Text Essay

Katie Tyo

Professor Klepper

English 114B

April 23, 2012

Text Essay

V for Vendetta: Graphic Novel or Movie?

            In the graphic novel V for Vendetta the order of events seems to be organized periodically unlike in the movie which seems to jump around a lot. As in most movie adaptations from books there are things excluded from the graphic novel in the movie and there are things in the movie that are not in the actual graphic novel. The graphic novel and the movie both have good qualities to them. However, the film uses Shakespeare allusions to indicate V's function as the hero of a revenge play, who achieves tragic status by sacrificing himself for his cause and ridding the nation of a corrupt ruling class (Shakspeare and the Catholic Revenger: “V for Vendetta”). They have similarities and differences. They both, however, are trying to get the same point across which is that the idea of V and what he represents is left to the audience to interpret for themselves.

            The graphic novel and the movie do not really follow the same timeline. In the graphic novel the story goes in chronological order most of the time except for the occasional flashbacks here and there. The movie however jumps around a lot going in between the three books and just making it confusing for the audience especially if the audience has read the graphic novel already.

            I feel like the movie does not give the audience the sense of constraint that the graphic novel gave about the public. When it comes to how the lives of the public have been controlled I feel like the movie did not completely explain it like the graphic novel did. The graphic novel gave in great detail the kind of constraint that the public was under and how it affected their lives.

            The movie was well done I just feel like perhaps they could have tried harder to make it more like the graphic novel. There were many details that were changed which is to be expected but there were also some bigger aspects that were changed or completely excluded from the movie that was in the graphic novel.

            Personally, I enjoyed the movie quite a lot but I found that I liked the graphic novel much more. The graphic novel had such detail and gave useful background information that it made reading the story very interesting to me. The movie skipped around so much that it was hard for me to enjoy it because I was always trying to figure out where in the story the movie was at. I found both very interesting but the graphic novel was much easier to follow for me than the movie was.

            The movie seemed to drift from the main themes with all the complex explosions and action scenes that were in the movie. Although all of the action and explosion scenes were fun to watch they could possibly distract the audience from the themes within the movie. A lot of the political aspects of the movie seemed to be more Americanized than anything. The political aspects seemed to be very different from the graphic novel.

            The graphic novel seemed to leave Evey very in the dark and unable to actually figure out what she is in the middle of for a majority of the novel but in the movie she seems to be able to put everything together much quicker. She is also much younger in the graphic novel. In the movie she is just an office girl which is a lot different from what she was in the graphic novel which was a prostitute. So a lot of the details in the graphic novel about Evey were changed in the movie to make her more acceptable to the audience.

            V pretty much is the same in the graphic novel as he is in the movie. His love for Evey is very much portrayed just a strong in the graphic novel as in the movie. V is a character who can be hard to understand whether he is good or bad because of all the killing he is doing. To me V is just trying to show the public that sometimes the people need to stand up and revolt in order to  have a better future even if that means that some of them must die. So V is good but in order to show everybody how much change is needed he has to do some terrible things to the people in charge of the country.

            At the end of the movie Evey basically explained what V stood for which made it easier for the audience to really understand why V had to do what he did. I liked how she explained V to the audience because it showed just how much they cared for each other.

            In order for change to be possible we must first realize that change is needed and have to courage to stand up and say that. That is what V is trying to express to the public. If the people do not realize there is a problem then there is no way that they can take the steps needed to fix that problem. V helps the public to see the problem so they can stand up for themselves and fix the problem at hand. The public in V for Vendetta got so comfortable being pushed around by the government that they forgot what it felt like to take control of their own lives and decide what to do with it. V was just a reminder that it is never too late to make yourself happy because everyone deserves a chance at that.

            V for Vendetta is a story packed full of different ideas and themes all still relevant today. The difference with this story unlike any other is that even though it was written last century all the ideas and themes within the story are still very much relevant. The movie was able to express these ideas and themes a little better than the graphic novel did. Everyone should read the graphic novel and see the movie V for Vendetta so they can decide for themselves which is better to them.

Works Cited

"A is for Anarchy, V is for Vendetta: Images of Guy Fawkes and the Creation of Postmodern Anarchism." EBSCOhost. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2012. <web.ebscohost.com.libproxy.csun.edu/ehost/detail?sid=b69246ec-50e4-43a0-9050-8ab3cb8d3b49%40sessionmgr115&vid=1&hid=105&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=ofm&AN=510749436>.

"Shakspeare and the Catholic Revenger: "V for Vendetta"." EBSCOhost. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2012. <web.ebscohost.com.libproxy.csun.edu/ehost/detail?sid=70d8ce22-5cc1-40db-932d-912b9daccc67%40sessionmgr111&vid=1&hid=105&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=afh&AN=50883038>.

"V for Vendetta." EBSCOhost. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2012. <library.csun.edu/xerxes/metasearch/results/000212/000962?startRecord=51>.

V for Vendetta . Dir. James McTeigue. Perf. Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, Stephen Rea, John Hurt. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2006. DVD.