Despite my fears of V For Vendetta's uncomrpmising ideas being gutted by a soulless Wachowski adaptation, the trailer went quite a way to reassure me, as did the studio chickening out after the London bombings and putting its release back to this year. (Let's dispense with bunk about "freedom fighters", the hero is a terrorist.) I still can't see Hollywood providing a platform for a two-hour celebration of Anarchism, but I am cautiously optimistic some of the difficult issues from the book have made it in.

Though it should be borne in mind that Alan Moore's seen parts of the script and, as with all his other adaptations, hates its celluoid guts.

But... Evey's a reporter?

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by The_Host
But... Evey's a reporter?

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Uh oh, and already, this don't sound promising.

*Makes note to hurry up and watch it*

She looked more liked she was a runner than a reporter - dropping off mail, getting coffee etc

I saw V yesterday and while I feel the film itself was a little disappointing, it did raise a lot of questions in my mind.

The hero should really be termed an anti-hero as he embodies the very thing we are encouraged to stand up against. The point the film raises in my mind is who is the greatest terrorist in the film? V or the gorvenment? Neither are particularly lileable and I can't help feeling that the point was to highlight the greyness of the world we live in. And while the emphassis of the film was to highlight the plight of the people who had been surpressed, monitored, imprisoned and killed by a government who while claiming to have it's people's best interests at heart was only interested in controlling them, and increasing their hold on power, I only felt contempt for a people who had ignored reality and chosen to be led like sheep.

It does however make us realise that unless we keep our prejudices and fears in check we are destined to become, if not that reality, then something similar.

V was right.... people shouldn't fear their governments, governments should fear their people....

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by thelostsailor
The hero should really be termed an anti-hero as he embodies the very thing we are encouraged to stand up against. The point the film raises in my mind is who is the greatest terrorist in the film? V or the gorvenment? Neither are particularly lileable and I can't help feeling that the point was to highlight the greyness of the world we live in. And while the emphassis of the film was to highlight the plight of the people who had been surpressed, monitored, imprisoned and killed by a government who while claiming to have it's people's best interests at heart was only interested in controlling them, and increasing their hold on power, I only felt contempt for a people who had ignored reality and chosen to be led like sheep.

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Well like they say, you gotta work with what you've got. No doubt Marxists would chip something in about false class consciousness here; but I'm as far from Marxism as George Bush is from trading Cuban cigars, so I won't.

Speaking from the book (yeah, I will actually see the film version this week), V is deliberately introduced as an anti-hero figure (his first lines to Evry are: "Me? I'm the King of the 20th Century. I'm the villain, the bogeyman. The black sheep of the family" ) and I agree, lots of his actions are mighty dodgy, not least blowing up innocent people and finally resorting to brainwashing and torture to convert Evry. Alan Moore is a self-confessed Anarchist, so it's interesting to speculate just how much sympathy we're meant to have for the guy.

Personally I reckon V's coerced Anarchy is just as immoral and dangerous to society as Susan's blunt fascism, which I'm pretty sure isn't Moore's view, but it does raise the interesting question if he's using the wrong methods to implement the right idea. (Personally I'd say not, I find the concept of Anarchy rather ghastly, but it's a good question nonetheless.)

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It does however make us realise that unless we keep our prejudices and fears in check we are destined to become, if not that reality, then something similar.

V was right.... people shouldn't fear their governments, governments should fear their people....

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I don't think either is very healthy. We need governments to protect us from mob rule. Democracy can be just as unhealthy as fascism (the warning's been there from the start: democracy murdered Socrates) and I don't think we need to end up under some megalomaniac with a computer fetish to become an unfree society. If I've got to choose between the tyranny of the majority and protecting a minority, I don't loose any sleep siding with option number two every time.

Using draconian methods to suppress prejudice can be as bad as the prejudice itself: just witness the police threatening an elderly Christian couple who only wanted to promote their faith alongside council leaflets about homosexuality.

I'd say rigidly protecting of civil liberties with a firewall of strong and respected law is the best safeguard. Madam Justice needs to fight off the Vs of the world just as much as she does the Norsefires.

(Edited by Byron 06/04/2006 02:46)

Before I start, in good parliamentary style, I should record two interests on the subject.

I am an Anarchist
I think V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd is one of the greatest pieces of art of all time. Not just a great comic/graphic novel, or even story. It is more important to me than the vast majority of what passes for art - whether novel (graphic or otherwise), music, painting, sculpture .. you get the idea.

I finally got round to seeing the film last night (it was the last night it was showing in Reading). I have both been waiting in excited trepidation, and horrified dread for this film. The book reads like a film story board (to me) and seems an obvious choice for a film. The trailers looked to have caught the right dark ambiance and anti-hero vibe, from what I could see, and had a cast I could respect. But would Hollywood really be faithful to a man's art when they have abused it so thoroughly in the past (particularly with ...From Hell)? And a review in a magazine that was dismissive of Mr Moore's opinion of the film didn't bode well.

But the fact is I enjoyed it. I was caught up in the drama, happy to see that V never removed his mask, and that the atmosphere of the story had been carried over. I was unhappy that they rewrote V's message to the nation (turned from 'You the people are not pulling your weight' to 'You the government are not pulling your weight'), took some liberties with the characters, effectively created completely new ones (Gordon), and some of the special effects seemed a little naff (the ghosting of the knives in one of the fight scenes). I went on to recommend it to a friend, with the proviso that it wasn't faithful, but at least it hadn't ripped of it's head and spat down it's neck. My biggest complaint at the time was a sense that the film wasn't sure if it was a political thriller or an action movie.

Then I found my copy and started rereading the original...

So much detail I'd forgotten. Sure, not all of it could be carried over to a 130 mins film, but did so much of it have to be completely rewritten? Evey's background? Gordon? Even the order the building's are blown up in? This should have been the greatest film of the decade, an era defining moment. Instead its a passable Hollywood flick. Worthy of one watch, but probably not two.

And finally, as a work of art that has never been bettered in getting over, in simple, easy to understand ways, the concept of Anarchism, for the film to never even once mention the word is unforgivable.

Basically, the screenwriters/producers/director have decided they wanted a film to attack the 'War on Terror' and the Blair-Bush approach to government. They wanted a plea for liberal capitalist democracy. And they used the name 'V for Vendetta' to do that. Thing is, that was never what this story was about.