No one has claimed that the 2009-10 remake of the 1983 alien invasion miniseries V was exactly original, but it is striking how firmly implanted the trope of memory visualization has become. In this sequence, attractive but evil aliens probe the memories of a teenage human in order to find emotional weaknesses that may be exploited for nefarious ends. The memory images are iconic, drawing on a home movie vernacular depicting stereotypical childhood scenes: opening Christmas presents, parental affection, children's drawings and, of course, the ultimate dissolution of the nuclear family, which constitutes the exploitable weakness for the visitors. Memory montage sequences such as this invariably resort to blurry edges, soft focus and superimposition to connote the instability and immateriality of the mind's inner workings. For a character who would have been born in the 1990s, we are thankfully spared the convention of super 8 flash frames and overly saturated colors associated with Kodachrome in favor of a digital video aesthetic.