atomicjeff-41850 Review of V

V (1984–1985)

A great mini series that started a generation of future alien invasion movies

[10/10 · 7 November 2023]

V is one of those mini series from the 80's that stand out for me growing up. It had an interesting and intriguing story line. The earth is invaded by fifty gigantic. 3-mile long motherships across the planet. The aliens make contact with us and shockingly they look like human beings like us, or that's what it appears to be. They came to us seeking help because they claim their planet is in serious environmental difficuly much more severe than us. They ask us to help them manufacture certain compounds that can help their struggling civilization and exchange they promise to share all their technological advancements which is light years more advanced than ours. Everything seems fine on the surface and the visitors quickly assimilate into our society. (All is well so we think.) The visitors quickly take control across our planet in the guise of friendship. They take control of our media, our police, governments, and start to recruit our younger people with a "Visitor Friends" outreach program. A few people start to question the Visitors after peculiar things are starting to surface which makes a veteran news photographer Mike Donovan (MARC SINGER) who was one of the first journalists to have first contact with the visitors, which grants him a position of trust among the visitors, decides to stow away on one of their shuttles with his video camera in tow to discover if the visitors are telling the truth about their mission. What Donovan discovers is that the Visitors are lying to us. They are here to steal our water and the missing people across the planet are being harvested for food. Futhermore Donovan discovers the Visitors are not like us but instead are wearing body suits to disguise their true horrific appearance. Now its a life and death struggle for Donovan and a handful of resistance fighters trying to fight back and spread the truth about our so called friends. I have seen many comments in this review forum dumping on this series, but let me remind them of these simple facts despite their negativity. First, this was a made for tv production that did not have a huge production budget like cinematic movie productions. Second this mini series garnished high ratings for that era that spawned a sequel and eventually a weekly series on television as well. Futhermore it also was expanded into novels, comic books, and eventually an updated television series reboot. Also this mini series was the template for many future alien inspired films in Hollywood, such as the huge blockbuster, "INDEPENDENCE DAY". This little movie series carved its place into television history and still remains vastly popular in our syfi culture and it will always have a lasting legacy. If you have never watched it give a try because its entertaining and despite some of the negative reviews in this forum it's a good show worth watching.