Tommy Snöberg Söderberg 
In the beginning is a TV movie apparently made to be watched between the fourth and fifth season of the series. To me, who is watching the entire series and the movies in its entirety, it’s pretty unnecessary. It really doesn’t add anything to the story. Sure, there are a few events told from another perspective. Instead of watching the events play out from a human perspective you see it through the eyes of the Minbari, the Narn And the Centari.
I guess it’s more for people who want to see everything and need as complete a story as possible. I mean, the story isn’t in focus here, it’s more the perspective. In the beginning is told, first and foremost, from the truth as Londo Mollari sees it. And how his understanding of the vents played out. Come to think of it, there are actually a few events not mentioned in the series before, which actually caused the Earth-Minbari war.
But it also doesn’t really take everything into its storytelling. I feel that if In the Beginning tries to tell the story as a compilation of what happened so far in the series there is a lot missing, especially with the Centauri involvement with the Shadows as a start of the Shadow war. But on the other hand, I guess In the Beginning focuses on the first war, the war that led up to the construction of the space stations in the Babylon project.
What’s entertaining is how they used very small means to fit the pieces of what is almost just hinted at in the series into the reality of this movie. It’s kind of like when Star Trek canon from TOS is weaved in when Strange New Worlds became reality. Or when Star Wars Episode III became reality. Everyone knew how the event should lead up to Episode IV as that was the first movie to be made all the way back in 1977. We knew the beginning and we knew the end, it was just a matter of constructing a believable story to fit the canon for that particular time frame.
I would argue that this is a very unnecessary addition to the Babylon 5 universe even if it’s not a complete waste of time.
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