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From the Shadow Gallery
Reader David Macharelli notes that movie posters for the forthcoming V for Vendetta (based on Alan Moore's classic anarchist graphic novel) are out, with the tagline: "People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."
|6.28.05 @ 2:37PM|#
Have we come far enough in the last ten or so years that such a
tagline won't be decried as crazy dangerous,
right-wing-nuttery?
Nah. :)
|6.28.05 @ 2:44PM|#
I hate to admit I've looked forward to anything comin' out of Hollywood, but I have to admit I've been lookin' forward to this film.
|6.28.05 @ 2:45PM|#
it will be declared simultaneously as crazy dangerous,
right-wing-nuttery, and crazy dangerous, left-wing-nuttery.
don't think about that too much. just accept it and move on.
Jeff|6.28.05 @ 2:59PM|#
Did anyone see Penn & Teller call for the violent overthrow of the Gov't on Bullshit! last night?
|6.28.05 @ 3:01PM|#
I saw it Jeff, and they said their call was covered by the First
Amendment too!
...I love those guys!
|6.28.05 @ 3:16PM|#
People will simply take it as an endorsement of the Patriot Act; i.e.: the citizens are dangerous.
|6.28.05 @ 3:19PM|#
Any word on whether it'll still be set in Britain? Or will they Constantine it up for us? That would probably help it sell better with the Bush=Hitler crew.
Jeff|6.28.05 @ 3:27PM|#
SPOILERS AHEAD
By the way, the climax of the movie features an entire mob of
protesters dressed as V. This is, of course, stupid.
http://www.shadowgalaxy.net/Vendetta/trafalgar_jennings.html
|6.28.05 @ 3:29PM|#
"Any word on whether it'll still be set in Britain?"
From the synopsis on the website:
Set against the futuristic landscape of totalitarian
Britain....
|6.28.05 @ 3:29PM|#
Any word on whether it'll still be set in
Britain?
Yes, the movie is set in Britain.
Jeff|6.28.05 @ 3:31PM|#
I also love how the poster says the story is an "uncompromising
vision of the future."
The comic, written in the early 1980s, takes place in 1996.
As for where on the political spectrum this story falls: Alan Moore
(who's a bit to the left) set the Totalitarian England up as a
result of a Labor victory in 1990.
|6.28.05 @ 3:45PM|#
via wikipedia:
"Alan Moore has explicitly disassociated himself from the movie
adaption of his graphic novel, and ended cooperation with his
publisher DC Comics after it failed to have retracted what Moore
called "blatant lies" about his supposed endorsement of the movie
in a Joel Silver press release. Moore also described the shooting
script for the movie he had seen as: "[...] 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.""
norbizness|6.28.05 @ 3:46PM|#
On a purely marketing level, I don't think "from the makers of The Matrix trilogy" has the same punch as "from the makers of the original Matrix movie, because the other two blew chunks."
|6.28.05 @ 3:54PM|#
Anyone know when the Whizzer and Chips movie is coming out? The
whole Clive Owen/Jude Law casting was a real coup.
Anon
The Wine Commonsewer|6.28.05 @ 3:58PM|#
Doesn't matter how awful that movie is. The poster is classic.
Jeff|6.28.05 @ 4:27PM|#
DR & Quinch! Yes!
Anyone who's watched this season of Justice League Unlimited have
seen the U.S. Government wage a secret war against Superman &
Co. out of fear.
Shannon Love|6.28.05 @ 4:45PM|#
"Governments should be afraid of their people."
Fear of the people is at the heart of all authoritarian regimes.
They invest enormous energies into keeping the people divided and
afraid lest they act in concert and destroy the regime. All peoples
everywhere and at all times have always had the power to destroy
the government du jour if they acted in concert. Most of the kings
and emperors of old feared the mobile vulgus more than
they feared any external threat. Only with the evolution of
democracy did we get governments that were largely no longer
concerned with popular uprisings.
|6.28.05 @ 4:47PM|#
Something rang a bell ...
I would like to say something to the paramilitary groups and to
others who believe the greatest threat to America comes not from
terrorists from within our country or beyond our borders, but from
our own government....
I am well aware that most of you have never violated the law of the
land... But I also know there have been law-breakers among those
who espouse your philosophy...
Do people who work for the government sometimes make mistakes? Of
course they do. They are human. Almost every American has some
experience with this -- a rude tax collector, an arbitrary
regulator, an insensitive social worker, an abusive law officer. As
long as human beings make up our government there will be mistakes.
But our Constitution was established by Americans determined to
limit those abuses...
Freedom of political speech will never justify
violence--never...
If you say that government is in a conspiracy to take your freedom
away, you are just plain wrong...
How dare you suggest that we in the freest nation on Earth live in
tyranny. How dare you call yourselves patriots and heroes.
I say to you, all of you, the members of the Class of 1995, there
is nothing patriotic about hating your country, or pretending that
you can love your country but despise your government.
-- William J. Clinton, commencement address, Michigan State
So everybody settle down, right now.
|6.28.05 @ 4:49PM|#
If they mess this up I'll never forgive them.
If they mess "Watchmen" up I'll never forgive them.
If they mess "Ghost Rider" up ... don't really care about that
one.
The sad thing is "V for Vendetta" has the sort of linear structure
and dramatic content that would lend itself well to a film or
miniseries.
Jeff|6.28.05 @ 4:50PM|#
...he said while scraping the blood of untold dead Chinese off the Yuan he was stuffing into his pocket...
|6.28.05 @ 4:58PM|#
Shannon - I would submit that our government does fear us, and
tries to keep us divided. It's also why some drugs are illegal,
many folks like gun bans, and dissenting speach is now considered
'traitorous'. On top of that is a huge amount of greed and power
lust, or maybe that's what it is that drives the fear of us (ie,
the people, the royal we, not libertarians) by those in power.
Sometimes it's hard to figure which came first.
Yes, I sound all paranoid and conspiratorial, but if the shoe
fits...
|6.28.05 @ 5:00PM|#
XMan,
It'll be screwed up. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
comic was a fool-proof storyboarded script for a movie and look how
that turned out. The From Hell comic was told mostly from
Jack the Ripper's perspective, but it was turned into a remake of
the Michael Caine miniseries(for all practical purposes).
Of course, I'll see it anyway.
|6.28.05 @ 5:02PM|#
Oh, V for Vendetta is the topic. Don't know much about it, but I
love the little bit of Alan Moore that I have read.
I also agree with zach that Batman was pretty good, but look at how
many attempts Hollywood had to make to get it that way. (Actually,
the 'first' Batman with Michael Keaton wasn't half bad, and the
second with DeVito as the Penguin wasn't terrible, but I think this
new one is the best one yet.)
|6.28.05 @ 5:07PM|#
really you could make a case that it took hollywood getting "x-men" and "spider-man" right to get "batman" right. the old batman movies were riding the "superman" wave, and well, yeah.
Jeff|6.28.05 @ 5:11PM|#
There should be an implied difference between comic movies and
superhero movies. The styles used for X-Men and Spiderman (which
were both horrible) cannot be used for V.
Funny how even after Ghost World, American Splendor, and Road to
Perdition, the discussion of comic movies inevitably leads back to
Xmen. Sigh.
|6.28.05 @ 5:13PM|#
With regard to Alan Moore, I recently picked up 'The Watchmen'
after it came up in a thread here.
Still not sure what to think. Good characters, fantastic take on
super heroes, engaging story, but Moore's whole "it's ok to kill a
few million people and deceive the rest in order to save the world"
just really gives me the willies.
|6.28.05 @ 5:21PM|#
mediageek - What makes you think Moore approves of Ozymandias's plan for world peace?
|6.28.05 @ 5:22PM|#
Jeff, that's because most people don't realize that those movies
are based on comic books/graphic novels.
Everyone and their pet lemur has probably read at least one
Spiderman/Xmen/Hulk/Superman/Spawn/etc. comic book. Superhero books
are the bread and butter of the industry, so its no small wonder
that any discussion outside of the comic subculture is going to
play in broad strokes.
/stating the obvious, I know.
|6.28.05 @ 5:33PM|#
For fuck's sake, why would the government fear the people. Provide them with bread and circus, the occasional war, and a lot of talk about patriotism, and they'll roll over and beg for whatever the government wants to do.
Jeff|6.28.05 @ 5:35PM|#
Mediageek, each of those films was promoted HEAVILY as a comic
book movie. Hell, look at Sin City's promotion machine.
As for the bread & butter: there are more and better selling
non-superhero books now than anytime since WWII.
(Warren Ellis once noted that stories of guys in tights and girls
with unnaturally large breasts pounding on each other are
considered "mainstream" comics, whereas in any other medium it
would be the exact opposite of mainstream.
David: X-Men was terrible. First off, Prof. X is out of commission
for the third act of both films. I want his giant translucent head
floating over the team like in the early books! Secondly, the
movies are pointless, especially the second one, which actually
beats out Buckaroo Banzai for the most footage of people running up
and down corridors in a single film.
After watching the Justice League cartoon and marveling at the
tight character-rich scripts, the Marvel films dwell down with the
Power Rangers.
|6.28.05 @ 5:46PM|#
jesus number 6, you've gotta be kidding me! i mean, look at the picture!! that guy's got fuckin knives!!
|6.28.05 @ 5:49PM|#
Zach-I was talking about the polloi, not the dude with the knives. Really, though, if you're going to use two blades, it's better to have one long-range one and one short. Or at least hold one in the traditional grip. That double-icepick grip thing is a bit silly.
|6.28.05 @ 5:58PM|#
What makes you think Moore approves of Ozymandias's plan for
world peace?
Just the way it was presented, I suppose. The only character who
really seems to put up a fuss about Ozymandias' scheme is Rorshach
who, after having been shown to be a hateful looney through whole
story arc, is then uncerimoniously vaporized by Dr. Manhattan.
|6.28.05 @ 6:00PM|#
Sorry for the immediate follow-up post-
The other thing would also be the way in which the world is
portrayed after Ozymandias plan goes into effect. All hostilities
cease, and the world is a better place. The epilogue is nearly
utopian in it's portrayal of the post-"invasion" world.
|6.28.05 @ 6:01PM|#
To me the mask is the scarist part of the costume. That thing's
creepy.
Jeff, How do you find time to see Justice League Unlimited?
Saturday at 8:30 is a terrible time for a cartoon geared toward
adult(sort of) viewers.
Fred|6.28.05 @ 6:03PM|#
Come now, the tagline's going to cause a lot less controversy than the fact that the climax of the film involves blowing up Parliament. The suckage quotient on this one is going to be relatively high. It would help if Alan Moore was willing to involve himself in these projects, but he has clearly stated that he doesn't want to be involved, so as to keep the original comics untouched:
As long as I could distance myself by not seeing them, enough to keep them separate, take the option money, I could be assured no one would confuse the two. This was probably naive on my part.
|6.28.05 @ 6:07PM|#
number 6, been reading a bit of musashi, eh? considering the daggers he's got, icepick is clearly the way to go. quick, let's try to take this as far off-topic as possible...
|6.28.05 @ 6:09PM|#
David-
Jeff and I don't watch Justice League on Saturdays. Ain't recordin'
technology somethin'?
|6.28.05 @ 6:19PM|#
Jeff-
I've not been into comics for at least several years, but I wasn't
aware that Road to Perdition was comic based until well after it's
release on video. I'm only vaguely aware of Ghost World, and have
never heard of American Splendor.
Were I to get back into reading comics, I'd probably find much more
enjoyment out of non-superhero books, but that doesn't change the
fact that superhero books have a head start of several
decades.
Sin City, though, was hella cool.
|6.28.05 @ 6:20PM|#
It would help if Alan Moore was willing to involve himself
in these projects, but he has clearly stated that he doesn't want
to be involved, so as to keep the original comics
untouched:
Concur. Frank Miller worked very closely with Robert Rodriguez on
Sin City, and the result is probably one of the most spectacular
movies of the last decade.
|6.28.05 @ 6:28PM|#
Jennifer,
I probably should program the VCR, but I don't seem to have any
short-term memory anymore. Every week it's the same deal. I come
home and say "I forgot to tape the Justice League again."
|6.28.05 @ 6:30PM|#
The other thing would also be the way in which the world is
portrayed after Ozymandias plan goes into effect. All hostilities
cease, and the world is a better place.
What are you talking about? The last panel of the comic shows a
Soviet-style propaganda poster that encourages people to rat out
any of their neighbors who aren't thrilled with the new
Russo-American pact. It's clear that nothing has really changed;
the government has just traded one excuse to subjugate and murder
people for an entirely new one.
|6.28.05 @ 6:47PM|#
David-
When I have trouble figuring out the VCR, I just put a six-hour
tape into the deck and hit "record." This drives Jeff crazy.
|6.28.05 @ 10:59PM|#
Zach-It's been a while since I picked up the Book of Five Rings, but I am a (mediocre) student of a martial arts system that emphasizes blade work. It just seems odd to me to use two daggers, much less two in an icepick grip. Still looks badass, though.
|6.28.05 @ 11:47PM|#
Shem-
Just checked my copy of "Watchmen" and didn't see anything like
that at all. Perhaps there are different versions?
|6.29.05 @ 12:19AM|#
I was mistaken, the poster doesn't say that. Despite this, I still don't see it as enthusiastically supporting the action. Look at the 5 people who know the truth by the end. Nite Owl and Silk Spectre hardly established themselves as paragons of morality or intelligent thought, and they were the ones who accepted it easily. Dr. Manhattan, despite being the one to kill Rorschach, is still convinced that nothing Ozymandias has done will change anything permanently. Even Ozymandias himself seems to have second thoughts. And, the city is, in many ways, still an ugly hole. The only thing that was different was a diner that sold burgers and borscht and a Tarkovsky double feature. For an action that was supposed to bring on a Utopia, not much changed.
|6.29.05 @ 1:05AM|#
To establish my comic geek cred: I bought Warrior at
the comics shop as it came out, so I must have read my first
V installment 20+ years ago. Of course his mask is creepy.
V is masquerading as Guy Fawkes. That said, of course Westminster
must go kaboom!
D.R. and Quinch were just
O.C. and Stiggs in alien drag.
Rorschach may be a looney, but he isn't hateful, at least not of
ordinary people going about their daily lives. Does he hate
criminals and people who treat them as pawns to be sacrificed?
Yeah, but then, so do I.
Rorschach is the hero!
Kevin
|6.29.05 @ 2:55AM|#
I think that all of the heroes realized they were too late to do anything so they might as well not ruin everything after all those people died. Also, blowing up Parliment happens in the first five minutes, hardly the climax. V is an amazing story, but the ending is so anti Hollywood that there is no chance it will go as it should.
|6.29.05 @ 9:46AM|#
"blowing up Parliment happens in the first five minutes, hardly
the climax."
He was presumably thinking of the scene in which 10 Downing Street
is blown up.
|6.29.05 @ 11:27AM|#
Rorschach is the hero!
For those who don't know, Rorschach was modeled on writer/artist
Steve Ditko's quasi-libertarian character "The Question."
So, of course Rorschach is the hero.
My favorite line from the book:
"I'm not locked up in here with YOU, you're locked up in here with
ME."
-- Rorschach
Peenie Wallie|6.29.05 @ 1:05PM|#
Why in the fark is a guy in the future dressed like Zorro? Where's his fashion sense?
|6.29.05 @ 1:43PM|#
"Being in love means never having to say you're Zorro." (I think I stole that from a Mark Steyn review of Batman Begins.)
|6.29.05 @ 3:27PM|#
Fashion is all cyclical. If bell bottoms can come back in style than surely 15th century masquerade ball outfits are the next big thing.
|6.30.05 @ 2:30AM|#
WRT Ozymandias' plot:
For an action that was supposed to bring on a Utopia, not much
changed.
It wasn't supposed to bring Utopia, it was supposed to "save the
world". And the last page hints that it may not succeed, though a
right-wing alt-rag printing someone's rambling journal doesn't
strike me as something that would expose the big plot, just provide
grist for the conspiracists.
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