The Invaders meets Star Wars meets Dynasty
meets The A Team for The Final Battle
shareThe Final Battle was the end of V, in my humble opinion. I just don't consider the TV series that followed to be canon AT ALL, simply because it was cheaper, tackier, felt much more like a soap opera, and was losing characters as it went on, they were so embarrassed by it.
past few days i 'binge' watched the original mini series, Final Battle and am now on ep 2 of the tv show. previously had only seen parts of the original mini series/Final Battle back from when it was first on tv in the 80s and had very vague memories of certain scenes (the landing, the high school band playing star wars, the red suit visitors with their 80s sunglasses, eating mice, the V posters, pregnant girl checking out her lizard skin in the mirror etc) and I vaguely remember whenever anything scary happened the channel was switched over which gave 'V' this adult forbidden aspect for me (also remember adverts for the Visitor action figures in SF magazines like starlog at the time) but ever since had little interest in revisiting it on VHS or DVD until now when its recently showed in its entirety on Forces channel uk over a couple of weeks (with the tv series now showing daily)
have been impressed with the SFX (saucers, laser blasts) which mustve been seen as pretty much Star Wars quality at the time, the sets are quite good almost Star Trek movie quality (pretty sure some of the power plant locations were later used in Star Trek 2009). obviously the characters are abit thin and seem to be based on the popular movies/tv of the era (e.g Mike Donovan/Han Solo, Diana/Alexis). when Revok era Ironside shows up he brings some gravitas as ive only really seen him in big movies like Scanners,Total Recall,Starship Troopers etc (altho he later did Seaquest too). obviously quite violent/graphic/horror based than the usual tv shows of the time (seem to recall it being a 15 when it was released on vhs).
The Original miniseries is obviously an allegory to Nazism with some really eerie stuff plus a lot of Star Wars beats (e.g. end shuttle battle) which was obviously all pervading at the time, also noticed a lot of similarities to the 60s show The Invaders (and obviously Body Snatchers etc). The finale of the Final Battle was abit of a let down with the WTF glowing star child ending (V's attempt at doing 2001?) plus alot of convenient stuff going on with the red power and all the Rambo/ATeam like action etc (and lol at Diana doing an end of ANH Darth Vader!) but overall was kind of fun. Now 2 eps into the tv series but notice its a downgrade in budget and it dosnt help that it looks pretty rough/hasnt been digitally restored (like the 2 miniseries mustve been). its cool they kept the cast to the near movie quality miniseries, like had the Alien Nation tv show kept James Cann in the lead, or if Blue Thunder had kept Roy Scheider. I guess that was maybe the main reason why they went with a tv show as they realised they could retain the main cast (wonder how the cast felt going from an almost movie level event mini series to a lower budget hour long tv show?)
It will get worse and worse, believe me. It was also cancelled on a cliffhanger, too. I too think the Starchild's defusing of the Doomsday Device on the mothership is where it jumped the shark, but luckily it was over by then. I put it down to supernatural abilities. But I've stuck it into head canon that Diana's shuttle broke up on re-entry when she fled. Invasion over.
I was recording the TV series and was watching it on catch up.. watched first couple eps then started fast forwarding through the ep's every now and then.. now have just cancelled recording the series about halfway through the run
Unwatchable