azi Germany. Soviet repression. History has shown us, in vivid detail, what life is like under the iron thumb of totalitarian rule. But in the land where freedom rings, it seems inconceivable to imagine our own backyard under siege. Which perhaps is why V worked as well as it did nearly two decades ago, when writer/director Kenneth Johnson (The Incredible Hulk, Alien Nation) first unleashed this telefilm as a two-part miniseries on NBC. Now on DVD, this thinly veiled treatise on fascism looks at how a diverse cross section of Los Angeles residents reacts to the arrival of aliens on Earth.
The tapestry of this three-hour, 16-minute tale is woven across the stories of nearly two dozen central and supporting characters, more than half of whom are introduced in slice-of-life segments in the first 15 minutes of the film. Much of those first 15 minutes are filled with irony and subtext--and there's no lack of underlying subtext throughout the film.
Appropriately enough, the story opens with a different battle for freedom, following cameraman Mike Donovan (Marc Singer) and his partner, Tony (Evan Kim), into the trenches of conflict in El Salvador. Soon, though, this conflict gives way to the overwhelming nature of the miles-wide saucer making its way across the continent--and Johnson takes us through the ripple effect of this watershed event with you-are-there realism. Before the aliens' arrival, the ordinary concerns of day-to-day life prevail: third-year med student Juliet Parrish (Faye Grant) is congratulated by her mentor for her biochemical research efforts; archaeologist Robert (Michael Durrell) is in the midst of a dig; young Polly (Viveka Davis) is delivering newspapers on her bike as older sister Robin (Blair Tefkin) and neighbors roam their community's streets in relative safety.
As the ships loom overhead in major cities around the planet, speculation runs rampant about who these Visitors are, and where they came from. Imagine the surprise--and disappointment--to see that, aside from oddly reverberating voices, the aliens look much like us. Their leader, John (Richard Herd), announces that their mission is a peaceful one, and that they, in fact, need the help of Earth, as their own planet is in dire environmental difficulties.
Looks can be deceiving, though, and soon enough it becomes apparent that the Visitors are not the benevolent galactic neighbors they appear to be. Donovan is initially part of a select group of broadcast journalists selected to film on the mothership, but he comes under fire when he sees too much. Scientists are being ostracized, entire towns are disappearing, martial law is declared--and some, like Julie and Donovan, are determined to fight back.
Exciting allegory remains relevant
"We bring you greetings, and come in peace." Those words should immediately raise an alarm, but only Julie Parrish is immediately wary; off someone's remark about the Visitors' offer being one you can't refuse, she wonders, "I wonder what would happen if we did?"
Johnson never set out to do a science-fiction film. Rather, his goal was to explore the premise of what would happen should fascism prevail in the United States. And with his allegorical storytelling that draws directly from McCarthyism, Soviet totalitarianism and the Holocaust--to whit, the moving words of elderly concentration camp survivor Abraham (Leonardo Cimino)--he succeeds in showing how different personalities react under such an external stress.
Although the story--or, perhaps, it's more the music than the story--borders on the melodramatic at times, and the pacing is more leisurely than the frenetic style of today, the frank, comprehensive look at conflict commands attention nonetheless. Before the hovering saucer craft in Independence Day, before Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict's Taelons arrived on Earth with their own agenda in spite of their overtures of peace, V had traveled this storytelling road in a more gripping fashion. Surprisingly, the story is actually remarkably undated, with only minor elements of the mise-en-scene, such as a Space Invaders game and a few passing references, that belie the era in which this film was made.
V plays well on DVD--in part because Johnson originally conceived the story as a film, in part because it was initially filmed in widescreen format to accommodate a then-planned international theatrical release. To watch both parts, you'll need to flip the DVD to the second side. The effects--cutting-edge for a TV project at the time--largely hold up as well, with the glaring exception of the sequence in which the Visitors' diabolical scientist, Diana (Jane Badler), swallows a rodent whole.
Unique to the DVD is Johnson's running audio commentary, pointing out everything from unintended bloopers to the mechanics behind a given shot. Also included is an interesting 24-minute behind-the-scenes documentary; initially filmed for an electronic press kit, most of this footage will be fresh even to die-hard fans of the film. The sound has been remastered to support Dolby Digital surround sound, so that now the helicopters truly sound as if they're flying from left to right. Unfortunately, not as much attention was given to restoring the negative, which on occasion has the worn-through look of a film print put through the projector one time too many.
