Babylon 5 Jamaican vacation promo

Rodney Ascher, whose stupendous short films we've featured on BB before, recently worked on this odd, yet official, Babylon 5 promo clip that, he says, "was styled as a mid 80's Jamaican cruise ship getaway commercial."

Previously on BB:
• Jack Chick, animated: "Somebody Goofed," by Syd and Rodney
• "True History: X Equals X" by Syd and Rodney
• Rodney Ascher's short film about a freefalling parachutist
• Syd and Rodney's "Jack Chick's Titanic" video

[#1 posted by John Hudgens , September 16, 2008 5:50 PM]

Not exactly how I'd go about promoting the show, but okay - that was different...

[#2 posted by nanuq , September 16, 2008 5:59 PM]

The show is finished. Deal with it.

[#3 posted by mgfarrelly , September 16, 2008 6:10 PM]

Oh my.

I am REALLY curious what JMS is going to say about this

[#4 posted by caseyd , September 16, 2008 6:25 PM]

excellent oddness.

I'm finding that I can de-brainwash my 10year old's krew by loaning out B5 DVDs. The parents find them much easier to watch and there's something to talk about after a fair number of the episodes.

[#5 posted by technogeek , September 16, 2008 6:25 PM]

I presume this is leading up to reruns.

The vid clip had some blinking artifacts that were driving me absolutely bonkers. I was curious enough to watch through it, but it was verging on painful. Any chance we can figure out what it was and keep it from happening again?

[#6 posted by Pipenta , September 16, 2008 6:52 PM]

Seems like they just copped the concept from "The Fifth Element".

[#7 posted by Chocolatey Shatner , September 16, 2008 7:03 PM]

I think "Succulent Psychic Space Berries" would make an excellent band name.

[#8 posted by nigelstwin , September 16, 2008 7:52 PM]

The first thing I thought of was Fhloston Paradise as well.
But then I got to thinking: Isn't Babylon a bad place in the dogma of Rastafarians, which finds its home in sunny Jamaica? The whole thing's kinda funny in that light.

I'm jus' sayin', mon.

[#9 posted by Roach , September 16, 2008 10:19 PM]

I find it unlikely that this was recent and official (maybe one, but not both) for a couple reasons. First, all those scenes are from the first season of B5. Second, it's got the WB logo, and that network hasn't been around in forever.

Still my favorite show of all time and I'm glad to see it get a mention on BB.

[#10 posted by technogeek , September 16, 2008 10:26 PM]

We remember thee, Psion...

[#11 posted by dequeued , September 17, 2008 1:03 AM]

This is one reason I love Babylon 5.
It makes much more of a connection to our time our society, and a very gritty feel, with it's "hypertext terminals" and sleazy advertisements all over the place.

JMS said he wanted Babylon 5 to feel like LAX.

[#12 posted by John Hudgens , September 17, 2008 9:41 AM]

Roach: While the promo *is* offbeat, it's legit. TheWB.com is a new online video portal, offering free (but ad-supported) streaming episodes of a lot of older Warner Bros. and TheWB programming, along with a few new webseries - it's only just recently gone online...

[#13 posted by Roach , September 17, 2008 10:29 AM]

Huh. Interesting, John - didn't notice the .com. I just looked and they've got the whole first season of B5 on there. Crazy. I already own it on DVD, but maybe some new fans will get created.

[#14 posted by Schmorgluck , September 19, 2008 5:39 PM]

Gah, it makes me want to rewatch the entire series! Which would be unreasonable: I've already done that twice this year.

[#15 posted by Antinous , September 19, 2008 5:46 PM]

Ah, Schmorgluck, in the grand old days of the Republic we had hundreds of servants to watch thousands of re-runs at our slightest whim.