V for Vendetta: What Graphic Novel Did They Read?

Unlike Tierany Furst, who reveals her trepidation at seeing V for Vendetta in her article, V for Vindicated: V for Vendetta, I was thoroughly excited to go and see this movie in the theater. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that one of my friends loaned me his copy of the graphic novel about a week before the movie was due out, so that I could familiarize myself with the story before I saw it. This seemed like a great idea to me, as I am one of those people who really does prefer to read the book before seeing the movie.

When the movie was over, though, I realized that my great idea had been all wrong. My immediate reaction to the movie after the first viewing was that they should have called it Loosely Based on the Events Depicted in Alan Moore's V for Vendetta. A bit clunky for a movie title, true, but to me, it was a lot more accurate of a description of the movie. I spent much of my time in the theater reeling at the cuts and changes that they had made to Moore's writing. No wonder he didn't want his name associated with the finished product!

I recently rented V for Vendetta, to give it another shot. (Though really, the clerk at the rental store told me I could get another movie off of a specific rack for free, and it was the only one that jumped out at me.) I think that on this viewing, I enjoyed it slightly more, but this was primarily because the graphic novel was not so fresh in my mind. I still remembered bits and pieces of the graphic novel, and remembered a few of the discrepancies that had bothered me so greatly on my first viewing. Before you read any further, I will warn you that there are plot spoilers for both the movie and the graphic novel below.

It is one thing to remove minor characters who play a small role in the plot. It is another thing entirely to remove major characters, especially when doing so changes the actions and motivations of other major characters. The biggest example of this is the character of Ms. Almond from the graphic novel. Although her role in the graphic novel initially appears to be fairly small, she goes on to kill the character of "The Leader." In the movie, V (Hugo Weaving) arranges to have Mr. Creedy (Tim Pigott-Smith) kill Adam Sutler (John Hurt, portraying the movie's version of The Leader) in his presence. What appears to be a random assassination in the graphic novel becomes instead a calculated execution, and very much changes the nature of V's role in this political revolution.

The elimination of minor and major characters is not the only change in characters. Both the characters of Evey (Natalie Portman) and V have changed substantially. In Evey's case, her character goes from being a somewhat believable citizen of the strange dystopia of the graphic novel to a resistance fighter in her own right. As such, her character development over the course of the movie is not as substantial as it is in the graphic novel. It is easier to see how the Evey from the beginning of the movie becomes the Evey at the end of the movie. Unfortunately, this has the side effect of making her a much less dramatic character. In the case of V, the movie version of the character flip flops between showing some compassion and no remorse at all. He displays the former in the scene where he takes Evey from the BTN offices, while he displays the latter in the scene where Creedy executes Sutler. In the graphic novel, the character of V is much further on the remorseless end of the spectrum.

Persons involved with the production of V for Vendetta said that in order to really do the graphic novel justice, it would have required them to make a much longer movie, probably done in parts, rather than a nice, succinct two hour movie. Sometimes, it seems that a longer movie is both justified and necessary in order to appropriately translate text into cinematics. I believe that it is going to take some bold directors and producers to finally insist that this is what needs to be done, and begin the process of turning the American viewing public on to the idea of longer, more elaborate movies. The Lord of the Rings trilogy may have started this trend (and even those movies lacked parts of their source material), but it will still take some time for America to fully catch on.

Tierany Furst's short summary of her article says of V for Vendetta: "Hollywood has taken our favorite tale of anarchy and turned it into a film that the mainstream could accept without surrendering the work's heart and soul." In my opinion, Hollywood did surrender the heart and soul of Alan Moore's work, and then pranced around on it for a while, making the end result virtually unrecognizable to fans of the original comics. In the end, I did like V for Vendetta better on my second viewing, but still cannot recommend it to anyone familiar with the graphic novel. They, too, will likely be left wondering what graphic novel those involved with V for Vendetta actually read.