V (2010) - Page 2

Which would be wrong since the reveal was made well before Ham showed up.

Agreed with Molt. There was a bit of a drop in quality with 'V: The Final Battle', but it still provided a satisfying conclusion to the overall story. Also, Ironside kicked ass.

The TV series was irredeemable shit, though.

I guess I'm just not one of those guys who thinks the mere presence of an actor I like redeems the crap around him.

But what's the diff between slavish loyalty to an actor and slavish loyalty to a merchandising property?

I'll have to be honest and admit that the NOSTALGIA FACTOR is probably upping my opinion of V and V:TFB. It's been at least 20 YEARS since I've watched any of that stuff.

Wasn't just Ironside. A lot of the characters that were pretty one-note in the mini-series, like the ones played by Robert Englund and Michael Wright, were able to develop a bit more in The Final Battle.

Plus Ham fought Donovan on the truck in The Final Battle.

There's some badass matte paintings in the first V.

None, but we're not talking about a merchandising property.

No, we're talking about your glass house.

If you're talking about Star Wars, you must not have seen the numerous posts where I've talked about my disillusionment with the prequels and the newer output. There's no slavish loyalty there.

But there used to be, right? Don't get elitist on people for taking their own time to come to Jesus. It's unbecoming.

Who's getting elitist? I just said one cool actor doesn't make me think any better of V. If it came across as elitist, I didn't mean it to.

Cut him some slack, Phil: he's on a post-wedding high.

I think Sci Fi channel is replaying both mini series on Sunday for those who are interested.

Oh yeah, and The Final Battle had the whole deal where the resistance exposed George's Yankee boss from Seinfeld as a lizard on national television. Which then led to Julie being captured and brainwashed by Diana while wearing a nude colored bodysuit.

Nothing that wild in the first mini-series.

I'm sorry, Richard.

Did you guys know that the actor who played Daniel, the young punk who sold out his race to get chummy with the Visitors, basically sat in fear and did nothing while Dominick Dunne's daughter was murdered within ear-shot of him.

Pretty horrific. It had its moments in the first couple episodes, but then Ironside and Michael Wright's characters were tossed away early on and it became more about that 80's Luke Perry-like guy falling for the grown-up Elizabeth.

It's very painful. The series is on Hulu. I was looking for the original mini on there but it's not there. Sniff. Anyway, I tried to watch the first episode and just couldn't.

The mini series is sold out there right?

At Dominique Dunne's Wikipedia page:

The series took the whole concept and made it camp. If memory serves, Jane Badler got into a disagreement with two of her superiors named Charles and Diana. It was an embarrassment for everyone involved.

I first heard about that whole incident when I had the flu one day and was watching The True Hollywood Story about all the awful stuff that has happened to folks from the POLTERGEIST films.

That curse is the real deal. No doubt in my mind.

Any thoughts on how Craig T Nelson avoid the curse?

He's been on welfare. Nobody helped him out. Even he is not safe from the curse.

I was going to make a Coach joke, but it's all the same.

I'm not exactly what you would call a "V fan" these days.

The major problem with V was the same problem that plagued most attempts at TV "science-fiction" from the 1970s and '80s. They didn't even bother to get a technical advisor, talk to anyone who knew any science, or vet their scripts for internal consistency.

This left us with magical lizard people who were genetically compatible with humans, immune to cold, sensitive to bright light (although they purportedly came from one of the biggest, hottest stars), and so goddamned inept that they chose to "mine" water from deep in a planetary gravity well, instead of harvesting Saturn's rings or scoop-mining Jupiter's atmosphere and making their own water and organics with the free energy and raw materials out in space.

The casting of a completely inept "actress" in a major role in the TV series further detracted from the believability of the plotlines, and people all over the country tuned out in droves. I continued to watch it, just to see Faye Grant, Marc Singer, and Michael Ironside work, but then again, I was in elementary school at the time, and knew little better.

(It was also quite amusing when I later learned that Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle were offered Big Bucks to come write the series out of the hole it was in, and get the whole thing onto an SF footing...they took one look at it and ran screaming loudly off into the night.)

Hey, those residuals from THE DISTRICT come in every so often.

ScyFy has been replaying the miniseries today. Forgot how bad some of it was. Beastmaster can't act worth a damn.

They are also showing some of the series over the next couple days. The descriptions sound really bad.

How did they justify the Visitors returning after they left?

I checked out one episode of the second miniseries and nearly lost a lung laughing at how bad some of it was. My favorite part was when they showed the Visitor mothership floating over a city in one scene and the next scene had two guys parachuting out of the same mothership.

The only problem was that the stock footage of parachuters that was used had the two guys floating over a farmland packed rural landscape instead of the LA skyline the ship was supposed to be hovering above.

And don't even get me started with the alien baby.

He sure can ride a horse though. I'm convinced Singer was hired purely on his ability to perform his own stunts.

My highlight of the series was the lizard baby being born (SPOILER!). I was fucking bummed that they killed it off like the very next episode (SPOILER AGAIN!).

From what I hear in the new incarnation of the series, it won't have that much in common with the original. Sure there will be lizard dudes and whatnot, but they are trying for a more mature story it sounds like. I LOVED the original series as a kid, but as an adult there was a lot of stuff that was cringe-worthy. Like the end of the second mini-series where a) Michael Ironside takes down a flag by shooting it off of its standard with an uzi, or b) the star child touches the controls of the about-to-asplode mothership thus preventing the asplosion. With magic!

Ironside was entertaining to watch. My favourite V-related thing I saw him in was an episode of the TV show where he was just driving in a truck around with a crate of grenades lobbing them out the window at various Visitor buildings, just being a bad-ass. He gets back from doing that and beastmaster asks him "Whatca been doing?", and he replies "Stuff." Doesn't even elaborate one single OUNCE, that's how bad-ass he is!

I am looking forward to the new series, probably more than I would have say if BSG was still on the air. Do yourself a favour and don't re-watch the original. That shit has NOT held up well over time.

Yeah, the original BSG is about as compelling as Jason of Star Command.

The camp factor of watching the V stuff this weekend was enough for me. I was laughing, telling me wife, "Remember, at that time, most of these folks were 'stars' when they were cast in this."

Right now, at a Wal Mart in Middle America, Marc Singer is holding a tear stained copy of THE BEASTMASTER in his hands.

OK, so far this makes Fast Forward and Fringe look like Kurt Vonnegut.

Yeah, most of it just seems off. The main kid is also horrible. I like the premise and some of the idea's so far but we'll see. I'm a little shocked that the pilot is only an hour though, would've expected 2 hours.

Seems odd that they couldn't do a 2-hour premiere, having to stuff everything in (ignorant humans/humans with some knowledge/invading visitors/helpful visitors -- yeah spoiling) in one hour installment. And don't care for Morena with short hair, she looks like Mia Farrow or something.

Blame Dancing With the Stars.

To go from the visitors showing up to 3 weeks later in a minute was too rused.

Flashforward and V both glossed over huge events and treated them as ordinary.

I'll still watch as Tuesday is a vast wasteland of nothing.

It was very nice of Elizabeth Mitchell to set down her FBI ID in such an expositionally convenient manner.

The last fifteen minutes picked up the game somewhat, so I'll give it another episode.

It was ok.

Subtlety certainly isn't an issue with this show, is it?

It was ok, I'll be back next week at least, but everything seemed to... on-the-nose?

I don't know, something was bothering me the entire episode, and I couldn't really place it. Something about the look of the whole thing. It just seemed... sterile is the only word that comes to mind.

Just read on AICN that they only produced 4 episodes. If the ratings do well they will make more for march. Way to kill a series ABC.

Yeah, it was all pretty useless up until then, I was finding it hard not to yell, "District 9 did it better!" I like Chestnut, Mitchell, Wolf and aliens so I'll stick around for a bit.

Some observations:

Elizabeth Mitchell's kid sucked.

The meta Independence Day joke at the beginning was painful.

According to IMDB the chick playing Lisa was on Smallville, I wonder if even she's gorgeous enough to make that show watchable.

I have to give props to any show with floating needle shooting thingies.

The end fight was pretty well choreographed.

The best moment of the episode was Anna telling Scott Wolf not to paint them in a negative light, but we saw that in the trailer.

Too full of exposition and by the numbers you mean. Just like Flashforward.

There's no intriguing hidden depth to it.

Well that pilot must've cost a pretty penny, LOST couldn't even get the cash for a decent looking CG submarine but those motherships looked pretty great.

The odd thing about this is that we were given no time to relate to any of the characters. In the original we are given a lot of backstory for the families involved in the story and could actually relate.

This time the narrative goes from 0 to 60 in fifteen minutes, there is no emotional invetment.

Also, it seems like the social commentary is even more ham-fisted than the Nazi allegory of the original. Universal healthcare and hope hiding nefarious plans? Makes me chuckle.

I have to say that despite some iffy performances and dated effects, the original comes out on top so far.

But it wasn't horrible.

I liked it when the conspiracy dude said "They were here this whole time <snip> starting unneccesary wars!"

SPOILER:

GEORGE BUSH IS A LIZARD!!

/END SPOILER

This was sort of terrible. The pacing was too fast to have any of the gravitas they attempted to build into the show with the themes mean anything. I am very curious as to how they go from here, especially if only 4 episodes were shot.

"Youre talking about......universal health care?!?!?!?"

Meh. I'll give it another episode or two.

Good lookin wimminz, though.

Also, Ive kinda lost respect for Mitchell if this is what convinced her to leave Lost.