Frankly, I find Sanderson's analysis completely overdone to the point I'm almost surprised to not find it analyzing itself. It reminds me of the various Shakespeare analysis where they forget the most basic and underlying goal of all of his writings. Dude, he was trying to pay his rent.
Well, to me the whole point of the book was that there was nothing special about the identity of V. He was no-one. The experiences he went through at Larkhill, despite all the tantalising hints Moore leaves lying around, did not confer on him any special powers or abilities. He did nothing that any of us couldn't do, given the will and the means to find the necessary knowledge. If Evey had taken off the mask, it would have revealed the (horribly burned, possibly) face of an ordinary, forgettable man, with an ordinary, forgettable name. The story of V is a superhero story without a superhero. Which is understandable, given that Moore was doing a superhero story at the time: why do two things the same?
Sometimes, you just have to accept the out-of-story reasons why changes are made. The Wachowskis needed a big spectacle to end the movie. They'd had a V making a speech scene. They needed something else. The Portman-into-Weaving's-costume thing could have been solved if they had wanted to. They wanted a scene with lots of people, a thousand elephants (what, you missed them?), and closure. I can see their point, though I may not agree with it.
Definitely over-analyzed. Either he was being paid by the word or he was more interested in seeing how far he could go than in the comic book or the movie. That said, he does offer some good points, which could have been better served with a third of the word count. I could go on and quote a dozen philosophers, psychologists and a marine biologist to disassemble his treatise and reveal where he wandered from the path of enlightenment, but I'd rather not.
And remember, at no point in the comic did Moore _specifically_ state that there were not a thousand elephants!
Finally. Honestly, I don't find it over-analyzed at all. While I found the film enjoyable (and Hugo Weavings' performance utterly, utterly amazing), I was also pretty saddened by it. The movies Evey was left toothless - life just happened to her, even after her torture she seemed to be drifting aimlessly, afraid to confront anything.
I was also pretty frustrated by the 'goverment-arranged bio-terrorism for drug-company profits' angle. By making the facist goverment venal, instead of true-believers, I felt they were rendered somewhat toothless as well - a crook is simple to understand, but a true believer is something more, something large.
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branchandroot
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-04 11:58 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-04 03:13 pm (UTC)Sometimes, you just have to accept the out-of-story reasons why changes are made. The Wachowskis needed a big spectacle to end the movie. They'd had a V making a speech scene. They needed something else. The Portman-into-Weaving's-costume thing could have been solved if they had wanted to. They wanted a scene with lots of people, a thousand elephants (what, you missed them?), and closure. I can see their point, though I may not agree with it.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-04 03:30 pm (UTC)And remember, at no point in the comic did Moore _specifically_ state that there were not a thousand elephants!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-04 05:20 pm (UTC)I was also pretty frustrated by the 'goverment-arranged bio-terrorism for drug-company profits' angle. By making the facist goverment venal, instead of true-believers, I felt they were rendered somewhat toothless as well - a crook is simple to understand, but a true believer is something more, something large.