I must have watched V: The Final Battle so many times, but I only caught onto it after friends mentioned the mouse eating scene in V the original mini-series. One friend openly wondered why aliens always aimed their mouth upwards when swallowing a mouse, rat or hamster but I guess whatever method it would do much to solve the New York City rat problem, and would no doubt be an election winner for any mayoral candidate.One of my favorite characters was Ham Tyler played by one of my favorite actors, Michael "Total Recall" Ironside. He put a lot of spine into the Resistance and played an instrumental role in the downfall of the aliens. Ham was the Man and it was good to see him continue in V: The Series.Also when I saw Robert Englund's name in the credits, I wondered if that was the same Robert Englund in Nightmare on Elm Street, released the same year???!!! It was!!! Willy was so different to Freddie big time, but that's a testament to Robert's incredible acting skills. I remember seeing an interview with Robert when he said that at an autograph session, many eager V fans turned up to meet him, and then a bunch of leather clad bike club type folks turned up and asked him to autograph their gear...they were Nightmare on Elm Street fans!!!

V: The Final Battle is in three parts.Part one is about the mission to pull the face off the Visitor leader and the girl facing the fact that her babies father is a lizard. I really like this part one a lot...the build up on the mission to expose the Visitor leader on live television is really well paced and the structure is really very good...in fact, it is excellent. The girl having to go to the hospital is also really suspenseful. I think they did a very, very good job of this part one.Now, when you get onto part two...I feel that it is unfortunately really baggy in places...the momentum at times is really lost...the torturing for example is quite lengthy and not all that gripping. It's like extra padding to make sure you increase the runtime...bulking it up. Don't get me wrong I love bits of it a lot...I love the giant water pipe sequence where they arrive to take a look at it.The skydiving scene near the start of part three is a lot of fun...and the two babies story (to a point) I really like too...but I don't think I like what they eventually did with the girl sparkling / glittering at the end. I don't think that was necessary. The gun battles onboard the mothership are terrific and really well made / edited.Ultimately, this is a extremely problematic mini series...but it's one that gets off to a great start (I highly recommend part one)...once you get into part two and three this is where I have some major problems but still feel it has great bits sprinkled into it throughout.

When I was young this show was it. Aliens coming to take over our planet just like we always thought. Now they didn't do it via a all out attack, (although they could) no they had watched us for awhile and realized the best thing to due was to use politics. Then we would willingly turn our selves into slaves, and then when they got what they needed from us they would simply destroy the planet and leave. What a simple, easy, and almost traditional Earth plan.Of course not everyone on the planet was willing to be led like sheep by there leaders. They don't believe the news reports, and they cause trouble for the aliens and the elected officials. Storming news conferences, trying to expose a so called conspiracy, so on and so forth.It was an obvious re-working of the Nazi parties attempt to rid the world of what they thought were inferior people (jews,blacks,most everyone else who wasn't blond haired and blue eyed Aryans). This is mentioned in the very beginning of the series and is never in question. And although the effects are extremely dated at this point in time, the entire series was a up to date for 1983. You need to remember that Return of the Jedi was just coming or just did come out. As I remember Battle Star Galatica was still on, and CGI was a distant dream.Everyone was loving Sci-Fi and this mixed it with politics, humor, suspense and old memories of our own tragic past. The girls looked good in there body suit uni's and there were new weapons and vehicles for the all important merchandising tie ins. It was a movie so we all knew who would win out. And all the aliens came in Russian red. (I wonder why they picked red in the middle of a cold war? Hmmmm...)I remember watching this over and over, my parents just got a new vcr and we discovered that if you watch a movie 100 or so times and use one of those speedy rewinders you can ruin a VHS tape in no time. I believe I was about 8 when it first aired and everyone I knew watched this thing live and on tape, plus we knew about every line. When my copies of this and "The Final Battle" got destroyed from abuse, my parents asked my Uncle to throw his copy away as opposed to giving it to me.This is one of my all time favorite movies along with the follow-up and series. It inspired more sci-fi after it then people will admit to. And although like I said before it looks really dated now days, it was still one of the most popular mini-series of all time. It deserves more credit then people give it. For those who haven't seen it, watch it for the fun story. For those who have seen it, don't hold the effects against it. It is 20 years old now and even ROTJ looks severely dated at this point. Not to mention that The ships in ID4 look like they were digitally removed from this movie and layered into that movie.

As a child I was both mesmerised and terrified by the fascist alien threat of 'V'. I was eight years old, in awe of Donovan, in sympathy with Willy, and in love with Julie. I would draw pictures of the characters in my sketchbooks. I would pretend that I was glowing and saving the world from the thermonuclear mothership. 'V' affected me more than Star Trek or Dr Who or any other TV series that I can remember watching in my childhood.Now it's nearly twenty years on and here I am married and living in another country altogether. My wife and I rented the full V series and watched it all in one day (phew!). All I can say is this - although it was still entertaining - the magic just isn't there anymore. Now I mostly cringed at the hammy dialogue and wished that someone would rewrite the horrendous 80's soundtrack. Not to mention the fact that the wonder-child ending makes no logical sense whatsoever and remains unexplained. Oh well, not all good things can last eh?'V' is still worth a watch if you haven't seen it before. And it's still a damn sight better than ID4. But it's not like it was. Sadly...