Kevin Smith Meets the Visitors

I'm a sci-fi geek and a Kevin Smith nut as well. Who, you may ask, is Kevin Smith? Well, allow me to explain. Kevin Smith, in my humble opinion, is only the best film director/writer/actor ever to grace the movie screen. He has written, directed, and starred in such gems as Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Clerks II, Jersey Girl, and so on. Clerks was his first film, shot on location in New Jersey at the Quick Stop convenience store where he worked, paid for ($10,000) with credit cards and starring all of his buddies. The movie is hysterical and kind of the definition of, I think, Generation X. In this movie, the two main characters (Dante and Randal) are discussing the destruction of the second Death Star at the end of Return of the Jedi. Randal argues that since this Death Star wasn't complete, there had to be many independent contractors on this Death Star, working on construction, minding their own business, trying to make a living, and not caring about the fate of a government that would just as soon kill them than pay their salaries. In other words, innocent lives lost at the hands of an uncaring Rebellion. It's a fascinating (and hysterical) monologue and one you should check out.

That monologue got me thinking about the NBC miniseries V, a popular sci-fi take on WWII and the Nazi invasion of Europe, shown on TV screens in 1983-1984. Instead of a fascist government, there were the reptilian Visitors from outer space, here to steal our water and freeze us for food. Well, here's my Kevin Smith monologue on V.

Supposedly, when the Visitors came to Earth, they came in 50 mother ships, each ship carrying about 6,500 aliens. That makes for 325,000 aliens total on Earth, not all of them soldiers. That means, a mere 325,000 aliens versus 6,000,000,000 (that's right, as in b) humans. Hmmmm, I think we could kick their butts in numbers alone. Now, putting those ships together costs money, right? Supposedly their planet and eco-system are dying and they need our natural resources to fix that problem. They're at war with several other alien species and need us for food and cannon fodder. OK, taking into account that these 50 mother ships are each 3.2 km in circumference and 900 feet tall, I would say 50 of those suckers would cost a pretty penny. In addition to that, each ship has three fusion (that right, fusion not fission) nuclear reactors to provide power, propulsion, and a wicked self-destruct mechanism. Again, lots of Benjamins. So, they've taken away 325,000 of their people (people that could have helped to fight their wars) and spent an incalculable amount of money on these 50 ships to get to Earth. Not only is their planet dying, but they've now screwed their economy with all the ship construction going on! Hello! Why not spend the cash on figuring out ways to turn around their eco-system? I mean, come on, it's not like water is some special chemical compound that requires 10 different rare elements. You need hydrogen (the most plentiful element in the universe) and oxygen. That's it! Figure it out!

Lastly, the Visitors are openly hostile toward Earth scientists. Early in the series, scientists begin to either disappear or become brainwashed, presumably because the Visitors don't want their secret found out by these scientists and then leaked to the public. The secret, of course, is that they're 6-foot tall walking, talking iguanas. This doesn't make sense to me. Wouldn't you rather take out the military arms of each country? I would be more worried about Navy SEALS, the Army Rangers, the "black ops" CIA agents, the Israeli army who uses Krav Maga to kick serious ass, the armed Columbian drug runners, and members of the NRA. Wouldn't you rather get rid of these people instead of going after a bunch of geeky scientist who could beat you at Trivial Pursuit, but not so good at hand-to-hand combat? Just a thought.

Anyway, I'm spent. Now you know why I'm crazy. This is the kind of thing I think about late at night while awake with the baby or the twins. It's either think about Visitors and Kevin Smith or, "Which breast does J-man go on this time? Left or right?"