V (1983)

In 1983, the people of Earth were going about their normal business when a fleet of 50 ships came from another planet and scared everyone! Michael Donovan (Marc Singer) a cameraman and his companion Tony Leonetti (Evan Kim) were filming the war in El Salvador when one of the alien ships floated by. Julie Parrish (Faye Grant) a young med student and Ben Taylor (Richard Lawson) were doing research on an antibiotic in the lab when the TV came on to announce the arrival. The Bernsteins, a nice Jewish family and the Maxwells, a Christian family were also going about daily life when the ships came. Robin Maxwell (Blair Tefkin) and Daniel Bernstein (David Packer) talked about how life would change for them and the earth with the aliens. Robin feared she would never lose her virginity because she thought the aliens were enemies. Polly (Vivika Davis) Robin's younger sister brought them into the house and they watched as the alien leader John (Richard Herd) came out of a fighter ship and told all the Earthlings the aliens came in peace. The aliens would help out the Earth with environmental problems and other issues if the inhabitants would help them by gathering chemicals and food the aliens would need. Julie, Donovan, and Abraham Bernstein (Leo Cimino) are unsure about this while the other humans embrace these alien saviors. Soon things begin to go downhill. Scientists are targeted as the ones who want to get rid of the aliens and there is a made up conspiracy that involves Julie, Ben, and anthropologist Robert Maxwell (Michael Durrell) the father of Robin, Polly, and little Katie. Polly is beat up at school because she wins the science fair and her mom Kathleen (Penny Windust) and Abraham come to her aid. Ruby a neighbor widow (Camilla Ashland) tells Abraham not to worry and it will pass. Abraham said he believed that in 1938 in Berlin and the Nazi trouble didn't pass and this led to the death of Abraham's wife. It doesn't help the Visitors have uniforms, guns, a symbol that resembles a swastika and Daniel has joined the Visitor Friends and wears a brown uniform like the Nazi sympathizers did! Mike Donovan's mom also becomes a sympathizer for the aliens too and so does his ex-girlfriend Christine Walsh. One night, Mike and Tony sneak aboard the ship but while following Mike, Tony trips and Mike enters the ship all alone with his camera. He sees alien scientist Diana (Jane Badler) talking to alien Steven (Andrew Prine) about the conversion process she invented to turn some of the scientists to the Visitor cause and then Steven reaches into a cage and grabs a white mouse he swallows down in one gulp! Diana goes one-up on Steven and swallows a live guinea pig whole! This explains why at a party Steven attended with the Maxwells his aversion to cooked foods and the fact when he walked by a cage of lovebirds, the birds crashed and moved around in panic! Steven's hands also feel cold to Robert too! In another room, an alien man is doing something to his eyes and it looks to Mike like he is removing or inserting contacts. Soon the eyes are revealed to be red with black slits! Mike rips off the man's mask and the big reveal is the Visitors are alien reptiles! Later on Martin (Frank Ashmore) shows Mike the captured humans in cocoons. All of them are unconscious and for some reason one of the kids is hanging upside down in a cocoon. These people will be used as cannon fodder and food. Another bad thing the Visitors are doing is stealing the water, but taking people and knocking them out to be used as food seems worse! "V" is an excellent, creepy retelling of the rise of the Nazi Party. Instead of human Nazis persecuting human Jews, there are aliens persecuting doctors and other humans! The Visitors snacking on live animals like we do on cookies is startling to say the least! All of the actors are excellent and I like this version of "V" much better than the 2009 version by a long shot!

1983 was perhaps the peak year for the TV mini-series, with The Thorn Birds, The Winds of War and V all premiering to big ratings. V features a worldwide alien invasion, as huge, circular motherships arrive and take up stationary orbit all over the planet, directly over large cities. The media soon dubs them the "Visitors", and they appear human, although sensitive to the light and with strange voices. They seem to be benevolent at first, sharing medical and technological breakthroughs, while not asking for anything in return. But of course they are after something, and they will stop at nothing to get it, and soon they are disposing of enemies and setting up human collaboration units to weed out the "undesirables". A group of people soon set up an underground resistance, but can they hope to stop the seemingly superior alien invaders? Marc Singer stars as a heroic war correspondent who is the first to learn of the aliens true nature, along with Faye Grant as a biologist, Jane Badler as an alien commander, Richard Herd, Andrew Prine, Leonardo Cimino as a Holocaust survivor who sees the writing on the wall, Evan Kim, Michael Wright, Bonnie Bartlett, Neva Patterson, Robert Englund as a friendly alien, and many more.This was probably intended as a starting point for a series, but instead it led to another mini-series the following year, before finally a short-lived series (and a remake in 2009). It's derivative of a lot of things, namely the Arthur C. Clarke novel Childhood's End. It's also a very heavy-handed allegory of the Nazi occupations in Europe and the Holocaust; the alien symbol is even a variation on a swastika. The effects are decent, if dated at this point, and the script, by writer-director Kenneth Johnson, never really rises above average. But it's fun in a dopey, Saturday-morning serial way. At slightly over 3 hours, it's also a bit short as far as mini-series go.

I was only 8 years old when this TV mini-series was unleashed upon the world, and I think by now then I have seen it four or five times already. And I can honestly say that it is equally entertaining and exciting to watch every time.Story-wise then "V" is very good and thrilling. Aliens came to Earth, offering help, access to knowledge and technology, but most importantly also offering friendship. But there is more than the eye can see behind the masks of the extraterrestrial visits.The mini-series start off in an adrenaline-fueled pace and it essentially never slows down. It is a thrill ride and "V" takes the audience along on a grand Sci-Fi adventure."V" is full of greatly detailed and developed characters, both human and visitor alike, and the cast portraying them are talented and very well-cast. There are really an abundance of great actors and actresses in this 1983 mini-series.Granted that the mini-series is old and some of the special effects are poor, but it hardly matters because "V" is driven by the story and characters, not by the special effects.This is a classic Sci-Fi adventure and I think it will never grow old. If you are not familiar with the 1983 mini-series then it is due time that you treat yourself to it.

Talk about your close encounters. In "V", Earth gets a visit of a strange round mother-ship hovering different cities, countries, just all over the world. Then this small ship comes out and and the alien occupants speak for the first time. They look like us, talk like us, consider them "Our Friends". However, when Michael Donovan(Marc Singer) sneaks aboard the shuttle to go inside the mother-ship, a deep, dark, sinister secret lies beneath the skin of the "Visitors". They are reptilians humanoids out to replenish their home planet. With that out, people began to resist the "Visitors". Yet, some of them are "turncoats". They come for a peaceful existence, not follow the tyrannical ways of their leader Diana(Jane Badler). So that's the backup the resistance ever needed, "Turncoat Visitors". They get immunization from the "Red Dust", while the others get blitzed. "The Visitors" are like "Alien Nazis", only a few of them would help the humans resist their rule. Great, fun movie, I'm glad they did a series later on! 3 out of 5 stars!