MOTHERSHIP from ‘V - The Mini Series’ (1983) Written and Directed by Kenneth Johnson

In the late 1970s and early 1980s TV was dominated by American min-series. and ‘V’ the mini series was such an event - 'must see tv'. The intelligent story of advanced visitors from another planet coming to Earth to share their technology in exchange for some of the Earth’s readily available resources. The story soon starts to echo the rise of Nazi Germany.

The visitors arrived in giant flying saucers known as Motherships. These huge ships hover above cities all over the world. These are iconic images. If you google ‘V 1980s mini-series’ you will see these images. (the makers of the movie ‘Independence Day’ had obviously seen ‘V’). These ships are gigantic. I have seen them described as being 3 miles across, or possibly 1 mile.

Now, this would be a pretty dull kit, so to add some interest I have made it given it cutaway, or visible sections. Inspired by the kits of submarines and a memorable Boeing 747 airliner around this time. I chose to do select cutaway sections showing the key areas of the ship shown in the mini-series.

I have put this as 15” (45cm) diameter kit which is very large. Even at this overall size I have had to cheat the scale is cheated a bit. At 15" a kit in 1/1200th scale would be a ship about 1500 feet, or a quarter of a mile across and some of the internal areas may be oversized just to be seen. I have suggested that decals would be included to enhance certain details. For example the endless corridors of the refrigeration. chambers. This size would put it in the same company as the AMT Starship Enterprise and Monogram Battlestar Galactica kits that were available at the time.

Monogram kits of the time featured photographs of the completed model and I have endeavoured to show that here.

The miniatures were built by Greg Jein. Visual Effects by Apogee Inc.

You can see more about this kit in ‘What If Fantasy Model Kits #22 on my YouTube channel.