Way back in July, I posted here about an old NBC Miniseries called "V" and it's follow-up, "V: The Final Battle". I got almost no response in July, so I thought I'd try again and see what anyone thought and if anyone's seen it.
It first aired in 1983 (before I was even born) and was a mini-series on NBC. It's on DVD now, but I remember it back in the 90s on the Sci-fi channel. In fact, they played the original mini-series on Sci-fi and then the second mini-series, which was folowed by a very short-lived and very lame TV series also on NBC. Sci-fi played them all around 1996 or 1997, I remember watching when I was like in elementary school or something...way back. I really liked the mini-series.
It was basically like Independence Day with actual alien-human interaction.
In 1983, out of the blue, 50 giant "motherships" appeared strategically above 50 major cities, like LA, NYC, Detroit, Chicago, London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Sydney, etc. The primary focus was the LA Mothership. After several days of hovering over Earth's cities, these ships, which were about 5 miles across, finally synchronized a message in all languages requesting a meeting atop the World's Trade Center (I think) with the UN Secretary General. The meeting took place a few days later. The aliens', called "The Visitors", looked just like us except they hated light and needed to wear dark glasses and they had reverberating, flanged voices similar to Anubis' voice, sorta like the Goa'uld voices, but more echoey like borg or Anubis' voice.
They came to Earth "because they needed our help" to make chemicals to help their dying world, which had environmental problems. They were about 10,000 years more advanced than us and had encountered other "sentient" races, but never said much more about them. They were our friends and wanted to exchange their knowledge with us. They gave cures for cancer, helped solve poverty and hunger and famine on earth. After a year, they were firmly entrenched in our daily lives and even started "Visitor Youth Corps" etc.
Think Nazi Germany with Hitler Youth. Their symbol was even like a Swastika. Finally some scientists, mostly medical doctors, biologists, anthropologists, and other biological scientists, started realizing that they were not like us at all. One alien (the dude who played Freddie Krueger) saved a human in a cryogenic tank and was able to withstand super cold nitrogen with no ill effects. They were 5 times stronger than humans, could see in almost pitch darkness, had enhanced senses, and NEVER were seen eating in front of humans.
One of the camermen who first toured their LA ship snuck aboard one of the ships (the dude who played the beastmaster) and found out the aliens were really reptilian (almost like evolved velicoraptors) with fangs, slitty cat-like pupils, scaly skin, and forked tongues. At this time, they imposed martial law and started killing off scientists, fabricating a scientist conspiracy (saying they wanted to steal a mothership and take over earth with visitor technology).
One thing led to another and the aliens took over earth. This was a Nazi-like political intrigue Independence Day without the action. It turns out that the Visitors came to Earth to take our water and to take US as food and canon fodder to fight their "Leader's" Enemy, a less advanced, but still formidable enemy in which they were engaged in a war for thousands of years.
For the 80s, the effects were pretty good with cool "skyfighters" as they were called, small death glider like ships, some cool tech, although the motherships didn't look that impressive on the inside, but on the outside, they looked cool. It was cheesy 80s effects in other aspects and of course, like Stargate, the Visitor Shocktroopers became easy to kill like Jaffa. After awhile it became predictable, for awhile, it was a cool show.
They might be making "V: The Second Generation" in 2005/2006. Dunno for sure.
The guy who made it, Kenneth Johnson, was the same guy who made "Alien Nation" and if yo remember that show, the "Overseers" were the aliens who controlled the Newcomers, the aliens that showed up in a ship in our atmosphere. The newcomers were slaves to another race of aliens. Alien Nation was focused on how the Newcomers blended into our society and intergrated. They didn't focus much on the Overseers, a race of reptilian masters with incredible tech. The ALien Nation ship looked remarkablly like a V mothership and Kenneth Johnson said he really wanted to combine the two shows and make the visitors the Overseers but couldn't for legal reasons.
In the final Alien Nation show, from the early 90s, a Newcomer working for the Overseers, called Klin-sat-zun, sent a message into deep space saying "Your cargo of slaves is safe and sound on a planet called Earth, coordinates attached. Also, billions more for your use. Awaiting your response". There was no follow-up to that one really except some okay TV movies.
Anyway, has anyone ever seen "V" or "Alien Nation" the series and have any comments or wanna add anything? I'd like to keep this thread going if possible. It's a worthwhile rent or buy if you see it. If you have any questions, I'd love to answer them. If you'd like more info, I can post some URLS to good sites.
Thanks,
Jared
It first aired in 1983 (before I was even born) and was a mini-series on NBC. It's on DVD now, but I remember it back in the 90s on the Sci-fi channel. In fact, they played the original mini-series on Sci-fi and then the second mini-series, which was folowed by a very short-lived and very lame TV series also on NBC. Sci-fi played them all around 1996 or 1997, I remember watching when I was like in elementary school or something...way back. I really liked the mini-series.
It was basically like Independence Day with actual alien-human interaction.
In 1983, out of the blue, 50 giant "motherships" appeared strategically above 50 major cities, like LA, NYC, Detroit, Chicago, London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Sydney, etc. The primary focus was the LA Mothership. After several days of hovering over Earth's cities, these ships, which were about 5 miles across, finally synchronized a message in all languages requesting a meeting atop the World's Trade Center (I think) with the UN Secretary General. The meeting took place a few days later. The aliens', called "The Visitors", looked just like us except they hated light and needed to wear dark glasses and they had reverberating, flanged voices similar to Anubis' voice, sorta like the Goa'uld voices, but more echoey like borg or Anubis' voice.
They came to Earth "because they needed our help" to make chemicals to help their dying world, which had environmental problems. They were about 10,000 years more advanced than us and had encountered other "sentient" races, but never said much more about them. They were our friends and wanted to exchange their knowledge with us. They gave cures for cancer, helped solve poverty and hunger and famine on earth. After a year, they were firmly entrenched in our daily lives and even started "Visitor Youth Corps" etc.
Think Nazi Germany with Hitler Youth. Their symbol was even like a Swastika. Finally some scientists, mostly medical doctors, biologists, anthropologists, and other biological scientists, started realizing that they were not like us at all. One alien (the dude who played Freddie Krueger) saved a human in a cryogenic tank and was able to withstand super cold nitrogen with no ill effects. They were 5 times stronger than humans, could see in almost pitch darkness, had enhanced senses, and NEVER were seen eating in front of humans.
One of the camermen who first toured their LA ship snuck aboard one of the ships (the dude who played the beastmaster) and found out the aliens were really reptilian (almost like evolved velicoraptors) with fangs, slitty cat-like pupils, scaly skin, and forked tongues. At this time, they imposed martial law and started killing off scientists, fabricating a scientist conspiracy (saying they wanted to steal a mothership and take over earth with visitor technology).
One thing led to another and the aliens took over earth. This was a Nazi-like political intrigue Independence Day without the action. It turns out that the Visitors came to Earth to take our water and to take US as food and canon fodder to fight their "Leader's" Enemy, a less advanced, but still formidable enemy in which they were engaged in a war for thousands of years.
For the 80s, the effects were pretty good with cool "skyfighters" as they were called, small death glider like ships, some cool tech, although the motherships didn't look that impressive on the inside, but on the outside, they looked cool. It was cheesy 80s effects in other aspects and of course, like Stargate, the Visitor Shocktroopers became easy to kill like Jaffa. After awhile it became predictable, for awhile, it was a cool show.
They might be making "V: The Second Generation" in 2005/2006. Dunno for sure.
The guy who made it, Kenneth Johnson, was the same guy who made "Alien Nation" and if yo remember that show, the "Overseers" were the aliens who controlled the Newcomers, the aliens that showed up in a ship in our atmosphere. The newcomers were slaves to another race of aliens. Alien Nation was focused on how the Newcomers blended into our society and intergrated. They didn't focus much on the Overseers, a race of reptilian masters with incredible tech. The ALien Nation ship looked remarkablly like a V mothership and Kenneth Johnson said he really wanted to combine the two shows and make the visitors the Overseers but couldn't for legal reasons.
In the final Alien Nation show, from the early 90s, a Newcomer working for the Overseers, called Klin-sat-zun, sent a message into deep space saying "Your cargo of slaves is safe and sound on a planet called Earth, coordinates attached. Also, billions more for your use. Awaiting your response". There was no follow-up to that one really except some okay TV movies.
Anyway, has anyone ever seen "V" or "Alien Nation" the series and have any comments or wanna add anything? I'd like to keep this thread going if possible. It's a worthwhile rent or buy if you see it. If you have any questions, I'd love to answer them. If you'd like more info, I can post some URLS to good sites.
Thanks,
Jared
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