FuNkeNsteiN said:

Cold!

calldapplwondery83 said:

I thought there was a cheese factor, too. The film's theme wasn't exactly subtle, and they felt the need to hammer away at romanticizing V with only a few points about him being "monstrous."

And, it was lackluster as a mystery. Some points were obvious: That V was the "guard" who caught Evey as she left Detrick's yard. That V was connected to the woman who wrote those notes (the flowers and the actress' face were giveaways) and, therefore, behind Evey's incarceration.

My question: Did V live beneath the Parliament building? It was the only explanation to me that reconciled his ability to get TNT to a train leading to a building when the tracks to the building had been blocked off for years. It seemed like the only place the authorities wouldn't look. And, his reference to, "It's underground and you know the color of the brick. A clever man would be able to figure it out..." suggested to me the brick of a state building, such as Parliament.

Was that the case, in the comic book, even?

ThreadBare said:[quote]

And, it was lackluster as a mystery. Some points were obvious: That V was the "guard" who caught Evey as she left Detrick's yard. That V was connected to the woman who wrote those notes (the flowers and the actress' face were giveaways) and, therefore, behind Evey's incarceration.

My question: Did V live beneath the Parliament building? It was the only explanation to me that reconciled his ability to get TNT to a train leading to a building when the tracks to the building had been blocked off for years. It seemed like the only place the authorities wouldn't look. And, his reference to, "It's underground and you know the color of the brick. A clever man would be able to figure it out..." suggested to me the brick of a state building, such as Parliament.[quote]

Wow, I didn't catch most of this stuff! I had trouble understanding V--speaking from behind a mask with a foreign accent probably didn't help. OTOH, Natalie Portman's crappy British accent was easily understandable.
[Edited 3/21/06 5:04am]

PurpleJedi said:

Actually, that had NOTHING to do with Alan Moore not supporting this film. Moore never even saw the movie.

Basically, an exec at Warner Bros shot his mouth off that the film had "the full support of Alan Moore and David Lloyd" (the creators of the graphic novel). In reality, only David Lloyd had participated in the film, since Moore doesn't get involved in film adaptations of his work (he feels he's too close to the original source material to be objective). Well, Moore is notoriously touchy (in fact, he's downright pissy), so he got quite pissed off that WB was, essentially, using his name to promote the film, so he forced them to remove his name from the credits (the credits now read "based on the graphic novel illustrated by David Lloyd""). He gave up his portion of the royalties to David Lloyd.

So, it really boils down to Moore being pissed off that WB took his name in vain. He HASN'T said that the film is "a steaming pile of doo" or any of that. In fact, he's been quite clear that he hasn't seen ANY films based on his work.

saintsation said:

How was it anti-American??? This film is based on a graphic novel written back in the 80s, and it all takes place in England?

Sure, it warns against a country turning into a facist state, which the Bush administration seems determined to do, but that is hardly "anti-American". Even if it HAD been aimed at the Bush Administration, that wouldn't make it so. Quite the opposite. A true patriot will oppose their government being turned into a dictatorship.

MIGUELGOMEZ said:

That would have destroyed the whole point of the film. V's face is never seen because he represents ANYONE who is determined enough to take on a facist police state.

The whole reason why the faces that are seen in the crowd are those of the dead is to show that V's struggle is for all those who have died in the name of freedom.

ThreadBare said:

I never thought is was suppossed to be a mystery. It's pretty obvious to the reader and viewer what is going on. It's only a mystery to Evey.

Yes, V lived in an old train station that linked to the tunnels to Parliment.

HamsterHuey said:

Well, they only produced it, they didn't direct it. I personally felt this film was brilliant, but I refuse to compare it to The Matrix: Reloadofcrap or The Matrix: Revulsions

Spats said:

She doesn't look like a boy. She's smokin' hot! She only has the buzz cut for the last part of the film anyway.

BorisFishpaw said:

I saw Bush face on a poster in the movie. Did anyone else see it too?!1 And no i was not really offended.

JediMaster said:

Understandable, maybe i pick my words wrong of being anti american!1 Maybe i was looking to rile the board up for no reason. But the movie was tooooo similar to whats going on now. I like the fact they never showed his face in the movie. Got points for that!!!!! Besides i only saw this movie to make someone else happy cause they wanted to see it!!!

JediMaster said:[quote]

Spats said:

Natalie is beautiful, whatever her hairstyle and she has the prettiest face of anyone in Hollywood.

Just because she's thin doesn't mean she looks like a boy.

saintsation said:

Well, I agree that it is topical to what is going on now, but again, that doesn't make it anti-American. It was anti-facist, and that is an idea that everyone should get behind!

As BorisFishPaw stated, the fact that this story was written 20+ years ago makes it all the more eerie that it so parrallels what is happening these days.

JediMaster said:

Anti-fascist? Yes, but it also encouraged anarchy. The story was revised to further echo what's happening in America. I know that the author doesn't support this version. It's not brilliant by any means, which imo, is par for the course with the Matrix bros.

Still, it's interesting on a superficial level, which some movies can't even reach.

Saw it last night. The story line was stupid And sooooo unrealistic.

Spats said:

Sound like me after i see a movie!! I am real harsh critic and done that to every movie i saw this year even madea. Hills have eyes was a good movie!!!

saintsation said:

Yeah Hills was a fun horror movie with very creative deaths. What more can u ask for?

u2prnce said:

Really? Seemed pretty true to the original to me. What do think they changed?



JediMaster has already posted the truth about this popular misconception.
Alan Moore doesn't 'support' ANY movie versions of his graphic novels, it has
nothing to do with how him not liking this version of V for Vendetta.

u2prnce said:

Umm, you obviously haven't read the original graphic novel. The story was only revised to update the dates (as the orginal took place in the far off future of 1997). The book actually had MUCH more of an endorsement of anarchy.

If you read my previous posts, I've explained already why Alan Moore doesn't support the movie. It had NOTHING to do with him not agreeing with the themes and what-not. This was one of the most faithful adaptations I've seen of a comic, and VERY LITTLE was altered. The story content is almost exact, and wasn't updated in any way to reflect current events. If you'd read the graphic novel, you'd know this to be true.

JediMaster said:

I'm just going by interviews I've read with him. But since I don't have them in front of me, I could be combining things I've read by him AND other people. It doesn't change my opinion that the movie is a pretty shallow examination of fascism and terrorism. I was excited to see it, and I wasn't sorry that I went to it, but it was kinda 'meh'. It was passable (for me) because Natalie Portman's in it. Did the graphic novel have the scene in the tube station near the end that seemed OTT?
[Edited 3/21/06 13:14pm]
[Edited 3/21/06 13:38pm]

u2prnce said:

With who? Alan Moore? His statements about the film have been fairly consistent. You must be confusing things with statements others have made.

You're entitled to your opinion, but I disagree wholeheartedly. You seem to be juxtaposing many of your own ideas about it.

I haven't read any of this graphic novels, but this was one of the interviews I read with Alan Moore:

http://www.mtv.com/shared...an_060315/

Moore: I've read the screenplay, so I know exactly what they're doing with it, and I'm not going to be going to see it. When I wrote "V," politics were taking a serious turn for the worse over here. We'd had [Conservative Party Prime Minister] Margaret Thatcher in for two or three years, we'd had anti-Thatcher riots, we'd got the National Front and the right wing making serious advances. "V for Vendetta" was specifically about things like fascism and anarchy.

Those words, "fascism" and "anarchy," occur nowhere in the film. It's been turned into a Bush-era parable by people too timid to set a political satire in their own country. In my original story there had been a limited nuclear war, which had isolated Britain, caused a lot of chaos and a collapse of government, and a fascist totalitarian dictatorship had sprung up. Now, in the film, you've got a sinister group of right-wing figures — not fascists, but you know that they're bad guys — and what they have done is manufactured a bio-terror weapon in secret, so that they can fake a massive terrorist incident to get everybody on their side, so that they can pursue their right-wing agenda. It's a thwarted and frustrated and perhaps largely impotent American liberal fantasy of someone with American liberal values [standing up] against a state run by neo-conservatives — which is not what "V for Vendetta" was about. It was about fascism, it was about anarchy, it was about [England]. The intent of the film is nothing like the intent of the book as I wrote it. And if the Wachowski brothers had felt moved to protest the way things were going in America, then wouldn't it have been more direct to do what I'd done and set a risky political narrative sometime in the near future that was obviously talking about the things going on today?

u2prnce said:

Well, I see where you got your ideas from. First off, Moore is backpeddling a bit here, since he originally claimed that he hadn't bothered to read the script. Sure, there were some changes, but the intent of the film and graphic novel are pretty much the same. Just because the filmmakers chose to be a little more subtle than to use the words "facism" and "anarchy" doesn't mean those ideas aren't there. It's pretty clear in the film that the government is a rather facist one.

As for the decision to not set it in a post-nuclear war era, MOORE HIMSELF acknowledged that it was a scientifically ridiculous concept, and that he wished he hadn't gone that route, in the introduction to the trade of V For Vendetta.

There are other, more telling reasons in that interview why he didn't want his name on the film, that are consistent with his previous claims, like this one:

JediMaster said:

While I agree you might not have to use the word "fascism" all over the place, it's unusual(if the point of the film is fascism) if you don't mention that word at all. And no one I know would ever accuse a Joel Silver-produced film of being subtle. I read the whole interview last week and it's obvious he doesn't like film in general, so he's never gonna be happy with an adaptation. I liked From Hell, which I know Moore hates, so I don't take my cues on film from him.
[Edited 3/22/06 7:36am]