The good news keeps coming for all Babylon 5 fans: The entire series is coming to Blu-ray just a few months after sharing that an animated feature-length film is in the works. The 30th-anniversary release will include all 110 episodes of its five-season run and its pilot TV movie, The Gathering. Show creator J. Michael Straczynski shared a celebratory tweet directed at fans stating, “YOU WANTED IT, YOU ASKED FOR IT, AND IT’S FINALLY HAPPENED!”
ATTENTION #BABYLON5 FANS! YOU WANTED IT, YOU ASKED FOR IT, AND IT’S FINALLY HAPPENED! To celebrate B5’s 30th Anniversary, the Complete Babylon 5 series will be released ON BLU-RAY December 5, ’23. Pre-orders can be placed STARTING TODAY via the retailer of your choice. Huzzah! pic.twitter.com/9OfI05I0fa
— J. Michael Straczynski (@straczynski) July 18, 2023
Straczynski’s series followed the inhabitants of a 23rd-century Earth Alliance space station set up to mediate peace between five powerful empires. Its initial production wasn’t the highest quality — to say the least — jumping between acted scenes and blurry CGI frames. But, in 2021, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment released Babylon 5 Remastered to stream on what was then called HBO Max and as a digital download on iTunes and Amazon. The original camera negatives were scanned in 4K and then downscaled to HD with a clean-up and color correction to boot. The CGI sequences were upscaled to HD, and the show has been available to watch in its original 4:3 ever since.
The Blu-ray release will be “fully remastered in HD,” which could be the 2021 update or a newer version. Babylon 5‘s Blu-ray edition is now available to pre-order for $100 and will be released in the US and Canada on December 5th.
Author: Sarah Fielding
Source: Engadget
