The Jessica Journals:

Life is filled with sorrow, woe, and pain, but, between sudden and sporadic plunges toward hell, there exist moments of intense ecstasy and spiritual euphoria. And only in such terms can I describe the experience of watching V: The Final Battle.

To say my life was incomplete before I viewed this science fiction masterpiece would be putting things lightly, and now that I have seen it I find myself lacking words to describe the fulfillment I feel.

This 1984 sci-fi miniseries stars Jack Nicholson Michael Ironside and a cast of forgettable, bland-looking unknowns headed up by Marc Singer, who portrays Donovan, a swaggering, one-liner spewing investigative-reporter-turned-resistance-fighter.

V: The Final Battle picks up where V: The Miniseries left off--after evil lizard men disguised as humans (who have descended from space ostensibly in search of special minerals found on earth) have subdued the planet earth beneath their iron, Nazi-like fist and have begun to strip our lush world of its water and to kidnap humans with the intention of turning them into food. The resistance movement, seen only in it’s earliest stages during V: The Miniseries, has now had several months to grow and become established, and it is the trials and tribulations of this ragtag group of rebels which V: The Final Battle depicts.

What can I say? This movie has it all: a clichéd brainwashing scene, Nazi-inspired propaganda posters, a horny Nazi-youth wannabe, a raw-flesh-devouring pregnant girl, Michael Ironside, a grandma waving some kinda submachine gun around and yelling ”All right, pretty face, grab some air!”, to say nothing of lizard men, lesbian lizard women, and hissing human/lizard hybrid babies, all topped off by one the most deus ex machina endings this blogger has ever seen.

The sweetness of it all is only increased by the fact that the interior spaceship sets are knock-offs of the Imperial spacecrafts in Star Wars, the writing level is such that it’s possible to predict which characters will live, which will die, and which have been brainwashed with 100% accuracy, and the human/lizard hybrid baby is a mere one step above a sock puppet.

To sum things up: It Is Amazing.

Five Things We Laughed At:

1. Daniel

   The only thing funnier than his feeble efforts at love-making was his addiction to champagne and caviar.

   

2. The lizard aliens’ lesbian leader

   You know a sci-fi movie has reached excessive levels of camp when they throw in a lesbian.

3. The “Scientists-as-Jews” motif

   The part in which a wasted Daniel tells a “hot shot intellectual” that “school’s a bunch of crap” then forces him to lick his boots is just classic.

4. The alien insignia that bears absolutely no resemblance to a swastika

   Wait--who am I kidding?

5. Whole scenes that were stolen from inspired by Star Wars

   My one regret is that Donovan didn’t tell the pilot of the mothership-infiltrating shuttle craft to “fly casual”.

1. The theme song

   ...that could have come straight out of a John Carpenter movie.

2. The soundtrack

   ...that, at times, could have come straight out of Star Wars

3. Donovan

   ...and his feeble attempt to be V’s version of Han Solo.

   

4. The lizard aliens

   ...and their feeble attempt to be Nazis

5. Daniel

   ...and his feebleness.

1. ”V” stands for “victory”*.

   And you all thought it stood for "Vinceremo".

2. Never send a Roman Catholic to do a Pentecostal’s work.

   You can’t convince me that a man acquainted with the ins-and-outs of snake handling couldn’t have dealt with Diana better than the Pope lover did.

3. The Deus Ex Machina is alive and well.

   Up until the climax of the movie I thought I was watching an 80s sci-fi miniseries, at which point I suddenly discovered that I was watching an 80s fantasy movie chock full of all the illogic entailed in that genre.**

   

4. Aliens with lizard-like bodies and correspondingly lizard-like faces can make themselves look human with only a thin layer of latex skin.

   Apparently, this thin layer of latex also allows them to engage in human-style sex acts.***

5. Friendship is universal.

   It must be true; the aliens made a propaganda poster proclaiming so.

Footnotes

*Technically, we learned this in V: The Miniseries not V: The Final Battle, but since the latter is a continuation of the former I’ll let things slide a bit. Back

**The painful lack of a tight-pants-wearing David Bowie was, in some ways, remedied by the extreme end of the movie in which I found that I was actually back in the 60s watching a classic Trek episode, with Donovan playing Kirk to Julie’s bimbo-of-the-week, with Martin as a very Lord Flashheart-esque Sulu. Back

***The fact that I didn’t actually make a joke hardly matters because I caused you to think of lizards and condoms in connection with each other--about which I’m sure you’ll be able to make your own joke. Back