The upfront trailer for ABC’s remake of “V” has made its way to YouTube, and we finally get a tiny glimpse of the scary lizard creatures underneath the human skin — something that was missing in the show’s promotional stills — when Elizabeth Mitchell (Juliet from “Lost”) bashes open the head of one of the Visitors.
Full trailer below. I will not lie to you: this looks pretty sweet. And before any of you go saying that the original is a classic and doesn’t need to be updated, I’d like to remind you that stuff that seemed scary when you were a kid now looks really, really stupid. Kind of like your uncle with his pants down.
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The original series, and the new one, are specifically anti-fascist, not anti-communist – they draw directly from Nazi, rather than Stalinist, history. Kenneth Johnson’s original miniseries pilot was a film adaptation of an Upton Sinclair novel about America turning fascist. NBC didn’t like that, so Kenneth Johnson rewrote it using aliens. The references to Nazi Germany are abundant, including: the breaking of windows of scientists’ homes, a reference to Kristallnacht on the night of Nov 9, 1938; using gas to put down incoming prisoners at concentration camps while telling them everything will be fine (in Nazi camps it was death gas in “showers”; in V it’s a gas that knocks them out for the near-death food-preserving state); the hiding of Jews is replaced by a Jewish family hiding a scientist family (nice juxtaposition); “Fifth Column” is a term often used for a “group of people who clandestinely undermine a larger group from within, to help an external enemy”, and the German Fifth Column was responsible for the failed 20 July Plot to assassinate Hitler (which resulted in the execution of 5000 suspects and the end of the resistance movement within Germany); and, of course, Diana is a composite of Dr. Eduard Wirths (Auschwitz), Dr. Aribert Heim (Mauthausen), Carl Vaernet and other Nazi “doctors” who conducted medical experiments and torture on camp prisoners.
I like “V” because it makes direct contact with horrific and still fairly recent human history, and it teaches us lessons that matter. While being an interesting sci-fi drama, it is more importantly a polemic against the kind of totalitarianism that some people alive today actually experienced.
Oh, and to make this comment relevant to the thread: I’m really glad they made the aliens reptiles again in the new series. :)
I’m sure they’ll find a way to ruin that epic scene. Other than that, I’m lovin the show so far!
i LOVED v as a kid, curious to see what the remake is all about
the birthing scene at the end of season one terrified me to the point i jumped off the couch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TufUH1T-F18
@Uh?:
Yeah, that’s it. Because republicans are in control of the networks. Simplistic jackass.
Yes, Elizabeth Mitchell is the Beastmaster.
that chick looked way hotter wih longer hair on Stargate SG-1
I wish stations would consider what they were putting on the air before they air it. Wasn’t the original a big anti-communist thing?
So the Democrats are the aliens, Elizabeth Mitchell is Sarah Palin, and Immigrants from other places are bad?
Ugg, soooo last year.
Uh oh…it has Scott Wolf in it.
Scott Wolf = TV cancellation.
Otto Man, you and Dezi Jr. need to get in the wayback Wannabe-Tron Chopper and go re-watch the first few eps of the mini series. Dude could rock the acidwash even when shooting lazerbeams from a funky gun.
Marc Singer can wear tight jeans like no other man I’ve ever seen.
How’s that? Without a dipshit-hipster porkpie hat?
Eh, I’ll believe it when I see it.
Alan Tudyk is in this, which makes it 100 times better already. But I want cameos by the old cast…cause Marc Singer can wear tight jeans like no other man I’ve ever seen.
The hot alien leader in the original swallowing a rat whole now seems kind of sexy.
Sorry, was that out loud?
So, Elizabeth Mitchell is the Marc Singer character?
Does that make her, by extension, the BeastMaster?