Airsoftslayer93 said:
DannibalG36 said:
"V (as in For Vendetta) hates Government so much he makes Glenn Beck look like FDR, but his enemies are thinly-veiled analogs for the Bush Administration. Which one's the liberal, again?"
Well, well, well, Bob. Apparently, you've only bothered to see the V for Vendetta film, which clearly pits V against a government that's a thinly veiled Bush administration allegory.
However, if you had even bothered to read the original comic series, you would note that Alan Moore (of Watchmen and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen fame - both originally graphic novels) paints V as an anarchist - a terrorist who wages brutal war against a fascist British government. V is no liberal avenger, as seen in the film version. He's a hero, a villain, and a psychotic madman - not unlike the Dark Knight's Joker. Nor are his enemies Bush-analogs. They're closer to some crossbreed between Mussolini and Stalin. Moore portrays a world spiraling into madness, a world devoured by insanity. V's fight is no liberal and just crusade. He fights heroically but madly, and is an agent of destruction and chaos, for the sake of murder and pillage against those just as evil.
V for Vendetta (film) certainly isn't a good case to illustrate political nebulosity. It's just a case of a Hollywood's liberals messing with excellent source material. Sure, V for Vendetta was an above-average graphic novel adaptation, and I enjoyed the film (went to see it twice, in fact). But you would be very wrong to use it as an example of political ambiguity without reading Moore's novel.
Not the bush administration, its about the thatcherite administration in britain
Quite right, you've saved me some time by saying this. Thank you. But to be fair, I think that it's easy, if you're aware of the production process, to have an American reading of the film and accidentally put aside the British setting. Failing to look at the history of Britain for more nearby examples of extremely right-wing governments is an easy mistake to make if you're not from there and don't know British politics.
I think that Bob's final answer in the other, newer article is the part of his argument I find strongest. Movies don't "suck now", they've always been bad. We've just got centralised commercial suckage rather than indy low-budget suckage, now.
If there ever was a Golden Age of film when they really didn't suck for the most part, it was entirely because on the sliding scale between these two extremes, there was a point at which the balance was correct for making a well-organised, original and inspirational film community that puts more masterpieces together than usual.
Myself, I don't think that we'll get much better films than those made by Alfred Hitchcock for a long time (whether or not his work took place in the theoretical Golden Age, I don't know, it's probably just personal taste speaking). Just looking at a still from any part of any of his films, tells you so much about the extremely heavy work and planning that went into each of his works.
The other part of Bob's argument that really struck me as true was the fact that there are definitely well-made children's films. I frankly was unimpressed with the
Harry Potter ones so far. They're well-crafted, but there are definitely much better children's films out there (and the books are just better, in this case). Meanwhile, when something like
Lord of the Rings comes around, I think everyone just goes "wow", and forgets that, violence notwithstanding, it's ultimately a teenager's or kid's tale (or at least, it makes us recall both the beauty and sadness of childhood). And that's one thing that can (not always, but can) make a masterpiece.
Another is an appeal to the collective unconscious - something that a totally adult film can often lack, because childhood (and all the possibilities that entails, pleasant and unpleasant) is so much more universal as an experience.
