Regarding The Road Home, Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski tweeted something to the effect of anyone, fans and non-fans alike of Babylon 5, can watch The Road Home and understand what’s happening. I’m afraid I have to disagree. The film’s attempts to sum up key events from the series work better as reminders for fans than exposition for new viewers. Basically, right off the bat, I can’t recommend The Road Home to anyone unfamiliar with Babylon 5.

To those who are familiar however, I can’t recommend it enough. It may not be the most original contribution to the saga and the preview the film gives of the franchise’s future may not be to everyone’s liking but the main thing The Road Home achieves is that it proves that the series is still relevant and can thrive in the medium of animation.

Set not long after the final season of the iconic 90s’ space opera, The Road Home sees Alliance President John Sheridan (Bruce Boxleitner) unstuck in time following the activation of an advanced Minbari power plant. Sheridan relives past events and bumps into old friends but when he starts shifting into other timelines, he learns that if he doesn’t return home his shifting could cause an interdimensional collapse, destroying all of existence.

The Characters

Despite being in a different medium and some being voiced by different actors, the characters are almost exactly how they are in the series. Some are put in situations we’ve never seen them in before and yet nothing they say or do seems off or untrue to their character, Straczynski clearly knows these people inside out.   

As I said before The Road Home isn’t the most original contribution to the Babylon 5 universe. Like A Call To Arms and The Lost Tales before it, The Road Home is another Sheridan’s-getting-visions story. The context is quite different as he is literally stepping into other universes rather than getting visions of a possible future. However, we still get those typical scenes where Sheridan appears somewhere, explains his predicament to someone and is gawked at.

Babylon 5’s grasp of real science was uniquely comprehensive, The Road Home continues this tradition as the film introduces quantum mechanics into the plot. How scientifically accurate is it? I cannot tell you. What I can tell you is that John Sheridan’s effort to get back to his own timeline becomes an unexpectedly emotional journey.

The drama of Sheridan striving to get home to his wife fused with the detailed physics of his struggle results in a very mixed bag of a film. Sheridan’s heartfelt quest is less a tear jerking heavyweight like Interstellar and more an emotional hodgepodge like your average Doctor Who Christmas special. Not bad, just too ambitious.

The Animation And Those Who Have Passed Beyond The Rim

While it’s digitally engineered, the style of animation is clearly going for a hand-drawn look. It’s not The Iron Giant but the physical and facial articulations for the characters are very kinetic, nowhere near as jiggity as some anime.  

The character designs are great. You cannot look at them and call them cartoons. They are animated renditions of their live-action founders, not caricatures. Their physical likenesses are merely depicted, not exaggerated.

How well the new voices sound compared to their deceased founders is a subjective matter. Some performances sound almost exactly like the originals, like Sinclair and Stephen Franklin, while others just sound like another’s actor take on the character. I must confess that the latter performances affected my believability, in that I didn’t feel like I was hearing the same character I’d seen in the series.

This isn’t a serious criticism as I can imagine recasting a deceased performer is a difficult and awkward process in a production. It’s a noticeable change but one fans should be prepared for when watching this film and any more that may follow.

As a foray into animation, The Road Home is a huge success. With Straczynski’s writing and this style of animation, The Road Home could help realise the franchise’s ignored potential. A bunch of new films and shows looking like this would not be a bad thing in my opinion.Yes the story could be better but after a decade of nothing, this is a very welcome return for the last of the Babylon stations.

I give Babylon 5: The Road Home 7 out of 10 Zathri.