But no mention of Michael Ironside makes me nervous and punchy.
Bring back the Ham!
I used to love that thing…it was truly cool but no Michael Ironside? No fucking way!
I never saw a lot of those guys again…Michael Durrel,Blair Tefkin,Peter Nelson, Jane Balder…what happened to them?
Cool! I loved that miniseries!! I loved the Visitor’s voices…was disappointed that the TV series didn’t have that effect.
ooh! What fun. I’d be watching it and recording it to watch over again (I already have recorded copies of the first 2…)
Having watched the whole thing recently, this:
**
caught my attention. I remember them sending a message at the end of the first miniseries…wonder if they’d try to work that in as the ally thing.
Man, I remember playing V in preschool! That was such a great show. I think my favorite thing was watching Robert England go from sweet, timid, human sympathiser in V, to child killing, unstoppable moster in A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Can’t believe this series made me think Marc Singer was actually a good actor (hey, I was a kid). Still, the scene where he’s being chased by one of the ships while riding on horseback is a scene that’s always stuck in my head. And the scene where he first sees his double take out their eyes. That, and a scene where one of the aliens eats a mouse out of a dumpster in front of a crowd and his commander officer runs up to him:
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Hmm hmm…mousey.”
Man, I loved those aliens. I make references to that a lot, but no one ever really gets it. And I had a HUGE crush on Diana (that long, curly dark hair…). One question, though…I remember seeing a little thing about the time it first came out where it was talking about the visual effects and make-up effects of the movie, and they mentioned a plot point where Diana was killed by the aliens for some reason, yet from what I recall, the character was still around. Was it just a case of “Nice try, but try harder next time,” or was she actually killed, and simply replaced? And what was the plot of the 2000 series? Was it new, or just a reshow of the old episodes?
I remember watching that show in 11th grade art class. My teacher was cool. Wonder what she’s up to nowadays?
I loved V for its utter stupidity, and the fact that the writers didn’t even understand their own concept.
It was the only science fiction series my mother ever watched, due to the fact that she was college roommates with Jane Badler’s mother (Yes, I met Jane once. We were about 12 at the time and I have no memory of it). She commented on Diana’s wedding by saying, “It looked just like a Jewish wedding, except instead of smashing a wineglass, they ate a rat.”
That typified the show. I’ve never seen such clueless writing. The most egregious example of writer stupidity was when they decided to bring back an actor whose character had been killed off. The actor was one of the Visitors. Remember, they wore masks to make them look human. So when the actor came back, he was introduced – straight out of soap opera cliches – as the brother (or something) of the original alien. Huh? They wore masks! He didn’t have to be related at all! But the writers couldn’t think that far and had to use a soap opera justification. :rolleyes:
I suspect the remake would never reach the same glorious level of stupidity that made the show worth watching.
I remember V. I was in the sixth grade when the Final Battle miniseries came out. All my friends were watching it, and it sounded so cool. Lizard aliens who wear fake skin! And you see their scales when their “skin” gets ripped off! And they eat mice whole! And they’re harvesting people to eat them too! And they’re keeping the people comatose on their cool flying saucer ships! And they wear sunglasses and cool red jackets with big shoulders! That’s so cool!
And my mom wouldn’t let me watch it. She had absolute control over the TV in the house, and she just arbitrarily decided i shouldn’t watch it. Not even one episode. The dictator!
So there I am, exiled from TV bliss, while all my friends at school are going on and on about what seems to be the coolest series ever.
Flash forward about ten years or so. Some cable network (i forget which one) is rebroadcasting V! Both mini-series! After those deprived years from my childhood, i can at last indulge myself by spending hours watching cool aliens and fights and stuff. . .
I watch it. And I’m astounded to realize that it’s not cool at all. The acting is terrible, and it’s not helped at all by the awful script. The jokes are painful; the whole alien invasion and seems to be a clumsy, trite allegory about Nazism and totalitarianism–the alien symbol even resembles a swastika, and you’ve got a Resistance, etc… I was embarrassed to admit i’d ever wanted to see the series at all, much less with the burning desire that I felt when i was twelve years old.
So, once again, my mother was right, after all.
Damn her.
I’m excited, but it just may7 be because I grew up watching the old ones. I honestly don’t remember how good they were.
Not “seems to be”. It was written as an allegory. One of the scenes (of the neighbors being turned in and them hiding in the garage) is lifted directly from a play about the Holocaust (though I can’t remember which one.
I’ve watched the minis a couple of times since they first aired. For the most part, the first one holds up pretty well. The allegory is pretty painfully obvious but it’s still entertaining. And there’s always the fun trivia of trying to remember which scene has Dominique Dunne from the back in it. The second one has its moments too, but the ending, with Elizabeth glowing like the little star child she is and shutting down the nuclear reactor and saving us all because the ship that could travel interstellar distances well within the lifetimes of the crew couldn’t get up enough speed to get out of Earth’s atmosphere was a total crock and ruined it for me. The series I watched again when it was on Sci-Fi Channel a few years ago and I was mildly entertained. I liked the Howard K Smith faux news reports on the Resistance that opened every episode.
I’ll probably watch the new movie, because I’m a big sucker.
It’s interesting that those with the fondest memories of the series were kids at the time. I was 8 at the time and loved the show. I’ve seen it again not long ago and it’s really showing its age. The special effects now seem so fake.
I heard on the radio about a new V this morning. Sounds cool, I’ll be looking forward to that and the new Battlestar Galactica. 
Very true - I would have been around 10 (I think) when the original was aired. My younger brother, who doesn’t remember the original showing (he was 2) thinks it’s one of the worst things he’s ever seen. Even those in my classes who are 5-6 years younger than me don’t remember it as fondly.
I was five when this first came out, i can’t wait!!! (there has been rumors of this for like 8 years, though). remember, the visitors are our friends!
The visitors are NOT our friends! They’ve come to rape our planet and kill us!
Yes, I’ve watched them too much.
Actually, the incident you refer to happened after they turned “V” into a weekly television series… long after “V - The Final Battle” aired.
The weekly series is about as good as “Galactica 1980” and… with a few exceptions… most of the stupid things people remember about “V” happened during this series.
Watch the mini-series again. They are available on DVD. And they hold up remarkably well even after all these years.
Ah, good old “V.” My brother was a fan too; I’ll be sure to give him the word.
I would agree with your first statement, although my girlfriend said she liked it a lot… and only saw it for the first time a few months ago.
I did see it when I was about 12 or 13 I think.
And while in principal I agree that the special effects are not great by today’s standards… who cares??? I would rather watch ten shows this good with sub-par or older special effects than one “Armageddon” (or whatever) that has phenomenal special effects and is one of the stupidest pieces of garbage ever produced.
I HATE it when people rip good-quality older sci fi for having bad special effects. Look at “The Day The Earth Stood Still” or “Forbidden Planet”. Who cares if the effects are dated, because the stories are so good? (Not that I am saying “V” is in the same class as these classics, by the way.)
Special effects have reached the point where anyone with even a modest amount of money can produce effects that are very nearly perfect. I just wish that the same people spending all that money on effects budgets would spent a tenth… or even a thousandth… of that money on the script.
Sorry for the hijack. I’ll get off my box now. :rolleyes:
As someone once said to me, it seems like a sturdy box. Stay up there and preach it!
Naw, not really. Because you probably would’ve liked it when you were 12. I liked it when it first aired. Then, when it came out on DVD a few months ago, my sister bought it. It wasn’t anywhere near as good as I remember it being. (Although, it wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever seen (and liked) either.)