V: The Original Mini – Series was one of the most popular Sci – fi Television events of all time.. An estimated 65 million people in the US alone tuned in to watch it.. This epic began with monumental Alien Motherships seen over 50 cities of the world.. A request was made by these aliens to meet with the Secretary General of the United Nations at the United Nations building in New York at 8 pm New York time.. As the clock struck 8 a smaller craft descended from the much larger alien Mothership over the city.. It set down on top of the UN building.. Moments later the UN Secretary General enters the craft and meets these new Visitors to earth.. Upon his urging the supreme commander of this alien fleet which has encircled the city’s of the earth agrees to come and speak in person to the citizens of earth directly.. He appears as a middle age man with a strange harmonic quality to his voice.. He promises peace and states that his planet is in dire environmental difficulty and is in need of the help of the people of Earth.. In return for such help he promises to share ” all the fruits of our knowledge; helping to solve your own environmental problems and health dilemmas, then we will leave you as we came, in peace..” From this point the Visitors of V were here to stay.. Industrial complexes on earth were converted to create synthetic compounds the Visitors said they needed for survival..

Some began to question the true motive of these Visitors.. They began to quickly disappear.. Anthropologists and scientists were being discredited worldwide.. Then it slowly became apparent than these Visitors did not come in peace but rather came to conquer and control.. They masterminded a conspiracy against scientists and doctors to turn people against these people who could do them harm.. The Visitors were not human as they appeared but rather reptilian creatures wearing human skins.. Their environmental needs were a distraction to turn attention away from why they were really there.. Through brainwashing and selective kidnappings the Visitors began to have an ever greater hold on the cities of the world..

Where once there were just Visitor technicians on the street now there were armed Visitor Shocktroopers on every corner.. By enlisting the aid of those easily swayed and naive, the Visitors used humanity as its own helpful oppressive agent.. The Visitors set up youth training programs aimed at turning out loyal young men and woman.. The governments of the world were powerless against Visitor aerial superiority and weaponry from the beginning.. But now the Visitors were on the ground enlisting new traitors to humanity and placing agents of their control into positions of power.. They occupied military bases, dominated means of communication and controlled the cities..

Resistance was slow to organize against the Visitors but citizen resistance did organize.. Julie Parrish, a medical student organized a large resistance movement in Los Angles that in the beginning was composed mostly of scientists and others in hiding from Visitor torture and imprisonment.. They stole medical equipment and lead a basically successful raid against a military armory to obtain weaponry.. The resistance then used their new found weapons to defeat a Visitor aerial attack on a camp in the mountains.. The help of a captured Visitor Skyfighter piloted by cameraman Mike Donovan sealed their Victory in this battle.. But the war was only beginning..

Several of the characters are named for Johnson’s family.. Julie and Mike were named after his kids, as was little Katie Maxwell.. Kathleen and Robert Maxwell were named for Johnson’s wife’s sister and brother – in – law and Robin and Polly after their daughters..

On 30th October 1982, Dominique Dunne, who had been signed to play the role of Robin Maxwell, was at her house with co – star David Packer going over lines for the next day’s filming, when her boyfriend John Sweeny arrived unexpectedly and throttled Dunne into a coma.. Five Days later, on 4th November 1982, Dunne died.. Blair Tefkin was cast to replace Dunne as Robin and all of the scenes that had been shot with the late actress were re – filmed.. According to the DVD commentary, however, Dunne is still visible from the back in one group scene that occurs as the Visitors arrive on earth..

Kenneth Johnson’s original script was a movie screenplay called Storm Warnings with no alien presence, just a homegrown fascist takeover of the United States..

Julie Parrish is based on a real woman named Andrea DiJon, who was a 24 – year old nurse’s aid who became a leader of the  underground resistance in Nazi – occupied France during WWII..

Actor Robert Englund plays nice guy alien Willie in V.. Slightly different from his child – murdering nightmare demon alter ego, Freddy Krueger, from The Nightmare On Elm Street series..

No models of the Mothership were made due to money and time constraints.. They only had 2 weeks of pre – production time.. All of the Mothership appearances were done with matte paintings.. With so little time, several different artists were hired to do the paintings of the motherships over major cities, which is why the look of the ships varies..

Due to the high cost of the laser special effects, it was decided that human resistance fighters would use regular rifles and pistols.. This was explained away in the script as due to high security on the alien armories..

Besides the Visitor symbol looking very similar to the Nazi Swastika, the Visitor pistols were made up to resemble the German ‘ Luger ‘ pistols used in WWII; the rifles are simply extended versions.. The pistol and rifle were both released as toys by Arco Toys, who also released the rifle in Robotech packaging.. These toys were bought up by Laird Studios for use in the Masters of the Universe movie, but were never used..

The Visitors creating their own havoc and blaming it on someone else as an excuse to go after them was a stratagem also mastered by Hitler and the Nazis..

The Motherships are matte paintings.. There wasn’t a large – enough budget to build miniatures for them..

The series was intended as a literal telling of the Nazi takeover of German and the Resistance movement against it.. However, due to the popularity of Star Wars ( 1977 ), as well as the belief among network execs that the US citizens would not believe a fascist takeover, the network execs had the producers change it to a science fiction mini – series.. Other ideas such as communism, etc were also discussed, but discarded..

In a massive media campaign before the series aired, posters with the line ” The Visitors Are Our Friends “ appeared in subways around the United States – just as they did in the first part of the mini – series.. Days before the first episode aired, each poster was spray – painted with a bright red “ V ” exactly as was done in the show..

The name of the Visitors is never revealed..

None of the Visitors have last names..

Was NBC‘s highest – rated program in two years.. It had a 40 share and 80 million viewers for each episode..

The laser effects cost US$1,000 each.. The high cost was due to the lengthy post – production work by manually adding optical effects to the film..

The character Diana was ranked #5 in TV Guide’s list of the 25 Greatest Sci – Fi Legends ( 1st August 2004 issue )..

The music that plays when the ship is first seen has as a major motif consisting of three short notes followed by one long note.. This is the letter V in Morse code.. It is also patterned after Ludwig van Beethoven’s fifth symphony..

Due to the high cost of the laser special effects, it was decided that human resistance fighters would use regular rifles and pistols.. This was explained away in the script as due to high security on the alien armories..

It was hinted in the pilot that the Visitors were engaged in a war with another alien species.. However, this idea was never explored by the scriptwriters..

The octagonal storage containers a device with what appear to be rotating red lasers inside a long glass tube, both of which are seen on the Visitors’ mother ship, later made regular appearances as set dressing and props on Star Trek: The Next Generation ( 1987 ) and other series..

Much of the non – original music for the filming of V was a combination of motifs from Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries and, more notably, motifs from the 4th Movement of Beethoven’t 5th Symphony..

The music during the closing credits was a combination of most, if not all, motifs of the 4th Movement of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony closing with the final couple of measures of the 4th Movement of Beethoven’s 7th Symphony.. According to Kenneth Johnson’s DVD commentary, the lyrics to Beethoven’s music were added with some self – admitted ” outrageous chutzpah “ and were the following translated into Latin: Glory to the Cause, Glory to the Fallen, Glory to the Fighters for Freedom, Victoria … Victoria, for Victory!