Book Vs. Movie - V For Vendetta

   V For Vendetta is a 2006 thriller adapted from a 1988-9 graphic novel of the same name. Written by the critically-acclaimed author Alan Moore, the comic told the story of V, an anarchist revolutionary dressed as Guy Fawkes who plots to take down the fascist British government in a dystopian future (1997-8). The film has since become a cultural icon, the Guy Fawkes mask becoming a world-reknowned symbol of anti-government protest. But does the book offer anything more than the film? Why did V become so popular after the film's release, but not the book's? Let's find out.

   One thing you'll notice is that the movie's story has been changed up a fair bit from the book's, so for that reason I'm going to summarize the plots from both.

   First the book, which takes place in 1997/8. It is now approximately one decade after the USA and USSR blasted eachother to smithereens, rendering much of the world uninhabitable in the process. What remains of the United Kingdom is now a single-party fascist state ruled by the ruthless Norsefire Party. A 16 year-old girl named Evey is rescued from would-be rapist policemen (called “fingermen”) by the mysterious V, who then blows up the Houses of Parliament and takes Evey to his hideout, the Shadow Lair. Detective Eirc Finch is tasked with following the trail of bodies. V kills or incapacitates several people who, as Finch later learns, all worked at the Larkhill Resettlement Camp where V originated and that everyone who might have been able to identify him is now dead. Disgusted by V's show of violence, Evey leaves and moves in/sleeps with a much older man named Gordon. When Gordon is murdered by gangsters (under Ally Harper) months later, she plans on getting violent revenge, but is captured and imprisoned before she can carry it out. Evey then undergoes several weeks of torture and starvation, yet she refuses to give up information on V's identity or whereabouts even when threatened with execution. But instead of being executed, Evey is set free only to discover that her imprisonment was a hoax devised by V so that she could share in the experience that shaped him. Evey forgives V, who then reveals that he has hacked into Fate – the government's near-omniscient supercomputer system – and is using it to manipulate the supreme Leader Adam Susan into a fragile state of mind. V soon blows up 3 more government buildings, effectively cutting off the party's surveillance abilities. The fingermen – led by Peter Creedy – and his associated gangs (again, under Harper) try to suppress the revolutionary fervour erupting in the streets. Meanwhile, Finch correctly deduces the Shadow Gallery's location, taking V by surprise. After a brief scuffle both are wounded, V mortally so. V makes his way to Evey and dies in her arms. Meanwhile Adam Susan is shot during a parade, just as Creedy hoped. Creedy assumes emergency leadership of the country. The resulting power struggle between the remaining high officials results in all of their deaths. Disillusioned, Finch quits his job. Evey, dressed as V, appears before a crowd to incite a general insurrection. Using an underground train containing V's body and tons of explosives, she then blows up 10 Downing Street.

   And now for the movie. This story takes place in the 2020's in a world where the US is devastated by a Second Civil War and Europe is ravaged by the “St. Mary's Virus”. The UK, which for the past few years has been untouched by the epidemic, is still ruled by the fascist Norsefire Party. V rescues Evey Hammond (who in this version works at the state-run television network [the BTN], not a munitions factory) from the Fingermen and together they watch the Old Bailey being blown up. The next day V hijacks a BTN broadcast to deliver a speech to the nation inviting everyone to join him at parliament on next year's Guy Fawkes Day. The police attempt to capture him, but Evey helps him escape and they both flee together to the Shadow Gallery where V tells Evey that she must stay one year. Just as he did in the book, V begins axing off his former camp associates. Evey offers to help him take out one, but uses the opportunity to escape to the house of her boss, the talk show host Gordon Deitrich. As a show of trust, Gordon shows Evey his basement of subversive materials. Soon thereafter, Gordon does a sketch on his show lampooning the government and its High Chancellor (not Leader). This leads to Creedy and the police raiding his home and arresting him. Evey tries to escape, but is captured and imprisoned. Her imprisonment scenes mirror those of the book exactly. The difference is that once Evey forgives V, she still decides to leave him, yet promises to return before 5 November. Meanwhile, detective Finch learns of V's origins at Larkhill, in the bioweapons program detention centre. Following the trail, Finch meets a man named William Rockwood who explains to him that the program – which was directed by the now-current High Chancellor – was used to create the St. Mary's virus. This virus was released upon the British population as a false terrorist attack (similar to the Reichstag Fire), killing tens of thousands and allowing the Norsefire Party to sweep into power. (The cure was released soon after the election by a pharmecutical company owned by the inner party members. And nobody noticed this?) Finch later learns that Rockwood was actually V (even though it was pretty obvious). As 5 November approaches, V mails thousands of Guy Fawkes masks to Londoners who begin questioning the Party's rule. V proposes a deal with Peter Creedy: he'll surrender if Creedy executes High Chancellor Sutler. The two meet. Creedy executes Sutler in front of V (suddenly and rather anti-climatically), but V refuses to surrender. A shootout occurs in which V kills Creedy and his men, but is mortally wounded. He makes his way to Evey, who has returned to the Shadow Gallery, and professes his love for her before dying in her arms. Finch discovers the lair just as Evey loads V's body onto the explosive-laden underground train, but he allows her to send the train on its way to Parliament. A large crowd of masked people (a rather cool-looking visual) converge on Parliament just in time to see it demolished.

   So yeah. Pretty different. Let's go over the methods by which the producers changed things. As with a lot of movie adaptations, the story was altered to give it a more actiony feel. The movie doesn't go as far with this as a lot of others do, but it's pretty clear that the escape from the BTN station scene and the scene where V kills Creedy were just added for thrills. But to be fair, I'd still consider this a “thriller” movie, so whatever.

   If you've read the comic, you'll definitely notice that there were characters left out of the movie. This includes Ally Harper, Dominic Stone, Derek and Rose Almond, and Conrad and Helen Heyer. Yeah, the comic had a ton of characters in it, and because of film's feature-length time constraints I think it was fair to expect that some of them would be jettisoned. With the possible exception of Rose Almond's story, I don't think the dropping of these characters was that big a loss.

   There are however many characters whose movie depictions are noticeably different than the book's. For example, the film version of Eric Finch seems to already be skeptical of the government's morality. Although he initially disbelieves the Norsefire plot to unleash the St. Mary's virus, it doesn't take much to change his mind later. Also, he chose to allow Evey to blow up the parliament buildings (effectively joining V's cause, taking the place of Stone in the comic) whereas in the book he remained loyal to the side of law and order. Even after his great epiphany moment, the comic book version of Finch still sought after V and tried to kill him. The main bad guy in the film is High Chancellor Adam Sutler instead of Leader Adam Susan. They changed it from Leader to Chancellor to make it sound like 1930's Germany and they changed his name to Sutler to make it sound like “Hitler”. Do you get it yet? Have they hammered it in enough for you? Whereas in the book the Leader was a solitary, depressed figure whose loneliness was manipulated by V through Fate (which is completely absent in the film, by the way), the film's version of the Leader is a total non-character. All he does in the movie is be grumpy, yell at his subordinates, and threaten them. And lastly, Gordon was completely changed from his depiction in the comics. Instead of a small-time bootlegger, he's now a talk show host who's also a closeted homosexual (which is a crime under this regime). This is one change that I actually like; since he and Evey already know eachother there's already a trust bond the audience can buy. Not to mention, the thought of a 40-something sleeping with a 16/17 year old girl ain't quite right. Also, I really like the scene showing Gordon's comedy sketch. It's a bit of good old fun, a rare moment where the movie doesn't take itself so seriously.

   As for Evey, she's a bit older, has a steady job, and is more confident and open to rebellious ways of thinking than she was in the book. The original portrayal of Evey showed her as a desperate and timid young woman who was being forced into prostitution. Also, the ending of the book has her taking up V's disguise and continuing his crusade. As for V, he seems a bit more romanticised than his comic book counterpart, who is ruthless and keeps you questioning whether or not he is truly a hero or villain. He also seems to use a lot more words with V in them. At least his voice sounds cool thanks to Hugo Weaving. The movie also played up the V-Evey relationship into a full blown romance, which was simply unnecessary if you ask me.

   One major change in the movie that rubbed me the wrong way was how Americanized it was. Instead of an anarchy vs. fascism conflict (i.e. criticizing Thatcher) we get liberalism vs. neoconservatism (i.e. criticizing Bush). (This would explain why there is far less rioting and chaos in the movie.) The Norsefire government of the movie doesn't appear to care about racial purity – in the book, they more or less exterminated Britain's black population – and instead are concerned with wiping out Islam. Likewise, the whole “the government initiated a crisis in order to give itself more power” sounds an awful lot like some 9/11 conspiracy theories. And more blatantly, it is implied that the movie's ongoing US Civil War is a result of the War on Terror. Now look, I'm all for updating old stories to make them more relevant to modern audiences, but in this case having Americans write and produce the update causes the story to lose its overall British character. Even the two lead characters are portrayed by American actors, for cryin' out loud!

   In fact, there are even moments where it seems the movie's story was dumbed down for American audiences. For example, the comic hardly ever mentions Guy Fawkes by name, but the film flat out explains who he is right in the opening (and continuously mentions him several times throughout). Also, whereas the book began with V blowing up parliament and ends with Evey blowing up 10 Downing Street, the movie begins with V blowing up the Old Bailey and ends with Evey blowing up parliament. Why'd they change this? Maybe because blowing up parliament would make for a more impressive finale... or because the filmmakers didn't think American audiences would know what 10 Downing Street is?

   Here's a few more change-ups I noticed, yet couldn't categorize anywhere else:

• Instead of traumatizing Lewis Prothero – a propaganda broadcaster – like he did in the comic, movie V just kills him.
• The use of Beethoven's 5^th Symphony is used in different scenes. In the comic it is played when V kills Bishop Lilliman. In the movie it is played when V breaks into Creedy's house and makes his proposition.
• The movie makes little mention of the “body part” ministries found in the book: the Nose (police), the Finger (secret police), the Ear and the Eye(surveillance), the Mouth (propaganda), and the Head (inner party/government)
• Neither the book nor the film show V's face. However the movie suggests that most of V's body is covered in ghastly burn scars, so one can assume that his face would be a big disfigured scab.

  And so that's V for Vendetta. As you can probably tell, I much prefer the book over the movie; it comes off as a more complete, thought-provoking, well-rounded, and realistic story. Nevertheless, the movie is enjoyable enough. It's a decent thriller that does a reasonable job of bringing its original tale to life. But if you haven't read the book, just be aware that you're doing yourself a big disservice.