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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ColonelHardisson" data-source="post: 7281" data-attributes="member: 363">Regarding the whole "retreat" thing, as I mentioned above this attitiude reflected the Minbari penchant for tradition and unbending following of the rules. Even the Grey Council guy G'Kar was working for seemed troubled by this unyielding attitude. WIth the Minbari, it seems that everything is all or nothing - in the Earth/Minbari war, there was no middle ground; commit genocide on the human race or surrender to them. The point is that this has been a steadily developing character/racial trait for the Minbari, and has been proven to be a weakness. I think, based on the writing, directing, and acting of this film, it is something JMS wished to address directly - the idea that commanders in the field could exercise no judgment of their own, and simply had to follow orders, specifically a centuries-old order, given by someone with absolutely no knowledge of a given situation. Such uncompromising thinking has damaged armies throughout history, and JMS would know that. Sheridan asking a crew to sacrifice themselves for a specific mission is different from a crew sacrificing themselves for no real greater gain - in fact, it would lessen the ranks of the Rangers and lose them a ship, and provide no benefit in return - are two very different situations, which JMS seems to have specifically chosen to illustrate points about his setting and characters. I'll say again that I think the lead actor has screen presence and talent, and is surprisingly good. If you look back on B5, especially when it comes to the early seasons and secondary characters, acting has always been its weak point.  The rest of the crew hasn't been given enough screen time to make a determination about their acting abilities, except for maybe Dulann. This is mostly becaus eof G'Kar's presence, but I'm not grousing about him; he's one of my favorite scifi characters, right up there with Londo.</blockquote>

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