Something that confuses me about the movie is the timeframe. To me it looks a bit contradicting.
It´s never stated but the movie seems to take place in the 2020s. However, V says that he thought of revenge for 20 years, and spent 10 years restoring the tunnel. Further, in Valerie´s flashback, she says that she starred in her first movie in 2015, where she met her girlfriend for the next three years. That would make her deportation to Larkhill in 2018, which means that the movie takes place in 2038. This makes more sense considering that Finch states that he has been a party member for 23 years, since 2015. If the movie takes place in 2020s then he became a member in the 1990´s. Which would make the movie an AH-story since there was no Norsefire-party in Britain at the time.
This is made confusing and contadictory by the movie especially Finch's statement that hes been a party member for 23 years.To make a timeline of the movie/movie novelization its best to ignore that statement or to view Norsefire as a Conservative offshoot and stretch Finch's membership back until the 1990's. The movie was meant to be taking place sometime in the 2020's even if some of the dialogue suggests otherwise.
From
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_for_Vendetta_(film)
In the near future (some sources say
2020), Britain is ruled by a
totalitarian government under the fascist
Norsefire party
Differences between the film and graphic novel
Further information:
V for Vendetta
The film's story was adapted from an Alan Moore graphic novel originally published between 1982 and 1985 in the British comic anthology
Warrior, and then reprinted and completed by DC. These comics were later compiled into a graphic novel and published again in the United States under DC's
Vertigo imprint and in the United Kingdom under
Titan Books.
[59]
There are several fundamental differences between the film and the original source material. For example, the comic is set in the 1990s, while the film is set in the future (sometime between 2028 and 2038): Alan Moore's original story was created as a response to British
Thatcherism in the early '80s and was set as a conflict between a
fascist state and anarchism, while the film's story has been changed by the Wachowskis to fit a modern political context. Alan Moore, however, charged that in doing so, the story has turned into an American-centric conflict between
liberalism and
neo-conservatism, and abandons the original anarchist-fascist themes. Moore states, "There wasn't a mention of anarchy as far as I could see. The fascism had been completely defanged. I mean, I think that any references to
racial purity had been excised, whereas actually, fascists are quite big on racial purity." Furthermore, in the original story, Moore attempted to maintain moral ambiguity, and not to portray the fascists as caricatures, but as realistic, rounded characters. The time limitations of a film meant that the story had to omit or streamline some of the characters, details, and plotlines from the original story.
[4] Chiefly, the original graphic novel has the fascists elected legally and kept in power through the general apathy of the public whereas the film introduces the "St. Mary's virus," a biological weapon engineered and released by the Norsefire party as a means of clandestinely gaining control over their own country.
It is implied that certain events in the film take place over a much shorter period of time than in the graphic novel. At one point in the latter, Evey's head is shaved completely bald; by the end, her hair has grown back. In the corresponding sequence in the movie, Evey's hair is merely cut extremely short; it remains that length until the end.
Many of the characters from the graphic novel underwent significant changes for the film. V is characterized in the film as a romantic freedom fighter who shows concern over the loss of innocent life.
[60] However, in the graphic novel, he is portrayed as ruthless, willing to kill anyone who gets in his way. Evey Hammond's transformation as V's
protégée is also much more drastic in the novel than in the film. At the beginning of the film, she is already a confident woman with a hint of rebellion in her; in the graphic novel she starts off as an insecure, desperate young woman forced into
prostitution. V and Evey's relationship, though not as obvious in the book, ends in the film with pledges of love. In the graphic novel's finale, she not only carries out V's plans as she does in the film, but also clearly takes on V's identity.
[5] In the film, Inspector Finch sympathizes with V but in the graphic novel, he is determined to stop V and goes as far as taking
LSD in order to enter into a criminal's state of mind.
[5]