Dhruv is a senior editor in Screen Rant’s New TV division. He has been a regular contributor to the website for over two years and has written thousands of articles on streaming trends, movie/TV analysis, and pop culture breakdowns.
Before Screen Rant, he was a lead writer for The Cinemaholic, covering everything from anime to television, reality TV to films.
After high school, he was on his way to becoming a civil engineer. However, he soon realized that writing was his true calling. As a result, he took the plunge and never looked back.
Arguably the greatest quote in the history of sci-fi television comes from the 30-year-old show: Babylon 5:
“The war we wage is not against powers and principalities, it is against chaos and despair. Greater than the death of the flesh is the death of hope, the death of dreams. Against this peril we can never give up.”
Sci-fi fans who were able to watch Babylon 5 when it aired in the 90s and those who ended up binging it later would know how epic space opera is in terms of cosmic storytelling. Considering how brilliantly Babylon 5 ends its story over its five seasons, it’s no surprise that J. Michael Straczynski looked far into the future and developed a solid five-part plan for the series before it even aired.
In addition to offering a very satisfying and complete science fiction story, Babylon 5 also leaves viewers with incredible quotes, which stick around long after the show’s credits roll. One of these quotes is the one mentioned above.
Babylon 5’s Most Epic Quote Removes Its ‘Sci-Fi’ and Makes It Deeply Human
J. Michael Straczynski had a great vision for Babylon 5. He noticed that at the time, most science fiction shows offered either good science fiction or good television, but struggled to combine the two. His goal was to create something in a genre that viewers had barely seen before. Additionally, he wanted to approach science fiction with a more serious perspective by ensuring that it not only incorporated real science, but also told character-centered stories that appealed to adults.
From Babylon 5 remains more of a cult show with less of a mainstream following, its brilliant writing and unforgettable quotes may not be immediately recognizable.
However, what makes the above-mentioned quote the best in science fiction history is how brilliantly it strips down Babylon 5it’s “science fiction” and makes it a powerful human story.
Over its 5 season run time, Babylon 5 never hesitates to tackle difficult sci-fi concepts like the Doppler effect, rotational gravity, and Newtonian flight mechanics. The series still manages to balance these moments, with sequences that contain universal truths, exploring faith, power, war PTSD, and fascism.
For example, in the series’ season 3 finale, Andreas Katsulas delivers a chilling monologue as G’Kar when he and his grieving team begin to lose their last hope and anticipate war. Even for a spectator, it’s hard not to see how all hope is lost after Babylon 5 kills one of its main characters.
However, G’Kar’s words bring a new sense of clarity and challenge when, even in the most serious moments, he reminds us that:
“There is a greater darkness than the one we fight. It is the darkness of the soul that has gone astray. The war we wage is not against powers and principalities, but against chaos and despair. Greater than the death of the flesh is the death of hope, the death of dreams. Against this peril we can never give up.”
Babylon 5 was ahead of its time
Those who were lucky enough to watch Babylon 5 I still remember it as one of best sci-fi shows of all time. Some viewers even claim that science fiction reached its peak with the series and that the genre has never been the same since the series ended. However, somewhere among the Star Trek And Star WarsBabylon 5 has been quietly overlooked, even though it arguably had a much greater vision and narrative scope.
J. Michael Straczynski’s pre-planned narrative for the entire series almost felt like a novel that was perfectly worth every beat and quote of the story. Throwaway lines that appeared in Season 1 of the series ended up getting full-fledged resolutions well into Season 4.
Although B5‘s visuals may seem a little dated now, its CGI was incredible for its time. Even from a political perspective, the show’s depiction of the fall of a democracy from within through propaganda and manufactured fear seems disturbingly relevant even to this day.
Although it is regrettable that Babylon 5 is not as widely celebrated or culturally ubiquitous as many of its science fiction contemporaries, its influence still lingers in the science fiction genre and can notably be found in shows like The extent And Game of Thrones.
Babylon 5
- Release date
- 1993 – 00/00/1998
- Cast
- Bruce Boxleitner, Michael O’Hare, Tracy Scoggins, Richard Biggs, Peter Jurasik, Jason Carter, Robert Rusler, Mira Furlan, Patricia Tallman, Bill Mumy, Claudia Christian, Jerry Doyle, Stephen Furst, Jeff Conaway, Andrea Thompson, Andreas Katsulas
- Showrunner
- J. Michael Straczynski
- Writers
- J. Michael Straczynski
- Seasons
- 5
- Story by
- J. Michael Straczynski
- Streaming service(s)
- AppleTV+, MAXIMUM