So, I've just forced myself through the fist 70 minutes of V for Vendetta...

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 4:29 pm

...and I think I've earned the right to hunt the ****s responsible down and forcefeed them their own feet. I mean, the English often joke about Americans missing the point in things, and generally it's just part of the horseplay everyone does. But those two cocksuckers couldn't get the point if it was rammed through their CGI-addled frontal lobes. What an absolute shower of ****. If two little sci-fi nerds want to do their own pissy little "Ooooh, maybe America's foreign policy could have implications", they should have the balls to come up with their own story instead of just raping a perfectly good book until it submits to their purposes. Alan Moore is a disagreeable **** of the highest order, but I'm on his side for this one. I don't think I've ever seen such abuse of source material. ****ing Hollywood tossers, why bother taking the name if you're going to change absolutely everything from the ****ing book? Wankers.

There are wankers out there who think V's about swordfighting with suits of armour in front of the telly. And that's wrong. What a pile of ****. Takes more than John Hurt and Patrick Off Coupling to save a film like that.

Anyone want the DVD before I destroy it?

Halfshell · Post by **Halfshell** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 4:40 pm

I liked it.

As a "take the very basic premise and reimagine it" thing goes, I thought it was decent. Far better than League of Oh Look it's Tom Sawyer.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 4:41 pm

Originally posted by Halfshell
I liked it.

You're wrong and you're banned from the human race. Sorry

Halfshell · Post by **Halfshell** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 4:43 pm

Taken on its own merits, it's okay I think. Certainly rubbish in comparison to the comic, but most people who watch the film won't have / never will read the book.* So it's a decent attempt for getting the story to them.

It certainly bastardises the concept in no worse a way than Constantine did.

* - This is why any film of Watchmen should be absolutely superb or not done at all. People shouldn't scoff and chuckle at the memory of something rubbish when it comes up in conversation.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 4:49 pm

Thing is, it doesn't really get the story to them... So much of it's missing. The characters are basically unrecognisable, and it loses the ambiguity of the book. The need to make it all media studies winking, make the government into a bunch of terrorists to make V look like a lovely bloke, the neutering of Evey... The whole thing was an absolute farce. Beyond the costume and some names, there weren't many similarities to the comic, IMO - they basically stripped out everything that made it more than another 1984 clone.

EDIT: 300, which I finally saw on the weekend, is much more fun, simply because it's a story that lends itself to Stupiding Up.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 5:01 pm

Originally posted by Cliffjumper
]make the government into a bunch of terrorists to make V look like a lovely bloke

The Government being behind the attack was perfectly in keeping with the anarchy theme I thought- crooks and the authorities are all the same/as bad as each other so get rid of the lot.

I thought it was a very decent film that may have cut a lot of the subplots but kept the heart of the story well and truely in place.

And Alan Moore's hatred of it is apprently based entirely on the "Eggy in a basket" line (which is odd as it's supposed to be a odd thing for an Englishman to call egg on toast...)

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 5:07 pm

What anarchy theme? It's an Evil Empire film, with V as Luke Cocking Skywalker. Bang goes your ****ing moral ambiguity if the government are releasing viruses left, right and ****ing centre. Bang goes the point. One of the strengths of the book is the depth given to the government - the government itself isn't necessarily evil and corrupt (Susan, for example, is doing what he believes to be the best thing for Britain at the fag-end of a nuclear war), just a lot of the people in it happen to be evil and corrupt. The film turned everyone, everyone into a cardboard cut-out, goodies and baddies.

Source for Moore's reasons being the "eggy in the basket" thing? As opposed to, y'know, being the ones he stated?

angloconvoy · Post by **angloconvoy** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 5:18 pm

Originally posted by Halfshell
It certainly bastardises the concept in no worse a way than Constantine did.

Will you please have the decency to pretend that never happened. The bastardisation of why he gave the devil the bird, the I was cursed with ****ty powers, the utter utter bollocks of ending it with a huge ****ing smoking kills warning.

V for Vendetta was an average yet entertaining in its own way film that completely missed the point. I totally see moore's point, but they probably could't have come up with anything nearly as entertaining on their own. Mostly because they spaffed out all their talent on a short horror story they wrote for a comic in the early 90s.

Halfshell · Post by **Halfshell** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 5:22 pm

Originally posted by Cliffjumper
Thing is, it doesn't really get the story to them... So much of it's missing.

Sorry, meant the basic gist. Okay, it messes up the ambiguity of it, but in terms of "decent Thursday evening entertainment" it's got some workable political messages. Subtletly albeit not amongst them.

EDIT: 300, which I finally saw on the weekend, is much more fun, simply because it's a story that lends itself to Stupiding Up.

I recently heard somebody accuse 300 of being homoerotic rubbish, full of oiled up men wrestling each other. My response was "Greeks? Homoerotic? Never. Where are they wrestling each other, then?"

He shut up.

300 is big shallow melodramatic fascist violence. Which is funny when you consider the source is by Frank Miller. It works in a manner far better than Sin City did. Mostly because the connecting vignette formula of the latter only served to illustrate how few tricks Miller actually has.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 5:22 pm

Originally posted by Cliffjumper

Source for Moore's reasons being the "eggy in the basket" thing? As opposed to, y'know, being the ones he stated?

http://www.alanmoorefansite.com/archives.html

Alan gave some details about bits of the V For Vendetta shooting script he'd seen. "It was imbecilic; it had plot holes you couldn't have got away with in Whizzer And Chips in the nineteen sixties. Plot holes no one had noticed."

What Moore found most laughable however were the details. "They don't know what British people have for breakfast, they couldn't be bothered. 'Eggy in a basket' apparently. Now the US have 'eggs in a basket,' which is fried bread with a fried egg in a hole in the middle. I guess they thought we must eat that as well, and thought 'eggy in a basket' was a quaint and Olde Worlde version. And they decided that the British postal service is called Fedco. They'll have thought something like, 'well, what's a British version of FedEx... how about FedCo? A friend of mine had to point out to them that the Fed, in FedEx comes from 'Federal Express.' America is a federal republic, Britain is not."

Odd, I recall the quotes I read at the time clearly saying that the Eggy thing was as far as he read in the script and that was what made him chuck it away and declare it a travesty. The memory cheats...

EDIT: And is there anything in the film to say Britain isn't supposed to be a Federal Republic by that stage (I know the comic has a few references to the Royals but can't remember if they're in the film). Or even that a private postage firm just used what they thought was a cool name...

secretcode · Post by **secretcode** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 5:37 pm

My key complaint for the movie is one that also ruined several other movies for me...

Natalie Portman's mannequin acting.

She f***ed up Garden State, Star Wars, and now one of the best comics in history.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 5:37 pm

EDIT: @ Dalek: Indeed. Hardly "based entirely", though there's a nice bit of couching from the writer to set it up that way.

I get that there are whole swathes of reasons why the film couldn't be like the book, ranging from the Wachowskis being spectacularly untalented wankstains whose talent ran out after they got a special effect in the mainstream before anyone else, to the need to make the thing current and street (LOL BUSH IS TEH SUXXOR!!!!). Doesn't really excuse the thing, though. No-one put a gun to the nerds' heads and said "make us a really bad film of V for Vendetta, missing as many points as possible and ****ing with every single character along the way".

EDIT: The biggest strength of 300, IMO, was that the existance of the comic was merely a conduit to allow someone to make a fun, OTT film of the Battle of Thermopylae without having to resort to the usual po-faced period drama take on these things, and the same old tired Derek Jacobi-stylee farts that come with that.

Halfshell · Post by **Halfshell** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 5:42 pm

Originally posted by Maju Garzett
Natalie Portman's mannequin acting.

She f***ed up Garden State, Star Wars, and now one of the best comics in history.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 5:48 pm

For me, the heart of the comic was the torture/letter sequence, that making it through pretty much unaltered kept the core as far as I was concerned.

Does 300 have anything going for it bar two hours of fights? I was a bit non plussed by the trailers.

angloconvoy · Post by **angloconvoy** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 5:55 pm

Originally posted by Maju Garzett

Natalie Portman....

She f***ed up.... Star Wars....

Yes, she ****ed it up. Erm, didn't you ntice the absolutely wooden acting from several notably reasonable actors? It was more to do with the script and directing that made for bad films.

Originally posted by inflatable dalek Does 300 have anything going for it bar two hours of fights?

Does it really need anything else? Its a silly movie that walks a fantastically fine line between the manliest movies ever made and the most homoerotic. All without any real plot.

Halfshell · Post by **Halfshell** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 5:59 pm

300's awesome so long as you don't allow yourself to think about it on any level whatsoever.

angloconvoy · Post by **angloconvoy** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 6:01 pm

Originally posted by Halfshell
300's awesome so long as you don't allow yourself to think about it on any level whatsoever.

originally posted by some foolIts a silly movie that walks a fantastically fine line between the manliest movies ever made and the most homoerotic.

Basically the same thing ne?

Halfshell · Post by **Halfshell** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 6:04 pm

Shouldn't you be in bed or something?

Jetfire · Post by **Jetfire** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 6:08 pm

Frank Millar stories are alwasy basically about warriors who could and shoul have lived in previous centures. 300 is great fun because it is basically those same warriors in their element. The film just tells the story Frank Millar style with no pretensions excluding the random monsters who added to the fun.

angloconvoy · Post by **angloconvoy** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 6:10 pm

Originally posted by Halfshell
Shouldn't you be in bed or something?

Yes, but I just got back from the pub.