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Rob Vary
English 15 - Section 25
Kem David Crimmins
Final Paper
1 May 2006
Sure, V for Vendetta is a great film, by itself; however, it fails in its attempt to be a great adaptation; moreover, The Wachowski Brothers failed in their attempt to adapt. As some, but not many, know, the film is based on a graphic novel of the same title written and illustrated by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, respectively, originally published in 1988. It’s quite the complex story, involving a man with a troubled past, dressed in a Guy Fawkes mask with a black cape, jumpsuit, and hat, who meets up with a young lady who ends up assisting him in completing his main objectives: satisfy his vendetta, and rid a not-too-distant-future England of its tyranny. This story is somewhat reflected in the film, but barely bears a resemblance to how it is reflected in the novel. This specific claim deserves discussion due to the latter part, about The Wachowski Brothers. By drawing evidence from past films, it will become quite evident that these two gentlemen are the main reason why V for Vendetta falls short of its novel predecessor. To some, this claim, as a whole, may seem fruitless, because when an author allows for his work to be made into a movie, he relinquishes all rights. This is most certainly true, but is irrelevant here. The claim at hand is merely about how these Wachowski Brothers handled this specific case and why it turned out the way it did.
To address the issue, the first item to understand is why filmmakers take novels and put them on the silver screen. While myriad reasons exist, the main one is clear: people, in general, would rather watch a movie than read a book. And for those who would rather read a book than watch a film, no matter the reason, you all do the same thing when you read – you picture it in your mind. You wonder what it would look like in real life. Well, since most novels’ storylines wouldn’t happen in real life, why not make a film of it in the surreal life? It should be clear why turning a novel into a film is, theoretically, a great idea. In many cases, however, it is quite risky. With anything, when someone takes another’s ideas and turns them to another media there is a certain level of respect that needs to be maintained. If your intention and claim is that your work is a different media version of somebody else’s, then you really shouldn’t change it too much. Doing so is basically an insult to the creator; it’s like saying, “Well, sure, yours is good, but I know how to make it better than you ever could.” One surefire way to overcome this obstacle is to have the creator as an integral part of your adaptation, such as the case is in both the Harry Potter series and Sin City. With regards to Harry Potter, it was stated in the credits that the author of the novels, J.K. Rowling, was a writer for the film version as well. This means she didn’t allow for the screenwriters to “muck up” her story or spoil things for the film versions of the novels in the rest of the series. With Sin City, the author of the graphic novel which the movie is based on, Frank Miller, was not only credited as a writer for the film, but also as an executive producer and co-director. This means on top of making sure the writing didn’t get all messed up, Frank Miller also was able to make sure the film got casted correctly, billed correctly, and portrayed accurately on screen. His presence is the sole reason that the film barely differed from the graphic novel. For nearly any work that is adapted from a novel and is accurate almost to a tee, the author had to have been involved with the screenplay integrally. In the situation with V for Vendetta, neither Alan Moore nor David Lloyd was involved at all according to the credits.
To really understand what the problem is here, the best place to start would of course be the beginning. According to the “V for Vendetta Shrine” website, Moore came up with the idea for the novel in the early eighties and finally completed the series in 1988, which was when it began publishing. Originally, the graphic novel was not a graphic novel at all; it was a series of comic books published in the UK in a magazine called Warrior from 1982-1985, when the magazine was cancelled. DC Comics republished Vendetta in the U.S. in 1988 in ten volumes, culminating with its final edition in 1989. While this story was still in the back of many people’s minds, it didn’t appear in another media format until late in the year 2000, when a Swedish company called Stockholms Blodbad produced a stage-version entitled “The-Land-of-Do-As-You-Please”, which is based off of the title of one of the volumes of Vendetta. It wasn’t until around this time when The Wachowski Brothers started thinking about doing a film-version. It wouldn’t happen until a bit later, mainly due to the other blockbuster films they were involved in (i.e. The Matrix series). But, finally, after a long while of delays and confusion, V for Vendetta was released in theaters on March 17, 2006. In the months leading up to the release, trailers for the film were being shown frequently. As most know, a trailer is designed to show highlights of the film to entice people to go and view it when it comes out. This trailer showed exactly what the movie would be: an action dram with subtle messages, action sequences, and outlandish special effects and pyrotechnics. This trailer, and consequently, the film, however, was not a “spot-on” adaptation from the novel. In fact, it falls quite short ("Media Section of the Shrine").
The novel has a very intricate, entangled, and exciting storyline. It is set in England, in a not-too-distant future. There has been a third World War and Africa and continental Europe are believed to have been destroyed by nuclear wars. This has led to a fascist government to form in England, lead by a high chancellor. The novel starts off with a small montage-like set of frames, showing the two lead characters. There is a girl, only 15, named Evey Hammond. Her parents were taken away at a young age and she has been fending for herself since. There is a curfew in effect, but Evey has turned to a last resort – prostitution. The other character, whose name is found out in a short while, is dressed with a vaudevillian-style Guy Fawkes mask, a black jumpsuit, like a robber would wear, a black cap, which resembles a witch’s cap with instead of a pointed top, a flat top, and a long, flowing, black cape. He has shoulder-length dark hair. He is equipped with several knives around his waist. He is also on his way outside. It cuts back to Evey in the next frame, who is approaching a man for the first time to ask him if he “wants her.” She has made a grave mistake; this man is a Fingerman, the new police of the fascist government. They are mostly corrupt and exact their own type of justice on the citizens. He gathers his other Fingermen and prepares to rape her; but then, out of nowhere, the masked figure appears, and quotes a line from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, “The multiplying villainies of nature do swarm upon him… and fortune on his damned quarrel, smiling, showed like a rebel’s whore. … But all’s too weak, for brave Macbeth… well he deserves that name… disdaining fortune, with his brandished steel… which smoked with bloody execution.” He then proceeds to attack the men, leaving one with a fake hand, and removes Evey from the situation. He uses a tear gas smokescreen and vanishes with her; the fake hand then explodes. Soon, it shows the figure on a rooftop with Evey. He recites a well-known nursery rhyme, “Remember, remember, the fifth of November, the gunpowder treason and plot. I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason…” In the next frame, just one frame, mind you, it shows the Houses of Parliament exploding, and he finishes the rhyme, “…should ever be forgot.”
From there, the story gets deeper and deeper. In this future England, there is a radio show broadcast all the time, everyday, called “The Voice of Fate.” A man named Lewis Prothero is this voice. This will be important. Now it shows Evey and this character whose name is unknown to her in the Shadow Gallery, the figure’s home. It contains much banned items in England, like a jukebox and countless books. In the next scene, Prothero is shown boarding a train. The figure appears, attacks Prothero’s guards, and kidnaps him. Now back at the gallery, the two share names, and she finds he wants her to call him ‘V’. She tells him that her parents were taken from her. She agrees to help him in whatever he is doing. Prothero is shown outside of a remade Larkhill Resettlement Camp. It is found out that he was a commander there, and that V was an inmate. These camps were set up all over England and took in people who were arrested by the government, for whatever reason (mostly homosexuals and activists), and has many drugs tested on them. V somehow reprogrammed Prothero, and now all he can do is say, “Ma-ma, ma-ma.” This is a message about Prothero’s doll collection and how he treated the people at this camp. The next scene has V in an intimate concentration with his old love – The Old Bailey’s Madam Justice. He has a long, imaginary conversation with this statue, and then it explodes in one frame.
The head detective in England, Mr. Finch, is on the case of this terrorist only known as V. The next killed is a bishop who was at this Larkhill place. Evey assists V by dressing up and going in as the bishops “girl” for the evening, and she opens the window for V. V leaves a rose behind at the murder scene. When the bishop is discovered, Finch notices the rose. Back at the station, a woman named Delia has just finished inspecting the bishop’s body, and Finch gives her the rose. When she goes home, she remembers it all, because she, too, was at Larkhill. Lo and behold, V is in her home later that night and she wakes up. He tells her he already killed her, injected her. He hands her another rose. When Finch figures out Delia is the next, and final, hit, he goes to her home and discovers she has a detailed diary of her life at Larkhill. Upon reading it, he discovers V was the person in room five at this camp. He was, as everyone else was, experimented on, but something different happened to him, he was becoming stronger. Eventually, they allowed him to have a garden, in which he initially grew vegetables, but soon grew the same roses that he left with each of his victims. He eventually tricked the place into giving him chemicals and things which he subsequently used to create a massive explosion and fire in the compound. He was seen exiting the building, but he had been on fire, and looked like a figure in black. So, now his vendetta was revealed. The next major part was another dialogue between V and Evey. They are seen dancing in the Shadow Gallery. V leads her outside, blindfolded. When her blindfold is removed, she sees he has let her free. In the next section, V enters the media center of England, Jordan Tower, and disposes of any and all guards. He gets to the control room, reveals dynamite around his waist, and demands a tape be played. This tape is just him, sitting at a desk, explaining that the people of England need to rise up and overcome. He then exits the building in dramatic fashion. Evey has been staying at a man named Gordon’s house. Eventually some Fingermen come and kill Gordon. She finds out who shot the fatal bullet and seeks him out. She is standing outside where this man is, brandishing a weapon, when she is suddenly swept up, and, seemingly, arrested. She gets taken away somewhere and put in a cell, much like V’s. She is horrifically interrogated, gets her hair shaven off, and gets dunked in water over and over. When in her cell, she discovers a handwritten story of a woman named Valerie, who was apparently in the cell right before Evey was. It talks about how she was a lesbian, was abducted by police, and eventually died in this place. Soon after, a final interrogation occurs, where Evey has to choose between death and giving up V. She chooses death. The interrogator says she is now free to go. She exits and discovers she is in the shadow gallery, the whole thing was a ploy orchestrated by V. He did it so she could overcome the one obstacle in her life: fear. She realizes he only had good intentions and had to do what he did, and she forgives him. The story is almost at a close. V next demolishes both Jordan Tower and the command station for the controllers of the cameras and microphones all over the city.
The citizens now know they are no longer being watched and can do as they please. Soon, the high chancellor makes an appearance and is shot and killed. In the second to last section of the novel, V reveals a train underneath the Shadow Gallery filled with explosives. He tells Evey to stay there and he takes his leave. He then is confronted by Finch, who fatally wounds him and leaves him for dead. V does not die right there, however, and gets back to Evey and tells her to give him a “Viking funeral” and that she knows what to do. She reflects for a bit and figures it all out. She places him inside the train and pulls the lever. The next frame shows Downing Street exploding. The novel ends with Finch walking down a deserted highway.
In the movie, a lot of things change. The first thing is Evey. She is no longer a fifteen-year-old about to prostitute herself; she is a twenty-something young lady going to see her uncle. She still is assaulted by Fingermen, and V still saves her, quoting Macbeth, but there is no explosion, he merely uses his knives in an overextended action sequence. He makes a long speech, using mostly words beginning with the letter ‘v’, and introduces himself right there as V. He then takes Evey to a rooftop, where he directs her attention to a lengthy explosion sequence of the demolition of The Old Bailey, not the Houses of Parliament. He leaves her there, which means he does not take her to his home. In the movie, she actually works at Jordan Tower! This sends such a different vibe about the Evey character here than in the novel; she doesn’t seem so detached and helpless; she seems like just another person with a job and a normal life. It is, however, revealed that her parents were abducted by the government when she was young. V appears at the tower and takes it over in the same fashion as in the novel, and forces a disc to be played about how the people need to rise up and overcome. However, since the Houses of Parliament still exist, V tells the people that one year from this day, on November 5th, if they want to defeat this government, they should stand outside of Parliament united. There is then a standoff in the building when police arrive, with Mr. Finch, and go after V. Another dramatic sequence ensues, and V nearly escapes. When he is almost out, a policeman holds a gun to him and tells him not to move, he is under arrest. Evey attempts to attack this policeman and is knocked out. V assaults the officer, and it is at this point when he takes her to his Shadow Gallery. She remains there for a very long time. During this time, V finds Prothero, still the Voice of Fate, which in the movie is the Voice of England, and kills him, leaving a rose behind. The next target is still the bishop, and Evey still assists with this kill. However, it is here that she runs from V because she can’t take the killing any longer. She goes to a friend’s house, who is, again, killed by police, but here she escapes the home while police are there, but is captured at the end of the driveway. Same story, the captor is V and she chooses death, et cetera, etc. And yes, her head is shaved. Another difference to be noticed during all of this is the lack of any other buildings being destroyed. Also, throughout the movie, subtle messages are appearing. On the “telly” the news keeps reporting on the “former United States” and how “the great war” still has long-lasting effects. Now, this could be nothing due to the fact that the government has full control over the news and reports what they say is happening and not necessarily what is happening; however, the fact that the Wachowski Brothers have it in there at all still makes it serve as one of those subtle messages. In this case, it seems to imply that the Wachowski Brothers believe this “war on terror” we are currently in, mainly Iraq, is going to lead to the United States exploding into chaos. Back in the story, V still kills Delia, and in the same way. Evey isn’t with him, and he actually lets her leave and asks her to return on the fifth for “one last dance.” V meets up with Finch, disguised as another person, and tells him all about Larkhill and what has happened. V sends out, via FedEx, (which seems quite unnecessary, and most likely is one of those advertisement spots) millions of spare sets of his costume to all of the citizens. Mass chaos ensues. V final action includes convincing one of the leader’s top men, Mr. Creedy, to capture him and bring him into a train tunnel to be executed, and in exchange V will give himself up. The scene starts with the Creedy shooting him in cold blood, and then he tells the bunch of men with him to kill V. They all empty their guns on him, and he doesn’t die. A metal plate is dropped from underneath his top, and he swiftly kills all the men but Creedy in yet another dramatic action sequence, and in slow-motion, Matrix-style, no less. The most substantial line in the movie is said at this point, “Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Creedy, and ideas are bulletproof.” The movie ends with V going back to Evey, requesting a Viking funeral, dying, being put in the train with all the explosives, and the train being sent out. It is at this point that the Houses of Parliament are finally destroyed.
So what are the Wachowski Brothers saying here? They destroy the Old Bailey first. Why? The structure means nearly nothing with the Houses of Parliament still standing. They most likely thought the ending would be more dramatic with Parliament than with Downing Street. This is not true. It sends such a different message than the story in the novel. It’s now saying that V wanted to somehow lead-in to blowing up Parliament, instead of the primary message of disrupting power for a slow takeover. Jordan Tower isn’t destroyed, nor is the building for the cameras and microphones. Somehow, by sending out masks, the people are able to overcome the police and start mass chaos? That’s what the Wachowski Brothers seem to say. So, by changing the overall tone and message in the story, they have out rightly disrespected Moore and Lloyd. But you shouldn’t be surprised by messages and other overtones from these gentlemen, now should you? Such has occurred before.
“Welcome… to the real world.” Maybe the Wachowski Brothers should have heeded to their own advice. The quote is from The Matrix, the first of the trilogy. Simple, overt messages occur. Neo is Jesus Christ, Morpheus is John the Baptist, and Cypher is Judas. Plus, names such as Trinity, Zion, and Nebuchadnezzar appear in the movie, all biblical references. All these messages, subtleties, and analogies are solidified when Neo is laid out at the end of Revolutions in a crucified manner. So what has happened here? The Wachowski Brothers got hold of a great story, spliced in their messages, insulted the authors, and basically ruined the whole novel version. Why? Simply in order to make money. The Wachowski Brothers are “sell-outs”.
"Media Section of the Shrine." V for Vendetta Shrine. 7 Jan. 2006. 27 Apr. 2006
<http://www.shadowgalaxy.net/Vendetta/media.html>.
Moore, Alan, David Lloyd, Steve Whitaker, and Siobhan Dodds. V for Vendetta.
Reissue ed. Vertigo, 1995.
Ultimate Matrix Collection, The. Dir. Andy & Larry Wachowski. Perf. Keanu Reeves,
Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Ann Moss. DVD. Warner Home Video, 2004.
V for Vendetta. Dir. James McTeigue. Perf. Hugo Weaving, Natalie Portman, Stephen
Fry, John Hurt. Warner Bros., 2006.
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