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 5th 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.
