I liked it a lot... never thought it go slow really. The "prison" scene was a little odd

3/17/2006 1:28:45 AM

we all thought it had a "slow period" .....one pansy fell asleep

but yeah, i still thought it was great

3/17/2006 1:46:15 AM

just screened it, was a good movie overall. However, the whole anti-bush, conspiracy theorist was really overdone i like my movies to not be oozing a political message like some maple tree bleeding sap. i like it when they are able to keep it subtle, not slap it in your face.

3/17/2006 2:53:44 AM

Are you sure you're not just mistaking what was anti-thatcher political statements for anti-bush statements by placing the work in the wrong historical context? Or did they actually update the political message such that it is unmistakeably anti-bush?

3/17/2006 11:40:51 AM

anyone who says anything against totalitarian government is speaking about bush!

anyone who says anything about poor race relations is speaking about bush!

anyone who says anything about wire taps is speaking about bush!

in fact
anyone who says anything about bad political moves is clearly speaking about bush!

3/17/2006 1:40:27 PM

Quote :

"really fucking good... brave movie, catholic church wont like it haha"

I thought it was the Anglican Church, but whatever.

3/17/2006 1:51:01 PM

^^ i guess it just shouted bush to me because of the continued references to "america's war" i haven't read the source material for the movie, but i have read that it deviated quite a lot. the whole speech at the beginning about america having it all and then throwing it away, etc. I just know that a lot of people are going to come out of the theaters saying that the high chancellor represents bush, creedy is cheney, st. mary's/3 waters is 9/11, articles of allegiance is patriot act, etc. Now i know a lot of these are probably just coincidences from the source material (which is funny considering the whole "there is no such thing as coincidence" retoric in the movie) but the screenplay was written by the wachowski brothers and i'm sure everybody remembers the not so subtle neo=jesus message of the matrix. It just felt to me like they had adapted the source material to an anti-bush spiel.

3/17/2006 2:21:26 PM

Pretty much none of the stuff you just referred to was in the comic.

3/17/2006 2:23:09 PM

I just saw it and really fucking liked it, even though they changed a lot from the book.

WHERE'S FATE, YO?

3/17/2006 5:10:00 PM

Good movie.

3/18/2006 1:57:56 AM

I saw it last night. I figured it would be a good movie, and I wasn't wrong in the least. There was one part at the end that I thought was cheese, but other than that high marks all around.

For those of you who have read the original comic, what are some of the source differences you keep mentioning?

3/18/2006 12:46:38 PM

Well, seeing as how today is a laundry day for me, I'm gonna spend a little time working on explaining the differences in parts. I'll cover differences in exposition first, differences in characters next, and differences in plot last. So, uh...stay tuned, I guess.

3/18/2006 2:33:01 PM

didnt the author of the comic refuse to have his name on the screenplay since they changed it a bit? or added to it a bit

3/18/2006 4:11:19 PM

^ he refused to have his name put on the last 3 movies adapted from his work so... yeah...

3/18/2006 4:30:11 PM

i love when froshkiller really takes time on something

3/18/2006 6:07:39 PM

Fascist toilet paper looks downright adamant.

3/18/2006 9:35:38 PM

Part I: Exposition

The comic and the movie present an England under fascist rule following a great crisis that upset the international status quo. In the movie, that great crisis is a war which results in a wave of terrorism culminating in a massive biological attack on the civilian population of England. In the comic, though, the fallout from a nuclear war plunges England into famine and chaos. So the major difference in exposition is the addition of terrorism as a contributor to the rise of fascism and the omission of the nuclear threat.

The fascist group that seizes control of England calls itself Norsefire, and they're pretty explicitly devoted to the idea that conservative, white, Christian males alone have the right to power. In the comic, Norsefire unifies England through hatred, targeting anyone who's different: blacks, Pakistanis, homosexuals, you name it. Norsefire's ascent relies solely on the ability of humans to hate and fear each other. It's just a little bit different in the movie, where Norsefire solidifies its governmental authority by engineering the biological attacks on St. Mary's and Three Waters and using Muslim extremists as scapegoats for those attacks, galvanizing the populace in hate on false pretenses. This is goddamn important, as that little change sort of de-emphasizes the theme of humankind's tendencies towards prejudice and obedience.

Let's go back to that bit about Christian males having the right to power. The movie shows Norsefire paying a lot of lip service to Christianity, all God-fearing this and God-fearing that, plus the motif of the crucifix appearing in Norsefire's symbol. In the comic, the Church is more explicitly defined as a propaganda arm of the government, with sermons being dictated by Fate.

Fate is an incredibly sophisticated computer system in the comic that uses a wide-area network to gather information from every surveillance device in the country. It's a crucial tool that allows Norsefire to control the English people so completely. Its absence from the movie removes what I feel is an important theme: the unpredictability of the human spirit. The government's reliance on Fate to predict and control people sets the stage for revolution, as the computer itself knows no allegiance—V himself secretly uses the system to spread chaos. Cutting Fate out of the picture does eliminate what is honestly kind of a baffling subplot, which I'll address when I discuss differences in the characters later.

There are a few other minor points, like the timeframe in which each work takes place. They're both meant to be the near future, but the near future in the 1980s is the past for us today, so it's not a big deal that the dates don't match up. It is curious that V invites the British people to join him outside Parliament in a year, since he did no such thing in the comic, but I'll cover that in the plot section.

Another minor point is the change in the mass media. Again, I'll discuss this in greater depth when I get to the characters, but the change from the Mouth's radio programming and Prothero as the Voice of Fate to the BTN being a largely independent (if heavily censored) network has some serious implications.

But we'll get to all that. In my next post, I'll highlight differences between the characters in the comic and the characters in the movie.

[Edited on March 18, 2006 at 9:47 PM. Reason : ...]

3/18/2006 9:42:32 PM

great movie!

3/18/2006 9:50:12 PM

Quote :

"The fascist group that seizes control of England calls itself Norsefire, and they're pretty explicitly devoted to the idea that conservative, white, Christian males alone have the right to power."

I should probably see this. Especially since I've been reading Locke lately.

Quote :

"Norsefire solidifies its governmental authority by engineering the biological attacks"

That and I've played through Deus Ex a few million times. Sounds like it's up my alley.

3/18/2006 9:57:54 PM

Quote :

"That and I've played through Deus Ex a few million times."

Sounds like I found my new best friend. I :heart: Deus Ex.

3/18/2006 10:09:40 PM

good movie. 4/5 stars

some akward moments, mostly really really fun and interesting


the pedophile-priest was funny as hell.



anyone who thinks this is about the Bush admin is insane. this is about a conservative totalitarian governmnet,

this is a movie where ann coulter is our dictator.

Quote :

"The "prison" scene was a little odd"

it suprised me. i liked the twist.

[Edited on March 18, 2006 at 11:21 PM. Reason : -]

3/18/2006 11:12:00 PM

I, too, liked the prison scene, although I was sure Natalie Portman's character would have surely choked a bitch.

Speaking of Natalie Portman, she looked pretty damn good in that school outfit.

3/18/2006 11:31:19 PM

just got home

and my initial reaction is "Meh"

i only turned around on the issue (check my posts prior) after reading some of the TPB

and i don't think the film carried the same weight and flow the books offered

normally after an adaptation i will say "as a standalone that would surely be fine"

but i don't really think i'll say that about this, it wasn't that great of a movie and it didn't do justice to its source material

but i will say this

gg to hugo fucking weaving
how one can emote from behind a vinyl mask for 2 hours and actually PULL IT OFF is beyond me

i anxiously await frosh's continued essay

3/19/2006 12:38:21 AM

Quote :

"the pedophile-priest was funny as hell."

This is refreshing to hear. My reluctance to see this movie was based on the earlier comments on the reticence Christians should have about this movie. Good to know the criticism was reserved for the politicised versions of 'religion'.

3/19/2006 12:52:58 AM

yes. thought it was really good. don't want to spoil it by talking about it though..

3/19/2006 1:06:22 AM

its generally understood that once the movie is out

you either don't click the link or you deal with the potential spoilers

that said

"Street Fightin' Man" ???

3/19/2006 1:08:09 AM

Ahahahahaha that was so out of place.

3/19/2006 1:09:41 AM

3/19/2006 1:20:26 AM

^^
i was about to stand up to leave

and the intro started

and i was like

i'm not going anywhere

i have to see if this is what i think it is

3/19/2006 1:24:07 AM

I saw the film and felt really high of it.

The acting of Portman/ Weaving was the best that I have seen in a while. Portman lived up to all the hype and more.

3/19/2006 1:40:00 AM

the english accent was meh....but otherwise she was perfect

3/19/2006 9:00:13 AM

Quote :

"A Brave Movie"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.................... some great acting (yeah natalie's accent sucked) but the movie wasn't all that great.

After the third matrix (or maybe the 2nd), the Wakowski (however you spell it) brothers needed to be put down.

[Edited on March 19, 2006 at 10:43 AM. Reason : wak]

[Edited on March 19, 2006 at 10:57 AM. Reason : tttt]

3/19/2006 10:42:08 AM

Viagra?

3/19/2006 10:53:00 AM

The second best part of the movie was when the two women kissed and the woman sitting behind me in the theater went EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

3/19/2006 12:12:52 PM

AND YOU SCREAMED

"HAVE FUN IN AIRSTRIP ONE YOU CLOSEMINDED FUCKS!"

3/19/2006 12:14:20 PM

That would be rude. I did set her on fire, though.

3/19/2006 12:15:12 PM

STREETFIGHTING MAN

3/19/2006 12:31:09 PM

good movie. if you're of the conservative hollywood is out to get me crowd, save your $8 and go see Snow Dogs.

3/19/2006 12:49:55 PM

gfd

[Edited on March 19, 2006 at 3:59 PM. Reason : gdf]

3/19/2006 3:59:29 PM

FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY
A movie that I could sit through without wanting to look at my watch.
I don't remember the last time that happened.

3/19/2006 10:52:34 PM

what an awesome movie. I enjoyed pretty much every part of it, I'd give it a 5/5 and definetly recommend this movie to everyone

I'd put it up there in the top 5-10 movies that I've ever seen

3/19/2006 11:18:09 PM

mtv news is running a 30min show about its political message right now

3/19/2006 11:32:01 PM

I'm sure it will be hard hitting and informative.

3/19/2006 11:36:01 PM

with 20 min of informative commercial how-to's

3/19/2006 11:45:12 PM

and weaving has a huge fucking beard

3/19/2006 11:50:40 PM

saw it tonight. as someone said above, first movie i've seen in a while that i didn't look at my watch every 10 minutes.

I felt there was a few things you could take from the movie, one was that it was just a good action movie with a good storyline to keep you going between fight scenes, the other was that there was a pretty good political message.

i liked the part of the movie that showed the united states, and the person on tv said something along the lines of "violence continues in the FORMER united states" just makes you think.

3/20/2006 1:17:33 AM

that part didn't make me think

it made me roll my eyes

but thats just me

THE UNITED STATES HAS PLUNGED TO ITS DOOM
BUT DELL STILL PUMPS OUT SOME BADASS COMPUTERS

3/20/2006 1:22:53 AM

liberal homer-sexual propaganda.

3/20/2006 1:32:44 AM

JVC seemed to be doing well in the future too.

3/20/2006 1:34:13 AM

Makes you think about what?????????????????? ^^^^

eyes is def. more like it wfoot

I live in England right now, and if any country is on the verge of becoming a shithole, it's this one.

3/20/2006 4:58:49 AM