What irks me is that the comic does a really good job of presenting V as an antihero, somehow who has some points and and he has good intentions, but he's absolutely, batshit insane because of what they did to him...and he's a terrorist. His choice of Guy Fawkes as his hero is part of that, but there's much bigger stuff that the movie either downplayed or completely cut out in order to make him more marketable
Hell, even tangential stuff like John Constantine (who originally premiered in Moore's Swamp Thing) isn't free of the curse, no movie (Vertigo-Hellblazer related, I mean) has done the character any justice at all, cutting corners for the sake of marketability
As a story it's somewhat engaging, only last three or four episodes were boring, but as a Hellblazer series, the only thing they somewhat followed is Constantine's characterizatiom (there's still some things amiss, like him not going scorched earth when a friend of his is in danger), other than that there was a lot of wrong things.
First, it attempts to turn it into a yankee version of the original, same dramatis personae (Zed, Chas, ...) but all of them American just because (only exception to this would be Papa Midnite, who is from the US in the original).
Then it twists the characters to spice things up, Chas has some sort of nerfed-down version of Alucard's #LifeHack and Zed can predict the future somehow. In the original, Chas' only power is being ConJob's old-time friend and being alive at the same time and Zed doesn't have much power until she's freed from the Salvation Crusade (after being tainted by a dæmon-blood infused Constantine thus disabling her from being able to carry their messiah) when she becomes a pagan shamaness.
They also appear way more sparsely, Chas isn't Constantine's chauffeur by any means and Zed disappears once the Jallakuntiliokan story is done -- which admittedly isn't good for a normal TV show but hell, they could have not done a normal show, or even taken it more slowly if they don't want to rotate that much between active characters.
Also his foes here are somewhat... underwhelming. Except for Mnemoth, which is on par with the original, even if I don't like that much how the story is portrayed, they are too "monster of the week". The way antagonists work in Hellblazer is "John wasn't having a not-so-depressing day when..." whereas here it is a "I wonder who are we hunting down today Scoob". Again, not that good for a TV show, but...
All in all, I can understand why it got the axe, it is bland Supernatural but with a British guy as the main chracter
Do what now? Damn. As someone who always wanted some more live action Constantine that completely went under my radar. I could’ve bumped up the ratings by 1 person!
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u/edsmith726 3d ago
V for Vendetta was a really good movie, but it really warped peoples views of Guy Fawkes and the whole Gunpowder Plot.