V FOR VENDETTA (Movie): Is It Deep or Dumb?

V for Vendetta: Is there some depth behind that mask?
We stand in solidarity with protesters across the United States and around the world who seek justice for the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and the long list of victims who have suffered from our culture of police brutality, institutional racism, and white supremacy.

We are donating what we can to the Black Lives Matter movement and Campaign Zero in our effort to support those leading the fight for permanent change.

We urge all of our viewers to join us. Thank you.

V for Vendetta is yet another adaptation of a beloved Alan Moore graphic novel — and he hates it. Is there depth to this alliterative film, or is Alan Moore right? Let's find out in this Wisecrack Edition on V for Vendetta: Deep or Dumb?

=== Watch More Episodes! ===

Written by: Ross McIndoe
Hosted by: Jared Bauer
Directed by: Michael Luxemburg
Wisecrack Edition Title by: RIley A.
Editing by: Brian M Kim
Produced by: Evan Yee



© 2020 Wisecrack / Omnia Media, Inc.

[tobymaxis]

Jared: "Timing can be weird"
V: "There are no coincidences, only the illusion of coincidence"

[briankivuti]

This graphic novel is so ripe for a mini-series, where they can bridge the gaps in the film. Come on HBO give us a V for Vendetta mini-series!

[jaketylersimon]

Are we not going to talk about how accurate the whole riot and virus prediction was

[mrheisenberg]

I know the graphic novel is waaaay better than the movie but that movie ending gives me goosebumps every time. The way the masked people just move as one, silent and with purpose. The music. Man, I love that ending.

[leovk]

"God is in the rain."

I'm from northern France, a region famously mocked for it's constant raining. We're kinda the UK of France in term of weather.
Or at least we used to be. When I was a child in the nineties, there was snow almost every winter. Lots and lots of snow that held for weeks.
Now it's rare when there is snow in plains, and here in the North it's almost only plains. And where there is, it almost never hold more than a day.

Two days ago, when this review came out, I watched V for Vendetta again in the evening. There has been a slight drought in northern France (and in a large part of France really), like there has been almost every year for a decade, but this year it was earlier than usual. But at last, two days ago, it started raining. Pouring, really. That was nice.

[SimonVelazquez]

Just now realizing that "Sutler" is a portmanteau of "Susan" and "Hitler"

[rashkavar]

A couple of things you're brushing over:
Norsefire does have a complex character: the detective. He attends the inner circle meetings. His slow turn away from the party in favor of the revolution is the kind of thing it takes to build a 3d character, and it's honestly, he's more of a viewpoint character than V is. There's also the doctor, who, while not given a *lot* of depth and backstory, shows clear signs of humanity and remorse over her part in things.
V isn't all charm, he puts it on. And you apparently bought it just as much as Evey does. Consider what he does from what information he has at the time. He manipulates *thousands* of people to dressing up in identical masks and has them storm the grounds of parliament, against the army of a far right nation that has violently suppressed protests in the past. He has no way of knowing that the general in charge of that force is going to stand down. Hell, he's even got them all in identical masks, and outfits - robbing them of the human individuality that makes shooting actual humans harder than shooting human-shaped silhouettes at a target range. He uses Evey in his revenge plot to take out a priest - a man who has no strategic value for stopping the Norsefire government...hell, a man whose murder could well have turned public opinion against him (murdering "holy men" tends to be frowned upon by adherents to that religion). He then kidnaps Evey from the place she fled to and tortures her for *days*. V is not a good person, he's a manipulative bastard whose plans worked out well for him. (And Evey's got a massive case of Stockholm Syndrome, which the audience kinda gets as she's the main audience viewpoint.)

You can't take a 3 book series and turn it into a 2 hour movie without losing a lot of the nuance. The movie has a summary of the core plot. It gives a satisfying movie ending because it's a movie, not a book. It's honestly the best a movie adaptation could be expected to do. A 1:1 translation into film would take a full season of TV episodes, at least.

[DeadEndFrog]

"i didn't know freedom meant people doing things that suck"

[Writer]

This movie was so formative to me - it blew my teenaged mind. That ending scene where everyone takes off their masks and we see the faces of the dead, symbolizing the triumph of the people who rose up against the regime because their ideas lived on? I cried every time

[colorado]

It's like that Solzhenitsyn quote: "If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being." Jared successfully points out how the graphic novel was more nuanced, while the movie is more like an anarchistic Batman movie.

[kolinmartz]

Thinking about the graphic novel version of V: “Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.”

[Moeller]

Honestly, wasn't any major screen adaptation of an Alan Moore graphic novel doomed to be de-fanged?

[SimonVelazquez]

Looking forward to HBO turning it into an 8-part miniseries in 2-3 years.

[wolfen]

I read the graphic novel over the summer, and I think the movie change to his speech over the television was genius. It made for a much better flow and got the idea over more clearly (in my opinion). Plus the movie clocked in at over two hours, so yes, if they want to be more true to the novel it will require a mini-series.

[maybeitsceline]

"do we want an inspiring story about good triumphing over evil, or are we ready to take a harsh look at where that evil comes from in the first place?"

[skyline]

Deep > Dumb. This movie is great, and stands next to the dark knight as one of the best comic book to movie adaptions.

[ocek]

One thing I'd like to point out is that Anarchism is not the opposite of order, Anarchism is the opposite of Hierarchy.

Anarchic societies can be highly ordered, but they lack the strong authoritarian castes.

[scottk]

Less of a "deep or dumb" video and more of a "was it faithful to the source material" video.

[Kestas_X]

I think "good versus evil" is sadly a problematic way of thinking in real life

[OpenMind]

Hmmm.... Very interesting....
As a teenager I loved this movie, but now after hearing the diffence to the comics I would love to see a more nuanced version of the story.