Wow holy shit, way to miss the goddamn point Wachowskis.
Anyone who’s read the comics will already know what’s wrong with this trailer, but for those who haven’t (and you really should), here’s an analogy: Imagine if all of Fight Club’s meaning was stripped away in favour of slo-motion punches and one-liners. Indeed V and Fight Club are almost the same in content (one deals with anarchy and the self in 70’s Britain, the other with anarchy and the self in 90’s America), and if the trailer (KNIVES IN SLO-MOTION WHOA SLOW-TALKING MASKED FIGURE HOW MYSTERIOUS) is an accurate presentation of the film (I know it might not be, so shut up if you’re going to use that argument :P) then this will suck and Alan Moore will once again act like a bitchy asshole because Hollywood ‘ruined his work’.
In short I am no longer looking forward to this film. Thoughts?
For those of us who might be wondering just what the heck “V for Vendetta” is supposed to be: It’s a comic about a masked anarchist bombing the hell out of a futuristic, opressive society, inspired by the historical terrorist Guy Fawkes, mainly told thru the eyes of a teenage prostitute who slowly turns to his cause. The writer, Alan Moore, has a reputation for being one of comics’ best writers, as well as being a master of the bizarre and the symbolic. (Not all his stuff is THAT good, mind you.)
I’ve read reviews of the movie’s script online and yes, they’ve substantially changed it. But then, a) we’re not exactly on a terrorist-friendly climate right now and b) this is Hollywood we’re talking about. And Moore didn’t get pissed so much at the movie -he knew NOTHING about the adaptation and didn’t CARE about it- it was their claiming the movie had his approval (an obvious lie) that got him angry and made him break off his relationship with publisher DC Comics.
Personally, I don’t care about the movie, I never read the comic as I’m simply opposed to anarchism in moral terms, and anyway I expected the producers would put the movie thru the wringer anyway.
Yeah, Alan Moore is a curmudgeonly sonovabich. He and Warren Ellis both write fantastic stories for comics and they’ve, so far as I’ve seen, changed the industry. Not on the same level as <i>Crisis on Infinite Earths</i> but still significantly.
They are not, however, rays of sunshine.
More like flaming incandescant death.
Whenever a story crosses medums, the limitations of each are made clear. It’s the reason why there’s never been a decent H.P. Lovecraft adaptation in film. Any director talented enough to convey cosmic horror and paranoia on that level is doing his own work, not rehashing someone else’s. Comics, however visual they are, are not film and do not communicate in the same way. I wouldn’t have expected it to be the same anyway.
Now if it’s true they put Alan’s name to the project without his permission they deserve his retaliation. It seems kind of a tantrum to me, but that’s his business.
edit; Sorry but this is ironic because Crisis on Infinite Earth has had so little effect that they’re now doing ANOTHER one to sort out the shit that CoIE brought in.
Umm, actually Piers, CoiE achieved EXACTLY what DC comics wanted: to unify 50+ years of DC comics stories into ONE coherent reality, while telling a kickass story AND showing they were willing to kill characters off to prove they were more serious about their stories now.
…The problem was, they totally FAILED to organize themselves afterwards, allowing writers to rewrite the continuity without checking if they contradicted each other.
And if the coming “Infinite Crisis” is another reality-revamping (as far as I know, it’s not) it would be the THIRD such revamping, as they did it AGAIN with “Zero Hour” in the 90s. And that version has reasonably worked so far, I see no pressing need to reboot things again.
In any case: Moore’s work revamped people’s expectations of what type of stories could be written in comics, rather than alter the superhero genre.
man fuck all y’all, this is going to be a great movie. And yes I’ve read the comic. From what I’ve read about the script and production it’s shaping up to be brilliant, and while the trailer emphasizes the action scenes (all of which ARE in the comics) to sate the audiences’ target demographic, it should be very good. Trust the Wachowskis as screenwriters.
Also, edgy-comic book writer Stracyzinski (Supreme Power, Amazing Spider-Man, and he just took over Fantastic Four) read a copy of the script and said that it was really amazing.
