LOOK FAMILIAR?!!!!!
First off, the best packaging designs I have seen pertaining to THE INVADERS were those designed by Tom who included them in earlier message posts on this discussion thread.
I don't think much of the TF-1 (French) graphics for despite drawing on the 'original' imagery as they are still unsatisfactorily inept.
The U.K. artwork may not be the best that I have seen but neither does it qualify as the being worst either. More often than not I find that I (personally) am seldom (fully) satisfied with any of these efforts nowadays. However, I reiterate while it is (in my estimation) typical of the type of packaging design to come out of the U.K. for many of these kind of DVD releases it is not necessarily representation of what will be employed in North America...which at present there is absolutely NONE to speak of!
From the illustrative sample still that is included with this message post it should be (clearly) apparent that it is indeed Roy Thinnes seen on the abstract artistic rendering taken from an authentic INVADERS promotional still.
At times David Vincent could be quite the (fashion conscious) dresser as he was hep to some of the finer aspects of life.
I look at the imagery (on the U.K. packaging design) and what it impresses upon me is that David Vincent is dwarfed by the nightmarish threat that is menacingly looming over us and gradually engulfing our vulnerably unaware world...which is likely the artist's intent. You can't fault the use of some creativity and innovation...which is precisely what the SF genre inspires from its intended audience. We all see and interpret things differently! In a very real sense this is (appropriately) very much the "thinking" man's packaging design...like the tv series itself!
Some of you people always speak in absolutes simply because you are not attuned to literary SF drama. This is not a stale cookie-cutter cop show, or wholesome family sitcom or yet another western indistinguishable from the sizeable litter. An extraterrestrial can make references to his "home planet" and that can conjur up all sorts of mental imagery in the human imagination...without having actually seeing it! This is precisely where the strong and capably adept writing comes in! These earlier SF tv shows required a certain amount of intuitive reasoning from the viewer something that most tv couch potatoes either really don't have or it is a latent, undeveloped resource that they are totally incapable to draw upon.
What I appreciate about the best earlier genre works in television like SCIENCE FICTION THEATRE, THE TWILIGHT ZONE, THE OUTER LIMITS, THE PRISONER and THE INVADERS is that they all adhered to the (profound) principle that when reaching an adult audience demographic less tends to be more. While all of these singular outstanding efforts have well done visuals to their credit they aren't overdone and excessive like the more juvenile blantantly hokey efforts in the genre.
Another important distinction that these great SF shows all have in common is the notion that one doesn't have to wait 300 some odd years in the future for fantastic and wonderous events to happen as they are all set in the present. They are occurring in everyday surroundings that we are well familiar with and can all relate to.
Jeff T.
I might also have to go that route but I'll wait for your word on the UK set. I haven't bought any sets from (outside U.S.) sites other than AMA UK and the Aust site EZDVD. In either case, I'm sure glad that I went "Region-Free" a couple of years ago.
