Category: Cinema 31
Okay, sorry this got on late, but if anyone on here has the sci-fi channel on their cable or satellite system; the classic V mini series ran the entire day. Actually, it's just finishing up. I don't remember when this was made, but I think early 90's. Anyway, I'm mentioning it because on the regular ABC stations, the one that runs Dancing with the Stars, the new updated version of V starts this Tuesday at 8 eastern, 7 central time. To be safe check your local listings, especially if you live outside the U.S. as then it might by a cable or satellite channel.
It's going to be interesting to see what the new version has to offer. Did they follow the basic storyline? How are the special effects with today's technology? Since I've seen the entire original version several times; I'll be watching the new one just to see what they did to change things.
The first one was in 1983 I believe. Can't wait to watch this new one tonight. Never have seen the older one though.
I haven't watched the many series, has anyone read the book? I did a while ago all I really remember is that it was a good book.
Here is a review of this new show from today's edition of USA Today:
Re-imagined 'V' continues ABC's red-letter year
By TV preview By Robert Bianco
When you're on a roll, even your more dubious plans have a way of panning out.
There's no doubt that, creatively, ABC is playing network TV's hottest hand. It has launched fall's best new sitcoms in The Middle, Modern Family and Cougar
Town, and its most intriguing drama in FlashForward. And now it can add to that list of achievements the season's most entertaining new hour, straightforward
division: V.
Think about how easily this idea could have gone south. Apply too little creative thought, and this souped-up updating of NBC's much-loved 1983 miniseries
could easily have become the same cheesy, tacky rehash mess that NBC made of Knight Rider. Overthink the project, and you risk bleeding all the fun out
of it and creating an overly dark lump like Bionic Woman.
Tonight, writer Scott Peters, whose The 4400 was one of TV's best recent alien-invasion dramas, hits all the right chords. He adds just enough modern media
twists and political/sleeper-cell parallels to contemporize the story without drowning it in paranoia. The clothes and hair have changed, no doubt for
the better, but the essentials are all in place -- including, we can only hope, the visitors' legendary fondness for hamsters.
What he and ABC have landed on is a show in which the effects are good but not dominant, the characters are strong, and the story is (as it was) crystal
clear. Space visitors have landed, and it's up to a few hardy souls to save a gullible world.
Indeed, where FlashForward thrives on ambiguity and complexity, V offers the simpler pleasures of a good guy/bad guy adventure, and skilled actors head
up both extremes. On "our" side, you have Joel Gretsch (who proved his sci-fi worth on 4400) as a questioning priest and Lost's Elizabeth Mitchell as a
smart counterterrorism agent. On "their" side, you have Anna, the V leader played by Morena Baccarin, whose beauty and charisma are as alluring here as
they were in Firefly.
Wisely, Peters has also trapped some of his best characters in the middle: Scott Wolf as an ambitious anchor, Logan Huffman as Mitchell's V-enchanted teenage
son, and Morris Chestnut, who is on to the visitors' biggest secret.
Anyone who has ever seen an invading-alien movie knows the visitors are up to no good, as the show acknowledges in a witty exchange that both celebrates
and mocks Independence Day-type conventions. But there's still power to be found in those conventions -- in our longing for alien contact, our fear over
what it might mean, and the joy we seem to take in reinventing ourselves as scrappy underdogs.
As with those Americans looking up at Anna's lovely face on that hovering spaceship HDTV, it would be unwise to be too easily seduced. V opens incredibly
well. But so did the original miniseries, only to peter out as an open-ended show. Embrace the show, but keep your eyes open.
And your hamsters under guard.
Yes, I have read the book and the original tv movie series does follow it quite closely. As for the original tv series, not the movies, that continues the struggle between the humans and visitors after the movies end with the red dust being spread throught the atmosphere and, for once, the original people that played in the movie series are in the tv series, which has been running on the sci-fi channel during the day this week.
As for the new series, which I watched the first part last night, it goes off on a totally different tangent. Supposedly the aliens have been here for years learning about the human culture and helping terrorists. The names are completely different from the originals as are the events because of the updated storyline taking place in our time period. We have FBI agents involved in starting the resistance this time and so far the lizards, and yes, they kept the lizard theme, are using regular human weapons and not yet the laser guns like in the first movies.
It looks to me as they took the basic premise of lizard invaders and then totally diverged from anything to do with the original book or script. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out and how well it will be received by the public as to if it manages to remain on the air waves or not.