See V for Yourself

The following are a set of links I passed along to a friend of mine about the movie V for Vendetta released today, to convince her and her husband to join me in catching it on IMAX tomorrow night. Hope it works on them. Give 'em a look and/or listen and let them work on you!

V For Vendetta movie site:
http://vforvendetta.warnerbros.com/

More on Moore:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Moore
http://www.salon.com/books/int/2004/07/22/moore/
http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=1159

Not So Comics
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/A825149
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/comics/features/serious_comics.shtml

Moore Interviews
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1311408
http://www.readyourselfraw.com/profiles/moore/moore_vs_eno/chainreaction_eno.htm

V for Vendetta graphic novel
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0930289528/002-1673608-8025660?v=glance&n=283155

UnRule Britannia: Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes
http://www.guardian.co.uk/netnotes/article/0,6729,588198,00.html
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/museum/item.asp?item_id=19
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/cgi-bin/newhtml_hl?DB=semsimple&STEMMER=en&WORDS=gui%20fawk&ALL=&ANY=&PHRASE=&CATEGORIES=&SIMPLE=guy%20fawkes&SPEAKER=&COLOUR=Red&STYLE=s&ANCHOR=muscat_highlighter_first_match&URL=/pa/ld200506/ldjudgmt/jd051208/aand-6.htm#muscat_highlighter_first_match
http://www.bonefire.org/guy/gunpowder.php
http://www.britannia.com/history/g-fawkes.html

P.S. Here's my synopsis of my own reading, prior knowledge, and research on V as well as on Alan Moore (the orginal creator of V), his other works, and their adaptations:

V for Vendetta was originally a graphic novel by Allen Moore, famed for "From Hell" (an epic tracing his exhaustively researched history of Jack the Ripper and his links with the crown and the Masons), League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (two volumes of a Victorian-era superhero team action. Move over Ben Grimm and Mr. Fantastic. Here come Alan Quartermain, Dr. Jekyll, and Captain Nemo!), and The Watchmen (probably one of the earliest comics to call into question the superhero archetype and deconstruct the genre as we, then, knew it).

V for Vendetta is the story of a dystopian futuristic England (circa 1993-1997) ruled by a fascist regime inspired by England's Thatcher/Torrie(sp) administration of the time. V is a vigillante with a mysterious past, most likely associated with human subject experiments in the concentration camps established by the ruling regime during its rise to power. His aim is to, a la Guy Fawkes' infamous gunpowder plot ("Remember, remember, the 5th of November), to usurp the iron-clad rule of the Norsefire Party ("Strength through Purity. Purity through Faith.") and its shadowy Leader.

The story was outright blasphemy written then during the height of ThatcheReagan Conservativism and has powerful echoes today for the BlaireBush NeoReligious-Conservative cabal. The tagline of the film is "People Shouldn't Fear Their Governments. Governments Should Fear Their People!"

It's directed by the Wachovski brothers, and rightfully so, as one of the sub-plots of the story was most definitely the inspiration for the story of The Matrix and the character Morpheus, shadowy avenging abolitionist angel of the first film.

Alan Moore, as with the other films based on his work, angrily recused himself from the production process. Though I thought the Hughes brothers did a fantastic job with From Hell, the same couldn't be said for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, tagged "LXG" by the studio and DC Comics. [*NOTE: I have not yet seen LXG, despite my sister's endorsement of it. She's a picky movie-goer too, but she hadn't read the comics. Once I can put my anger aside at its inclusion of a "grown-up" Tom Sawyer, I'll drag myself to the video store to rent it. Until such time I shall remain the angry impotently fuming little man that I am.] But being that it's the Wachovski brothers, I'm banking on Moore's frustrations coming moreso from what had to be excluded in the interest of running time, as opposed to overzealous studio editing rendering the story and its message into milquetoast pap. I for one, am keeping my fingers crossed.