After seeing the film V for Vendetta, I was glad to say that without quesiton it was the greatest film I had ever seen in my life.  The previous film to hold that title was Munich, but V for Vendetta overtook it by a hair and Munich remains a very close second.  Anyway, once I was aware that V for Vendetta's screenplay was available to read on SimplyScripts, I read it without hesitation.  The script was written by Larry and Andy Wachowski

For anyone not familiar with the film, it portrays the story about a freedom fighter known only as Codename "V" who fights back against a tyrannical government that has overtaken the country of England in an "uncompromising vision of the future."  He rescues a woman in the nick of time from rape by the name of Evey and brings her back to his home.  The movie goes on to tell the story of the two as they fight against their government all the way up to a huge climax at the end of the film which leaves one of them dead.

The screenplay on here must have been an early draft, because a lot of scenes were missing and characters that were in the screenplay did not even make an appearance in the film.  It also lacked the social commentary that was very evident in the film.  Many subtle references to America's government and policies were definately present in the movie, but not in this script.  The screenplay also did not even follow V as closely as the film did.  It centered more around the regime of "The Finger" and the demise of it.  It also introduced a character by the name of Helen that seemed to be a "black widow" on the inside of the faction.  She slept her way around to try and gain power and control of the country in some pretty explicit sex scenes.  The ending was different and some other interesting plot lines that were evident in the film were not at all mentioned in this draft of the screenplay.

As for my opinion, the screenplay seemed to be lacking that awesome charisma that V portrayed on screen.  Many of his awesome one liners and monologues were not in the screenplay and he seemed to be a secondary character in this draft.  The main dictator also had way too many lines in this script and became a bit annoying.  Every single one of his lines ended with an exclamation point and it became very repetitive.  

I would have liked to have seen the character of Helen grace the screen for this film, because she seemed like a great antagonist that V had no control over.  Helen was very evil, yet very sexy with her plots and schemes and I believe it would have been pretty interesting to watch.  

So in this case, I believe the rewrites helped a lot with the end product, which in my opinion was a fascinating film.          

Guy,

Have you read the original book? I'm in the process of reading it now, and it's fantastic.

I remember one of the focal complaints of Moore about the film is that they really marginalized the facists, making them pretty 2-dimenstional. Reading the source material now, I can see what he means.

I'm interested in any thoughts. I'm a big fan of the film as well.

The original book (much like all of Moore's books), blows the movies away.  Alan Moore didn't want his attached to the movie V.


Phil

Quoted from I_Am_Remote Guy, Have you read the original book? I'm in the process of reading it now, and it's fantastic. I remember one of the focal complaints of Moore about the film is that they really marginalized the facists, making them pretty 2-dimenstional. Reading the source material now, I can see what he means. I'm interested in any thoughts. I'm a big fan of the film as well.

No I haven't, but I have wanted to read the graphic novel ever since I saw the film.  Where would I be able to purchase it?  Would it be at bookstores or at a comic book shop?  

I too heard about the fascits being heavily toned down in the film from the novel.  I saw Alan Moore took his name off of the writing credits but he's just a grumpy old man anyway.  I don't think anyone can make him happy.  I hear they want to make a movie based on The Watchmen and he has already stated he wants nothing to do with it.  

V for Vendetta was brilliant.  There's no other way to say it.

But yeah, I am definatly a huge fan of this film and the Wachowski's.  I try to use as much of their writing style as possible in my own scripts.  

Quoted from guyjackson No I haven't, but I have wanted to read the graphic novel ever since I saw the film.  Where would I be able to purchase it?  Would it be at bookstores or at a comic book shop?

You might be able to find it in Barnes & Noble, or a comic book store.

Quoted from guyjackson I too heard about the fascits being heavily toned down in the film from the novel.  I saw Alan Moore took his name off of the writing credits but he's just a grumpy old man anyway.  I don't think anyone can make him happy.  I hear they want to make a movie based on The Watchmen and he has already stated he wants nothing to do with it.

Moore is Grumpy because the movie studios has completely screwed up all movie adaptations of his books.  Swamp Thing, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, From Hell, and Constantine are all his (he didn't create Swamp Thing, but he re-created it).  The movies were all poor imitations of his work.  V for Vendetta, while a very good movie, was dumbed down for the audience.

I can understand why he wants nothing to do with Watchmen (even though there is no script yet).  That story has way too much information to cram into a two or three hour movie.


Phil

Watchmen is soooooooooo dense. I can't imagine a decent script of that story. It would be way toned down and condensed to nothing.

I think V for Vendetta actually does a nice job of keeping the tone and ideas of the book pretty intact. They screw with the order of events a little, but because of length it seems necessary. In terms of the league of extraordinary gentlemen and from hell, I think Moore has the right to be a little grumpy, but not for V for Vendetta. The movie is well made and true to what he wrote.

Yeah I didn't realize League of Extraordinary Gentleman was his.  I would be pretty pissed off if my graphic novel was represented by that utter piece of garbage.

I just bought V for Vendetta's graphic novel and I can't wait to read it.  I'm going to start right now!

Haha.  

I just finished reading. It's quite good. I can't understand Moore's angst, even after reading the book, the script seems like a pretty tight and truthful adaptation.

Enjoy reading.

The movie was good, but it was dumbed down some regarding the government.

I remember someone saying that the only way to do The Watchmen right was to make it a mini-series for cable.


Phil

I thought the script was pretty good, it had IMO great descriptive passages. But then again what would you expect from a Professional screenplay. LOL!!

I just finished reading the graphic novel and I must say it was great.  Alan Moore is a genius.  I thought the Wachowski's created most of the dialogue in the movie, but it was mostly Moore's.  His wording that he uses in the graphic novel is awesome.

This script that Don has here on SimplyScripts was actually quite faithful to the original story.  I can see why Alan Moore would have granted them the rights to the story.  I have a new found respect for this screenplay now.  The way the Wachowski's were able to translate that whole story into 160 pages is phenomenal.

I think a lot of things were taken out to try and make it more "American".  There were definately American Terrirost themes in the film that were not in the original source and I think it made it that much better.  If this movie would have been made verbatum on the graphic novel, it would have went WAY over the people's heads

Great book.  Thanks for getting me to read it, you guys.  

I'm getting the graphic novel the next time I go out to the book store (which should be tomorrow). I didn't get to see the film when it was in theaters, but I'll be getting it on DVD as soon as it comes out...that is if I like the novel.

We'll see.

-Chris

Well, I know I've only got a few posts to my name on here, but nevertheless I'll give my opinion. If only to balance the vote for and against V...

I know this is a script review, but I'm just gonna comment on the film as a whole as it seems the thread concerns itself with that too.

I was rather disappointed after I saw V for Vendetta, not because I'm a fan of the graphic novel (I haven't read it) but because I though the movie had several structure issues and then of course my darling Natalie Portman was terribly miscast.

To elaborate:

The movie is very fragmented, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. When viewed as a series of short films there actually some pretty good material in there, but as a whole is seems diluted and fractured.

Like how the movie spends a good portion of it's plot having Stephen Rea's detective investigate a cover up concerning a massacre committed by the totalitarian regime. Now the problem is, that we at this point already have established that the police are rapists, the higher echelons of society are pedophiles and John Hurt is Hitler. In fact he's so evil he can only be transmitted over a super-screen. It seemed redundant at this point to investigate an atrocity committed by a regime that already's painted as absolutely inhumane and evil, yet the movie seems very concerned with it.

It's an intricate plot yet there aren't any subtleties. For a discussion about terrorism and the legitimacy of it, the movie's exagerrated and more interested in blowing stuff up than asking tough questions.

And then there's Natalie. I've had a crush on her for as long as I can remember, but in the part of Evey Hammond she's a dire miscast. She simply doesn't pull off the British dialect. It distracted me from the film, and I kept thinking: "oh now Natalie Portman is saying something again. Now Natalie Portman is crying."

To me the movie is a mess, both in content and in structure. That's not to say it's a bad film, but I don't think of it as anything other than medicore. I was pretty let down, anyways...

Oh and then there's the Matrix-esque fight scene at the end. Of course it had to be there for the film to be commercially sound, but still...

The moral of the film seems to be: "the only thing better than to stand up for what you believe in, is to stand up for what you believe in in bullet-time."