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."

Comments

[Eric the .5b]

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. 🙂

[SP]

Well, how about that. A movie about Kid Rock!

[Ken Shultz]

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.

[zach]

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]

Did anyone see Penn & Teller call for the violent overthrow of the Gov't on Bullshit! last night?

[Ken Shultz]

I saw it Jeff, and they said their call was covered by the First Amendment too!

...I love those guys!

[Dogzilla]

If only it were true. They will defecate on us and we will love them for it.

[Number 6]

People will simply take it as an endorsement of the Patriot Act; i.e.: the citizens are dangerous.

[Anonopotomus]

Only if said people are retarded.

[chthus]

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.

[zach]

not necessarily. said crew might be entranced by the all-wise brits.

[Jeff]

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

[SR]

"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....

[Brian Courts]

Any word on whether it'll still be set in Britain?

Yes, the movie is set in Britain.

[Jeff]

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.

[dhex]

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]

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."

[Anon]

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]

Doesn't matter how awful that movie is. The poster is classic.

[Nathan]

I'm still waiting for the D.R. and Quinch movie.

"Mind the oranges Marlon!"

[Jeff]

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]

"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.

[Stevo Darkly]

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.

[XMan]

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]

...he said while scraping the blood of untold dead Chinese off the Yuan he was stuffing into his pocket...

[Jeff]

OF COURSE they'll mess up V! It's Hollywood. They can't NOT mess up.

[zach]

batman was pretty good.

[Lowdog]

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...

[David]

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.

[Lowdog]

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.)

[zach]

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]

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.

[mediageek]

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.

[David]

Jeff,

What was wrong with X-men? It's hardly The Godfather but still.

[Penry]

mediageek - What makes you think Moore approves of Ozymandias's plan for world peace?

[mediageek]

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.

[Number 6]

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.

[Number 6]

There should have been a question mark at the end of that first sentence.

[Jeff]

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.

[zach]

jesus number 6, you've gotta be kidding me! i mean, look at the picture!! that guy's got fuckin knives!!

[Jeff]

And a cool hat!

[Number 6]

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.

[mediageek]

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.

[mediageek]

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.

[David]

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]

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.

[zach]

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...

[Jennifer]

David-
Jeff and I don't watch Justice League on Saturdays. Ain't recordin' technology somethin'?

[mediageek]

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.

[mediageek]

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.

[David]

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."

[Shem]

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.

[Jennifer]

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.

[Number 6]

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.

[mediageek]

Shem-

Just checked my copy of "Watchmen" and didn't see anything like that at all. Perhaps there are different versions?

[Shem]

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.

[kevrob]

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

[Benaiah]

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.

[zach]

number 6, you're right. he definitely should have gone with an M16.

[SR]

"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.

[Herman]

At least we can all relax, knowing that The Watchmen movie is dead for now.

[Captain America]

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]

Why in the fark is a guy in the future dressed like Zorro? Where's his fashion sense?

[Stevo Darkly]

"Being in love means never having to say you're Zorro." (I think I stole that from a Mark Steyn review of Batman Begins.)

[Benaiah]

Fashion is all cyclical. If bell bottoms can come back in style than surely 15th century masquerade ball outfits are the next big thing.

[Eric the .5b]

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.