Output Stream of Consciousness

Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0434409/

Set in a future Britain, this is one of the better dystopian flicks I think I've seen in a long time. Not as "extreme" as The Matrix, or 1984, the story has that slight chilling "it could happen here" edge (we've seen what people will do and give up out of fear), but with a more colourful protagonist than any you would ever see in real life.

I've been impressed so far with comic book movie renditions of this past decade. This is only the second in the line of Vertigo movie renditions (the previous one was Constantine, which I also enjoyed very much)

There's a little bit of this movie wrapped up with Guy Fawkes lore. Guy Fawkes Night I remember being celebrated in Scotland more quite a while ago.

(I didn't know at the time that it was to celebrate Guy Fawkes' downfall, but such are the vagaries of childhood. My relatives still seem to get a chuckle out of remembering saying "a penny for the guy" - I sometimes wonder if they ran around with effigies :) )

While some of the plot is a straight line, what makes this movie are the twists, character development, and some of the fine, horrible elements of a government gone wrong.

Highly recommended, although I still don't think homemade explosives ought to go up like pretty fireworks :)

Comment by Adam:

# I have the original Alan Moore version of this. Apparently he was rather disappointed with the movie so I'm rather curious to see how they differ.

"Remember, remember, the 5th of November, with gunpowder, treason and plot. I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
should ever be forgot"

Catchy rhyme, and I imagine almost any school kid in the UK can remember the whole thing, even if they have absolutely no idea what it's about. On the other hand the fireworks, bonfires and toffee apples were always good, even if I could never figure out at the time why we were burning a "guy" in effigy (whatever an "effigy" was.)

Comment by Ritchie:

It saddens me that, once I moved away from Scotland as a young child, I never really did get back during that particular season, so my relatives have good memories of it, but I don't. Dang it :)

I'd love to see the comic. I imagine it was there in stores when we go on our occasional graphic novel hunts, but I'll be darned if I can remember seeing it :)

I'm trying desperately to imagine what on Earth they would do for the others in the Vertigo series. I could imagine Preacher would be pretty dangerous to make into a movie, and the Invisibles would be... spectacularly strange. Books of Magic has been a little bit usurped by the very Timothy Hunter-esque renditions of Harry Potter.

I think most people would be scared to try putting Sandman into film. They'd be scared of getting a translation of Neil Gaiman's seminal work wrong :)

Comment by Adam:

Next time you're over at my place, I'm sure Dena will be able to find it almost immediately given that she's memorized the layout of the bookshelves with the trade paperbacks :)

"The Invisibles" would probably be a very good one to make into a movie given that they'd need to chop out an awful lot. It would certainly make the narrative a whole bunch clearer. I do pity the actors when they find out what they have to wear though... Agreed on the "TBOM" movie as you're entirely right that any attempt to make it will be derided as derivative. "Preacher" just wouldn't be made: too gory, too sacreligeous, too flipping odd. There's a lot more in the Vertigo lineup that can be mined though and some of it may even be properly done.

Comment by Ritchie:

I will let her loose amongst your tomes - I'm sure she could find it in rather short order :)

The Invisibles certainly could be a good one to make - it has some great characters and an interesting universe to play in. The Archons and the Outer Church make for some fabulous larger-than-life sick and twisted authoritarians which nicely compliments the money, sex scandal, authoritarian, fundamentalist themes in the news these days.

Reading about it in Wikipedia, there were options picked up to make a TV show and a movie out of it, but neither materialized.

*laugh* Oh dear, what would they wear? Please, just don't let Hugo Weaving be Lord Fanny :)

*sigh* I guess I'll have to do without a Preacher movie :)

That said, it's interesting to come across tidbits like this:

For several years, a film adaptation was in the works, with James Marsden attached to play the lead. The project never materialized, although production got so far as to begin make up tests for the Arseface character, gruesome pictures of which can be found online. At one point, Samuel L. Jackson, a comicbook fan, expressed interest in playing the Saint of Killers.

I haven't read a lot of the other titles in the series. Transmetropolitan hasn't caught my interest just yet. Neither has 100 Bullets (though the premise lends itself better to a series). Y: The Last Man could be a lot of fun, especially if it reflects some of the smart/cheeky writing style. Lucifer would make for a very colourful, mythical world - it could make it as a movie, but it would need a pretty special screenplay for a screen adaptation.