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From Newsarama.com: David Lloyd chimes in on V, and subsequently gets taken off Allan Moore's christmas card list:
AD: You’ve seen the V For Vendetta movie. What’s your reaction?
DL: It’s a terrific film. The most extraordinary thing about it for me was seeing scenes that I’d worked on and crafted for maximum effect in the book translated to film with the same degree of care and effect. The “transformation” scene between Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving is just great. If you happen to be one of those people who admires the original so much that changes to it will automatically turn you off, then you may dislike the film - but if you enjoyed the original and can accept an adaptation that is different to its source material but equally as powerful, then you’ll be as impressed as I was with it.
AD: How faithful to the comic is it?
DL: About 80%.
AD: No movie can ever be 100% faithful to its original source material; nor should it try to be. Do you feel the changes were valid?
DL: There was nothing stopping Larry and Andy making a more faithful version of Vendetta than they made - indeed they wrote a script that was closer to the original version eight years ago. But I have no argument with what they’ve done now with V, as I had no argument with the smaller changes they made to it back then, because the movie rights were sold to DC by myself and Alan way back in 1985, and we were both intelligent enough to know that we were not signing those rights over to a board of trustees whose duty was to look after our creative property as if it were the Dead Sea Scrolls. My attitude was always that I’d be happy to see V made into a movie if it was a good movie. It has been made into a good movie. In fact, I think that Larry and Andy, James McTeigue, Grant Hill, Adrian Biddle, and Joel Silver have made an excellent movie of it with an excellent cast. And I’m pleased to support what they’ve done.
Are the changes they’ve made to it valid? Well, there are those who value the original so completely that no changes to the story would be seen by them as valid, and I wouldn’t want to be in the position of trying to convince anyone that any changes that have been made to it were valid because I’m not responsible for them being made. I really want everyone to make up their own mind about it when they see it, and accept or reject them then. I feel sad about the antagonism towards the film that’s been stimulated by Alan’s view of the script and other matters, because it seems to have caused a lot of people to pre-judge the film - and that’s bad.
AD: Does the movie offer us a black-and-white morality, with V as a heroic freedom-fighter battling a villainous regime, or does it embrace the moral ambiguity of the comic?
DL: If you’re talking about the moral ambiguity of the characters who figure in the story, there’s a much smaller cast to demonstrate that with in the film, so a level of complexity in the treatment of the denizens of V’s world is missing - but there’s little missing in the rounded portrayal of V and his battle against the state.
The only other thing I’d add by way of reply to that question is that the Leader character in the film isn’t painted with any of those brush strokes of sympathy he was given in the original. Considering the crimes he’d committed, I guess no-one could stomach the idea of giving him any.
AD: The home-grown British fascists of the comic have been replaced in the film by German Nazis having won World War II. But might this miss the point that fascism, totalitarianism, loss of freedom can happen anywhere - even here... ?
DL: Now that question is based on believing a rumor to be true. Because I know info gets around the web very quickly, I figured that once someone had read the script of V - which apparently many now have - all old rumors would be squashed. Obviously not. The point has been kept.
AD: Is the V of the movie a proponent of Anarchism?
DL: The V of the original creates chaos with the personal hope, almost a dream, of it leading to a state of true anarchy, but he doesn’t set any wheels in motion to provide such a state with a solid foundation because he can’t. In one sense, you could say he’d be unable to, because to do that would be to lead, and the essence of anarchy is that it exists without leaders. At the end of his achievements, he has only given the people the freedom to choose how they want to live. V in the film demonstrates no desire to preach a particular way of life to the people he’s encouraging to freedom, so you could call him less of a dreamer and more of a pragmatist.
AD: Alan Moore’s negative reaction to the screenplay, and subsequent squabbles with producer Joel Silver, are well documented. Do you share Alan’s point of view to any degree, or has it all been blown out of proportion?
DL: As I said above, I regret all that. Alan is entitled to his point of view, and I have my own.
AD: Do you feel you’ve been treated fairly?
DL: Well, I signed a contract with DC in 1985, selling V For Vendetta to them under certain terms and conditions. They’ve abided by that contract to the letter. I get all that I’m due from it.
Nothing in their contract obliges DC or Warner Bros to send me or to show me any scripts for a V movie, or to pass comment on them, but from the very first script that was written for one - written over ten years ago by someone whose name I shall not grace with a mention, and which I would not have supported in the way I support the present one - they always have. |
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