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Summary: V: The Original Miniseries
Review: V is an excellent sci-fi story. Alien visitors come to Earth in peace, only in truth they want our water and our people. It starts out with 50 spaceships appearing all over Earth. Their supreme commander offers peace. They say they need our help. They need to use our factorys/plants to produce a synthetic chemical necessary for their survival. Marc Singer plays a cameraman chosen to be on the first tour of a mothership. The visitors are welcoming and everything appears fine. Later, he sneaks back aboard and finds out that the visitors are reptiles, and are destroying their chemical. The visitors are in control of everything, conditioning important people, turning all scientists into lying criminals, in complete control of the media. Singer's evidence goes unseen and he is marked a fugitive. Meanwhile, others are realizing the truth about the visitors. Resistance cells began to grow. Donavon (Marc Singer) is captured by the visitors, along with his partner. The second-in-command alien, Diana plans to kill him. Her chief Lieutenant, Martin, persuades her to brainwash him instead. Saved from death, Martin tells him that he is part of a resistance inside the visitor fleet. Martin tells him of the real reason they are here, to stockpile people and water. Donavon gets back to find his son's town completely gone, except for one boy who tells that the towns people were taken by the visitors. Donavon joins one of the resistance cells, and they fight off an attack on their mountain camp. The visitors learned of this camp by one of the fugitive scientists, they held his daughter captive. This daughter is impregnated by one of the aliens. The movie ends with the resistance sending signals into space, hoping to find allies against the visitors. It ends with the resistance's leader and her friends spraying "V" for victory in a doorway. If you haven't seen it you should, it is a good story with a lot going on. NOTE: V: THE FINAL BATTLE IS A SEQUAL.
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Summary: CAREFUL !! NOT the complete series
Review: Wow, nostalgia ahoy !!! I grew up with this serie as the first one I actually stayed at home for with the entire family. And funnily enough it still holds up after all these years. Unfortunately it is not the complete series. I hope the rest of it will soon be released.
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Summary: Couldn't wait for it to come out!!!
Review: But does anyone know when the rest of the series will be out on DVD? Dying to know!
Rating:
Summary: Great Movie, great disc
Review: Like many, I was a BIG fan of both the "V" mini-series as a kid. Though even as a kid I found the dumbed-down weekly series to be sub-par, which is ironic considering I was the target demographic NBC was looking for. In rewatching the mini-series' as an adult it's apparent that "V: The Final Battle," while good, was also inferior to Ken Johnson's original. It's a shame he wasn't allowed to guide the further installments, "V" would probably still be on the air today in some form.I wanted to clear up some of the confusion I'm seeing in these postings. First of all there is no missing footage, the mini-series is not cut in half. This DVD is exactly what it is billed as, "V - The Original Mini-Series." The original "V" was two parts which ran over two nights in 1983. It didn't have an ending, it wasn't really suppose to in order to tell its allegorical tale. The second mini-series, "V : The Final Battle" was three parts and aired over a year later. Both mini-series' were syndicated to UHF stations in the late eighties. Those stations usually ran all five parts over a week, though heavily edited. That might be what's confusing some. Considering this DVD has sold about four times better than Warner Bros. was expecting, I'd say it's a sure bet "The Final Battle" will be released on DVD before too long. As to the Gag Reel, sadly it's not on the disc. It was supposed to be but unfortunately, Warner Bros. was unable to clear it for release. Too many of the actors wanted to be paid an additional fee for its inclusion on the disc. ... just never updated the information. Hope that helps!
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Summary: There are TWO miniseries, guys!
Review: Yo, stupid people! Before you complain that this DVD only includes half the movie, pay attention to the facts. V (the original TV miniseries) came out in 1983. V - The Final Battle (the sequel) came out int 1984. Notice something different there, guys? Yes, there were TWO miniseries. This DVD only contains the FIRST one. Yes, it ends in a cliffhanger. That's not an accident, it's how the original miniseries was written. Complain about the transfer or something if that's a legitimate gripe, but don't complain that the DVD gave you exactly what it said it would -- V, The ORIGINAL TV Miniseries (not V, the "repackaged for syndication/overseas distribution" miniseries).
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Summary: For all those reviews complaining this isn't the whole thing
Review: I've read all the reviews so far and it seems that there is a consistent thread..."Where's the rest of the mini-series?" Well let me tell you that this is the complete original miniseries. All of you people who are like "It's ten hours long, whine whine whine" are totally wrong! V the miniseries was 4 hours long (over two nights in '83). There was a sequel miniseries made a YEAR later called V: The Final Battle that was 6 hours long over 3 nights. It's a totally seperate movie. Doing what all these other reviewers are suggesting (i.e. "I feel cheated and disappointed because the whole thing wasn't on the disc") would be like putting Alien and Aliens on the same disc or A New Hope and Empire on the same disc...seperate shows, people! Besides, Ken Johnson didn't even direct the second mini-series, Richard Heffron did, and the second mini-series didn't have Ken Johnson's blessing (even though he spent a lot of work developing the script). He bowed out when he realized the network wouldn't give him enough money to do it right. To this day, Ken hasn't even seen the second miniseries and has no desire to (according to his comments at the "V" convention in Sept. 2000). Buy this disc for the original mini-series and ignore what others have written about it being incomplete. It's a masterpiece in it's own right.
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Summary: Great DVD: Full explaination of "missing scenes" here:
Review: You will read a lot of reviews that say there are missing scenes and charaters removed. This is not true. If you remember the entire V saga you will know that there were two mini-series movies and a regular weekly hour long show. This DVD is the first mini series titled V. It ends off before the twins are born. The second mini series was called V: The Final Battle. This mini series was when the twins, including the "Star Child" were born. Then the TV show followed and continued the battle between the Visitors and the Rebels, this TV series was where the adult "Star Child" played by Jennifer Cooke was shown. This DVD contains ONLY the first mini series. It does NOT include V: The Final Battle or ANY of the tv shows. I recommend this DVD for those who plan on buying the entire series when it comes out on DVD..which is on the way. V: The Final Battle is next, and then the entire TV show series!!
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Summary: Lone Voice of Criticism
Review: I realize I am the lone voice of critism in this list of reviews, but if I can save one person from wasting their time with this movie, I'll be happy. My family--the youngest being 11 years old--was fascinated with how stilted the dialogue was, how unrealistically stupidly the humans' reacteds were, and how weak was the overall emotional impact. Maybe in the 80's it had impact because the 80's were such a wasteland entertainment-wise, and re-watching this series engenders sentimental feelings for those who had nothing better back then. Maybe because we had never seen it before and have been spoiled by truly inspirational tales such as Independence Day, and excellent acting and writing found in the X-Files. I don't know how to explain it, but I can't imagine that anyone would highly recommend this movie. I say watch it only to experience how bad television can be.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed
Review: Well I am unfortunately not going to buy this DVD. I loved the series but am very disappointed after reading the reviews here. It seems like they did a good job of transferring it to DVD but they cut all the scenes with "Robin" in it. To me this just doesn't seem like a complete DVD plus it leaves you with a cliff hanger at the end of it. Oh well I guess I'll pass on it.
Rating: 
Summary: This really holds up!
Review: I saw this mini-series in its first run on NBC. My mom still has the video tapes we made of it, but we might as well get rid of them now that the DVD has been released. The first thing to mention is how well the characters, story and acting have held up over the years. This was good in '83, and it's good today. The video is sharp and clear, it's letterboxed because it was shot in wide screen, and I think that adds a lot, especially since the thing flows together nicely without commercials. The audio is good, however I seem to remember that the alien ships sounded more menancing when they moved. The special effects? Well, they were good for television in '83. Today, not so much. Another thing to mention is Kenneth Johnson's commentary. Kenneth has a lot of experience working in television and you you get a big sense from the commentary how all of that helped make V a success. The opening shot of the rebel camp, with many stunts and helicopter fly-bys was filmed in 2 and a half days. From the time they got the go ahead to do the project to the time the cameras rolled was something like 2 weeks. Impressive. I can't give the whole package 5 stars, however, since I feel there could have been more extras. A professinally done making of would have been very nice. What we do see is a set of contemporary interviews (very grainy) with the major stars and some film of several shots being set up and filmed. It's nice to see, but something more current and professional is desired. However that's not much to complain about since the movie itself is so nice to see again.
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