Finally managed to actually watch this yesterday. Most of my fears, which revolved around the changed background involving Nazis, were unfounded. I doubt I'll watch it again, though

What I find interesting about adaptations like this is trying to figure out WHY various changes were made. Deconstruct the chain of script meetings. Some things, obviously, were changed just because (like turning a black market smuggler into a gay talk show host). However, you guys talked about the new plot involving the detectives and the virus. Why was it needed? My theory: In the book, the main detective goes on a personal quest to find and stop V. This in the end involves finding out his history, and realizing he will have to think like V in order to catch him. Thus he goes to the concentration camp ruins, takes some LSD, and goes on a bad trip that leads him to the same state of mental freedom as V and Evey. He then realizes naturally V is in the Victoria subway station and shoots and kills V.
So, imagine you're looking at this script. Obviously, you're not going to have the good cop kill V like a bitch. It has to be a bad ass fight scene. You also probably don't want to do the acid trip as by that point in the film the audience may be overloaded enough. So, the cop isn't going to the camp, and that gets rid of the need for his growing mental breakdown... and you end up with a character you need as a way to tell the V backstory but who no longer has anything to actually do.

In the original script the cops and FBI are played straight, iirc.

The Japanese have retired the character for the near future having run the franchise into the ground, so a new American version would make sense from their point of view (the first one did great box office in Japan, and spoiled non-fanboy audiences budget wise making it harder for them to accept the later domestic movies)

While I could also go with Last Airbender, I'll instead go with Cannibal the Musical. Give it a good sized budget and real actors

Haven't seen the new War of the Worlds, so this will be interesting. It is one of those cases where I agree with massive changes to the book- the whole idea was to show how an alien invasion would be "now", so it makes sense to always update it to reflect modern conditions. Not that I wouldn't mind seeing a GOOD period adaptation.

(I'll give bonus points for every reference to the rock opera that gets worked into the commentary)

They can take their name off of it in protest. It's not much, I agree, but it would be nice if an author could take the books title away from a film (I think Stephen King managed to get his name off of the Children of the Corn and Lawnmower Man sequels, but the titles kept being used)

Give you a cushion and feed you grapes. Don't settle for anything less.

There is a level of badness that is set aside for films that are well made by good actors and directors with high budgets that just fail. Maybe we should come up with some other term for them to make you happy

It is interesting when an adaptation is the complete opposite of the original intent. Starship Troopers does that, and so does the musical Annie believe it or not. The creator of the comic was a hard core Republican who so hated FDR he killed off Daddy Warbucks because he believed capitalism was now dead in America, only to bring him back after FDR's death as a great evil had left the world. So, what does the musical do? It has a happy singing FDR and praises the New Deal. I don't think the creator was even a decade in the grave yet...

You could always forget the movie and do a straight commentary on their commentary
"OK, pause your copy of the DIF commentary for Dark City after Teague says '...and the Amazing Trey Stokes' and turn the volume down to low. When I give the signal, hit unpause and it'll be like listening to 8 voices in your head."

Finally got around to watching... well, half the movie It really didn't need the Blade Runner setting, given the comic just took place in a typical small American city. Trey, you might be interested to know that there's a Flaming Carrot/Reid Fleming Worlds Greatest Milkman crossover comic that came out a couple years ago (guest staring the Girl from Ipanema). They've also started releasing hardcover collections of the Reid Fleming comics, so pick up yours today!

Grave of the Fireflies is all the more heartbreaking when you learn it's autobiographical, and the writer killed his animated avatar as he has never forgiven himself for surviving when his little sister didn't.

As for the movie that changed everything....

Airplane.

I was around 10 when it came out, and my sister 8. We saw the ads on TV, and asked Mom to take us. It being the days before the internet and really there being no information about movies unless you heard it from a friend, she assumed it would just be a PG comedy with maybe the over our head innuendo of Young Frankenstein (which our parents had taken us to see the re-release of at the drive in paired with Silver Streak).

Instead we saw jiggling breasts, shit thrown at fans, and the funniest movie we had ever seen. Mom was shell shocked as we left, only able to mumble, "You know you can't say some of those words, right?" From then on she just dropped us off at the movies

Depends on the purpose I hoped from your first post it would be more of an actual comic as you can do a lot when you're not limited by what was actually shot, but this technique is rather common. It's a way for someone who can't draw to do a comic, and as a non-artist I do sympathize.

When first coming upon a web comic a good thing to do is click on the 'latest comic' link or go to the homepage just to see if it's still in production. This one put up a new comic today

I'm turned off by the use of screen captures instead of artwork, so while I'm sure the script is great I'll pass for now. Besides, I have 4 years of back Penny and Aggie comics to get through to catch up to the new stuff...