I just saw half of the movie today again. I really liked this movies. i mean i never read the comic books so i'm not sure how true to the comic book it stayed. But it is one of my favorite comic book movies.
the story was good, the acting was superb, the pace was good for a 2hr comic book movie.
what say you guys?
żIf a fat guy falls in the woods and there is no one around to see it, do the trees laugh?
4. "watching it today i was like this is an underrated comic movie" In response to Reply # 1
i don;t think it was too similar to things in the US now. thats was based in a dystopian england. we can at least for now still make fun of prez bush with out getting ransacked.
żIf a fat guy falls in the woods and there is no one around to see it, do the trees laugh?
9. "No I didn't mean what the government did but how it" In response to Reply # 4
got the power to implement those martial law measures. Mostly playing off the fear of the people, the whole "strength through unity, unity through faith" and the monitoring of people through wire taps. Using terrorism to justify restrictions on human rights, things of that nature.
It also mentions how the US led war in the middle east got out of control.
It was fine but it was kind of "These guys are bad because they are bad" to me. I never really cared about any of the characters. I was very disappointed when I first saw it but I watched it again on cable and thought it was decent.
29. "RE: just kinda boring and overwrought" In response to Reply # 7
>plus the characterization of V and Evey was weak Disagree. V and Evey are both victims of trauma based mind control. V becomes obsessed and Evvey is the complete opposite. i think the character development is adequate and accurate when you look at both V and evey's backgrounds.
16. "not having read the comic, i was thoroughly entertained." In response to Reply # 0
it definately dragged in the second half. but it picked up at the end.
the images were really powerful. that's pretty much how id describe the whole movie. powerful.
the only time i really thought "comic book" was the images of V in flames in the flashback bursting out of the hospital. other than that, it was a solid action flick that leaned a little too heavily on its political messages.
natalie was stunning even with a shaved head. few woman in hollywood can pull that off and still keep me attracted.
19. "Could have been a lot better" In response to Reply # 0
had a big opportunity to say some really interesting and topical things about terror politics and the responsibility of the populace to keep a government in check through dissent and revolution. I think the major flaw was that they made the government so unbelievably evil that the arguement for rebellion was so simple...you'd have to be an idiot not to fight back to them.
35. "yeah but thats how most dystopian works are" In response to Reply # 19
for example 1984.
all the thins the goverment was doing was unbelieveable. but it still lets me is that if unchecked it can get that far, but even if it does. a fight or revolution can still be made
and in 1984 is even more disheartening, big bother was even controlling the group that was doing the revolting
żIf a fat guy falls in the woods and there is no one around to see it, do the trees laugh?
36. "Well, not true really" In response to Reply # 35
For example, in A Scanner Darkly or Children of Men the government is much more subtle in excercising it's complete control over the populace.
1984 was written in a time directly following some of the most grotesquely overbearing fascist dictatorships, it was fitting and appropriate for Orwell to use those images and ideas. In 2008 governments are far more clever in their control mechanisms, and far more subtle.
In V for Vendetta they used mostly Nazi imagery, I just think it was too much, in that it didn't challenge the viewer at all to support rebellion against a government that killed 130 000 of its own people for personal gain. I think it would be better if the government's excesses were just as persistent but less over-the-top, presenting the question to the viewer of "how far DOES a government have to go before I should consider rebelling against it?"
Here's the part where you stop reading unless you're particularly interested in things I have to say:
My friend went to a diner and roundtable discussion at a pro-business think tank called The Fraser Institute a few years ago. The roundtable was set up to discuss a fictional situation in which a manufacturing plant was set up in a poverty stricken area in a third world country, and to discuss the positives and benefits of use of foreign labour.
Fine.
The problem was that the fictional scenario was set up such that everybody benefitted, yet it was acting to serve as a reason why globalization generally benefitted the poor. My friend pointed out that no one in their right mind would argue that this fictional warehouse with great and safe working conditions and fair pay in a poverty stricken area would be a bad thing for anyone, but the question really should be "WHEN is using foreign labour okay, and when is it exploitative?"
I feel like the movie did the same thing as The Fraser Institute. No one in their right minds would think that the populace should have done anything other than rise up against this awful regime, but I think it could have been far greater a movie (given the climate at its release date and the desparate need for the provoking of debate) had they framed the argument against a less monstrous but still evil regime, forcing the viewers to actually think about when rebellion is good, and when it's bad.
I liked the movie, I just think it had the opportunity to be great.
39. "I never saw scanner darkly but children of men had a different problem" In response to Reply # 36
i agree with you in the sense that. the movie those lead you in that you have to agree with the rebellion. but most movies are the same way.
thats most important scene to me in that movie was, when the guys with the show, gets taken away for making fun of the chancellor. and gets taken away. take the soviet union back in the day. it isn't so far fetched.
but yeah i liked the movie. regardless of the intentional or unintentional messages. i was entertained
żIf a fat guy falls in the woods and there is no one around to see it, do the trees laugh?
It probably ranks up there as one of my five favorite comic based movies. Speaking as someone who HAS read the book, V is probably the ONLY comic based movie I've seen where I walked out the theater feeling that the deviations from the book actually improved on the source material.
56. "RE: it's never spelled out specifically that he's gay" In response to Reply # 37
I read somewhere that Moore wanted him originally to be a transexual terrorist. Needless to say, that was nixed. When you really think about it, the gay part makes sense.
46. "It's a process of elimination" In response to Reply # 34
The people in the camps were undesirables. Most were immigrants, some were homosexuals and some were dissidents. V obviously wasn't an immigrant, so that means he was a homosexual. He didn't claim to be political before he was taken to the camps, so that means he was a homosexual.
In the book, Evey has an affair with the guy she runs to (I forget his name) when she escapes V the first time. In the movie, that character is portrayed as gay and V is portrayed as in love with Evey. That never comes across in the book.
I liked the book, but the stuff that was changed in the movie IMO would be unfilmable, and therefore it improved the pacing of the story. that in mind, I really, really enjoyed the movie.
it's maybe the ONLY comic book or movie based on a graphic novel that actually made me THINK about the world we live in TODAY after leaving the theater.....
i loved the fact that it was really a political movie disgiused as a action comic book thiller....
along with "road to pedition", it's definately one of my all-time favorite comic book movies....
50. "RE: I really enjoyed it." In response to Reply # 49
Compared to the comic, it sucked. The Theme at the end was wrong too. Needless to say the entire movie pissed me off. I Went and read the comic again to get the bad taste out of my mouth
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