V for Vendetta flick and Alan Moore

jonthecelt · Forum Member Joined: May 14, 2004 Posts: 18

I think, (from memory) it was a similar pattern to his other reactions... felt it strayed too far from his original premise, lacking in the direction he felt it should have gone in, the usual kind of thing. The accumulated effect of LXG, From Hell and now V is that he refuses to have his name on any of the credits for films derived from his work. It might mean losing royalties, but to his mind, the principle is more important...

jonthecelt

electranaut · Forum Member Joined: Jan 03, 2004 Posts: 91

Yes, he didn't like the way they altered his detective character too much. He was speaking about how he feels about film adaptations on TV a week or so ago and he pretty much doesn't want anything to do with them now.

palmers · Forum Member Joined: Jun 07, 2002 Posts: 379

I read the book first, and thought the film was appalling, but I can see how one might not mind the film if it came first.

The book is, for me, probably the only time Moore's elaborate mysticism is effective, and it could have been adapted more accurately and still made a good film.

What else has been filmed? I can only think of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but there's been talk for twenty years of filming Watchmen, and I've got somewhere - from the internet - a treatment by Sam Hamm, who wrote the first Tim Burton Batman film. It's not entirely loyal to the comic, but it's okay. I don't know how much of Moore was in the Swamp Thing film and TV series, because I haven't seen it.

IMP.
_________________
RIVER: skin on the outside. First chapter FREE from www.ianmpalmer.com

electranaut · Forum Member Joined: Jan 03, 2004 Posts: 91

Well, I got to see V for Vendetta this weekend.

*** SPOILER ALERT! *** For the rest of this post...

I have to say first up that I'm not qualified to talk about how much it differs from the original since I haven't actually read it (I know, I should have).

As for what I thought of the film based on its own merits, I have to say that I really, really liked it. I suppose that for people who don't actually read works like Moore's and don't really know the type of thing he writes about, they'll probably be disappointed- I mean, any kid who's used to seeing films like Spiderman or X Men and thinks that this will be the same kind of thing because it's a comic book probably won't like it or even get it, which may account for the middling reviews it's received.

However, for anyone interested in politics it'll be a blinder. My sister informs me that in her local cinema, an audience member got to his feet and cheered when Parliament was destroyed. I felt much the same way but was even more touched by the sight of the hundreds of thousands of citizens marching in unity, dressed in V's Fawkes costume, into the capital as the government fell.

There are flaws in the film, sure, but as a vehicle for expressing such powerful ideas it'll more than suffice. More of the same, please.

palmers · Forum Member Joined: Jun 07, 2002 Posts: 379

Just seen V. Yes, Moore's name's off it - "based on the graphic novel illustrated by David Lloyd" - but God, what a film. I don't think I've re-read the comic since DC finished what Quality started, but it seems to me that it's all still Alan: the obsessive pattern-making, the humane demand for tolerance and self-respect, the worship of the word, the verbosity and verbal trickery... It seems very not-Hollywood, and quite brave in the era of Homeland Security: perhaps it's easier if it's Britain we're talking about. I think it proves the Wachowskis' comics cred - to the extent that Matrix was supposed to be their Superman, I wasn't convinced - and it features another stunning performance by Stephen Rea, who can do more by twitching his mouth than Keanu Reeves does in all the Matrix films (to be fair to Keanu, I thought he was good in The Gift). I was concerned because politics in comics, especially British politics and especially when Thatcher comes into it, can be simplistic and adolescent (second volume of Planetary is an example), but this felt real, and some interesting modern parallels were found for those issues of the 1980s.

Oddly, I thought I saw Alan Moore himself in a pub scene. But perhaps not.

There is one thing I was left curious about, if anyone here knows: how do the Irish pronounce "lever"?

Thinking about it, too, we Poser users ought to be encouraged by the expressiveness of that porcelain mask.

(Didn't get time to post this last night, and today's Comics International asks whether the film promotes terrorism. Only to stupid people, who probably won't be interested in going to see it.)

Only slightly-jarring moment for me, if the Irish pronunciation of "lever" was correct: some of the faces in the crowd at the end didn't belong there. All that effort to convince, and then a spoiling second of fantasy...

IMP.
_________________
RIVER: skin on the outside. First chapter FREE from www.ianmpalmer.com