's break some new ground. And ultimately it came down to, what do I want to do with this? I want it to be a celebration.
There's a line in the Bible, I'm an atheist, but there's a line in the Bible of make a joyful noise and I want to make a joyful noise with this thing. That was also a love letter to the fans. I figured, let me show them things that they've heard about but never seen. Let me pull this into a tapestry, into a bigger story, have some fun at our own expense from time to time, and just make a celebration of the show and the fans.
And I think you do that, you capture that perfectly in this. Matt, talk to me about your experience with Babylon 5 and the collaboration process working with Joe.
Matt Peters: Well, first off, Joe is unbelievably ive. He was mentioning you had files of the original ships and things that you offered us.
J. Michael Straczynski: I had to track them down, actually, they were all over the internet and good on the guys who had had stolen and said, "Please give those back."
Matt Peters: And then he was always giving us the freedom to really tell the story that we wanted to do, which was really fantastic. Myself coming to Babylon 5 is I was actually set and queued up to work on another movie with executive producer Rick Morales, and when Babylon was brought to his attention, he was like, "I know Matt loves science fiction. I'm going to talk to him about this," and so I ended up watching the show. I ended up binging all five seasons. I became a fan of the show and I was like, "Absolutely. I want to be a part of this."
Joe, what were you able to do with animation that you weren't able to do with the show?
J. Michael Straczynski: Pretty much anything because the original series, just from a historical point of view, was shot in what used to be a hot tub factory in Sun Valley. We converted it into a stage, and so all the offices were there and we never did any location shooting at all. The furthest we ever got was the parking lot, literally. We built a ramp down, we shot some things, but otherwise we never went anywhere. It was our private little ark and people would come from other parts of LA and they would ask, "How is it out there? What's happening?"
It's like we were stranded in this place. So with the animated movie, I was able to write whatever I wanted to in of time and space and bringing the characters into situations that the fans had heard about but never seen and just to do a blowout of cool stuff. So, it was a great freedom that I had to work on this.
That's incredible. The animation style in this film is gorgeous. Matt, how did you know that this was going to be the right fit to tell this sci-fi epic story?
Matt Peters: Well, Rick and I really liked working with CG and we really like making that kind of 2D blend of CG, and we had done another movie before for Warner Brothers, and so basically we already had that experience. So, immediately when Rick mentioned that we were going to do this property, I was asking him, "Is it going to be CG?" And he said, "Absolutely," and it just was a perfect fit. It was be able to kind of create a character, a design for these characters too, because it's not just a straight-up depiction of them. It's actually a designed idea of what these characters look like, which I think makes it feel unique and new.
J. Michael Straczynski: And that goes for the station too. I gave them freedom to just play and it has some fun with it. So I said, "If there's a way of making the station look different, the ships look different, it makes them look cooler or more interesting or more accurate, go for it. Don't feel you have to sort of be tiptoeing around me." Although that's nice to do from time to time, I have no problem with people tiptoeing around me, but here you don't have to do that and have fun with them and they get brought back, and say this is okay, fine. If you go too far off the beam, I will call you back and let you know about it, otherwise go and play.
That's incredible. Joe, this is a different side of President Sheridan that we don't really get to see a ton in the show. There's a very comedic element that Sheridan has in this. Can you talk to me about where we find Sheridan at the start of the film? Correct me if I'm wrong, but this takes place between season 5 episodes 21 and 22, right after Sheridan goes off to Minbar with Delenn.
J. Michael Straczynski: Yeah, as we saw previously, he has become president of this new alliance, he's leaving Babylon 5, and he's stepping into a situation where he really isn't sure he can do this and Delenn being with him will help that. So, I start him off in a position of great uncertainty and then begin pulling the string behind him further and further until his whole world unravels, and what people don't always understand about Bruce is that he's a really good comedic actor. The few times we were able to give him funny stuff to do, he just nailed it and I figured, let him just go off and play, and there's some scenes in here that are just fall down funny.
Speaking of Bruce, you've got pretty much everybody from the original cast that's still with us back for this, and it really encomes being a 30th anniversary. Bruce Boxleitner, Claudia Christian, Patricia Tallman, Patrick Jurasik, and Bill Mumy, they're all back on this incredible journey. Can you talk to me about working with them? Was it a little surreal for them to reprise their roles after the amount of time that had ed?
J. Michael Straczynski: They fell right back into it. They knew those characters really well and just like a pair of familiar shoes just put it right on, and there were also actors brought into play our fallen friends and because people say of showbiz shows and TV series, "Well, we're like a family," and 98% of the time that's not true, unless you're like the Manson family or the Borgias, but here it really is. Everyone has stayed in touch over the years, they still have dinners, they get married.
There's this real tight group. Before I even wrote a word of the script, I sent an email to the cast saying, "You may have to work with an actor who is playing a fallen friend. Are you okay with that? And if anyone says no, if anyone says, I'm not comfortable with that, we ain't doing it. I'm walking away." And they all came back and said, "We want to do it because A, it's for the fans, but also B, this is a chance to memorialize those performances." These are the characters that created G'Kar, that the actors who created Delenn, and others who are no longer with us and let us do this as a testament to them.
That's what I loved about these newer actors that are coming in. Anthony Hansen steps into the role of Michael Garibaldi, and Phil LaMarr is Dr. Stephen Franklin. We have Andrew Morgado as G'Kar and Rebecca Riedy as Delenn. They capture the spirit of the original characters, but can you talk about what they brought to the role as well?
J. Michael Straczynski: Yeah, and I'm sure Matt can also in addition, but we didn't want guys coming in to do specifically voice imitation.
Matt Peters: Right.
J. Michael Straczynski: But to capture the essence of who they were. One of the actors playing Gary Garibaldi said that he isn't there to do an imitation of Garibaldi, he's there to fill the void left by the actor Jerry Doyle who ed away, and to do a tribute to him in the process. So, some are more on familiar sounding than others, but they all magic capture the essence of that. Is that about right?
Matt Peters: Yeah, there's also... When you're working with voice acting, there's a lot of thinking involved and it's like a lot of people just... We're always on the other end of it. We see the performance, but we don't actually see the thought process that goes into it, and those actors really were applying that. There would be times where we would be stopping and have to discuss a little bit about how a line read should go. And so, they would be thinking about how to deliver that as the character, and they actually would have to interpret that and kind of create it accurately for the character that they were portraying. So like you said, it wasn't an imitation, there's a mind behind it as well.
This film felt like revisiting old friends, but this is also the first time Babylon 5 has ever done anything in animation. Can you talk to me about the original actors getting into the booth playing these characters, and does that change things?
Matt Peters: I still when Peter came in and he was getting ready to do his voice and he actually expressed a little bit of fear because he was saying it's been a while since he had done the role, and he would talk about the process of putting on the headpiece and everything and getting into character and everything. And we always had it prepared where we had some samples from the show to be able to play for them, and I don't even think we played it for Peter. I think he got it right away. It felt like he was nervous at first, but it was just part of who he is as a character. So when he started doing his Londo, it just was on point and we're like, "That's it. It's perfect."
J. Michael Straczynski: And Bruce, who has to carry virtually the entire movie on his own back came in and they had allocated what, like two days to do his part and he did it in one, just nailed it. He was right there on top of it. He got right into it.
That's so amazing. Matt, you've done a ton of superhero animation films. Can you talk to me about maybe sci-fi being a different challenge for you?
Matt Peters: Every time I get a different project, I always take a ion into it because it's something that I wouldn't get involved if I wasn't interested in it. So, getting an opportunity to work on Babylon 5, it was just a great chance because I knew there was this history too. So, that was the thing is as I started to delve and do my research, I became more and more interested in the show. I got into the show, not just the actual series, but I started to do research on... There were fan sites and all these different things that people were looking up and I would have to pause while I was doing my research to fall down rabbit holes online.
I was the same way. I got deep into the rabbit holes in the internet. I was the same way. Joe, in this film, we get to explore different timelines and alternate universes throughout the course of this film. Can you talk to me about your approach to the Babylon 5 multiverse and timelines?
J. Michael Straczynski: I didn't want to do... As we've seen before recently, the huge multiverse thing where Captain Sheridan is like a bunny rabbit. I didn't want... That's not a bad idea though, actually, I'll think about it.
Matt Peters: We could do it.
J. Michael Straczynski: Warner Brothers could do the-
Matt Peters: We'll make it.
J. Michael Straczynski:All right, Bugs Bunny as Captain Sheridan and Daffy Duck as Garibaldi is perfect. Egyptian god of frustration as you pointed out.
About the multiverse, I look at different timelines and say, "Okay, if this had happened, so that that, where would we be as the characters? If the Shadow War had been lost, for instance, what would be the repercussions of that? How would it roll out? What would follow?" So, it's like all the fan questions about what would've happened, where would've gone, because fans love to dig into things like that. I'm one of them too. Ask any of us what time it is, we'll give you a history of the watch. It's who we are.
I love some of the multiverses that we do get to explore and it seems like you loved working on this project as well. Any chance that we can see some of these stories kind of expanded at all in maybe another film or something, animated film?
J. Michael Straczynski: Well, certainly we would love to do another one. I think that, obviously, this has to show its strength at the box office and the sales on Amazon and elsewhere, but the sales, as far as I know, have been really good. And so, I'm prepared to walk in with lots more stories to do. I know Matt and Rick also would love to work on this thing again. So, I would love to see more of these happening.
Would you like to continue it in animation?
J. Michael Straczynski: Yeah, I think that keeping the animated version of this sort of which is... I won't give the ending away, but it's kind of a classic B5 versus anything else that might come later. So, it's a nice opportunity to bring in new fans that are more accessible shows. You have the original fans, something that feels like the beginning of the series. For me, this is the most B5 feeling thing we've ever done since the original B5. You watch it, it's like not a moment has ed. I want to try and sustain that feeling of immediacy.
My girlfriend hadn't watched Babylon 5, but she watched The Road Home and immediately loved the film.
J. Michael Straczynski: My feeling is you shouldn't have to do homework to watch a show, and this is accessible to new viewers.
About Babylon 5: The Road Home
Travel across the galaxy with John Sheridan as he unexpectedly finds himself transported through multiple timelines and alternate realities in a quest to find his way back home
Babylon 5: The Road Home will be available on digital, Blu-ray, and 4K on August 15. The complete Babylon 5 series is being released on Blu-Ray for the first time on December 5.
