V for Verbose

Well, since I'm getting the hell out of Dodge tomorrow, I'd better put up a reflection on class now. What to say? We didn't really cover much in my opinion, always coming back to the question of how V gets the right to do what he does versus Susan and Norsefire. One thing is for sure: V is not of the body. Peace and tranquility is not with him. He does not know Landru.

Okay, actually, that's a start, actually. "Return of the Archons" - classic original series, just after the magic microphone that can detect heartbeats and right before Khan. The Body is this huge subconscious telepathy system that makes people seem absurdly calm save one hour a day, the Red Hour. Bottom line, the Body is actually controlled by Landru, a 6000 year old computer that was programmed to help the people of Beta III. Unfortunately, instead of doing this in some reasonable way, it decides that people having free will is too much of a risk to their own safety and takes it away. Kirk and Spock convince the computer that it has betrayed its own programming by doing this and it goes up in wonderful 1967 special effects "the computer's going up in smoke" smoke.

Or we go to the second season (Chekov shows up, so it's a good time) - "Patterns of Force." A Federation historian breaks the prime directive and interferes with a culture, organizing it in accordance with fascism, hoping to only duplicate its positive aspects. Long story short, the historian gets overpowered, a new guy takes charge, and then all the bad parts of fascism take over. Say, genocide of another planet. Once again, free will goes by the wayside as the new leader attempts to achieve racial purity. Spock mind-melds with the historian, who tells the planet that the Final Solution analogue isn't a great idea, then he gets shot, but it's all cool now.

All right, so we've got message one, that free will is the all-important marker of a society. Even if you can be guaranteed safety under Landru, you won't really be alive because you don't have freedom of choice. Let's go with the quest for free will to vindicate V's agenda over Norsefire's.

And then we've got the great little critique of fascism and human hubris. Sure, it can do some great things, but despotism's built into the system. As soon as Gill gets overthrown and the evil dude starts up, you've got bad fascism. Whoops. I guess the historian didn't really learn about history until he recreated it. And the Enterprise flies off to its next mission. Dum da da, da dum dum da da, DA!

Last, an additional word on the movie. I can see the graphic novel being turned almost verbatim into a great movie. Unfortunately, the only director I can see doing it, David Lean, died in 1991. Lean had this wonderful skill: being able to throw all sorts of wonderfully subversive politics into a damn entertaining movie. I just still don't see a way to properly capture the novel on film in 2005. In 1990, we're talking a different story. It could have been that crazy project that a director does before he dies (see Eyes Wide Shut for a prime example). Maybe the next David Lean (added bonus on his being British) can take V and treat it right. But in any case, the Wachowskis made a fun movie.

I, for one, take no joy in shooting fish in a barrel, which is pretty much what comparing a movie to its original book usually is. Sure, we have that award for Best Adapted Screenplay every year, but usually the movies that win take a so-so (or completely unknown or foreign) book and turn it into a good movie. Notable recent exception: LotR, where Peter Jackson took an excellent (though dry as all get out) novel and turned it into what many die-hard LotR fans call a so-so movie version (or a travesty, depending on how die-hard the fan). I, for one, hated reading the books but loved the movies because they didn't make fight scenes as interesting as a stackable combination washer/dryer with Energy Saver cool dry mode manual. But I digress. My point is, judge the film not on the graphic novel. That was Alan Moore's job, and we know his answer. Come down off your high horses, judge the film as a film, and tell me it's not enjoyable, being all "high and mighty" offended notwithstanding.