I thought it started extremely well, then meandered and really lost intensity. The opening few issues, though, I think stand up with From Hell as Moore’s best work. It almost seems like he lost interest in the story about midway through. You could probably cut 30% out of the book to make for a tighter, more compelling plot.
Which means that if the script for the movie does this, and does it well, the flick could be fantastic. I’d love to see actual Brits in this, though. Why the fuck does Hollywood have to Americanize everything? And Natalie Portman? Sorry, no. She seems to be one of the blandest young actresses on the planet right now. Although I haven’t seen Closer, so maybe she’s capable of more depth than I’ve seen.
On second thought, a story like this set in the US, say about 15 years from now, might be pretty interesting considering the current political climate. In some ways, I’d be more interested in this than a filmed version of the original story set in the UK.
Closer is abjectly horrible, and it’s so poorly written that if she does have more depth than you’ve seen, there is absolutely no way it would have surfaced there.
I love Watchmen, but the pacing just seems uneven. The psychology is great, the attention to detail is astounding, but some of the scenes just drag.
I just don’t get the hype about Miracleman. What am I missing? It’s well-written, but the last third seems disjoint and pointless. I’m not trying to bash it, I really think I’m missing something about it. The miracle babies and Utopia just seem too much of a jump from the previous world. The kiss scene between Miracleman and his boy wonder seems forced- all that hoopla over that? Illuminate me.
V for Vendetta, now- definitely the best Moore work I’ve read. It has a tighter plot than the above two (which in my non-professional critic lexicon means “more things happen”), the art matches the tone, and it’s full of references which drive the story forward, though the “Cabaret” stuff needed to be fit in a bit more smoothly.
I’m skeptical, but hopefully the movie will be good. If they can release it on the 400th anniversary of Guy Fawkes Day, that will go a long way toward showing that they “get it” and aren’t going to LXG it.
It really comes down to changing an entire industry. Miracleman , along with Swamp Thing, and Dark Knight Returns, really rewrote the rules for what hero comics could be.
It’s hard to remember now, but back in '87 most of those books were coming out at the same time!
The best thing about Miracleman, IMO, was that it deconstructed itself. You have this old school hero, with bad art, and terrible stories, and Moore restructures it into this incredible story about aliens and secret government programs. In a post X-Files world that may seem like no big shakes, but it was back then.
And even though bad shit kept happening to the book; money and artists, disappeared, art got stolen, Moore managed to keep at it and get the damn thing wrapped up.
You may not like the ending, but I still think it’s amazing. After rediscovering the man and the Superman, it’s the man who decides to give up his life so the superhero can go on.
I can still remember when it all clicked into place for me:
Stan Lee said “With great power comes great responsiblity.” But back in the 80s Moore asked another question: “What are my responsibilities?” What does a hero owe the human race, (or the planet in the case of Swamp Thing)?
To me the fact that V doesn’t cover much of that ground makes it kind of dull for me. Yeah, it’s interesting, but I can see why Moore got bored. It’s all gimmick. A cool, post-modern gimmick, but still just a one trick pony at the end of the day.
Gimmick? I didn’t find the story gimmicky at all. It’s sort of a tried-and-true “fight the power” thing, with a 1984 vibe to boot. But the theme is a 20th century archetype that I find very interesting, having grown up during the Cold War. Maybe it won’t seem all that interesting to someone who isn’t old enough to remember the shooting down of KAL 007 in 1984, or the Solidarity movement in Poland, or the invasion of Afghanistan. In that sense V, is something of a cultural relic.
Also, I don’t know why you think that V is lacking in responsibility themes. The entire story is about V reminding Brits that they have a responsibility to themselves and to those who died in the war and in the camps to fight the totalitarian government. More specifically, it’s about V training Evey to be his successor, so that the fight goes on.
And as much as I admire them, I hate what those “changing an entire industry” books did to hero comics in the 80s. Okay, maybe the old books were too one-note and simplistic, but things have swung way too far to the other extreme. Look at DC’s Identity Crisis, for instance, or even that atrocious “Sins Past” story in Amazing Spider-Man, or Avengers Disassembled, which was completely unmemorable except for the senseless hero deaths. Maybe I’m a fossil, but that’s not what I want in a superhero comics. At least not in every superhero comic.
There’s a reason why an old-fashioned long-underwear comic like Astonishing X-Men is outselling every other book on the shelf these days.
Because it’s extremely well-written by one of the top writers in entertainment today featuring some of the most iconic characters of the modern comic era?
I agree with you on the “world altering events” thing that usually falls flat on its face (Onslaught, anyone?), but Astonishing certainly wouldn’t exist without the deconstructionist leanings of Watchmen, Miracleman, etc. having permeated the industry. It’s just as self-aware, but Whedon doesn’t feel the need to turn it into Fetishists Anonymous every five pages unlike many who try to emulate Moore and company.
Interestingly, Moore himself would agree with you. In a perfect world, books like Watchmen and Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns would have ushered in an era where artists really challenged themselves and their audience in critical ways. It (mostly) didn’t: what seemed to happen is that Moore and Miller gave comics carte blanche to go “darker”, but darker doesn’t always equal better, and eventually those cliches simply got replaced with newer, more violent ones. (In the same way, I had hoped that the Hernandez Brothers’ utterly brilliant Love & Rockets would have paved the way for more literate work from the alternative end of things, but instead it merely made the world safe for Strangers In Paradise.)
There’s a reason why an old-fashioned long-underwear comic like Astonishing X-Men is outselling every other book on the shelf these days.
What attracts me to Whedon’s writing is that he seems to be geniunely interested in finding out what makes good stories tick. His dialogue is great, but more enjoyable is his obsession with how teams work together, even when there is internal conflict between members. That’s (one of) the big themes of Buffy, and he brings that same theme to Astonishing, where it fits like a bloody glove. He’s able to do al this while still making it believable on an emotional level, where it counts.
I was looking into where this movie is, and it turns out they’ve announced who will play V: Hugo “Elrond / Agent Smith” Weaving. Although I think he can do a good job, I really associate him with Agent Smith and found that distracting throughout the LOTR trilogy.
He apparently recently replaced someone who was previously cast as V, James Purefoy (who I’ve never heard of). Not sure if that’s going to mean big delays, or what. It was originally slated for 11/05.
Also, note that the Wachowskis are producing, not directing, although they did do the screenplay. The director is someone else I’ve never heard of, James McTiegue, who was apparently AD on Matrix and the Star Wars prequels or something like that.
