V FOR VENDETTA trailer...

[thehefner]

Oh God. Yes, I know Alan Moore has read the script and totally disavowed this movie. Yes, I know the screenplay is adapted by the Matrix hacks. Yes, that horrible "V,V,V" monologue is there. Yes, I know so far every adaptation of Alan Moore's absolutely fucking brilliant comics has been utter hackery (FROM HELL sucked my nuts and was formulaic as all hell, especially compared to the original, LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN doesn't even deserved to be dignified by my heaping scorn upon it... now I heard CONSTANTINE was actually pretty good, but seriously, Keanu as Constantine? Nothing can make me accept that). And they started filming earlier this year and they're rushing film production so they can get it released by November 5th, to coincide with the anniversary of Guy Fawkes Day. This movie has everything stacked against it.

But-but-but it has the mask and lines of dialog right from the comic and oooh and that very image of V standing naked in front of a fire, right out of the book, and it has Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving being all whispery and Stephen Rea where the hell has he been since The Crying Game and yay John Hurt I love John Hurt and Stephen Fry, everything's good with that pudgy gay man and it's V it's the costume and it's perfect and... and... and...

Oh God, I just want to pretend, just for this little bit that it's not going to suck. Because that trailer looks kinda really cool. Sighhhh... remember, remember, the 5th of November...

Comments

[surrealname.livejournal.com]

John, give it up. It's gonna be bad. There's no way around it. It's gonna be awful, horrible, doggeral trash from beyond pluto's anus.

[chickenhat.livejournal.com]

Completely agree with how they screwed up FH and LXG... but Keanu did not hurt what Constantine was able to do as a movie.

I think V will work out, and releasing it November 5th is just clever. :-)

I'll be looking forward to Natalie Portman scoring the shaved-head for movie status that Sigourney Weaver pulled off for Alien3. What they've got so far looks good, and the actors they've got are incredible. This is the W Bros. w/o Keanu, so I think we'll be able to get away from the problem they started having during the later Matrix films (namely, the action didn't support the dialogue in 2 and 3, and worse yet the dialogue only happened when there was no action so you stopped paying attention because it got too quiet). Well there were other problems, too.

And as for Alan Moore, as much as I love his work, if he doesn't want them to keep making crappy movie adaptations of his ideas then he should stop DC from selling the movie rights to WB. Either that, or do the responsible thing and make sure he has a hand in writing the screenplay. The mess they're making of the Watchmen movie alone... ugh, sorry, I shouldn't get started down this road.

Dunno, maybe they've managed to do this right. I hope so, because otherwise the movie going public is going to start thinking "it's just another bad comic-book adaptation, let's not bother seeing it" rather than what i want to happen which is "ooh, another great comic-book movie, I should go out and read the book these ideas came from".

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Actually, based on everything I've heard, WATCHMEN is in very capable hands. Paul Greengrass and company are determined to make this good and faithful (and not just to the "spirit" of the book either). Greengrass' lengthy interviews at Chud.com gave me confidence. It's Paramount who's messing it up when they dropped the film, but Greengrass is still shopping it around. No, if the Watchmen film is made the way they want it made, it will be amazing.

I'm just sad because I know of people who refuse to read League of Extraordinary Gentlemen because the movie sucked or From Hell because they already know who the killer is (oh god, that idea just makes my eyes bleed).

Speaking of comic book movies

[tompurdue.livejournal.com]

From Roger Ebert's latest Answer Man column (re Fantastic Four)

What I learned while reading dozens of messages is that comics fans have made enormous psychic investments in their favorite characters, and follow their origins, adventures, opponents and character changes with an attention bordering on obsession. I saw a bad movie. Many of them saw a movie whose goodness or badness was secondary, since whatever happened on the screen was linked in their imaginations with an extensive pre-history.

Re: Speaking of comic book movies

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

I have to wonder, is it just comic fans that feel this way? Wouldn't any fan mentality extend to this? Whenever people single out comic readers for something I get itchy.

Regardless, he's right, of course. In fact, for my part that's one of the reasons why I'm the one guy who liked the Daredevil movie. However, the Hulk movie was a huuuuuge depature from the character and his origins, yet I still loved it as a movie. However still, Tim Burton's Batman movies have aged poorly, and since Batman Begins showed the world what the real Batman of the comics is like, Burton's films just don't hold up that well.

Re: Speaking of comic book movies

[tompurdue.livejournal.com]

It applies to every fandom, comics or otherwise. But the physicists have given up on getting movies to portray their fandom accurately.