ABC kills "V" skywriting stunt - Is this remake Anti-Obama?

[RamboLiberal]

Caveat - I thought the original miniseries on NBC were brilliant allegories to Nazism at the time. I'll wait & see on this new series Tuesday night. That being said I don't trust ABC after the "Path to 9-11". And it is premiering on the anniversary of last year's election. Some reviews have suggested that it might be anti-Obama.

ABC has scrubbed its plan to festoon the skies over the country's major landmarks with giant red "V"s to promote the Nov. 3 debut of its alien invasion drama coincidentally called "V."

Last week, the network announced it would deploy skywriting planes above 26 landmarks - Statue of Liberty, Santa Monica Pier, blah, blah, blah - in 15 cities over 12 days - all to promote a four-day sampling of the science-fiction series which ABC then plans to take off the air and return early next calendar year.

"V," which is debuting on the one-year anniversary of President Obama's election, is about a bunch of good-looking, charismatic aliens who come to earth and promise to show us the way to "Hope," "Change" and universal health care, but who turn out to be ugly lizard-people who want to infiltrate our government and have rallied the country's youth behind their nefarious campaign.

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Anyway, getting back to that campaign, though you can't throw a brick in Washington without hitting some renowned and highly photogenic landmark, ABC had not planned to "V" up the joint because of the restrictions about plane travel over the city since Sept. 11, 2001.

This week, the trade paper The Hollywood Reporter learned the network had scrubbed the campaign. That report about the campaign's cancellation, and other reports by news outlets that followed THR's lead on the story, all point their finger at the TV Column's coverage of the campaign, in which we noted how many gallons of fuel, grams of lead (aviation fuel is exempt from EPA lead-fuel), tons of CO2 and other pollutants the skywriting gag might dump into the air, and parent-company Disney's stated goal of cutting its fuel emissions in half by 2012.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/tvblog/2009/10/abc-nixes-v-skywriting-stunt-b.html

Is "V" anti-Obama?

We were relentlessly hit over the head in the original "V" with Nazi references. And now there's considerable buzz that this could be the religious right's new favorite show. For instance, the aliens preach about "hope" and "change," inspiring a devoted following. Obama? "We're all so quick to jump on the bandwagon," notes one character. Obama? We know very little about the aliens' background, and can't be sure of their real motives. Obama?

Personally, I wasn't picking up on any political agendas until the end of the pilot, when - SPOILER! - it's suggested that the visitors are responsible for all the world's unnecessary wars, its extremist movements, and the lousy economy.

It's a genius idea, really, and could be the key to the world getting back on its feet. We'll just outsource the blame. To the cosmos, if necessary.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/tv/2009/10/tv_review_abcs_remake_of_v.html

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. WTF

Didn't look interesting to me anyway. After reading this I definitely won't be watching it.

[bluestateguy]

2. Can we please not politicize an imaginary TV mini-series?

Oh, right, that's asking too much.

[RamboLiberal]

3. Hey we politicize 24

Which I confess is one of my guilty pleasures to watch. And writers since ancient times have politicized their work in many instances. Certainly TV series from Star Trek, M*A*S*H*, All in the Family, 24, Battlestar Galatica, Babylon 5, etc are allegories.

I've fought a ton of battles here defending 24's story lines.

[cherokeeprogressive]

5. Some look for, and can find, a political agenda even in highway signs it seems. n/t

[DJ13]

4. Images of totalitarianism and "hope" have been a staple of sci fi before Obama was born

Do we have to sanitize everything just to prevent a small bunch of reactionaries from getting upset?

[RamboLiberal]

6. To be fair here's what the producers had to say

The Visitors talk a lot about hope and change, and even about universal health care, but what seem like echoes of the Obama administration are merely "freakishly prescient," Peters said, noting that the series had been in development for a long time and had been delayed further by the writers strike.

"We are not looking to put any sort of agenda onto the table," he said. "But you know, there are wars, there are new diseases being discovered, old diseases that we are still dealing with. The economy is in the toilet. There are people losing their homes.

"Wouldn't it be awesome if 29 ships showed up and they all said, 'We've got this. We'll take care of you. Don't worry about it.' Wouldn't this be great?"

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/entertainment/columnists.nsf/gailpennington/story/3E9E84B98DC04E168625765F00775848?OpenDocument

[tridim]

7. Maybe ABC/Disney are the aliens and they're using the television..

to indoctrinate us into their alien theme parks?

[Sinti]

8. I've got to, I'm glad they dropped the skywriting thing - why dump that crap in the atmosphere? n/t

[razorman]

9. I think Sci-Fi in general, for the past several decades, has been

an effort to prepare us for one day meeting alien life. Imagine if aliens were to arrive, as in "V", we probably would get used to the idea fairly quickly. However, if they had arrive openly 50 or 60 years ago, or before, there would have been upheaval. Witness the panic caused by Orson Welles' 1938 "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast.
This is just my theory, of course, but I think that movies and shows like "Star Trek", "Stargate", etc. are trying to get us used to the idea that we are not alone in the universe. That doesn't mean that I believe aliens are here yet. Besides, I would hate to think that we are the only excuse for intelligent life there is.

[MilesColtrane]

10. "...who turn out to be ugly lizard-people who want to infiltrate our government"

Naah...they're just trying to sell us insurance.

[xultar]

11. When you take your tin foil to the cleaners do you get starch?

[anigbrowl]

12. No more than the original series was a comment on Reagan, no.

'They came to eat us' is about the oldest sci-fi trope out there, so I don't think it has much to say about contemporary politics.

[Jennicut]

13. It is not anti Obama! It is a remake of a show from my youth....the unfortunate youth of a child

growing up in the cheesy 80's. Actually, all I remember is the lizard people...and I wonder why my parents let me and my brother watch it every week.

[Prism]

14. It's a very old theme in literature

It's practically a staple in fantasy and sci-fi writing. Some character or race of beings arrive, offers the "answers" to society's problems, and turn out to have a secret, nefarious plan to enslave/eliminate/replace the human race.

It's probably a credit to President Obama's campaign and charisma that he could turn such cliched and hackneyed ideas like hope and change into a genuine feeling and political movement. They've been done to death in popular literature.

[Statistical]

15. In related conspiracy theories the The Tower of Pisa is anti-Obama because it leans to the right.

Some people see enemies everywhere. Those people are generally considered nuts.