Posted by
CmdrTaco
on from the is-twenty-years-old-classic-yet dept.
Silas writes "According to CNN, twenty years after NBC's hit sci-fi miniseries "V" invaded the small screen, the network is bringing the aliens back with "V: The Second Generation," a three-hour TV movie from the original creator Kenneth Johnson."
Here's a little synopsis for those not born when this came out: Kenneth Johnson's brilliant 1983 mini-series takes Nazi Germany to a global scale. A group of aliens calling themselves "The Visitors" have come to Earth asking for aid for what they say is a peaceful mission. It doesn't take long for some humans to discover that they're really a race of lizard creatures intent on taking our water and using humans for food. After gaining public trust, the Visitors begin to seize control by manufacturing a conspiracy involving scientists who, like the Jews a half-century before, find themselves ostracized by the public and hunted.
--
I have often regretted my speech, never my silence. -Xenocrates
I was really interested when they had this news on Saturday. I remember that being a family event for my house.
I did quite a bit of googling and apparently the script will be set 20 years afterwards the last movie, BUT a new ally will come to help us. Rumors on several sites that claimed to be close to Johnson said another alien race that defeated the "lizards" will come to save us. Sort of like an "operation iRaqi Freedom" effort on a planetary scale. The "new aliens" will be like a United States of the Universe that everyone is jealous of for their immense technology and "morality" - I could see how it would make a good commentary, just as the original was good commentary about WWII.
-- Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
another alien race that defeated the "lizards" will come to save us. Sort of like an "operation iRaqi Freedom" effort on a planetary scale.
But after they "liberate" the Earth, will they have a hard time finding these so called "weapons of mass water depletion" and "bio-human McNugget processing" equipment that their leaders told the other planets in the federatoin? Will it turn out that the lizard race were simply a bunch of petty power hungry lamers who used their position to simply "live the good life" ignoring the well being of those they oppressed? Will they then speak harshly of the "bird race" that aided the lizard leaders and who themselves are suspected of harboring these water depletion devices?
You made a typo and a mistake. First of all, we're not talking about weapons of mass destruction, but about weapons of mass distraction (even Paul Wolfowicz has admitted that). Second, the weapon was not in the series but it was the series itself! While we were all watching it, the aliens (who actually look like chimpanzees underneath) took over - Bush is their chief leader.
That was how they ended the second (?) movie, but in the regular series, I vaguely remember they had established that the red chemical was, in fact, harmful to humans, so they had to stop using it, but they tried to keep that facts under wraps from the aliens.
-- "Enough of this wretched, whining monkey life." -- Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_, Book 9, 37
I remember that being a family event for my house.
I remember it being a big family event at my house too. I was watching it with my mom and two brothers and we were on the final episode. I was in the back of the room, my mom was in a chair in front of me on my left, my younger brother was lying on the couch in front of me on my right, and my older brother was lifting weights in the middle of the room while watching TV (why? I don't know).
Well one of the clamps holding the weights had broken because my brother over-tightened it so he took off that clamp and then took off the other so that it was balanced. You can see what's coming.
During an extremely suspenseful moment, my older brother is standing there just holding the weights at chest level, eyes glued to the screen. The bar on the right slowly tips down to the right. My eyes are diverted from the TV screen by the weight which slides off the bar and "Bam!" right onto my younger brothers head.
"Oh, no!", my older brother cried and tilted the bar the other way causing a weight on the left to slide off and hit my mom's leg causing her to scream in pain. My older brother and I rush to my younger brother who has this dazed look on his face and is holding his head. He doesn't realize that his hand is filling up with blood. He looks at my older brother and says, "You dork" very softly. He then realized that his hand was all wet and pandemonium ensued.
As my family is rushing out the door to go to the hospital, I start arguing with my mom over whether I can stay and watch V. The argument didn't last long. I never did find out what happened.
Sigh!
I have been wanting to rent the whole series for the past 10 years to find out what I missed and if it's as enjoyable as I remember it, but it is too much of a commitment.
...David Icke seen foaming at the mouth and ripping biblically at his turquoise shellsuit. No film at 11 as the Bilderberg Group have confiscated it.
-- --
Proud descendant of semi-nomadic cattle-herders.
Already overdone
by
crow
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· Score: 2, Interesting
The original was a lot of fun, but it killed itself with the superbaby junk. But it seems that there aren't enough original ideas out there, so everyone is looking for something to make a sequel of or more to a new medium (e.g., comic books moving to movies).
Re:Already overdone
by
0123456
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· Score: 2, Informative
"The original was a lot of fun, but it killed itself with the superbaby junk"
However, as I understand it, the original creator was barely involved with the second series with the "superbaby" junk and pretty much disowned it, so there may be hope for a decent show.
What about the Red Dust?
by
fudgefactor7
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· Score: 4, Interesting
If you recall, we humans came up with this red dust stuff that killed the Visitors on contact...so they couldn't be on the surface of the planet--hope they answer that situation in the return.
Re:What about the Red Dust?
by
Dutchmaan
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· Score: 4, Informative
If you'll recall, later in the series the "red dust" didn't work as well in tropical and temperate zones leaving it only "effective" in the colder polar regions...
So I doubt the red dust issue will even be a factor.
I guess I'm more of a geed than I thought...
Re:What about the Red Dust?
by
bastion_xx
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· Score: 2, Funny
The red dust is for polar zones only. There is no parking on red dust locations.
Re:What about the Red Dust?
by
NaugaHunter
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· Score: 2, Informative
Not to mention a) it was harmful to other earth species, and b) it was bought out by some corporation that later tried making deals with the visitors.
-- R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before?
B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.
Sounds familiar...
by
pir8garth
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· Score: 4, Funny
"...came to Earth with the promise to solve the world's problems through their high technology, but after gaining control of the planet through subterfuge and media manipulation, began to methodically kill their hosts."
Sounds suspiciously like V could have been predicting Microsoft's rise to power...I think I may go live in a cave
-- Something clever...
Let's see here...
by
Vengeance
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· Score: 5, Funny
Battlestar Galactica? Check V? Check
Next up: Man from Atlantis
-- It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
Re:Let's see here...
by
HarveyBirdman
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· Score: 4, Insightful
All three of which are better than more Crossing Over With John (bleeping) Edwards, or Scare (bleeping) Tactics.
-- ---
Ban humanity.
Re:Let's see here...
by
Neil+Watson
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· Score: 3, Informative
According to the article, the first time around the plot was an allegory referring to the Nazi invasion.
I just wonder if, in this sequel, the humans will be looking for some Weapons of Mass Destruction.....
Re:Effects... Firefly
by
cowsgomoo666
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· Score: 4, Interesting
They're thinking about making Firefly into a movie. It's a shame they axed Firefly and John Doe, they were the best shoes on TV (next to Smallville).
see http://www.darkhorizons.com/news-n.htm :
Firefly: The Movie: Prospero reports that it looks like the failed Joss Whedon sci-fi/western series "Firefly" may make a comeback on the big screen. Reports coming in indicate that during a recent Net chat, actor Adam Baldwin said "We will see a FF movie! Within 18 months!?". Its a little ambitious of course (even if it got underway now 18 months is still a little soon), but more certain news is fans of the show can pick up the whole series (incl. unaired eps) in an elaborate upcoming DVD box-set later this year. Thanks to 'VP'.
-- You think that I'm crazy, you should see this guy!
Bring back Molly Ringwald as the V-mom
by
corebreech
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· Score: 4, Funny
And this time, let's do more than just hearing the lizard-people belch after a meal of human. I want to see somebody get eaten. I want to know what kind of wine goes best with human. Do the lizard-people have anything like the Atkins Diet? How many carbs are in a human anyways?
Re:Bring back Molly Ringwald as the V-mom
by
DreamingReal
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· Score: 5, Informative
Bring back Molly Ringwald as the V-mom
That was Blair Tefkin, not Molly Ringwald. And that magical visitor kid ending ruined the entire series for me. I'd prefer that they leave it alone.
-- We want some answers and all that we get
Some kind of shit about a terrorist threat
- Ministry
Re:Bring back Molly Ringwald as the V-mom
by
binaryDigit
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· Score: 2, Funny
And Hanibal Lector can be made the head chef to the lizard queen (or even shown to be a lizard dude himself!)
Re:Bring back Molly Ringwald as the V-mom
by
corbettw
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· Score: 4, Funny
"I want to know what kind of wine goes best with human."
Why, a nice Chianti, of course!
-- God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Re:Bring back Molly Ringwald as the V-mom
by
Sloppy
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· Score: 2, Funny
How many carbs are in a human anyways?
I thought the trick to getting the most out of humans, was not to eat them, but to keep them alive in little pods, distracted by VR.
Teach a lizard to eat a human, and you've fed him for a day. Teach a computer to enslave a human, and you've fed him for life.
-- As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Re:Bring back Molly Ringwald as the V-mom
by
rmarll
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· Score: 2, Funny
Do the lizard-people have anything like the Atkins Diet?
Something like that I think.:-o
Though there probably wasn't enough of him to save leftovers.
Re:Bring back Molly Ringwald as the V-mom
by
Cpt_Kirks
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· Score: 2, Funny
I want to know what kind of wine goes best with human.
IIRC, Chianti, with a side of fava beans...
Is this the worst TV skiffy program ever?
by
cabalamat2
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· Score: 3, Interesting
The plot: Aliens come to the earth to steal our water
This is incredibly silly: if they want water, they could simply get it from Europa, or no doubt many places in their own solar system: hydrogen and oxygen aren't exactly rare elements, and if oxygen was rare there, life wouldn't have evolved there anyway.
Re:Is this the worst TV skiffy program ever?
by
PhxBlue
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· Score: 2, Interesting
. ..and if oxygen was rare there, life wouldn't have evolved there anyway.
Animal life evolved on earth despite the presence of an oxygen atmosphere, not because of it. Prior to that, oxygen was just a corrosive by-product of photosynthesis. Even now, there're far more anoxic lifeforms on Earth than there are lifeforms that require molecular oxygen to live. . . probably by about 10:1 or so.
-- !#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
History Repeats itself
by
SL33Z3
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· Score: 3, Funny
The series would be better if Robert England would have an identity crisis and confuse his alien role with his Fredie Kruger role. At least then you could have an interesting plot.
-- SL33ZE
- Artificial Intelligence is No Match For Natural Stupidity -
About the Red Dust
by
razberry636
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· Score: 3, Interesting
If you recall, we humans came up with this red dust stuff that killed the Visitors on contact...so they couldn't be on the surface of the planet--hope they answer that situation in the return.
NBC had a "V" series that ran for a short while afterward. The "red dust" only worked in temporate climates. The Visitors had to move to tropical places, like the Bahamas, in order to survive.
Sad, huh. To be doomed to live a life in the tropics...
TV - Series that never happened
by
nhavar
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· Score: 2, Informative
From the way it's presented it sounds as if they are basing the new story line off of where the MINI-Series left off and excluding the TV-Series timeline. This is both good and bad. It's good because we can ditch the whole Star Child prophesy hoohah. It's bad for the people who enjoyed the TV-Series and liked the character build up and events that took place in it.
Of course a whole new batch of hotties are going to have to be brought in since the old hotties are pushing 50. And of course the good thing is it also means costume redesigns:).
-- "Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
Did "V" rip-off "Childhood's End"?
by
peter303
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· Score: 5, Informative
"V" (and "Independence Day") start out the same as Arthur C. Clarke's "Childhood's End", a favorite of mine. A single huge alien ship suddenly appears above each of Earth's major cities. The aliens stay hidden for a while because they are repulsive reptiles. Then the stories diverge. Childhood's aliens are merely subcontractors for another more powerful race with apocalytic intentions. "V" degenerates into a cops-and-robbers action series.
Childhood's aliens are merely subcontractors for another more powerful race with apocalytic intentions
I suppose you could call it apocalyptic... but I wouldn't really.
And while it's been a long time since I read CE, I don't think they were reptilian.
Saying more gives away far too much to anyone who hasn't read it... and it's a very worthwhile read.
British miners strike
by
pork_spies
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· Score: 5, Interesting
In the UK "V" was shown at the same time as a national miners strike. Britain's mining communities quickly warmed to the theme - for them the UK was in the grip of an evil alien she-monster and they went arount scrawling red 'V's everywhere
Re:British miners strike
by
NDPTAL85
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· Score: 2, Informative
Margaret Thatcher saved the UK economy from the grip s of the evil Unions which now foul the commercial sectors in France and Germany.
-- Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Re:British miners strike
by
el-spectre
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· Score: 4, Interesting
According to the writer/director, at one point "V" was shown in (then segregated) South Africa, as "an example of white and black people working together peacefully". The next morning, thousands of red "V"s were spraypainted all over the country.
oopsie.
-- "Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
I wonder if there'll be more mouse-eating...
by
tuffy
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Or perhaps the Visitors will start chowing down on lemurs or perhaps a pygmy marmoset. In any case, while the original was entertaining enough when I was much younger, my tolerance for forced allegory has waned in recent years. But as long as there isn't any more "star children", perhaps there's hope for it.
--
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Re:Great Series - NOT
by
tomhudson
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· Score: 3, Insightful
The series was shit. Tacky, dated, sci-fi at its' worst - with the opening premise ripped off from Clarke's "Childhood's End", and everything going downhill from there. "Original" only to people who can't read.
Guess that's why so many people watched it -
"There's no underestimating the intelligence of the American public." - Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1955)
Have to agree about ...
by
burgburgburg
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· Score: 2, Funny
"Manimal" and "Jason of Star Academy". But why stop there!
Bring back "Quark"! What's been happening to the garbage scow Quark and it's captain Adam Quark all these years? What about Betty I and Betty II, Andy the Android and The Head? The people want to know!
Will this version fix all the bugs from the V1 version like the bad acting, lousy effects and shallow characters?
The lizard baby birth scene
by
Geccoman
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· Score: 2, Funny
As a kid, the scene where the baby with the forked tongue scared the crap out of me.
I recently saw that episode again with my wife and could not stop laughing at how funny the little doll looked when that little plastic tongue popped out and wiggled back and forth.
I can't wait to check this out.
-- I'm on a chair.
20 years ago?
by
Washizu
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· Score: 2, Interesting
"V" came out 20 years ago? Man, I was only four years old, but I remember someone scratching the fake skin off a lizard alien.
It wasn't just the water, dummy!
by
EvilStein
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· Score: 4, Funny
The Visitors had a little trouble finding a Starbucks on Pluto, but you can't swing a dead cat on this planet without hitting one.
C'mon. Visitors need their morning venti latte goodness too. Selfish human!
Re:Great Series - NOT
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Tacky, dated, sci-fi at its' worst - with the opening premise ripped off from Clarke's "Childhood's End", and everything going downhill from there.
Um. Dude, you do know that "V" was originally written as the story of the German invasion of Austria, right? The bit about space aliens was only changed in the next-to-the-last draft of the screenplay or something.
And as for the opening premise being "ripped off," Clarke has himself said that he took the opening image of Childhood's End from any number of "earth versus the flying saucers" movies. And since that's where the similarities end, I think you might wanna just back the hell up a step and rethink your position.
Yes, a lot about "V" was tacky. But you have to give credit where it's due. The hardest thing to write is something funny. But second only to that is good allegory. It's incredibly hard to write good allegory, and the guy who wrote V whose name escapes me right now wrote a damn good allegory. So good that you didn't even get it, which is a mixed blessing of sorts I guess.
Wow V.. now I feel old
by
malice95
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Dam has it been 20 yrs? I remember that series like it just aired last year.. I was 12 when it hit the little screen. I remeber the Eating live mice bit and all the lasers... This rag tag humans were just so ingenious compared to the dim witted aliens. Oh.. and the glasses so you could figure out who was a visitor and who wasnt. I remeber on of the big fast food chains gave those out.. Red colored glasses I think.
Malice
Never trust your memory
by
wbattestilli
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I, being born in 1975, was a kid when this came out. I have found that lots of things that came out when I was a kid were actually really bad. I loved V. If I see it again or see V: Part II, it will probably ruin it for me.
I plan to just enjoy the memory.
Software glitches of the future
by
lightspawn
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· Score: 4, Funny
Or were they the ones that went "diggity-diggity - hello Dr. Theopolis"?
You mean "BIDI-BIDI-BIDI <obvious comment>, Buck!".
By the 25th century, medical knowledge will have advanced so much that humans will no longer have speech impediments. OTOH, comp sci advances will make robots so humanlike they'll start developing them.
How does a bug like that get out of QA without being caught? Should the vendor be sued? Can a patch be issued? Is Twiki running windows 2491?
Re:Heh.
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 2, Funny
Yeah but it had Jane Badler, who was the first alien chick I wanted to nail...
Does Erin Grey count? I know she's not technically an alien, but I don't think any human woman could have squeezed into those outfits, either.
Oh, my lunch!
by
codefool
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Lordy, just when I didn't think television couldn't get any worse...
Okay, V was an 'okay' show - just okay. I have a fundamental problem with their story premise that I just can't muster enough suspension of disbelief to swallow.
They come to Earth for two reasons:
Water
Food
So they're saying this alien race can build these huge inter-stellar vehicles but we can't figure out how to generate water and farm food animals? That somehow its easier to mind f*** an entire planet and dress up like humans than just flat out invade? What kind of lazy writing is that?
Kinda reminds me of the pong gag on the Simpson's halloween special a few years back. "All species who have mastered inter-galactic travel raise their tentacles."
pet rodents the world over are cringing
by
Mantorp
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· Score: 2, Funny
you know some dumbass will try to swallow one after watching V
Nazis? Huh? I just don't see it...
by
Phoenix666
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· Score: 2, Funny
Aliens come to earth to take all the water and take humans for food, mice and small birds for snacks. A rag-tag band of rebels fight them and their human collaborators. Eventually, they go up in hot air balloons to pour Red Dust into the ecosystem and make the planet poisonous to the Lizards.
What part of that is an allegory for the Nazis and the Final Solution? The Nazis didn't want to eat the Jews. They rounded them up and exterminated them. The Nazis had weird eugenics programs and notions of racial purity and hierarchy. The Lizards just ate people. The Nazis sought Lebensraum in the East. The Lizards just wanted to eat people. Yes the Lizards were out to smear and control the human scientists, but that's because they were the only ones who could figure out what was going on and prevent them from eating people.
Unless all bad guys in all stories are really Nazis, because no one else could be, and all underdog good guys in all stories are really Jews, because no one else could be, then it's really hard to make out what you're talking about.
IMHO, this is a story about Lizards wanting to eat people, and the people objecting.
-- Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Re:V the second generation?
by
tomhudson
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· Score: 4, Funny
No, after V, there's
VI (roman numerals)
W (alphabetical order)
V2 (bombs away!)
U (the prequel)
V++ (V with classes)
V# (V extended by M$)
V.pm (the perl module)
GNV (GNU V - GNV is Not V)
Got any more?
Re:Great Series - NOT
by
AndroidCat
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· Score: 2, Funny
The difference was that "Star Trek" (the original, not any of the sequels) broke barriers (first televised inter-racial kiss, for example).
And K&S fan-fiction broke every other barrier. (And what they didn't break, the furries took care of.):^)
-- One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
No, it was from 'They Live'
by
Colonel+Panic
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· Score: 2, Informative
Oh.. and the glasses so you could figure out who was a visitor and who wasnt.
I think that was from the movie 'They Live', not 'V'. 'They Live' (a John Carpenter film) was a much better alien invasion movie IMHO.
HOLD IT, HOLD EVERYTHING!
by
boy_afraid
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· Score: 2, Funny
I thought that when the rebel fighters developed the Red Dust they would disperse it around the planet, into the air. The ending of the series doesn't get into details, but it is assumed that the humans won after the little girl safed the mother ship from crashing and killing the leader with the dust. How can the Visitors STILL be in charge when they can't even breathe the air. This is BULLSH*T! We don't need to stinkin' aliens coming to resue us, in fact, they need US to give the the forumla for the Red Dust.
Worst Thomas Pynchon Adaptation Ever!
by
Tax+Boy
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· Score: 4, Funny
I mean really. WTF with all the aliens?
Re:Great Series - NOT
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 2, Interesting
And Star Trek was "Wagon Train in space".
No, you don't understand. V wasn't "Germans as aliens." It was a full-length miniseries about the German invasion of Austria. Completely written, final draft, pitched to the networks. They turned it down, so the writer (guy whose name I forgot AGAIN) tweaked the script, changing the settings and some characters' names and adding a scene here and there. "V" was never conceived as an allegory, or a retelling. It was conceived as a historical drama. The setting and some plot details were changed at the very last minute before production started.
Seriously, wouldn't you have rather they made "Childhoods' End" into a mini-series, instead? The story's timeless.
Uh. There's a lot that's good about "Childhood's End." But it's not the be-all, end-all you seem to think it is. In a lot of ways, it's a very amateurish novel. Clarke wrote it when he was just figuring out how to tell a story. In particular, the ending is just awful. It's deus ex machina of the worst kind. "All of a sudden, a magical hive-mind with supernatural powers emerged. The end."
"Childhood's End" tried to say something about large-scale change and the nature of transcendence. But it cut too many corners, and the story ended up falling flat.
A very different but much better book about the nature of change on a species-wide level is Varley's "Steel Beach." In fact, much of Varley's work deals with the theme of what it means to be human, and where the line is between human and "other," in very interesting ways that ALSO happen to be excellent stories.
the humans are terrorists!
by
Frymaster
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· Score: 5, Insightful
what the hell are they thinking? v glorifies terrorism! witness:
the humans don't wear uniforms - they are "unclassified combatants"
they wear the visitors' uniforms in combat situations
they win in the first series by using biological weapons of mass destruction
given the current political atmosphere in the united states i find it amazing that anyone could dare glorify the efforts of extremist human terrorists.
Re:synopsis recollections
by
mnemotronic
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· Score: 5, Insightful
As I recall, the whole alien/nazi earthling/jewish thing was way too haavy-handed and preachy. The "V" insignia was a swastika with a few missing chunks, the uniforms were SS. They may have even had the equivalent of "hitler youth", but my brain is rebelling at trying to remember. No subtlety, too little imagination, really bad dialog, and a limp, hole-ridden plot (i.e. like "Matrix" but without the overly-long fight scenes). Please, if you're going to waste my time and beat me over the head with your same-old message, at least show me some t*t.
-- The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
Why has this not been modded up?
by
Pii
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· Score: 2, Funny
Excellent work, sir.
And for your list...
9. VD (The creeping crud)
-- For those that would die defending it, Freedom
has a sweet taste that the protected will never know.
Re:Why has this not been modded up?
by
tomhudson
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· Score: 2, Funny
9. VD (The creeping crud)
</quote>
... and to continue, when it comes out on disc, it'll be DVD - the "boxed" set! the Digital Venereal Disease...
I don't even what to think about what the bittorent SVCD / VCD will stand for:-)
Does this mean I can relive all of my Jane Badler fantasies I had as a kid?
Watching her slowly eat that mouse, just wishing that some part of me were...
Sorry, I'll be right back.
-Goran
-- Carpe Scrotum - The only way to deal with your competition.
That alien voice thingy..
by
chiller2
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I remember really really wanting one of those little voice changer things that Donovan, etc wore to make them sound like the visitors.
Having one of the shuttle space ships would have been cool too, but it wouldn't have fitted in my parents back yard at the time;p
Finally, as someone else pointed out, Diana (Jane Badler) was definitely hot alien or not, though James T Kirk probably already already had her;)
-- ---
Commission free trading & free stock up to $500 - use http://share.robinhood.com/kelvinp6:)
Re:Nazis? Huh? I just don't see it...
by
grungeKid
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· Score: 3, Informative
The Nazi paralells were in the way the visitors slowly took over the planet. Remember; they did not take it over with brute force at first, but through manipulation, much like the Nazi party rose to power.
They fabricated a conspiracy in the scientific community, making those in power treat scientists (and later on, anyone related to or in contact with scientist) as criminals, paralelling the way the Nazi's made the german society mistrust the Jews.
They also made sure to control the mass media early on, telling their version of events (paralelling Goebbels quote "If you tell a big enough Lie, and keep on repeating it, in the end people will come to believe it")
Later on, scientists and other visitor enemies were placed in labour camps, which was in reality genocide camps, another paralell.
The visitor friends program was an obvious Hitlerjugend paralell.
In other aspect (such as the human informants), it more resembled East europe communism.
You be overlookin' the obvious
by
Ethelred+Unraed
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· Score: 3, Funny
Just about every Alien Invasion movie has this problem... they all expect the aliens to come to Earth to grab our "resources" but the fact is earth is a piss poor place to get resources.
Y'all's overlookin' the obvious. "They" don't come here for our resources. They come for our women.
However, if we geeks were to defend the Earth against a large gaggle of female-snatching aliens from the planet Zod, the Zodders would make off with them before we knew what hit us.
Worse, the women would take one look at us (or at the back our Slashdot-reading heads) and go willingly for a little Zodomy.
(I don't know what got into me on that post. I really don't.)
Cheers,
Ethelred
-- Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
No parallels to the US here....
by
jjh37997
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
...came to Earth with the promise to solve the world's problems through
their high technology, but after gaining control of the planet through subterfuge
and media manipulation, began to methodically kill their hosts.
So.... it's a story about the United States' liberation of the Middle East?
I am grateful to the USAF for keeping me out of the country while this turkey was on. Please, let it stay in the can, along with "Logan's Run : The Series" and "Battlestar Galactica".
If you're going to watch a cheesy sci-fi series, why not watch The Doctor?
Chip H.
Timely and realistic
by
poptones
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
"V" had its weaknesses but I still remember watching it every week even after it went to a series. We used to visit friends every thursday night and I still vividly recall one show starting out with a "fake news" report about motherships over washington that prompted my buddy, who was in the kitchen, to come running out exclaiming "WTF?" It was a wonderful "War of the Worlds" moment.
Anyone notice how many "nazi" films are showing up on TV lately? Gee, you don't think that could have anything at all to do with the atmosphere set by the current administration, do you?
Re:Timely and realistic
by
poptones
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
...and it's not as if Bill Clinton getting a blowjob and stuffing monica with a cigar in any way threatened my freedom to come and go as I please.
It has nothing to do with a "liberal mindset" - although my idea of "liberal" is most likely not what you were imagining when you stuffed that strawman.
"Seldom in human history has good vs. evil been so clearly defined."
Uh huh. Tell that to "the office of homeland security."
"Childhood's End" - Early Singularity Fable
by
meehawl
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Childhood's aliens are merely subcontractors for another more powerful race with apocalytic intentions
Actually I think the wonderful and majestic Childhood's End was one of the early modern-form Singularity eschataological-themed science fiction books.
Current technological eschatology extensively uses the fictional device of runaway information technology leading to computerised transcendence. In Childhood's End, the theme was that all advanced dominant planetary species throughout the galaxy (except the "devils") inevitably developed their civilisations to a critical biomass of psychic cognition that would prompt the emergence of a new, absorptive group mind. The "demons" didn't hasten the process, or retard it -- they simple arrived to nursemaid the new organism.
In that era, most psychoactive drugs had yet to be prohibited, the "talking cure" of developmental psychoanalysis was at its zenith, and the potential effects of group psychology deployed within advertising and the new mass broadcast media seemed limitless. It was generally assumed that advancing pharmcological technology and increased self-actualization techniques would lead to stronger, mentally fitter humans. Of course, that didn't happen. These days, a lot of people put their faith in computation cycles, encryption, and wireless packet switching. Good luck with that.
Childhood's End is quite similar to a few other books of that 1950s era, especially Poul Anderson's Brainwave, which was one of the first books to advance the notion of different cognitive "zones" within the Galaxy that creates different levels of intelligence and self-awareness. This idea was most famously borrowed by Vernor Vinge for his 1980s Fire On The Deep space opera. I'm also thinking of Fritz Leiber's "The Girl WIth The Hungry Eyes".
Re:Nazis? Huh? I just don't see it...
by
vidarh
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Maybe you should go back and watch it again (it's out on DVD) and look for:
The youth movement used to snitch on their parents.
The arm bands
The Jewish family that had been through Nazi persecution making a big point about how it is "happening again"
How they make a big point about how they are looking after the public good, and stamp all opposition as a threat to the state
How the make excessive use of staged media events for propaganda
The "prisoners" that are really being taken away to be killed (yes, by being used as food, instead of just as mostly waste) instead of serving sentences as people were being told
How they see humans as inferior (as opposed to the Nazi's seeing non-germanic people as inferior)
Breeding programs (lizard - human pregnancies, much as the Nazis had extensive programs to breed the perfect master race through careful selection)
(as you mentioned) The victimisation of scientists and other intellectuals (the lizards shared with the Nazis an excessive program of arresting and discrediting scientists and political opponents, including pegging crimes on their opponents to turn public opinion against them - Reichtags fire, anyone?)
The parallels are so blatant and in your face that it at some points it really disturbs the story, but I guess that's the point.
Yes, you are right, the lizards wanted humans for food, while the Nazis wanted racial purity and power, but it both amounts to a fundamental disrespect for other sentient beings - all of humanity in the case of the lizards, and "just" all non-germanic people and all in political opposition or anyone who for any other reason didn't fit into the Nazi ideal in the case of the Nazis.
Without some twists, there would have been no point making it as a sci fi series instead of making yet another series about the war.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's a little synopsis for those not born when this came out:
Kenneth Johnson's brilliant 1983 mini-series takes Nazi Germany to a global scale. A group of aliens calling themselves "The Visitors" have come to Earth asking for aid for what they say is a peaceful mission. It doesn't take long for some humans to discover that they're really a race of lizard creatures intent on taking our water and using humans for food. After gaining public trust, the Visitors begin to seize control by manufacturing a conspiracy involving scientists who, like the Jews a half-century before, find themselves ostracized by the public and hunted.
I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.
-Xenocrates
I was really interested when they had this news on Saturday. I remember that being a family event for my house.
I did quite a bit of googling and apparently the script will be set 20 years afterwards the last movie, BUT a new ally will come to help us. Rumors on several sites that claimed to be close to Johnson said another alien race that defeated the "lizards" will come to save us. Sort of like an "operation iRaqi Freedom" effort on a planetary scale. The "new aliens" will be like a United States of the Universe that everyone is jealous of for their immense technology and "morality" - I could see how it would make a good commentary, just as the original was good commentary about WWII.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
...David Icke seen foaming at the mouth and ripping biblically at his turquoise shellsuit. No film at 11 as the Bilderberg Group have confiscated it.
-- Proud descendant of semi-nomadic cattle-herders.
The original was a lot of fun, but it killed itself with the superbaby junk. But it seems that there aren't enough original ideas out there, so everyone is looking for something to make a sequel of or more to a new medium (e.g., comic books moving to movies).
If you recall, we humans came up with this red dust stuff that killed the Visitors on contact...so they couldn't be on the surface of the planet--hope they answer that situation in the return.
Lets just hope the effects are a little more modern than the 80s series (although it was a great miniseries back in the day!).
Honestly, though, I think they'd do better to bring in John Doe or Firefly (hell, or even bab5) instead of redo'ing this old flick.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
"...came to Earth with the promise to solve the world's problems through their high technology, but after gaining control of the planet through subterfuge and media manipulation, began to methodically kill their hosts."
Sounds suspiciously like V could have been predicting Microsoft's rise to power...I think I may go live in a cave
Something clever...
Battlestar Galactica? Check
V? Check
Next up: Man from Atlantis
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
According to the article, the first time around the plot was an allegory referring to the Nazi invasion.
I just wonder if, in this sequel, the humans will be looking for some Weapons of Mass Destruction.....
W
You think that I'm crazy, you should see this guy!
And this time, let's do more than just hearing the lizard-people belch after a meal of human. I want to see somebody get eaten. I want to know what kind of wine goes best with human. Do the lizard-people have anything like the Atkins Diet? How many carbs are in a human anyways?
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
The plot: Aliens come to the earth to steal our water
This is incredibly silly: if they want water, they could simply get it from Europa, or no doubt many places in their own solar system: hydrogen and oxygen aren't exactly rare elements, and if oxygen was rare there, life wouldn't have evolved there anyway.
The series would be better if Robert England would have an identity crisis and confuse his alien role with his Fredie Kruger role. At least then you could have an interesting plot.
SL33ZE - Artificial Intelligence is No Match For Natural Stupidity -
Sad, huh. To be doomed to live a life in the tropics...
From the way it's presented it sounds as if they are basing the new story line off of where the MINI-Series left off and excluding the TV-Series timeline. This is both good and bad. It's good because we can ditch the whole Star Child prophesy hoohah. It's bad for the people who enjoyed the TV-Series and liked the character build up and events that took place in it.
:).
Of course a whole new batch of hotties are going to have to be brought in since the old hotties are pushing 50. And of course the good thing is it also means costume redesigns
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
"V" (and "Independence Day") start out the same as Arthur C. Clarke's "Childhood's End", a favorite of mine. A single huge alien ship suddenly appears above each of Earth's major cities. The aliens stay hidden for a while because they are repulsive reptiles. Then the stories diverge. Childhood's aliens are merely subcontractors for another more powerful race with apocalytic intentions. "V" degenerates into a cops-and-robbers action series.
In the UK "V" was shown at the same time as a national miners strike. Britain's mining communities quickly warmed to the theme - for them the UK was in the grip of an evil alien she-monster and they went arount scrawling red 'V's everywhere
Or perhaps the Visitors will start chowing down on lemurs or perhaps a pygmy marmoset. In any case, while the original was entertaining enough when I was much younger, my tolerance for forced allegory has waned in recent years. But as long as there isn't any more "star children", perhaps there's hope for it.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Guess that's why so many people watched it -
Bring back "Quark"! What's been happening to the garbage scow Quark and it's captain Adam Quark all these years? What about Betty I and Betty II, Andy the Android and The Head? The people want to know!
Will this version fix all the bugs from the V1 version like the bad acting, lousy effects and shallow characters?
As a kid, the scene where the baby with the forked tongue scared the crap out of me.
I recently saw that episode again with my wife and could not stop laughing at how funny the little doll looked when that little plastic tongue popped out and wiggled back and forth.
I can't wait to check this out.
I'm on a chair.
"V" came out 20 years ago? Man, I was only four years old, but I remember someone scratching the fake skin off a lizard alien.
OddManIn: A Game of guns and game theory.
The Visitors had a little trouble finding a Starbucks on Pluto, but you can't swing a dead cat on this planet without hitting one.
C'mon. Visitors need their morning venti latte goodness too. Selfish human!
Tacky, dated, sci-fi at its' worst - with the opening premise ripped off from Clarke's "Childhood's End", and everything going downhill from there.
Um. Dude, you do know that "V" was originally written as the story of the German invasion of Austria, right? The bit about space aliens was only changed in the next-to-the-last draft of the screenplay or something.
And as for the opening premise being "ripped off," Clarke has himself said that he took the opening image of Childhood's End from any number of "earth versus the flying saucers" movies. And since that's where the similarities end, I think you might wanna just back the hell up a step and rethink your position.
Yes, a lot about "V" was tacky. But you have to give credit where it's due. The hardest thing to write is something funny. But second only to that is good allegory. It's incredibly hard to write good allegory, and the guy who wrote V whose name escapes me right now wrote a damn good allegory. So good that you didn't even get it, which is a mixed blessing of sorts I guess.
Clearly the ideal name for the sequel is V#.
Dam has it been 20 yrs? I remember that series like it just aired last year.. I was 12 when it hit the little screen. I remeber the Eating live mice bit and all the lasers... This rag tag humans were just so ingenious compared to the dim witted aliens. Oh.. and the glasses so you could figure out who was a visitor and who wasnt. I remeber on of the big fast food chains gave those out.. Red colored glasses I think.
Malice
I, being born in 1975, was a kid when this came out. I have found that lots of things that came out when I was a kid were actually really bad. I loved V. If I see it again or see V: Part II, it will probably ruin it for me.
I plan to just enjoy the memory.
Or were they the ones that went "diggity-diggity - hello Dr. Theopolis"?
You mean "BIDI-BIDI-BIDI <obvious comment>, Buck!".
By the 25th century, medical knowledge will have advanced so much that humans will no longer have speech impediments. OTOH, comp sci advances will make robots so humanlike they'll start developing them.
How does a bug like that get out of QA without being caught? Should the vendor be sued? Can a patch be issued? Is Twiki running windows 2491?
Yeah but it had Jane Badler, who was the first alien chick I wanted to nail...
Does Erin Grey count? I know she's not technically an alien, but I don't think any human woman could have squeezed into those outfits, either.
Okay, V was an 'okay' show - just okay. I have a fundamental problem with their story premise that I just can't muster enough suspension of disbelief to swallow.
They come to Earth for two reasons:
- Water
- Food
So they're saying this alien race can build these huge inter-stellar vehicles but we can't figure out how to generate water and farm food animals? That somehow its easier to mind f*** an entire planet and dress up like humans than just flat out invade? What kind of lazy writing is that?Kinda reminds me of the pong gag on the Simpson's halloween special a few years back. "All species who have mastered inter-galactic travel raise their tentacles."
"Stop whining!" - Arnold, as Mr. Kimble
you know some dumbass will try to swallow one after watching V
Aliens come to earth to take all the water and take humans for food, mice and small birds for snacks. A rag-tag band of rebels fight them and their human collaborators. Eventually, they go up in hot air balloons to pour Red Dust into the ecosystem and make the planet poisonous to the Lizards.
What part of that is an allegory for the Nazis and the Final Solution? The Nazis didn't want to eat the Jews. They rounded them up and exterminated them. The Nazis had weird eugenics programs and notions of racial purity and hierarchy. The Lizards just ate people. The Nazis sought Lebensraum in the East. The Lizards just wanted to eat people. Yes the Lizards were out to smear and control the human scientists, but that's because they were the only ones who could figure out what was going on and prevent them from eating people.
Unless all bad guys in all stories are really Nazis, because no one else could be, and all underdog good guys in all stories are really Jews, because no one else could be, then it's really hard to make out what you're talking about.
IMHO, this is a story about Lizards wanting to eat people, and the people objecting.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
- VI (roman numerals)
- W (alphabetical order)
- V2 (bombs away!)
- U (the prequel)
- V++ (V with classes)
- V# (V extended by M$)
- V.pm (the perl module)
- GNV (GNU V - GNV is Not V)
Got any more?And K&S fan-fiction broke every other barrier. (And what they didn't break, the furries took care of.) :^)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Oh.. and the glasses so you could figure out who was a visitor and who wasnt.
I think that was from the movie 'They Live', not 'V'. 'They Live' (a John Carpenter film) was a much better alien invasion movie IMHO.
I thought that when the rebel fighters developed the Red Dust they would disperse it around the planet, into the air. The ending of the series doesn't get into details, but it is assumed that the humans won after the little girl safed the mother ship from crashing and killing the leader with the dust. How can the Visitors STILL be in charge when they can't even breathe the air. This is BULLSH*T! We don't need to stinkin' aliens coming to resue us, in fact, they need US to give the the forumla for the Red Dust.
I mean really. WTF with all the aliens?
And Star Trek was "Wagon Train in space".
No, you don't understand. V wasn't "Germans as aliens." It was a full-length miniseries about the German invasion of Austria. Completely written, final draft, pitched to the networks. They turned it down, so the writer (guy whose name I forgot AGAIN) tweaked the script, changing the settings and some characters' names and adding a scene here and there. "V" was never conceived as an allegory, or a retelling. It was conceived as a historical drama. The setting and some plot details were changed at the very last minute before production started.
Seriously, wouldn't you have rather they made "Childhoods' End" into a mini-series, instead? The story's timeless.
Uh. There's a lot that's good about "Childhood's End." But it's not the be-all, end-all you seem to think it is. In a lot of ways, it's a very amateurish novel. Clarke wrote it when he was just figuring out how to tell a story. In particular, the ending is just awful. It's deus ex machina of the worst kind. "All of a sudden, a magical hive-mind with supernatural powers emerged. The end."
"Childhood's End" tried to say something about large-scale change and the nature of transcendence. But it cut too many corners, and the story ended up falling flat.
A very different but much better book about the nature of change on a species-wide level is Varley's "Steel Beach." In fact, much of Varley's work deals with the theme of what it means to be human, and where the line is between human and "other," in very interesting ways that ALSO happen to be excellent stories.
- the humans don't wear uniforms - they are "unclassified combatants"
- they wear the visitors' uniforms in combat situations
- they win in the first series by using biological weapons of mass destruction
given the current political atmosphere in the united states i find it amazing that anyone could dare glorify the efforts of extremist human terrorists.now, everyone together: "no blood for water!"
2 1337 4 u!
As I recall, the whole alien/nazi earthling/jewish thing was way too haavy-handed and preachy. The "V" insignia was a swastika with a few missing chunks, the uniforms were SS. They may have even had the equivalent of "hitler youth", but my brain is rebelling at trying to remember. No subtlety, too little imagination, really bad dialog, and a limp, hole-ridden plot (i.e. like "Matrix" but without the overly-long fight scenes). Please, if you're going to waste my time and beat me over the head with your same-old message, at least show me some t*t.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
And for your list...
9. VD (The creeping crud)
For those that would die defending it, Freedom
has a sweet taste that the protected will never know.
Does this mean I can relive all of my Jane Badler fantasies I had as a kid?
Watching her slowly eat that mouse, just wishing that some part of me were...
Sorry, I'll be right back.
-Goran
Carpe Scrotum - The only way to deal with your competition.
I remember really really wanting one of those little voice changer things that Donovan, etc wore to make them sound like the visitors.
;p
;)
Having one of the shuttle space ships would have been cool too, but it wouldn't have fitted in my parents back yard at the time
Finally, as someone else pointed out, Diana (Jane Badler) was definitely hot alien or not, though James T Kirk probably already already had her
--- Commission free trading & free stock up to $500 - use http://share.robinhood.com/kelvinp6
The Nazi paralells were in the way the visitors slowly took over the planet. Remember; they did not take it over with brute force at first, but through manipulation, much like the Nazi party rose to power.
They fabricated a conspiracy in the scientific community, making those in power treat scientists (and later on, anyone related to or in contact with scientist) as criminals, paralelling the way the Nazi's made the german society mistrust the Jews.
They also made sure to control the mass media early on, telling their version of events (paralelling Goebbels quote "If you tell a big enough Lie, and keep on repeating it, in the end people will come to believe it")
Later on, scientists and other visitor enemies were placed in labour camps, which was in reality genocide camps, another paralell.
The visitor friends program was an obvious Hitlerjugend paralell.
In other aspect (such as the human informants), it more resembled East europe communism.
Y'all's overlookin' the obvious. "They" don't come here for our resources. They come for our women.
However, if we geeks were to defend the Earth against a large gaggle of female-snatching aliens from the planet Zod, the Zodders would make off with them before we knew what hit us.
Worse, the women would take one look at us (or at the back our Slashdot-reading heads) and go willingly for a little Zodomy.
(I don't know what got into me on that post. I really don't.)
Cheers,
Ethelred
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
So.... it's a story about the United States' liberation of the Middle East?
I am grateful to the USAF for keeping me out of the country while this turkey was on. Please, let it stay in the can, along with "Logan's Run : The Series" and "Battlestar Galactica".
If you're going to watch a cheesy sci-fi series, why not watch The Doctor?
Chip H.
Anyone notice how many "nazi" films are showing up on TV lately? Gee, you don't think that could have anything at all to do with the atmosphere set by the current administration, do you?
Current technological eschatology extensively uses the fictional device of runaway information technology leading to computerised transcendence. In Childhood's End, the theme was that all advanced dominant planetary species throughout the galaxy (except the "devils") inevitably developed their civilisations to a critical biomass of psychic cognition that would prompt the emergence of a new, absorptive group mind. The "demons" didn't hasten the process, or retard it -- they simple arrived to nursemaid the new organism.
In that era, most psychoactive drugs had yet to be prohibited, the "talking cure" of developmental psychoanalysis was at its zenith, and the potential effects of group psychology deployed within advertising and the new mass broadcast media seemed limitless. It was generally assumed that advancing pharmcological technology and increased self-actualization techniques would lead to stronger, mentally fitter humans. Of course, that didn't happen. These days, a lot of people put their faith in computation cycles, encryption, and wireless packet switching. Good luck with that.
Childhood's End is quite similar to a few other books of that 1950s era, especially Poul Anderson's Brainwave, which was one of the first books to advance the notion of different cognitive "zones" within the Galaxy that creates different levels of intelligence and self-awareness. This idea was most famously borrowed by Vernor Vinge for his 1980s Fire On The Deep space opera. I'm also thinking of Fritz Leiber's "The Girl WIth The Hungry Eyes".
Da Blog
The parallels are so blatant and in your face that it at some points it really disturbs the story, but I guess that's the point.
Yes, you are right, the lizards wanted humans for food, while the Nazis wanted racial purity and power, but it both amounts to a fundamental disrespect for other sentient beings - all of humanity in the case of the lizards, and "just" all non-germanic people and all in political opposition or anyone who for any other reason didn't fit into the Nazi ideal in the case of the Nazis.
Without some twists, there would have been no point making it as a sci fi series instead of making yet another series about the war.