I remember going to the cinematic theater here in Fabulous Marshall, Minnesota when the film version of
V for Vendetta came out. I really enjoyed the film. At the time that I saw it, I really wasn't that familiar with the writings of Alan Moore or with his tendency to distance himself from movies made based on his books. When I
did find out about the man and his distaste for the filmic incarnations of his stories, I thought to myself, "Well, that makes sense for something like
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but
V for Vendetta was actually good. What gives?"
Then I read the comics. I still didn't get what Moore was fussing about. Then I read the comics carefully, keeping an eye out for themes and so forth. That's when, finally, I understood. There are tons of nit-picky things that I can focus on between the film and the book as far as differences go and what works better and what doesn't and on and on and on, but those little things aren't what really separate these two incarnations. What it gets down to is a mind set.
The Wachowski brothers, in writing the screenplay, made changes to the story so that it could appeal to a broader (read American) audience. In an interview, Alan Moore cited this specific change in mentality as the biggest flaw in the film. A quote from Mr. Moore: "[The movie] has been turned into a Bush-era parable by people too timid to set a political satire in their own country… It's a thwarted and frustrated and largely impotent American liberal fantasy of someone with American liberal values standing up against a state run by neoconservatives—which is not what
the comic
V for Vendetta was about. It was about fascism, it was about anarchy, it was about England."
Even more than that,
V for Vendetta is about consequences, something that the film lacked. In the comics, V's tendency to kill people resulted in widows. Moore dedicated numerous heartbreaking pages to one of those widows in particular: Rose Almond. Naturally, neither she nor her husband appear in the movie. The Wachowskis wanted V to be the unerring hero, not a terrorist whose actions hurt people that don't deserve it just as much as those who do. Removing the consequences from the proceedings robs the audience of an opportunity to think. V becomes a white-hatted do-gooder instead of an antihero coated in gray. A story about anarchy, fascism and the similarities and differences that join the two becomes an action flick from the guys who brought you
Speed Racer and
The Matrix: Revolutions.
Now, I've been pretty hard on the movie thus far, but I want to be clear about something. Taken on its own, it is a pretty entertaining little movie. I didn't notice many of the flaws in the film until I encountered the source material. So I'm not going to say it is a bad film. What makes me hate it (and I do hate it now) is knowing what it could have been. It is deeply frustrating to look at characters like V, Evey, Eric Finch, Gordon Dietrich, and Adam Susan (Sutler in the movie for some reason) who I know to be complex and thought provoking and see them reduced to the hero, the sidekick, the cop, the comic relief, and the bad guy. It's just such a waste.
V for Vendetta (the book): 4.5 out of 5 skulls
V for Vendetta (the film): 2.5 out of 5 skulls
This post: 3.5 out of 5 skulls
There are two things I love in this world: the tragically comic and the comically tragic. Like FDR and that weird torch thing, they are two sides of the same coin. Occasionally we are lucky enough to find both at once. I found them on facade of Murray's Steakhouse. 
