Yay! I also managed to avoid it for the first couple years, but I got it over New Years. :/ I'm sending good vibes that you don't have to deal with after effects.
Relieved to hear it 🙂 this video was great, and a big thank you for making stuff even though you’re ill. I’ve had a terrible day and this legitimately helped me calm down and feel better
Sorry you got bit by the COVID bug. I also avoided it for the first couple years & did all the good stuff (masks, vaccines, boosters, sanitizer, avoiding people, etc.), but I still got bit. Hope your fur babies were better nurse kitties than mine.
"One day the good burghers and honest townsfolk of Northampton will burn Alan as a warlock, and it will be a great loss to the world." Neil Gaiman. Having both lived in Northampton and having met and talked with Alan (my dad was close with him as kids) I agree. Though we will need to find some honest townsfolk in Northampton which could take a while.
I find it interesting Moore's looks are often criticized, almost as if people are saying that if he "looked like them" they would excuse his material. I'm sure this hypocrisy is not lost on him.
He has a very intense stare. When you look into the eyes of a picture of Alan Moore, he sees you back. He sees your thoughts, your wants, your soul. He sees you, and he knows you. And he finds you lacking.
The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen was a film, that my dad wanted to see. I wasn't particularly interested in seeing it. So, I took my dad to see it and we went to a nice restaurant afterward. This film is now special to me, because it was the last film, that I went to with my dad, before he died. I liked it, but he was really into it. So, I always remember how happy it made him, even if others disliked it. To me, the movie is a great personal memory.
I'm honestly surprised at how many people seemed to miss that the Phantom, the fake villanous identity Moriarty uses to trick the heroes, is supossed to be the Phantom of the Opera himself.
I know Right! That’s a part of the film you practically have to rewatch to grasp that Part of the film! Thus it makes the rest of his motives make sense once you discover that he’s the BIG BAD :)
@@alanpennie8013 The fact that he is wearing a mask, is pointed as extremely intelligent, and seems disfigured by burn marks, makes me think he is the one from the opera.
The part of the movie that went underappreciated by me as a kid was the introduction of Nemo's first mate, and his first line being "You can call me Ishmael". That was a top notch joke.
Oh my god, that line was hilarious. When we saw the movie in theaters, and I heard that line, I busted out laughing. My husband was actually looking around, and he told me later that only about three other people reacted. Everyone else had a very obvious 'Huh?' face, like they couldn't understand why we thought that was funny.
All of nemo's notable crewmen were also from books. The sheer volume of charcsters who appear for at least a panel is ridiculous. The second volume even has dr moreau and his creations. And the "threat" they were gathered for might have been the martians from war of the worlds, the villains in the second volume, who are shown fighting jon carter of mars.
I just wanna say that there IS one Alan Moore adaptation that he was willing to put his name on, and that was the Justice League Unlimtied episode 'For the Man Who Has Everything.' It's truly an incredible episode, and one of the most emotionally resonant Superman stories you'll get outside of comics.
7:08 "She's revealed to be Mina Harker, from Bram Stoker's Dracula, now a vampire herself." 15:28 "Unlike the comic, the film could not wait to reveal her bloodsucker status." I'm afraid you read a bit much into the graphic novel there, Dom. Moore's version of Mina is a traumatized survivor, ostensibly picked by M for her strength in surviving not just the Dracula incident but also the divorce, which I hear was almost unheard of in Victorian England, and not generous to the women involved. She's not a vampire herself. That addition was unique to the movie. Incidentally, Moore's assertion was that Dracula had saw-toothed fangs like a vampire bat, which is why Mina's neck is terribly scarred, and why she wears the red scarf.
Uhhh I’m gonna pretend Mina and Jonathan don’t divorce…. They deserve a life of happiness after dealing with Dracula. And dammit they name their child after Quincy.
@@dancegregorydance6933 Absolutely nothing in the original canon to suggest anything other than a happy ever after. Nothing in Doyle's stories to suggest Moriarty was a government plant or lived past going down that waterfall. These aren't the original characters they're the League universes versions.
@@anarchomando7707 Well, to be fair Jonathan IS useless. Not inept, he can manage himself rather well, but not particularly useful. Anything of worth in that story is achieved by Van Helsing, Mina and then Quincy right at the end there. But really the treatment of Harker is more of a comment on Victorian values regarding women. Which, to be fair to Stoker, was probably not the best character Moore could have used, since the idea that Mina is soiled forever by Dracula's assault is brought up by Mina and thoroughly rejected by Jonathan in the book.
I think I appreciate the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen way more for its world building and the ideas it puts forth than the executed product. Perhaps if this mess of intellectual properties were placed in the hands of a better storyteller it could work as a television series like Penny Dreadful. Assuming they’re willing to cut out the more problematic elements, I’d totally watch something like that.
Agreed. I always felt like the film was surprisingly underwhelming for the ideas it brings forth, and that's it's worst problem. I suppose it's better than having the more "questionable" moments of the comic, yet I don't think it's immediately made better because of that since in the end, it doesn't leave much of an impression, positive or negative.
Still penny dreadful never ruined th characters that are great. The movie, aside the stereotypical american insert i hate, the movie is at least having character and enjoyable?! Th story, whyyy, why waste that cast, but the movie has admitedly a weird quality. Iff, a waste too. OMG the movi should hav been so muich weirder and tter for it.
Two tiny quibbles: Mina didn’t have any powers in the comic, just horrible scars and a knowledge of the supernatural. She eventually became immortal with Quatermain in a magic spring from the novel “She”. The comic design of the Nautilus is…. a nautilus. A prehistoric extinct kind (such as Cameroceras) with a straight shell which is more amenable to submarine design. The aft part of the vessel looks more like one of these shells than the mantle of a squid. They’re both cephalopods so could be either, but given the name of the sub…. Anyways get well soon!
The Nautilus in the comics represents a squid wrestling a whale and, according to the supplementary material, can actually split into two separate vehicles.
@@woodgatejack it’s called a “kraken”, which could refer to any cephalopod. Look at the splash pic of the Nautilus and then look at a pic of ceratoceras. The straight shell shape is very similar. Could be artistic license on the part of the illustrator. But then it’s named Nautilus…
It's interesting to me that Dorian Gray isn't in the source material as he was very much my favourite character in the movie. Admittedly, mostly because charming pretty boy with a broken moral compass isn't so much my type as it's my entire printer's workshop, but still, him responding to Mina asking what he is with 'I'm complicated.' remains one of my very favourite line reads in any movie to this day.
He said that to a random goon that stabbed him, and he then killed. His line with Mina was, "We'll be at this all day" after they injured each other and healed
I have just watched it, 3x in two days. He says it to a goon who shoots him, and Stuart Townsend is SOOO sassy in that moment. It's hilarious. And then the "We'll be at this all day" is 2nd for sassiest gray line. Honorary mention when he's on the recording and M says "I've put my wolf among you." And Dorian says "growl" lol
Two things I'd like to mention for corrections: 1) Mina was never a vampire in the original graphic novel, just someone with unique scars and a knowledge of the supernatural 2) That wasn't Fagin that led the gang underground, it was an old Artful Dodger (Fagin was sentenced to hang at the end of Oliver Twist)
On top of that, "Bantom" in the movie (Moriaty's disguise) was based on Phantom of the Opera and they actually explained Hyde's growth spurt in the second volume, where they fought the WotW Martians
The unfortunate thing about the lack of a sequel is not getting to see the League take on the Martian invasion from War of the Worlds from the second volume of the graphic novel. The positive thing about the lack of a sequel is not having to see the Invisible Man randomly decide to help the Martians for no reason, then being sexually assaulted *to death* by Hyde
More than two. He also turned down to play Dumbledore in Harry Potter. Personally, I think like Gandalf he would have been horribly suited, but he still missed that ship and then did this nightmare to try and make up for it.
Sean connery couldnt choose a good script if his life depended on it most of the time, sadly. Sure you occasionally in the later years got films like The Rock, but he also chose to be in Zardoz just a few years after being James Fucking Bond
I saw this movie in the theater after I got stood up for a Amusement park day Date with a girl. "Not great but inoffensive" is the perfect way to describe it. It does however feature a simple but great line that I love. When talking to M, Gray says "I've live long enough to see the future become history. All empires crumble, there are no exceptions." For whatever reason, that line sticks with me.
Its true if you study history. Any great civilization, culture or empire that used to buttfuck and dominate everyone else at some point has either disappeared, become a former shadow of itself or just a bunch of ruins to show the tourists of the now dominant culture.
@@Dougie373 Yeah, all other issues aside, the dialogue overall is generally pretty good, either snappy or impactful. I always love the bit during the fight with Gray and Mina -- two immortals -- when they both turn back after wounding each other and you see the wounds are already healing, and Gray just goes "We'll be at this _all day."_
almost every movie from the late 90s/early 2000s monster movie revival (this, the mummy movies, hansel and grettle, van helsing, underworld, queen of the damned, technically even phantom of the opera since he's an og universal monster) can be described as "is it good? no. is it fun? hell yes". one of my absolute favourite micro-genres of movie. honestly the only film in that category i can think of that isn't campy fun is the brothers grimm, and even that has its fans
Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is such a interesting case study on how pop culture has warped and changed the meaning and ideas of a character. I’d love to see a LIA or general discussion on the book vs movie vs pop culture interpretation of Jekyll and Hyde
@@Ikajo I don't think Hyde was ever descriped as charismatic in the book, only "terrifying" and "evil". Or did I forget that? I haven't read it in a long time, but I don't remember him ever being described as charismatic.
@@elentari15 I read it a couple of weeks ago and you're right. He has the exact opposite reaction on every character in the novella, everyone describes him as immediately disliking him and feeling some sort of resentment towards him even if he didn't do anything.
I swear imagine if Disney made a film with a character based on Jekyll & Hyde and had a scene where someone finds not Hyde in Notre Dame. I'm PRETTY SURE they would have him say "Who were you expecting. Quasimodo?" (And now I want to see an episode of Lost in Adaptation on the movie musical version of Le Mes)
Through the pre-amble and still waiting for Dom to note that the rights were bought before the comic even came out, so effectively the pre-production of the film was an adaptation of the concept and not the actual work. Because knowing that fact explains a LOT.
I hadn't heard that tidbit. I have heard, from an article whose author was able to read the Cohen and Poll script, that the movie follows _it_ way closer than it does the _League_ comic. So, it may well be a bit of column A/bit of column B here.
@@scaper8 I wouldn’t be shocked if the studio basically ripped off a submitted script because it was close enough to the concept they’d just bought the rights to and it meant they didn’t have to wait for the actual comics to come out before starting.
I actually like a lot of the changes made for the film. I don't know - and I doubt it - whether the film writers knew that Twain had written stories about Tom Sawyer as a detective, but intentional or not, it feels like a cute reference to have him as a special agent here - even if the timeline doesn't line up properly! And I much prefer Mina as a widow rather than a divorcee - the strength of Mina and Jonathan Harker's relationship is such a key part of the novel Dracula that writing them as having split up is showing just as much contempt for the source material as anything the film does with the comics characters. Sauce for the gander, Mr. Moore.
Risking putting fuel to the fire here, but I also prefer her movie version to the comic where she spent mostly used for SA scenes/fan service/saying weird stuff like Hyde not being such a bad man despite being an unrepented serial killer and rapist/Moore pairing her up with Quertarmain who's his self-insert.
Ditto. Johnathan just abandoning Mina after all that they went through was kinda crap. I honestly prefer the movie to the novel. Not perfect but I like it.
I know it's a mess of a film and adaptation but I adore LXG and I always thought Mina was cool for what little she got to do - "save your bullets these men are MINE!" 🦇🧛🏻♀️🦇
Same! I love strong women characters and I saw the film before going back and reading the graphic novels, so while I was a bit disappointed that Mina didn't have a awesome vampire powers in the original material, I did appreciate how she was the leader of the group.
@@tossingturnips in the comic she's an actual strong female character. In the movie she's just a man who looks like a woman, like most badly written "strong female characters."
Thank you for validating my feelings about Alan Moore. A lot of his work is brilliant, but ever since I started running across it as a teenage girl, I've been deeply uncomfortable with how NOT uncomfortable everyone else seems to be with things like SA of minors played for laughs. I read the original comics more or less as they came out, and got the impression that the writer hated me personally for being a bookish girl who was unlikely to gratify him sexually. You might be the only male creator I've ever seen address that discomfort. Thank you. Edit: Per the comments: 1) I'm not telling anyone else not to read anything or to censor anything, just stating that it made me personally uncomfortable and that it's nice that Dom acknowledged that discomfort as a possibility. Good job, Dom. That's a thing critics/reviewers should do occasionally. 2) As to whether Moore actually thinks SA of minors is funny ... well, he's definitely fond of it as a plot device, and I interpreted the art on my first reading of League as him poking fun at Victorian repression. Which, fair enough, there was a LOT of that ... but imho, having the shocking event be SA of minors rather took the humor out of it, and I'm not sure he understands that. 3) If you got something good out of Lost Girls, bless you. I have no strong opinion on it because I read a summary of the premise, decided it didn't sound like my kind of book, and didn't seek it out. 4) I'm on the asexual spectrum and I don't get much out of sexual content in stories. It doesn't usually bother me; I mostly find it boring and skip it whenever possible. (I don't think it's reasonable to ask authors to stop writing it, but I see no reason to spend my leisure time on reading the boring bits.) SA scenes usually upset me for obvious reasons, but I don't mind being upset IF the artistic payoff is worth it. In my opinion, Moore's payoff isn't worth it. So no, I'm unlikely to find the long boring/upsetting stretches of Lost Girls (or any other later work of Moore's) to be worth whatever artistic summit he may or may not reach. 5) I'm not saying you're a bad person if you love Alan Moore. But we probably wouldn't be besties. 6) All hail Sir Terry. (I think we can agree he's the MVP of the channel.)
I don't know about that, but I will say that having Mr. Hyde struggle-snuggle a dude to death doesn't really scratch my "Tales of high adventure" itch, and having a story based on Lovecraft's work prominently feature a girl getting molested by a fish-man basically made me put it down and never pick it up again. I find it extremely tasteless, and I feel like Moore could probably have gotten more out of NOT showing it (ironic in a visual medium, I know).
@@MrNickPresley tbf the point was to show it. Moore basically calling Lovecraft a sexless pussy in it lol. Honestly as someone that is critical of Moore's fascination with sexual assault (though I will defend him from some of the criticism I see) after all the things I saw people saying about it, it really wasn't that bad. I actually enjoyed it, it was an alright tale. Compared to some of the other rape tales he's done it actually felt... right for the story? In a weird way. Like it served a purpose? Providence was better though I have to say. I think that fulfilled Moore's Lovecraft love-letter/deconstruction much better. Especially the Innsmouth issue. Turning the Innsmouth folk into a bit stand-offish but quite fine people that just happen to have a weird fish fucking custom, everything else about them is rumours spread about them by the typical racist folk. A nice little modern update to the "horrors" of miscegenation the original was. Literally nothing happens and the main character goes home after a nice day. The main character is gay too. The anti-lovecraft protagonist. That one movie did that first though. Also S. T. Joshi actually shows up so I have to applaud Moore for being so fucking insane to be the only one to do that.
I read parts of Alan Moore's the swamp thing b4 I read league of extraordinary Gentlemen and I agree, great writing but a particular fixation on sexual assault and attractiveness ? With both league and swamp thing, I got to the point where I was only reading the words and basically ignoring the art because I disliked the art styles and I didn't want to see what wierd behaviour he was describing . . .
@@MrNickPresley You do know it's not a girl or a fish man, yes? It's not real, so it's a drawing of a girl being molested by the drawing of a fish man. It's... not... real...
And the only time he ever really apologized for those type of content was for The killing joke, where he was apologetic for the treatment of Barbara and where he assured readers that the Joker didn't rape her. But I got to wonder if he apologized only because of the legacy and popularity Barbara has or because his resentment towards DC comics because he has never been apologetic to the SA in his other comic. Nor has he stopped using SA in his later comics (like LXG).
I have to wonder if M's secret identity as "The Phantom" was meant to be yet another shoehorning in of a reference to popular works set in Victorian times, namely "The Phantom of the Opera". Then again, Alan Moore was no stranger to that himself since the League comics' raison d'etre, especially toward the end of their run, was to show how ALL fiction is connected. The man slipped the desiccated corpse of Thomas the Tank Engine into a background shot, for Christ's sake!
@@mrcritical6751 I know this comment is a year old, but I wanted to add something. Yes, he did make Mary Poppins god. Another thing I want to add, Harry Potter was the Anti Christ. Oh, and Godzilla appeared further down the line in another issue. I wish I was kidding, but no, I am not.
Fun note; As Moore once pointed out by the time the movie is set in Tom Sawyer should be as old as Quartermain. Also finding Hyde on a murder spree in Paris in book and film is a reference to "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," an Edgar Allen Poe short story featuring C. Auguste Dupin, Poe's detectve character that was the prototype Doyle made Sherlock Holmes from.
The murderer being Hyde is an improvement considering that the culprit in Poe's story is..... .... .... .... .... ...wait for it..... .... .... .... .... an orangutan? I know this doesn't have much to do with what you were talking about, but I find the plot of 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue' unintentionally hilarious and I think more people should read it.
After reading Dracula I wish both Mina and Jonathan would have been in this story as a power couple. They deserve happiness and to be with eachother. Jonathan was willing to become a vampire with her dangit
I remember a teacher showed it to us the last days of class, when nobody cares about class anymore. I liked it a lot, and had the occasion of watching it again as an adult. I know it is not great, the plot isn't the most complex, the special effects at the end are quite bad, but i must say, it is SO FUN. I love it, i just love seeing Dracula 's Fiend And Badass Teacher Vampire Mina Murray bantering with FBI Agent Tom Sawer on board of the Jules Verne's Nautilus. It's just fun, you know ? Seeing characters I already know meeting and discussing ! It's like a fanfiction on screen !
"No no you don't get it it's actually a hyper-ironic joke satirising... uh... the immaturity of the people who... uh.... don't like my comics! Also you've never gotten laid so there!" -Alan Moore, probably
Kinda but not really. It’s more shock value than horny. Moore stance is in medium so obsessived with violence why is sexual assault a taboo topic. Granted I don’t agree with this view point and think Alias is a good example of how to write rape in the medium but it’s an over simplified view of Moore point
I actually loved this movie. I loved the steampunk aesthetic and the mashup of characters. I couldn't care less if its accurate. It was a fun action romp.
Same here, and I feel like the plot was better than the comic's. The whole haphazard assemble of a Fu Manchu and flying metal for bombarding london with floating ships would be way too goofy compared to "goat wars to profit on it" which is saddly still a thing. Not to mention it made more sense to assemble superhumans to steal their abilities for warfare rather than just think you could keep them your personal guard the whole time while the world burns. And while someone argues Quatermayne and Sawyer weren't special so why were they recruited, my guess is to make sure the team doesn't tear each other apart because two normal albeit competent humans would balance things out among those monsters.
@@MrKlausbaudelaire IIRC, Quartermayn was recruited because they wanted his hunting expertise to capture Hyde alive for them, and Sawyer wasn't "recruited" at all (he had been on the trail of the "Phantom" on behalf of the US government and just happened to catch up in time to help in the fight at Gray's house, after which the league chose to let him tag along).
They actually had almost an hour cut from this film, Studio Mandate and multiple sub-plots removed. One where Agent Sawyer was actually Quatermain's kid, another focusing on "M" and what caused Moriarty to enact his plot and multiple minor ones that "fleshed" out the team and their reasons to join up. You can see the edits to remove all of this with bad CGI paining over characters that were cut from the plot, but were in later main plot specific scenes (like the goon that captured Sawyer, just before Quatermain was shot, was originally a named character cut completely from the movie, the evil invisible man at the end being M's agent that recruited Quatermain in Africa.) and lines that seem to have some greater meaning but lead nowhere.
I have fond memories of this film, it got me to read all the stories the main characters were based on, and that made me go into literature studies in university.
They actually did make a few subtle hints to Moriarty's true identity before the 'big reveal.' The first being when one of his goons yells 'Run James!' during the attack while the team is in the process of recruiting Grey. The second is the woman’s voice on the record. She distinctly says 'Ready Professor?' So they aren't obvious clues unless you're super familiar with Victorian literature, but in the context of the movie, it's not impossible to believe that Quartermain put these clues together and figured out who Moriarty was.
It’s like Ella Enchanted. Was the book way different? Yes. Does it matter? No. Now he have two separate versions to choose from. Both with their own charms.
My favorite League of Extraordinary Gentleman things is actually the novelization, the book made based on the original script. It ends up expanding upon particular points(Skinner being a red herring and a reason for Dorian to be there as examples), and even has Quatermain and Nemo have a moment of consolidation during their disapproval of colonialism they've experienced
A little disappointed that you didn't mention the Wold Newton, the multi-franchise world created by Philip José Farmer in the 70s which was the direct inspiration for the League. It incorporated Tarzan, Doc Savage, Sherlock Holmes, Superman (golden era version), the Time Traveller, Alain Quartermain, and so... so many more. Most of the people are said to have been exposed to a meteorite which crashed in England in 1795 or they were descended from those who were.
Probably didn't mention it because it sounds pretty unknown and has characters that aren't actually public domain. People seem to presume certain characters are, but the marker standard is before the end of the 20s, not pre/during WW2. Doc Savage isn't gonna be public domain until 2043 (thanks Disney).
@@TactlessC Tinkerer is correct that they were a direct inspiration, Moore called the Wold Newton stories "a seminal influence upon the League". If you were reading SF 50 years ago, you would know Farmer's work.
Others have pointed out Mina is a vampire *survivor* not a vampire herself, and often her greatest asset in the comics, at least early on, is that as a woman she is constantly ignored or underestimated but I think I may have a possible explanation for the weird "James Moriarty died at Reichenbach Falls" bit, you see Richard Roxburgh had played Sherlock Holmes himself in a 2002 TV movie production of Hound Of the Baskervilles so I have my suspicions that this is a misfired attempt to 180° the twist from the comics, and infer that "M" of LXG is a corrupted Sherlock Holmes who survived and not actually Moriarty, who DID die in this version! The thing is they couldn't explicitly state that "I AM, IN FACT, SHERLOCK HOLMES!!!" as, like some other changed/omitted characters, Ol' Holmes himself would have been copyright locked down at the time, or at least the studio would be (possibly rightly given their litigiousness ) cautious of the Doyle Estate's reaction to them breaking him bad. I know, I know, that sounds a smart as a bag of rocks because "WHY would Sherlock go bad?" but, admit it, that totally fits with some of the other adaptation changes that are dumb ideas that think they're smart. I nearly rolled my eyeballs out of my skull during that scene when I watched LXG in the cinema.
To be fair knocks to the head can have some pretty weird side effects. Maybe he got a wack on the head at Reichenbach, which resulted in a personality shift?
Then that is really, really stupid. If they could not use the character name to solidify the plot point, then why use said point? Only a few people (such as yourself) came up with a plausible answer. The rest of the movie watchers (like myself) either ignored it or went, huh?
The most startling thing about this movie when I rewatched it recently was the incredible similarities between the villains triggering Hyde inside the submarine and Loki triggering the Hulk in the helecarrier in Avengers, it's very nearly identical
I unironically love this movie. I've first watched it when I was really young, and even now, almost two decades later, it's in a strange blind spot for me where I can't see any of it's flaws. I rewatch it every few years still :) Hope you feel better soon Dom 🧡
it's the last third of August '24, you commented on a site with the movie tLoXG. in it you mentioned your condition, a double down , the Covid & being Gravid.1 is caused by a virus the other...a penis! if you had stayed at the recommended social intercourse distance to ensure you were not at risk of the one, it would have prevented the other! hope you had a superb smooth delivery & that your offspring is the fulfillment of your most treasured imaginings! LMdiD.😽💨
I can completely understand why people didn’t like this movie, but I wholeheartedly admit that I love it. I used to watch this movie on repeat growing up and I was so enamoured. There was something so magical about everything even if it was also pretty cheesy haha
“I might make a Patreon exclusive video on the accuracy of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen characters to their original stories.” - Dom spouting one of the best reasons for becoming a Patreon subscriber of his
@@jessicawurm23 The membership level is different for every Patreon; it is up to the Patreon page owner to decide what the subscribers can get for what amount. With Dominic Noble, the lowest level of 2 bucks a month is enough to get his Patreon exclusive video's. In the last year or so he has been putting out more Patreon exclusives, these are often less scripted than his public video's. I suggest checking out Dom's Patreon first before subscribing. See what membership level - if any - is right for you, read the public Patreon posts etc. Also, you'll need to pay Patreon a tax on every pledge if you decide to become a Patreon subscriber.
I love this quote from a podcaster about this movie: "If your only opinions on it are from an angry Gen-Xer who was angry because it 'ruined' a favorite graphic novel of theirs, maybe give it a look? It's a bit of dumb fun!"
You forgot to mention Kevin O'Neill passed away last year; also, his artstyle suits the Dark Fantasy/Sci-Fi world of Nemesis the Warlock (his first big series) pretty well IMHO.
I met him at the Big Apple Con in NYC back in 2010, He was a charming man who really almost came across as an older English School teacher in person, And he signed and also drew a sketch for me of Mina in my Volume 2 LOEG book completely free of charge even though I offered to pay him for it. He was an unforgettable artist who really left us too soon.
there was no bloody way they could've made LXG anywhere near as accurate to the books. i can appreciate both the movie and the books for how they handled a early 20th century lituerature justice league but overall, i'd still take the movie over the books. (i have the movie and watch it a lot)
Having read the comic and seen the movie I gotta say that I actually like the concept of taking these Victorian era characters and bringing them together as a superhero like team. The execution of this idea leaves a lot to be desired.
I still love this film a whole lot, and the Invisible Man was one of my favourite characters (the others were Jekyll and Nemo), so you can imagine my absolute horror when my mother got me the first graphic novel after I had spent so long wanting to read it, and I got to the original version of the Invisible Man's introduction scene...
In addition to Dom’s “Mostly harmless” part, this movie did make me want to look up the Quartermaine novels and Dorian Gray. Actually, I think apart from Tom Sawyer, Captain Nemo was the only character I recognized (and Moriarty, but since he doesn’t get name dropped until the end, doesn’t count). Also, the dialogue is nice and quippy, I’m a sucker.
I also found this film to be a gateway into the literature it was based on. The Picture of Dorian Gray was by far my favorite but struggled with King Solomon's Mines, there's a lot of racism and killing elephants.
King Solom’s Mines is great. True there are things that have aged badly, but for the age it was written in it could have been a hell of a lot worse. There is a pretty touching interracial almost relationship there, which must have been way ahead of its time when it was written.
I was like 10 when I first saw this movie. The ONLY characters I had heard of were Captain Nemo, Tom Sawyer and Mr. Hyde and I guess Dracula technically, but I didn’t know Mina. So yeah, this was a cool introduction to a lot of awesome literature characters.
Also, as a note: The inclusion of Tom Sawyer and Dorian Gray kinda made sense to me, even after learning about the source material. I mean, if you're gonna do this 'Tons of characters from other books and movies' thing, go all out. As many as you can (see also the throwaway line of Nemo's right-hand man saying "Call me Ishmael")
I came up with a League consisting of (mostly) 1990s movies: -Dr. Alan Grant (Jurassic Park) as Allan Quatermain -Rita Veder (Vampire in Brooklyn) as Mina Harker -Helen Hyde and Dr. Richard Jacks (Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde) -Captain Marko Ramius (The Hunt for Red October) as Captain Nemo -Dr. Sebastian Caine, the Hollow Man
What's really funny is you could basically make your own story about a team of non copyrighted characters if you wanted to, though it might be tricky to make it legally distinct from the transformative nature of LoEG, but choosing a different name for the team, location, and different characters from public domain would be easy enough, even from the same stories Edit: to those commenting, just FYI I'm not necessarily looking to read or watch something like this, nor was I assuming it hasn't been done before, nor am I at all surprised that it HAS been done before, I was mostly saying that if you like the idea of ALoEG but didn't like the execution this is one case where you can pretty much do your own version with little fear of copyright. I mean anyone can do fanfiction that corrects problems in a copyrighted story, but you can't publish it per se. Here you more easily could. I'm glad so many other creators have gone ahead and done something like this! But, most of the examples mentioned here are ones I wasn't familiar with. The closest I've ever done, just as a casual writer, is combining fairy tales into one universe, which is also common in many fantasy genres, though you need to be careful bc some popular fairy tale adjacent stories aren't copyright free (like Peter pan). A series well worth mining is the wizard of oz. The mgm film is copyrighted, but the dozen or so books aren't. That's just A few things, like ruby slippers (they're silver in the book), that are only in the film.
Ooh, there is "the strange case of the alchemist's daughter" which is a team of unfortunate mad scientist's children/mad science experiments running around trying to make rent and get vengeance on their villainous dads!
Seconding this! I very much enjoyed the book, and it turns out you don’t need to know everything about the public domain books it pulls from, since the characters will fill in enough to get the gist, so you can read it even if you’re not familiar with old classic horror books.
You might be interested in "Adventure!" (the exclamation mark is part of the title), a tabletop RPG set rather later on that LoEG but featuring a similar sort of idea for pulp stories. Including one faction that's a worldwide organisation of detectives led by "the Old Man" who is never confirmed but deeply hinted to be Holmes.
The Planetary comics would be worth hunting down for this. It pulls more from more recent pulp heroes, and comics, and movies, but there's a spoiler-laden connection between a character and Sherlock Holmes (and Dracula, The Invisible Man, Dr. Frankenstein, some others I am likely forgetting) later in the story.
A correction, Master Noble! 'Tis not Fagin, but Jack Dawkins, the Artful Dodger, now running the pick-pocket gang at the time of this story, having somehow returned from Australia. (Moore's penchant for including SA as a plot device acknowledged, I still enjoy these books for being literary easter egg hunts.)
As far as mainstream fiction? Penny Dreadful comes up as a maybe, but I never got into that. I can't remember offhand if Dr. Jeckyl was part of the cabal Holmes was a member of in the Planetary comic series (but that was a short backstory segment as opposed to anything actually explored).
Yeah Captain Nemo's submarine was something of stupid to me having something that freaking long is impractical and hard as hell to try and find a port to put it in.
I will forever have a soft spot for this movie since my best friend, her boyfriend, and I went to see it together and she and I absolutely lost our shit every time something was phrased just a little...off. After a certain point she and I didn't even have to say anything, we'd just look at one another and crack up, absolutely knowing we were thinking the exact same thing.
21:06 Correction: In the comic book, it's explicitly noted that Moriarty was planning on just eliminating the League after they completed their mission by blowing them up in his bombing raid on Fu Manchu, having ensured that the group would be in the same area at the time.
I'm sure it's a composite. The mask is a reference to the Phantom while his actions are closer to Fantomas, which is why his official name is the Fantom.
I've always found Moore to be a bit hypocritical considering how many of his most famous works are in some way or another adapting other people's characters to his own twisted ideas. Marvelman (aka Miracleman) started as a way to continue the 40's Captain Marvel comic in the UK after Fawcett stop publication. He actually did a lighter revamp when he took over Supreme and made it an homage to Silver Age Superman. Of course , he's responsible for two of the greatest Superman stories of all time, so he does have an affinity for the Man of Steel.
I remember really liking this movie in high school/college. It was my first exposure to an ensemble cast featuring people from wildly varying stories, and I ate it up. I'd also never seen any steampunk before, so that was exciting and new to me. I may need to watch it again, just to see how I feel about the movie these days
I personally love this movie. I know it's dumb but like Dom said, watching it I don't have to worry about Hyde killing the invisible man by "assaulting" him to death and it being treated like a joke. Edit: So I have been corrected that the scene is not treated as a joke and is portrayed as awful. I still have no interest in reading it because everything I hear about it makes me uncomfortable.
There is issues there but I definitely wouldn't say it was treated as a joke. The scene of Hyde sitting at the table eating and the blood slowly materializing is chillingly effective.
@@tinkerer3399 Thank you for the correction. I've only seen the scene out of context so I misunderstood it. It still makes me uncomfortable enough to never want to read it through.
@@austinhaltiner1489 It's meant to be uncomfortable. While the Invisible Man was a psychopath and deserved both to be punished for his past misdeeds and prevented from committing further atrocities, Hyde is a monster, ruled by animal urges with no human morality restraining him. What Hyde did the the Invisible Man breaks the League, so horrifying Nemo that he quits.
I'm in a similar boat, though for me it's that from that scene on I think the series crawls straight up Moore's ass and never comes back out again. It just ramps the cynicism, pretentiousness and mean-spiritedness up to 11 from that point on and I bounced off it hard.
My favorite part about the James Bond rework is it's not even the first time Allen Moore has tried/wanted to include a non-public domain but technically should be character into his works, with his desired Twilight of the Super Heroes proposal having Batman working with Doc Savage, The Shadow, and Tarzan...which is...very funny when DC has characters designed to fill those niches.
Doc Savage, now there's a name you never hear anymore. I haven't read them but I read articles about those books. It's kinda like how everyone knows the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew but no one knows Tom Swift Jr. (I read all of the Tom Swift Jr. books.)
I remember watching this in the theatre, and snorting in disbelief when the ship floated through the canals, then hearing Nemo say "We can't go any further" or something to that effect. I burst out laughing and said "Why the hell not?" out loud.
Well, the Nautilus has wheels on the bottom so it can get through the canals, but they can only bear part of the boat's weight. So once the canal gets too shallow, I'm sorry I can't go on with a straight face.
Oooh, speaking of Alan Moore adaptations, here's hoping you do a LIA episode on V for Vendetta in the future, because I *love* the movie but understand it differs in several aspects to the comic. 🌹⚔
That one is apparently one of the most faithful adaptations despite some changes, and Moore still hated it. The guy is one of those types who thinks that his books should just be the literal script, and no deviation for medium should be allowed.
@@robertgronewold3326 It's really not. One is very much about how much Thatcher's UK of the 80's sucked, and the other is very much about how much the War on Terror sucked. Both things that sucked, but too different for there to be much similar about the two works. I mean sure the film has it's moments of genuine quality, but the only genuinely good Moore adaptation, and he thinks that too, is the Justice League cartoon ep based on for the man who has everything
@@robertgronewold3326 I think it's more that he doesn't think they should be adapted at all. Not saying I agree, I don't, but he basically seems to feel that changing mediums ruins stories every time and by the time V for Vendetta rolled around he'd had any hope of that not being the case squashed by LoEG and From Hell and was just done. Not helping was the fact that DC owned all the rights to most of his comics so he didn't even get a say in if they got adapted or not. Personally I prefer his long time friend Neil Gaiman's approach of involving himself a lot so the adaptions turn out better, it's given us some seriously great TV and one serious great movie.
The moment that broke the film for me was when Tom Sawyer introduced himself. A character that was a youngster in the 1850s at the latest, then is in his twenties in the 1890s...
Honestly, I kinda prefer the movie to the comic. The first volume was alright, but after a while, the comic just felt like something you'd see Mark Millar write. Plus, call me old-fashioned, but I prefer "superhero" movies where the heroes actually get along with each other and work well as a team and aren't actively trying to kill each other between missions.
Glad you are feeling better, Dom. An early example of why just shoving a bunch of characters together doesn't automatically make a masterpiece, if only people had listened.
Given how much Alan Moore hated his work being adapted into other media, it's almost amusing that at the beginning of comic to movie adaptations, he was the most adapted writer for many years.
I saw the movie when it first came out, and everyone in the theater loved it. I think it if hadn't been up against Pirates of the Caribbean, it would have been a hit. Quartermain was definitely the highlight, and I kind of wish we'd gotten some elder Quartermain movies with Connery about the time just prior to the League film.
Eh...I saw it when it first released on video, everybody I knew who watched it said it was "weird," and they didn't mean it as a compliment. I think it's possible it could've been better, especially nowadays where "team of superpowered people get multiple spin offs to Save the World" is a common series format, but I don't believe it was the victim of stolen glory by disney pirates.
At the time I was super excited to see it in theatres ,as a preteen who was absolutely eating up all the fantasy and superhero movies I could get my hands on and had been encouraged to, in most cases, read the source material by my dad, ahead of him taking me to see the movies. In this case, I got only a synopsis of what we were going to see and I so wanted it to work.Loved the idea, loved parts of it, but could recognize where it fell flat. This one always reminds me of Van Helsing, they feel like siblings. Almost like the LoTRs effect on children's epics like Narnia there was also this wave of "What if we took an Aragon-type and centered a movie around his moody aesthetic for the 18-35 male market?" Or at least that's how I track it.
I can't say I'm a fan of either the book or the movie, but I like the book better. I feel we often forget that a lot of the heroes in the old novels are monsters themselves and I like that Moore depicted them that way.
This might be a weird observation to make, but I love how the back of your chair looks exactly like all of mine have looked throughout my entire life. Just one of the many joys of cat ownership 😅
"A Night in the Lonesome October" by Roger Zalazny came out before this comic book and it had shared universe characters. Everyone should give it a read. It's an amazing book by an under appreciated author.
I wouldn't call Zelazny an underappreciated author; he is considered one of the sci-fi greats. But maybe Dom's younger audience isn't that familiar with him.
@@alanpennie8013 Well, I'm under 50. And that's a shame. Even if one's not personally a fan of his work, it's interesting to see the development of the sci-fi genre over the years.
@@alanpennie8013 I'm under 50 and I've read most of his works, I read "Lonsome October" every year in October, I've been doing it for almost 20 years now. In fact, the past two years I have been reading it out loud to my fiancé and we still both look forward to reading it every year. Such an amazing book with a great sense of humor but still a darkness to it, I recommend it to everyone.
I HAVE NEVER CLICKED ON A NOTIFICATION LINK SO FAST. (Sidenote; I do kinda love how the comics eventually did Harry Potter as the antichrist and Mary Poppins as God)
This was interesting. I would like to see you go over the other volumes. Or at least volume 3, if only for its ending. Also, Mina in the comics is NOT a vampire. She has a few scars, but that's it. She doesn't have any powers or desire for blood. She is by all measures a normal, if somewhat traumatized, human.
@@johnockershausen3951 Spoilers ahead, but in volume 3 the a League have to stop the birth of the antichrist. They fail, and the antichrist is revealed to be... Harry Potter (yes, I'm serious). This feeds into Moore's diatribe about how modern fiction is inferior to fiction from the Victorian era and the early 20th century.
@@marcovalenzuela5602 Oh yeah. I remember hearing about that now. I also remember hearing the audience reactions were mainly "Dude what the fuck?" I wonder how that perception would change in light of recent events. Probably not much.
@@johnockershausen3951 As someone who has read it and had had an almost 20 year long love nearly all things Alan Moore up until that point: Century was Alan Moore being so far up his own ass he could count his back molars.
I think the only Adaptation of his work Moore has ever liked is the Justice League Unlimited episode "for the man who has everything" and only because they made it even more tragic, and let them actually credit him, which he normally doesn't allow.
@@paulakroy2635 Hellblazer is different; he never actually worked on Hellblazer, he just created the character of John Constantine as a secondary character on Swamp Thing. So that wasn't an adaption, that was a continuation.
Van Helsing was the same as LXG. - They both rely on action and special effects to sell the non sensical plot. - They both have a mixed bag of characters taken from different domains that are all mashed in together and some how expected to work. - They are both great background noise however.
I honestly like both of these movies I know they’re not masterclasses of cinema or anything like that but I still find them really enjoyable, hell I have the Van Helsing game on my Xbox.
Alan Moore is one of the angriest men in the entertainment industry, but about 95percent of his anger not only justified, but in some ways, downplayed. His work has warped and distorted in disgusting ways.
I’m gonna be completely honest with y’all, I like the ideas of the League movie waaaaay more than the comics. The film’s pretty straightforward Steampunk Avengers, the comic just goes off the rails and I have no clue how some of those characters/references even happened. I don’t get why Mina’s even there if she wasn’t turned, and it feels wrong she just randomly left John after all they’d been through. Probably not helped by the fact that my mom, dad and sister are all English teachers, and also that Gray and Sawyer were my favorite portrayals.
I always thought that this movie was just my imagination or a dream because this movie was playing in our living room when I was like 4 and since then I couldn’t remember if this was a real movie or not.
i really do love this movie. I got excited seeing the literary characters I read about as a kid, the only one I was unfamiliar with was Shawn Connery's character. Yet seeing Jekyll and Hyde, along with Tom Sawyer, and many others I enjoyed it very much. Wondering which literary character would pop up next, real shame their was never a sequel but I had fun watching the movie.
@caitlyncarvalho7637 You know I had forgotten that bit myself. To be fair I haven't read The Mysterious Island in almost 15-20 years. I suppose because there really isn't a whole lot of emphases on his nationality and faith. Everything gets overshadowed by the whole giant submarine thing. I am also pretty sure I haven't seen any book covers that accurately represent his appearance either. That makes a surprising amount of difference. Also I don’t think his origins are revealed until The Mysterious Island book, which is lesser known that the original 20,000 legues under the sea. I guess this is a case where preserving Nemo's identity helped with creating more material in the comic and thus was better preserved?
@caitlyncarvalho7637 Ah I didn't actually know about the Once Upon a Time version of the character. Though I think a similar thing should apply there. Both the LXG comic book series and the OUAT tv series are longer and allow for more fleshed out versions of characters from stories or farytales creating an incentive for including more complete back stories, and therefor drawing upon Nemo's Indian heritage. Of course I would like to believe that we have gotten better at acknowledging POC literary characters in modern times, but I don't think we have gotten to the point where we are consistently doing it enough that that's the only reason. Maybe I'm wrong though.
I'm sorry to hear that and hope you are better. On a completely unrelated note, scruffy Dom is my spirit animal and I will not be taking any further questions. Thank you.
Apparently, Connery was even offered 15% of the box office gross of The Lord of the Rings for the role of Gandalf. Given that the trilogy made nearly 3 billion dollars worldwide, he would have made 450 million. He also turned down the roles of Dumbledore in Harry Potter and The Architect in the Matrix Reloaded. Given all that, it's no wonder he agreed to a role in LXG. Kind of reminds me of how Universal Studios had such massive regrets turning down both Star Wars and Indiana Jones from George Lucas that when he came to them with a script about a talking duck they accepted it without even reading it.
Yeah... this was one of my guilty pleasure movies back in the early 00's. I wrote a fanfic that was thousands of words long about Skinner. I haven't watched it again in years and I don't particularly intend to, but I have some good memories of it. Hope you feel better soon, Dom!
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. 2 was crazy. Of all the literary characters they included Mr Toad was the most surprising. He, along with other anthropomorphic animal characters, were creations of Dr Moreau.
Love that scene, although I think my favourite of Dr. Moreau's hybrids is probably Rupert the Bear, with that sneaky reference to that cartoon from Oz Magazine and the resultant obscenity trial. "I mean that for a substantial sum of money, she will have congress with him."
This movie will always remain a guilty pleasure for me. I was so amazed by those "dark, edgy" (c) superheroes as a kid while also always having had a big love for steampunk. Also, that song in the end just killed me!
I remember finding the graphic novel in the local library when I was in my very early teens (I was 12 when it came out, so I was 13/14). I was enjoying the Mina character until... I blocked everything out. It must've burned off the top layer of my brain because I only remembered I read it when I came across my brother's copy in my 20's.
I read Watchmen at that sort of age which led to a strange moment; my dad saw me reading it and was surprised to see the author's name; he had been friends with Alan as a kid and he (my dad) had some movie posters Alan had drawn for him in the loft.
Appreciate the kind words, everyone! Since making this I have thankfully started testing negative and am almost back to my old self.
Yay! I also managed to avoid it for the first couple years, but I got it over New Years. :/ I'm sending good vibes that you don't have to deal with after effects.
Relieved to hear it 🙂 this video was great, and a big thank you for making stuff even though you’re ill. I’ve had a terrible day and this legitimately helped me calm down and feel better
Sorry you got bit by the COVID bug. I also avoided it for the first couple years & did all the good stuff (masks, vaccines, boosters, sanitizer, avoiding people, etc.), but I still got bit. Hope your fur babies were better nurse kitties than mine.
nah.,that 'must've-been-empty' prop-cup toward the end [..and that matter throughout!!] WAS the ''gold'' Dominic.
So glad you're starting to feel better!! Please try not to push yourself and I hope you feel 100% again soon! 😁
The best description of Alan Moore comes from hbomberguy, “Alan Moore, evil santa and professional rasputin impersonator”
"One day the good burghers and honest townsfolk of Northampton will burn Alan as a warlock, and it will be a great loss to the world." Neil Gaiman. Having both lived in Northampton and having met and talked with Alan (my dad was close with him as kids) I agree. Though we will need to find some honest townsfolk in Northampton which could take a while.
I find it interesting Moore's looks are often criticized, almost as if people are saying that if he "looked like them" they would excuse his material. I'm sure this hypocrisy is not lost on him.
@@garrick3727 i think the quote was made to be an endearing comment about how he looks a bit odd
*misunderstood Santa
He has a very intense stare. When you look into the eyes of a picture of Alan Moore, he sees you back.
He sees your thoughts, your wants, your soul.
He sees you, and he knows you.
And he finds you lacking.
The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen was a film, that my dad wanted to see. I wasn't particularly interested in seeing it. So, I took my dad to see it and we went to a nice restaurant afterward. This film is now special to me, because it was the last film, that I went to with my dad, before he died. I liked it, but he was really into it. So, I always remember how happy it made him, even if others disliked it. To me, the movie is a great personal memory.
That’s a beautiful memory to have. ❤
@@bldbthldzalafz Yes, it is. Thank you.
Never be afraid to be fond of something. Your recollection is utterly wonderful and charming.
@@nancyjay790 Thank you. It's definitely a sweet memory for me.
so glad you have that memory it’s definitely one to treasure
I'm honestly surprised at how many people seemed to miss that the Phantom, the fake villanous identity Moriarty uses to trick the heroes, is supossed to be the Phantom of the Opera himself.
I know Right! That’s a part of the film you practically have to rewatch to grasp that Part of the film! Thus it makes the rest of his motives make sense once you discover that he’s the BIG BAD :)
most people really only think of phantom as the lloyd webber musical, and forget that he's one of the OG universal monsters
You're sure it's not The Phantom from The Pink Panther?
@@alanpennie8013 The fact that he is wearing a mask, is pointed as extremely intelligent, and seems disfigured by burn marks, makes me think he is the one from the opera.
@@JohnnyElRed
Kind of you to take my trollish post seriously.
The part of the movie that went underappreciated by me as a kid was the introduction of Nemo's first mate, and his first line being "You can call me Ishmael". That was a top notch joke.
Except it's from the book.
Oh my god, that line was hilarious. When we saw the movie in theaters, and I heard that line, I busted out laughing. My husband was actually looking around, and he told me later that only about three other people reacted. Everyone else had a very obvious 'Huh?' face, like they couldn't understand why we thought that was funny.
All of nemo's notable crewmen were also from books. The sheer volume of charcsters who appear for at least a panel is ridiculous. The second volume even has dr moreau and his creations.
And the "threat" they were gathered for might have been the martians from war of the worlds, the villains in the second volume, who are shown fighting jon carter of mars.
I thought that was the Ishmael from "Moby Dick."
I don't get it
I just wanna say that there IS one Alan Moore adaptation that he was willing to put his name on, and that was the Justice League Unlimtied episode 'For the Man Who Has Everything.' It's truly an incredible episode, and one of the most emotionally resonant Superman stories you'll get outside of comics.
There is also a movie called The Show that he was involved in, filmed in his (and my) hometown of Northampton. It's... strange.
@@FTZPLTCThere is a whole series of Live Action movies and shorts all in the same universe.
That and Saturday Morning Watchmen.
7:08 "She's revealed to be Mina Harker, from Bram Stoker's Dracula, now a vampire herself."
15:28 "Unlike the comic, the film could not wait to reveal her bloodsucker status."
I'm afraid you read a bit much into the graphic novel there, Dom. Moore's version of Mina is a traumatized survivor, ostensibly picked by M for her strength in surviving not just the Dracula incident but also the divorce, which I hear was almost unheard of in Victorian England, and not generous to the women involved.
She's not a vampire herself. That addition was unique to the movie.
Incidentally, Moore's assertion was that Dracula had saw-toothed fangs like a vampire bat, which is why Mina's neck is terribly scarred, and why she wears the red scarf.
He might have been confused by her becoming immortal via a different method later in the series.
Uhhh I’m gonna pretend Mina and Jonathan don’t divorce…. They deserve a life of happiness after dealing with Dracula. And dammit they name their child after Quincy.
@@dancegregorydance6933 Absolutely nothing in the original canon to suggest anything other than a happy ever after. Nothing in Doyle's stories to suggest Moriarty was a government plant or lived past going down that waterfall.
These aren't the original characters they're the League universes versions.
@@GriffinPilgrim I think this is also a part of the
Oh Jonathan is useless, that really only got broke because of Dracula Daily
@@anarchomando7707 Well, to be fair Jonathan IS useless. Not inept, he can manage himself rather well, but not particularly useful. Anything of worth in that story is achieved by Van Helsing, Mina and then Quincy right at the end there.
But really the treatment of Harker is more of a comment on Victorian values regarding women. Which, to be fair to Stoker, was probably not the best character Moore could have used, since the idea that Mina is soiled forever by Dracula's assault is brought up by Mina and thoroughly rejected by Jonathan in the book.
I think I appreciate the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen way more for its world building and the ideas it puts forth than the executed product. Perhaps if this mess of intellectual properties were placed in the hands of a better storyteller it could work as a television series like Penny Dreadful. Assuming they’re willing to cut out the more problematic elements, I’d totally watch something like that.
I was going to guess what problematic elements but then I remember there are a lot and I have my own biases.
I mean, Penny Dreadful kind of got lost too.
Agreed. I always felt like the film was surprisingly underwhelming for the ideas it brings forth, and that's it's worst problem. I suppose it's better than having the more "questionable" moments of the comic, yet I don't think it's immediately made better because of that since in the end, it doesn't leave much of an impression, positive or negative.
Still penny dreadful never ruined th characters that are great.
The movie, aside the stereotypical american insert i hate, the movie is at least having character and enjoyable?! Th story, whyyy, why waste that cast, but the movie has admitedly a weird quality. Iff, a waste too.
OMG the movi should hav been so muich weirder and tter for it.
What no golliwog being a victim of inter-dimensional slave trade?
Two tiny quibbles: Mina didn’t have any powers in the comic, just horrible scars and a knowledge of the supernatural. She eventually became immortal with Quatermain in a magic spring from the novel “She”. The comic design of the Nautilus is…. a nautilus. A prehistoric extinct kind (such as Cameroceras) with a straight shell which is more amenable to submarine design. The aft part of the vessel looks more like one of these shells than the mantle of a squid. They’re both cephalopods so could be either, but given the name of the sub…. Anyways get well soon!
Did he read the comic or a plot synopsis?
The Nautilus in the comics represents a squid wrestling a whale and, according to the supplementary material, can actually split into two separate vehicles.
@@woodgatejack it’s called a “kraken”, which could refer to any cephalopod. Look at the splash pic of the Nautilus and then look at a pic of ceratoceras. The straight shell shape is very similar. Could be artistic license on the part of the illustrator. But then it’s named Nautilus…
Piggybacking on this it was Fagin it was a grown up Artful Dodger taken over Fagin’s role
Ya, Mina being a straight up Vampire in the movie is a huge huge change. In the book she comes off as this badass woman who already faced the worst.
It's interesting to me that Dorian Gray isn't in the source material as he was very much my favourite character in the movie. Admittedly, mostly because charming pretty boy with a broken moral compass isn't so much my type as it's my entire printer's workshop, but still, him responding to Mina asking what he is with 'I'm complicated.' remains one of my very favourite line reads in any movie to this day.
He said that to a random goon that stabbed him, and he then killed.
His line with Mina was, "We'll be at this all day" after they injured each other and healed
@@alearnedman I haven't seen it in a while so I'll take your word for it. It's still a great line though even if I misremembered the exact context.
To this day, I still respond "I'm complicated" on occasion. Absolutely the highlight of this very dumb film.
I have just watched it, 3x in two days. He says it to a goon who shoots him, and Stuart Townsend is SOOO sassy in that moment. It's hilarious. And then the "We'll be at this all day" is 2nd for sassiest gray line. Honorary mention when he's on the recording and M says "I've put my wolf among you." And Dorian says "growl" lol
@@buckwild9168”growl” might be my favorite line in that movie 😂. I don’t care what anyone says, I’m going to stop and watch any time it comes on
Two things I'd like to mention for corrections:
1) Mina was never a vampire in the original graphic novel, just someone with unique scars and a knowledge of the supernatural
2) That wasn't Fagin that led the gang underground, it was an old Artful Dodger (Fagin was sentenced to hang at the end of Oliver Twist)
On top of that, "Bantom" in the movie (Moriaty's disguise) was based on Phantom of the Opera and they actually explained Hyde's growth spurt in the second volume, where they fought the WotW Martians
The unfortunate thing about the lack of a sequel is not getting to see the League take on the Martian invasion from War of the Worlds from the second volume of the graphic novel.
The positive thing about the lack of a sequel is not having to see the Invisible Man randomly decide to help the Martians for no reason, then being sexually assaulted *to death* by Hyde
then eaten
That's how the Invisible Man goes out? Who the fuck wrote that?
@@DrDolan2000 Moore. I think he wanted to write something so horrific that they'd NEVER make a movie about it
@@christophertaylor9100 With shows like Game of Thrones or The Boys being as popular as they are/were, I am not so sure anymore that they wouldn't....
One comment has dramatically convinced me to read said novel, and immediately reputed any urge to read said novel.
Imagine turning down 2 of the most ground breaking, cultural impacting movie franchises and participating in.. This
Yeah, but.... no offence to Connery, but I can't imagine him as Gandalf.
@@andreasbuehler1821 I think he'd have been an okay Gimli, but Rhys Davis is still a better match.
More than two. He also turned down to play Dumbledore in Harry Potter. Personally, I think like Gandalf he would have been horribly suited, but he still missed that ship and then did this nightmare to try and make up for it.
Sean connery couldnt choose a good script if his life depended on it most of the time, sadly. Sure you occasionally in the later years got films like The Rock, but he also chose to be in Zardoz just a few years after being James Fucking Bond
@@PhoenyxAshe Maybe, but they specifically wanted him for Gandalf.
I saw this movie in the theater after I got stood up for a Amusement park day Date with a girl.
"Not great but inoffensive" is the perfect way to describe it. It does however feature a simple but great line that I love. When talking to M, Gray says "I've live long enough to see the future become history. All empires crumble, there are no exceptions." For whatever reason, that line sticks with me.
Daym that is a good line, I didn't remember it. I actually quite like the dialogue in this film.
Its true if you study history. Any great civilization, culture or empire that used to buttfuck and dominate everyone else at some point has either disappeared, become a former shadow of itself or just a bunch of ruins to show the tourists of the now dominant culture.
@@Dougie373 Yeah, all other issues aside, the dialogue overall is generally pretty good, either snappy or impactful.
I always love the bit during the fight with Gray and Mina -- two immortals -- when they both turn back after wounding each other and you see the wounds are already healing, and Gray just goes "We'll be at this _all day."_
Yeah, dude. That line dug in deep for me as a teen. Undeniable concept.
One detail you may have missed; The "Bantom", Moriarty's alias when he was tricking everyone, was a reference to Erik of Phantom of the Opera!
As bad of an adaptation this is, it’s such a guilty pleasure movie for me. I rewatch it at least once a year. 😅
I too like this film unironically.
I feel that way with Underworld.
almost every movie from the late 90s/early 2000s monster movie revival (this, the mummy movies, hansel and grettle, van helsing, underworld, queen of the damned, technically even phantom of the opera since he's an og universal monster) can be described as "is it good? no. is it fun? hell yes". one of my absolute favourite micro-genres of movie. honestly the only film in that category i can think of that isn't campy fun is the brothers grimm, and even that has its fans
I like the movie as a guilty pleasure as well because I do not want to have to admit that I like it as a movie on its own rights.
Same. Plus, it was one of my dad's favorite movies.
Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is such a interesting case study on how pop culture has warped and changed the meaning and ideas of a character. I’d love to see a LIA or general discussion on the book vs movie vs pop culture interpretation of Jekyll and Hyde
Lindsey Ellis has a video about that in her Loose Canon series.
Yeah, Hyde was never a monster like Frankenstein's monster, but rather a more charismatic and violent version of Dr. Jekyll. His hidden desires.
@@Ikajo I don't think Hyde was ever descriped as charismatic in the book, only "terrifying" and "evil". Or did I forget that? I haven't read it in a long time, but I don't remember him ever being described as charismatic.
@@elentari15 I read it a couple of weeks ago and you're right. He has the exact opposite reaction on every character in the novella, everyone describes him as immediately disliking him and feeling some sort of resentment towards him even if he didn't do anything.
I swear imagine if Disney made a film with a character based on Jekyll & Hyde and had a scene where someone finds not Hyde in Notre Dame. I'm PRETTY SURE they would have him say "Who were you expecting. Quasimodo?" (And now I want to see an episode of Lost in Adaptation on the movie musical version of Le Mes)
Through the pre-amble and still waiting for Dom to note that the rights were bought before the comic even came out, so effectively the pre-production of the film was an adaptation of the concept and not the actual work. Because knowing that fact explains a LOT.
oh, that makes so much sense, i'd never heard that before!
I hadn't heard that tidbit. I have heard, from an article whose author was able to read the Cohen and Poll script, that the movie follows _it_ way closer than it does the _League_ comic. So, it may well be a bit of column A/bit of column B here.
@@scaper8 I wouldn’t be shocked if the studio basically ripped off a submitted script because it was close enough to the concept they’d just bought the rights to and it meant they didn’t have to wait for the actual comics to come out before starting.
I have been provided with all of the context!
@@CouncilofGeeks I can definitely see that happening.
I actually like a lot of the changes made for the film. I don't know - and I doubt it - whether the film writers knew that Twain had written stories about Tom Sawyer as a detective, but intentional or not, it feels like a cute reference to have him as a special agent here - even if the timeline doesn't line up properly!
And I much prefer Mina as a widow rather than a divorcee - the strength of Mina and Jonathan Harker's relationship is such a key part of the novel Dracula that writing them as having split up is showing just as much contempt for the source material as anything the film does with the comics characters. Sauce for the gander, Mr. Moore.
Risking putting fuel to the fire here, but I also prefer her movie version to the comic where she spent mostly used for SA scenes/fan service/saying weird stuff like Hyde not being such a bad man despite being an unrepented serial killer and rapist/Moore pairing her up with Quertarmain who's his self-insert.
Ditto. Johnathan just abandoning Mina after all that they went through was kinda crap. I honestly prefer the movie to the novel. Not perfect but I like it.
I know it's a mess of a film and adaptation but I adore LXG and I always thought Mina was cool for what little she got to do - "save your bullets these men are MINE!" 🦇🧛🏻♀️🦇
Same! I love strong women characters and I saw the film before going back and reading the graphic novels, so while I was a bit disappointed that Mina didn't have a awesome vampire powers in the original material, I did appreciate how she was the leader of the group.
@@tossingturnips in the comic she's an actual strong female character. In the movie she's just a man who looks like a woman, like most badly written "strong female characters."
Thank you for validating my feelings about Alan Moore. A lot of his work is brilliant, but ever since I started running across it as a teenage girl, I've been deeply uncomfortable with how NOT uncomfortable everyone else seems to be with things like SA of minors played for laughs. I read the original comics more or less as they came out, and got the impression that the writer hated me personally for being a bookish girl who was unlikely to gratify him sexually. You might be the only male creator I've ever seen address that discomfort. Thank you.
Edit: Per the comments:
1) I'm not telling anyone else not to read anything or to censor anything, just stating that it made me personally uncomfortable and that it's nice that Dom acknowledged that discomfort as a possibility. Good job, Dom. That's a thing critics/reviewers should do occasionally.
2) As to whether Moore actually thinks SA of minors is funny ... well, he's definitely fond of it as a plot device, and I interpreted the art on my first reading of League as him poking fun at Victorian repression. Which, fair enough, there was a LOT of that ... but imho, having the shocking event be SA of minors rather took the humor out of it, and I'm not sure he understands that.
3) If you got something good out of Lost Girls, bless you. I have no strong opinion on it because I read a summary of the premise, decided it didn't sound like my kind of book, and didn't seek it out.
4) I'm on the asexual spectrum and I don't get much out of sexual content in stories. It doesn't usually bother me; I mostly find it boring and skip it whenever possible. (I don't think it's reasonable to ask authors to stop writing it, but I see no reason to spend my leisure time on reading the boring bits.) SA scenes usually upset me for obvious reasons, but I don't mind being upset IF the artistic payoff is worth it. In my opinion, Moore's payoff isn't worth it. So no, I'm unlikely to find the long boring/upsetting stretches of Lost Girls (or any other later work of Moore's) to be worth whatever artistic summit he may or may not reach.
5) I'm not saying you're a bad person if you love Alan Moore. But we probably wouldn't be besties.
6) All hail Sir Terry. (I think we can agree he's the MVP of the channel.)
I don't know about that, but I will say that having Mr. Hyde struggle-snuggle a dude to death doesn't really scratch my "Tales of high adventure" itch, and having a story based on Lovecraft's work prominently feature a girl getting molested by a fish-man basically made me put it down and never pick it up again. I find it extremely tasteless, and I feel like Moore could probably have gotten more out of NOT showing it (ironic in a visual medium, I know).
@@MrNickPresley tbf the point was to show it. Moore basically calling Lovecraft a sexless pussy in it lol.
Honestly as someone that is critical of Moore's fascination with sexual assault (though I will defend him from some of the criticism I see) after all the things I saw people saying about it, it really wasn't that bad. I actually enjoyed it, it was an alright tale. Compared to some of the other rape tales he's done it actually felt... right for the story? In a weird way. Like it served a purpose?
Providence was better though I have to say. I think that fulfilled Moore's Lovecraft love-letter/deconstruction much better. Especially the Innsmouth issue. Turning the Innsmouth folk into a bit stand-offish but quite fine people that just happen to have a weird fish fucking custom, everything else about them is rumours spread about them by the typical racist folk. A nice little modern update to the "horrors" of miscegenation the original was. Literally nothing happens and the main character goes home after a nice day. The main character is gay too. The anti-lovecraft protagonist. That one movie did that first though.
Also S. T. Joshi actually shows up so I have to applaud Moore for being so fucking insane to be the only one to do that.
I read parts of Alan Moore's the swamp thing b4 I read league of extraordinary Gentlemen and I agree, great writing but a particular fixation on sexual assault and attractiveness ?
With both league and swamp thing, I got to the point where I was only reading the words and basically ignoring the art because I disliked the art styles and I didn't want to see what wierd behaviour he was describing . . .
@@MrNickPresley You do know it's not a girl or a fish man, yes? It's not real, so it's a drawing of a girl being molested by the drawing of a fish man. It's... not... real...
And the only time he ever really apologized for those type of content was for The killing joke, where he was apologetic for the treatment of Barbara and where he assured readers that the Joker didn't rape her. But I got to wonder if he apologized only because of the legacy and popularity Barbara has or because his resentment towards DC comics because he has never been apologetic to the SA in his other comic. Nor has he stopped using SA in his later comics (like LXG).
I have to wonder if M's secret identity as "The Phantom" was meant to be yet another shoehorning in of a reference to popular works set in Victorian times, namely "The Phantom of the Opera". Then again, Alan Moore was no stranger to that himself since the League comics' raison d'etre, especially toward the end of their run, was to show how ALL fiction is connected. The man slipped the desiccated corpse of Thomas the Tank Engine into a background shot, for Christ's sake!
It was. Quartermane called him 'Operatic' when he saw the persona's picture. It's a blink and you'll miss it reference. Like 'Call me Ishmael'.
It was. The movie is sprinkled with even more literature, theater and era-specific references.
Didn’t he reveal Mary Poppins as god in the comics eventually?
@@mrcritical6751 I know this comment is a year old, but I wanted to add something. Yes, he did make Mary Poppins god. Another thing I want to add, Harry Potter was the Anti Christ. Oh, and Godzilla appeared further down the line in another issue. I wish I was kidding, but no, I am not.
@@doctormaverious332 yeah doesn’t he have Harry start shooting fireballs out his crotch or something?
Fun note; As Moore once pointed out by the time the movie is set in Tom Sawyer should be as old as Quartermain.
Also finding Hyde on a murder spree in Paris in book and film is a reference to "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," an Edgar Allen Poe short story featuring C. Auguste Dupin, Poe's detectve character that was the prototype Doyle made Sherlock Holmes from.
The murderer being Hyde is an improvement considering that the culprit in Poe's story is.....
....
....
....
....
...wait for it.....
....
....
....
.... an orangutan?
I know this doesn't have much to do with what you were talking about, but I find the plot of 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue' unintentionally hilarious and I think more people should read it.
@@mollytovxx4181 ....... _what?!_
😂😂 that is hilarious! 😂😂 🙈🙉🙊
@@mollytovxx4181 I honestly feel like that's more intentional than anything.
So basically just Alan Moore ripping off other better writers.
Don't know about the movie, never seen it, but Dupin is in the comicbook.
After reading Dracula I wish both Mina and Jonathan would have been in this story as a power couple. They deserve happiness and to be with eachother. Jonathan was willing to become a vampire with her dangit
I remember a teacher showed it to us the last days of class, when nobody cares about class anymore. I liked it a lot, and had the occasion of watching it again as an adult. I know it is not great, the plot isn't the most complex, the special effects at the end are quite bad, but i must say, it is SO FUN. I love it, i just love seeing Dracula 's Fiend And Badass Teacher Vampire Mina Murray bantering with FBI Agent Tom Sawer on board of the Jules Verne's Nautilus. It's just fun, you know ? Seeing characters I already know meeting and discussing ! It's like a fanfiction on screen !
I feel like "Incredibly horny in a creepy way" is an excellent way to describe much of Allan Moore's work.
The man lives for sexual assault scenes
"No no you don't get it it's actually a hyper-ironic joke satirising... uh... the immaturity of the people who... uh.... don't like my comics! Also you've never gotten laid so there!"
-Alan Moore, probably
Kinda but not really. It’s more shock value than horny. Moore stance is in medium so obsessived with violence why is sexual assault a taboo topic. Granted I don’t agree with this view point and think Alias is a good example of how to write rape in the medium but it’s an over simplified view of Moore point
The best thing I can say about reading Lost Girls is that I didn’t pay for the books. It was a library read.
@@Salsmachev Dude, I don't think you've ever read anything he's said.
Il Neige as Sean Connery as Taylor Swift - a move of pure genius
Agreed! 😂
That's why I had absolutely no recognition. Hooray.
I actually loved this movie. I loved the steampunk aesthetic and the mashup of characters. I couldn't care less if its accurate. It was a fun action romp.
The CAR was so fucking cool I loved that dumb thing.
It's one of my many guilty pleasure movies.
Same here, and I feel like the plot was better than the comic's. The whole haphazard assemble of a Fu Manchu and flying metal for bombarding london with floating ships would be way too goofy compared to "goat wars to profit on it" which is saddly still a thing. Not to mention it made more sense to assemble superhumans to steal their abilities for warfare rather than just think you could keep them your personal guard the whole time while the world burns. And while someone argues Quatermayne and Sawyer weren't special so why were they recruited, my guess is to make sure the team doesn't tear each other apart because two normal albeit competent humans would balance things out among those monsters.
@@MrKlausbaudelaire IIRC, Quartermayn was recruited because they wanted his hunting expertise to capture Hyde alive for them, and Sawyer wasn't "recruited" at all (he had been on the trail of the "Phantom" on behalf of the US government and just happened to catch up in time to help in the fight at Gray's house, after which the league chose to let him tag along).
@@Kefkaesque13 Ah that makes more sense too, I forgot aboutit since it's been ages since I watched the movie xD
They actually had almost an hour cut from this film, Studio Mandate and multiple sub-plots removed. One where Agent Sawyer was actually Quatermain's kid, another focusing on "M" and what caused Moriarty to enact his plot and multiple minor ones that "fleshed" out the team and their reasons to join up. You can see the edits to remove all of this with bad CGI paining over characters that were cut from the plot, but were in later main plot specific scenes (like the goon that captured Sawyer, just before Quatermain was shot, was originally a named character cut completely from the movie, the evil invisible man at the end being M's agent that recruited Quatermain in Africa.) and lines that seem to have some greater meaning but lead nowhere.
We need a 20 year anniversary edition with all the cut scenes added back.
@@KaiheartThat will never happen sadly :( To me this is a great film, I don't listen to critics
I have fond memories of this film, it got me to read all the stories the main characters were based on, and that made me go into literature studies in university.
It wasn't Fagin leading the pickpocket army in that cameo towards the end of the comic, it was a grown up Artful Dodger :D
They actually did make a few subtle hints to Moriarty's true identity before the 'big reveal.' The first being when one of his goons yells 'Run James!' during the attack while the team is in the process of recruiting Grey. The second is the woman’s voice on the record. She distinctly says 'Ready Professor?' So they aren't obvious clues unless you're super familiar with Victorian literature, but in the context of the movie, it's not impossible to believe that Quartermain put these clues together and figured out who Moriarty was.
I know its comic blasphemy vs the source material, but I can't stay mad at this movie.
It's such a fun action romp full of weird and cool stuff!
It’s like Ella Enchanted. Was the book way different? Yes. Does it matter? No. Now he have two separate versions to choose from. Both with their own charms.
My favorite League of Extraordinary Gentleman things is actually the novelization, the book made based on the original script. It ends up expanding upon particular points(Skinner being a red herring and a reason for Dorian to be there as examples), and even has Quatermain and Nemo have a moment of consolidation during their disapproval of colonialism they've experienced
“Pack for an English summer” scene cut to a downpour. Best ever transition
A little disappointed that you didn't mention the Wold Newton, the multi-franchise world created by Philip José Farmer in the 70s which was the direct inspiration for the League. It incorporated Tarzan, Doc Savage, Sherlock Holmes, Superman (golden era version), the Time Traveller, Alain Quartermain, and so... so many more. Most of the people are said to have been exposed to a meteorite which crashed in England in 1795 or they were descended from those who were.
Probably didn't mention it because it sounds pretty unknown and has characters that aren't actually public domain. People seem to presume certain characters are, but the marker standard is before the end of the 20s, not pre/during WW2. Doc Savage isn't gonna be public domain until 2043 (thanks Disney).
@@TactlessC Tinkerer is correct that they were a direct inspiration, Moore called the Wold Newton stories "a seminal influence upon the League". If you were reading SF 50 years ago, you would know Farmer's work.
Love the Wold Newton Universe! 🥀
When he described the plot I thought of Penny Dreadful
I'm glad I'm not the only one who knows about Wold Newton. I was waiting for Dom to mention it.
Others have pointed out Mina is a vampire *survivor* not a vampire herself, and often her greatest asset in the comics, at least early on, is that as a woman she is constantly ignored or underestimated but I think I may have a possible explanation for the weird "James Moriarty died at Reichenbach Falls" bit, you see Richard Roxburgh had played Sherlock Holmes himself in a 2002 TV movie production of Hound Of the Baskervilles so I have my suspicions that this is a misfired attempt to 180° the twist from the comics, and infer that "M" of LXG is a corrupted Sherlock Holmes who survived and not actually Moriarty, who DID die in this version! The thing is they couldn't explicitly state that "I AM, IN FACT, SHERLOCK HOLMES!!!" as, like some other changed/omitted characters, Ol' Holmes himself would have been copyright locked down at the time, or at least the studio would be (possibly rightly given their litigiousness ) cautious of the Doyle Estate's reaction to them breaking him bad.
I know, I know, that sounds a smart as a bag of rocks because "WHY would Sherlock go bad?" but, admit it, that totally fits with some of the other adaptation changes that are dumb ideas that think they're smart. I nearly rolled my eyeballs out of my skull during that scene when I watched LXG in the cinema.
To be fair knocks to the head can have some pretty weird side effects. Maybe he got a wack on the head at Reichenbach, which resulted in a personality shift?
Then that is really, really stupid. If they could not use the character name to solidify the plot point, then why use said point? Only a few people (such as yourself) came up with a plausible answer. The rest of the movie watchers (like myself) either ignored it or went, huh?
I can just imagine Sean Connery as Morpheus telling Tank to "Punch the keys damn it!"
And telling Will Smith Neo "Your the man now dog!"
The most startling thing about this movie when I rewatched it recently was the incredible similarities between the villains triggering Hyde inside the submarine and Loki triggering the Hulk in the helecarrier in Avengers, it's very nearly identical
I unironically love this movie. I've first watched it when I was really young, and even now, almost two decades later, it's in a strange blind spot for me where I can't see any of it's flaws. I rewatch it every few years still :)
Hope you feel better soon Dom 🧡
Same here! I even rewatched it the other day. It’s a cosy movie and I like the twists.
I have Covid too, and I'm 9 months pregnant 😔 misery has a new meaning. Thanks for the video Dom.
Talk about a double whammy. Best wishes on the recovery and baby!
Egads! I hope you get well soon.
Oh my! Wishing you a swift recovery!!
it's the last third of August '24, you commented on a site with the movie tLoXG.
in it you mentioned your condition, a double down , the Covid & being Gravid.1 is caused by a virus the other...a penis! if you had stayed at the recommended social intercourse distance to ensure you were not at risk of the one, it would have prevented the other! hope you had a superb smooth delivery & that your offspring is the fulfillment of your most treasured imaginings! LMdiD.😽💨
I can completely understand why people didn’t like this movie, but I wholeheartedly admit that I love it. I used to watch this movie on repeat growing up and I was so enamoured. There was something so magical about everything even if it was also pretty cheesy haha
I actually have a soft spot for this film, which I can confirm is 99.8% because of Sean Connery.
Sam here!! If the movie had been a fully original project? It would have been pretty okay, not good but quite passable.
Lol totally agree with this! It's the kind of campy i just love
Same for me, I don't know why but I just have a good time when I watch it 😅
I like the film too.
Me too, probably because it was my introduction to the concept of a shared Victorian universe. I love that!
“I might make a Patreon exclusive video on the accuracy of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen characters to their original stories.”
- Dom spouting one of the best reasons for becoming a Patreon subscriber of his
Would this video be available at any level of Patreon subsciption? Or only specific ones? I'm very unfamiliar with Patreon.....
@@jessicawurm23 The membership level is different for every Patreon; it is up to the Patreon page owner to decide what the subscribers can get for what amount. With Dominic Noble, the lowest level of 2 bucks a month is enough to get his Patreon exclusive video's. In the last year or so he has been putting out more Patreon exclusives, these are often less scripted than his public video's. I suggest checking out Dom's Patreon first before subscribing. See what membership level - if any - is right for you, read the public Patreon posts etc. Also, you'll need to pay Patreon a tax on every pledge if you decide to become a Patreon subscriber.
I love this quote from a podcaster about this movie: "If your only opinions on it are from an angry Gen-Xer who was angry because it 'ruined' a favorite graphic novel of theirs, maybe give it a look? It's a bit of dumb fun!"
You forgot to mention Kevin O'Neill passed away last year; also, his artstyle suits the Dark Fantasy/Sci-Fi world of Nemesis the Warlock (his first big series) pretty well IMHO.
Would be nice for other 2000AD characters than Judge Dredd to get some screen time such as Nemesis the Warlock and the ABC Warriors.
I met him at the Big Apple Con in NYC back in 2010, He was a charming man who really almost came across as an older English School teacher in person,
And he signed and also drew a sketch for me of Mina in my Volume 2 LOEG book completely free of charge even though I offered to pay him for it.
He was an unforgettable artist who really left us too soon.
there was no bloody way they could've made LXG anywhere near as accurate to the books. i can appreciate both the movie and the books for how they handled a early 20th century lituerature justice league but overall, i'd still take the movie over the books. (i have the movie and watch it a lot)
Dude, cozy Dom is great! Please feel free to do more videos like this if you're comfortable with it! Keep being awesome and rest up!
Having read the comic and seen the movie I gotta say that I actually like the concept of taking these Victorian era characters and bringing them together as a superhero like team. The execution of this idea leaves a lot to be desired.
I still love this film a whole lot, and the Invisible Man was one of my favourite characters (the others were Jekyll and Nemo), so you can imagine my absolute horror when my mother got me the first graphic novel after I had spent so long wanting to read it, and I got to the original version of the Invisible Man's introduction scene...
In addition to Dom’s “Mostly harmless” part, this movie did make me want to look up the Quartermaine novels and Dorian Gray. Actually, I think apart from Tom Sawyer, Captain Nemo was the only character I recognized (and Moriarty, but since he doesn’t get name dropped until the end, doesn’t count). Also, the dialogue is nice and quippy, I’m a sucker.
I also found this film to be a gateway into the literature it was based on. The Picture of Dorian Gray was by far my favorite but struggled with King Solomon's Mines, there's a lot of racism and killing elephants.
King Solom’s Mines is great. True there are things that have aged badly, but for the age it was written in it could have been a hell of a lot worse. There is a pretty touching interracial almost relationship there, which must have been way ahead of its time when it was written.
Thiis
I was like 10 when I first saw this movie. The ONLY characters I had heard of were Captain Nemo, Tom Sawyer and Mr. Hyde and I guess Dracula technically, but I didn’t know Mina. So yeah, this was a cool introduction to a lot of awesome literature characters.
Also, as a note: The inclusion of Tom Sawyer and Dorian Gray kinda made sense to me, even after learning about the source material. I mean, if you're gonna do this 'Tons of characters from other books and movies' thing, go all out. As many as you can (see also the throwaway line of Nemo's right-hand man saying "Call me Ishmael")
I came up with a League consisting of (mostly) 1990s movies:
-Dr. Alan Grant (Jurassic Park) as Allan Quatermain
-Rita Veder (Vampire in Brooklyn) as Mina Harker
-Helen Hyde and Dr. Richard Jacks (Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde)
-Captain Marko Ramius (The Hunt for Red October) as Captain Nemo
-Dr. Sebastian Caine, the Hollow Man
Nice.
Neat line-up
What's really funny is you could basically make your own story about a team of non copyrighted characters if you wanted to, though it might be tricky to make it legally distinct from the transformative nature of LoEG, but choosing a different name for the team, location, and different characters from public domain would be easy enough, even from the same stories
Edit: to those commenting, just FYI I'm not necessarily looking to read or watch something like this, nor was I assuming it hasn't been done before, nor am I at all surprised that it HAS been done before, I was mostly saying that if you like the idea of ALoEG but didn't like the execution this is one case where you can pretty much do your own version with little fear of copyright. I mean anyone can do fanfiction that corrects problems in a copyrighted story, but you can't publish it per se. Here you more easily could.
I'm glad so many other creators have gone ahead and done something like this! But, most of the examples mentioned here are ones I wasn't familiar with. The closest I've ever done, just as a casual writer, is combining fairy tales into one universe, which is also common in many fantasy genres, though you need to be careful bc some popular fairy tale adjacent stories aren't copyright free (like Peter pan). A series well worth mining is the wizard of oz. The mgm film is copyrighted, but the dozen or so books aren't. That's just A few things, like ruby slippers (they're silver in the book), that are only in the film.
Ooh, there is "the strange case of the alchemist's daughter" which is a team of unfortunate mad scientist's children/mad science experiments running around trying to make rent and get vengeance on their villainous dads!
Seconding this! I very much enjoyed the book, and it turns out you don’t need to know everything about the public domain books it pulls from, since the characters will fill in enough to get the gist, so you can read it even if you’re not familiar with old classic horror books.
You might be interested in "Adventure!" (the exclamation mark is part of the title), a tabletop RPG set rather later on that LoEG but featuring a similar sort of idea for pulp stories. Including one faction that's a worldwide organisation of detectives led by "the Old Man" who is never confirmed but deeply hinted to be Holmes.
The Planetary comics would be worth hunting down for this. It pulls more from more recent pulp heroes, and comics, and movies, but there's a spoiler-laden connection between a character and Sherlock Holmes (and Dracula, The Invisible Man, Dr. Frankenstein, some others I am likely forgetting) later in the story.
Ahem.
Hoodwinked.
The animation is terrible. The writing and acting are AMAZING.
Alan Moore watching dailies for LXG:
"You guys DID shoot the invisible man rape scenes, right?"
Get your extra-tropical strength nausea medicine, because tonight, we watch a video with images from the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comic.
Good lord, Il Neige's parody of Bad Blood as Sean Connery caught me off guard.
A correction, Master Noble! 'Tis not Fagin, but Jack Dawkins, the Artful Dodger, now running the pick-pocket gang at the time of this story, having somehow returned from Australia.
(Moore's penchant for including SA as a plot device acknowledged, I still enjoy these books for being literary easter egg hunts.)
As far as mainstream fiction? Penny Dreadful comes up as a maybe, but I never got into that. I can't remember offhand if Dr. Jeckyl was part of the cabal Holmes was a member of in the Planetary comic series (but that was a short backstory segment as opposed to anything actually explored).
@Caitlyn Carvalho Yeah, that DID creates evil personas trope needs to be shot in the head and left as a blemish mark in entertainment history.
This movie got me to read some of the books this Characters came from.
Dracula, Portrait of Dorian Grey, Dr Jekyll and mr Hyde, etc, etc.
Yeah Captain Nemo's submarine was something of stupid to me having something that freaking long is impractical and hard as hell to try and find a port to put it in.
I will forever have a soft spot for this movie since my best friend, her boyfriend, and I went to see it together and she and I absolutely lost our shit every time something was phrased just a little...off. After a certain point she and I didn't even have to say anything, we'd just look at one another and crack up, absolutely knowing we were thinking the exact same thing.
21:06 Correction: In the comic book, it's explicitly noted that Moriarty was planning on just eliminating the League after they completed their mission by blowing them up in his bombing raid on Fu Manchu, having ensured that the group would be in the same area at the time.
The Character Moriarty is portrayed in this film is suppose to be THE PHANTOM! From the Phantom of the Opera.
I thought he was supposed to be Fantomas, but I could be wrong there (or he could be a composite of both)
I'm sure it's a composite.
The mask is a reference to the Phantom while his actions are closer to Fantomas, which is why his official name is the Fantom.
I've always found Moore to be a bit hypocritical considering how many of his most famous works are in some way or another adapting other people's characters to his own twisted ideas. Marvelman (aka Miracleman) started as a way to continue the 40's Captain Marvel comic in the UK after Fawcett stop publication.
He actually did a lighter revamp when he took over Supreme and made it an homage to Silver Age Superman. Of course , he's responsible for two of the greatest Superman stories of all time, so he does have an affinity for the Man of Steel.
Moore believed he had the permission of the Marvelman's creator. Dez Skinn duped him.
Marvelman was a rip off of Captain Marvel anyway.
11:35, "We can talk about the bizarre direction they took in turning it into a film." By making it significantly and substantially less bizarre.
I remember really liking this movie in high school/college. It was my first exposure to an ensemble cast featuring people from wildly varying stories, and I ate it up. I'd also never seen any steampunk before, so that was exciting and new to me. I may need to watch it again, just to see how I feel about the movie these days
I personally love this movie. I know it's dumb but like Dom said, watching it I don't have to worry about Hyde killing the invisible man by "assaulting" him to death and it being treated like a joke.
Edit: So I have been corrected that the scene is not treated as a joke and is portrayed as awful. I still have no interest in reading it because everything I hear about it makes me uncomfortable.
There is issues there but I definitely wouldn't say it was treated as a joke. The scene of Hyde sitting at the table eating and the blood slowly materializing is chillingly effective.
@@tinkerer3399 Thank you for the correction. I've only seen the scene out of context so I misunderstood it. It still makes me uncomfortable enough to never want to read it through.
@@austinhaltiner1489 It's meant to be uncomfortable. While the Invisible Man was a psychopath and deserved both to be punished for his past misdeeds and prevented from committing further atrocities, Hyde is a monster, ruled by animal urges with no human morality restraining him. What Hyde did the the Invisible Man breaks the League, so horrifying Nemo that he quits.
I'm in a similar boat, though for me it's that from that scene on I think the series crawls straight up Moore's ass and never comes back out again. It just ramps the cynicism, pretentiousness and mean-spiritedness up to 11 from that point on and I bounced off it hard.
@@SolStJohn This!! ☝️ The way you described this, it's perfect, and I absolutely agree! There's only so much of _all of that_ that I can take 😬
My favorite part about the James Bond rework is it's not even the first time Allen Moore has tried/wanted to include a non-public domain but technically should be character into his works, with his desired Twilight of the Super Heroes proposal having Batman working with Doc Savage, The Shadow, and Tarzan...which is...very funny when DC has characters designed to fill those niches.
He could just have talked to King Features about doing 'Defenders of the Earth'.
@@leifroarmoldskred6370 That would require him to like...talk to people instead of just do stuff.
Doc Savage, now there's a name you never hear anymore. I haven't read them but I read articles about those books.
It's kinda like how everyone knows the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew but no one knows Tom Swift Jr. (I read all of the Tom Swift Jr. books.)
Penny Dreadful is still the closest we will ever come to a good LXG adaptation, despite not being one at all
Hello fellow Dreadful, you beat me to this comment!
@@ladyredl3210 Hands down my favorite show!!
@@DocumentaryFanboy same!
I remember watching this in the theatre, and snorting in disbelief when the ship floated through the canals, then hearing Nemo say "We can't go any further" or something to that effect. I burst out laughing and said "Why the hell not?" out loud.
Well, the Nautilus has wheels on the bottom so it can get through the canals, but they can only bear part of the boat's weight. So once the canal gets too shallow, I'm sorry I can't go on with a straight face.
Dr. Jekyll’s name is pronounced (Jeekyll) according to Robert Louis Stevenson. So far only the 1931 movie said his name correctly.
Oooh, speaking of Alan Moore adaptations, here's hoping you do a LIA episode on V for Vendetta in the future, because I *love* the movie but understand it differs in several aspects to the comic. 🌹⚔
Have you seen the “What’s the Difference” episode that focuses on that Graphic novel. Cause I do love both for different reasons :)
That one is apparently one of the most faithful adaptations despite some changes, and Moore still hated it. The guy is one of those types who thinks that his books should just be the literal script, and no deviation for medium should be allowed.
@@danielramsey6141 No I've not seen it yet, but thanks for the recommend. 😉
@@robertgronewold3326 It's really not. One is very much about how much Thatcher's UK of the 80's sucked, and the other is very much about how much the War on Terror sucked. Both things that sucked, but too different for there to be much similar about the two works. I mean sure the film has it's moments of genuine quality, but the only genuinely good Moore adaptation, and he thinks that too, is the Justice League cartoon ep based on for the man who has everything
@@robertgronewold3326 I think it's more that he doesn't think they should be adapted at all. Not saying I agree, I don't, but he basically seems to feel that changing mediums ruins stories every time and by the time V for Vendetta rolled around he'd had any hope of that not being the case squashed by LoEG and From Hell and was just done. Not helping was the fact that DC owned all the rights to most of his comics so he didn't even get a say in if they got adapted or not.
Personally I prefer his long time friend Neil Gaiman's approach of involving himself a lot so the adaptions turn out better, it's given us some seriously great TV and one serious great movie.
The moment that broke the film for me was when Tom Sawyer introduced himself. A character that was a youngster in the 1850s at the latest, then is in his twenties in the 1890s...
Honestly, I kinda prefer the movie to the comic. The first volume was alright, but after a while, the comic just felt like something you'd see Mark Millar write. Plus, call me old-fashioned, but I prefer "superhero" movies where the heroes actually get along with each other and work well as a team and aren't actively trying to kill each other between missions.
Glad you are feeling better, Dom. An early example of why just shoving a bunch of characters together doesn't automatically make a masterpiece, if only people had listened.
Given how much Alan Moore hated his work being adapted into other media, it's almost amusing that at the beginning of comic to movie adaptations, he was the most adapted writer for many years.
I saw the movie when it first came out, and everyone in the theater loved it. I think it if hadn't been up against Pirates of the Caribbean, it would have been a hit. Quartermain was definitely the highlight, and I kind of wish we'd gotten some elder Quartermain movies with Connery about the time just prior to the League film.
Eh...I saw it when it first released on video, everybody I knew who watched it said it was "weird," and they didn't mean it as a compliment. I think it's possible it could've been better, especially nowadays where "team of superpowered people get multiple spin offs to Save the World" is a common series format, but I don't believe it was the victim of stolen glory by disney pirates.
At the time I was super excited to see it in theatres ,as a preteen who was absolutely eating up all the fantasy and superhero movies I could get my hands on and had been encouraged to, in most cases, read the source material by my dad, ahead of him taking me to see the movies. In this case, I got only a synopsis of what we were going to see and I so wanted it to work.Loved the idea, loved parts of it, but could recognize where it fell flat.
This one always reminds me of Van Helsing, they feel like siblings. Almost like the LoTRs effect on children's epics like Narnia there was also this wave of "What if we took an Aragon-type and centered a movie around his moody aesthetic for the 18-35 male market?" Or at least that's how I track it.
I can't say I'm a fan of either the book or the movie, but I like the book better. I feel we often forget that a lot of the heroes in the old novels are monsters themselves and I like that Moore depicted them that way.
This might be a weird observation to make, but I love how the back of your chair looks exactly like all of mine have looked throughout my entire life. Just one of the many joys of cat ownership 😅
"A Night in the Lonesome October" by Roger Zalazny came out before this comic book and it had shared universe characters. Everyone should give it a read. It's an amazing book by an under appreciated author.
I wouldn't call Zelazny an underappreciated author; he is considered one of the sci-fi greats. But maybe Dom's younger audience isn't that familiar with him.
@@yltraviole
I doubt that anyone under 50 has heard of him, and I can't say I'm too sad about that.
@@alanpennie8013 Well, I'm under 50. And that's a shame. Even if one's not personally a fan of his work, it's interesting to see the development of the sci-fi genre over the years.
@@alanpennie8013 I'm under 50 and I've read most of his works, I read "Lonsome October" every year in October, I've been doing it for almost 20 years now. In fact, the past two years I have been reading it out loud to my fiancé and we still both look forward to reading it every year. Such an amazing book with a great sense of humor but still a darkness to it, I recommend it to everyone.
I HAVE NEVER CLICKED ON A NOTIFICATION LINK SO FAST.
(Sidenote; I do kinda love how the comics eventually did Harry Potter as the antichrist and Mary Poppins as God)
i was so excited when i saw this was going to be the next video last week
I have looked forward to this one for so long and the use of Harry Potter has only gotten better since Rowling became the worst.
This was interesting. I would like to see you go over the other volumes. Or at least volume 3, if only for its ending.
Also, Mina in the comics is NOT a vampire. She has a few scars, but that's it. She doesn't have any powers or desire for blood. She is by all measures a normal, if somewhat traumatized, human.
What about Century in particular? Never read it
@@johnockershausen3951 Spoilers ahead, but in volume 3 the a League have to stop the birth of the antichrist. They fail, and the antichrist is revealed to be... Harry Potter (yes, I'm serious). This feeds into Moore's diatribe about how modern fiction is inferior to fiction from the Victorian era and the early 20th century.
@@marcovalenzuela5602 Oh yeah. I remember hearing about that now. I also remember hearing the audience reactions were mainly "Dude what the fuck?"
I wonder how that perception would change in light of recent events. Probably not much.
She did become immortal mind you, just for a completely different reason.
@@johnockershausen3951 As someone who has read it and had had an almost 20 year long love nearly all things Alan Moore up until that point: Century was Alan Moore being so far up his own ass he could count his back molars.
I think the only Adaptation of his work Moore has ever liked is the Justice League Unlimited episode "for the man who has everything" and only because they made it even more tragic,
and let them actually credit him, which he normally doesn't allow.
He liked Batman 1989 at one point, he also endorse a doctor who fan adaptation and praised the work on future writers of hellblazer
@@paulakroy2635 Hellblazer is different; he never actually worked on Hellblazer, he just created the character of John Constantine as a secondary character on Swamp Thing. So that wasn't an adaption, that was a continuation.
Can't be understated, COVID is an absolute bitch. Props for doing a video while still in recovery.
Van Helsing was the same as LXG.
- They both rely on action and special effects to sell the non sensical plot.
- They both have a mixed bag of characters taken from different domains that are all mashed in together and some how expected to work.
- They are both great background noise however.
I honestly like both of these movies I know they’re not masterclasses of cinema or anything like that but I still find them really enjoyable, hell I have the Van Helsing game on my Xbox.
They have the same aesthetics too.
We didn't get an appearance by Bond, but "M" introducing himself to Connery's Quartermain is a cute little Bond reference in and of itself.
Alan Moore is one of the angriest men in the entertainment industry, but about 95percent of his anger not only justified, but in some ways, downplayed. His work has warped and distorted in disgusting ways.
He got screwed on the rights too for Watchmen thanks to shenanigans. No wonder he's got a complex about being acknowledged for his work
Tom Sawyer was a pretty genius addition in the movie, though...
I really like the fact that Tom Sawyer grew up to be a secret agent for the U.S. government.
Agreed.
I’m gonna be completely honest with y’all, I like the ideas of the League movie waaaaay more than the comics. The film’s pretty straightforward Steampunk Avengers, the comic just goes off the rails and I have no clue how some of those characters/references even happened. I don’t get why Mina’s even there if she wasn’t turned, and it feels wrong she just randomly left John after all they’d been through. Probably not helped by the fact that my mom, dad and sister are all English teachers, and also that Gray and Sawyer were my favorite portrayals.
I always thought that this movie was just my imagination or a dream because this movie was playing in our living room when I was like 4 and since then I couldn’t remember if this was a real movie or not.
I always smile when I see there is a new Lost in Adaptation
i really do love this movie. I got excited seeing the literary characters I read about as a kid, the only one I was unfamiliar with was Shawn Connery's character. Yet seeing Jekyll and Hyde, along with Tom Sawyer, and many others I enjoyed it very much. Wondering which literary character would pop up next, real shame their was never a sequel but I had fun watching the movie.
I had the advantage of knowing the Allan Quatermaine pretty well before watching this, so I was all aboard.
@caitlyncarvalho7637 You know I had forgotten that bit myself. To be fair I haven't read The Mysterious Island in almost 15-20 years. I suppose because there really isn't a whole lot of emphases on his nationality and faith. Everything gets overshadowed by the whole giant submarine thing. I am also pretty sure I haven't seen any book covers that accurately represent his appearance either. That makes a surprising amount of difference. Also I don’t think his origins are revealed until The Mysterious Island book, which is lesser known that the original 20,000 legues under the sea. I guess this is a case where preserving Nemo's identity helped with creating more material in the comic and thus was better preserved?
@caitlyncarvalho7637 Ah I didn't actually know about the Once Upon a Time version of the character. Though I think a similar thing should apply there. Both the LXG comic book series and the OUAT tv series are longer and allow for more fleshed out versions of characters from stories or farytales creating an incentive for including more complete back stories, and therefor drawing upon Nemo's Indian heritage. Of course I would like to believe that we have gotten better at acknowledging POC literary characters in modern times, but I don't think we have gotten to the point where we are consistently doing it enough that that's the only reason. Maybe I'm wrong though.
I'm sorry to hear that and hope you are better. On a completely unrelated note, scruffy Dom is my spirit animal and I will not be taking any further questions. Thank you.
I love il neige’s songs at the end of your videos so much
Apparently, Connery was even offered 15% of the box office gross of The Lord of the Rings for the role of Gandalf. Given that the trilogy made nearly 3 billion dollars worldwide, he would have made 450 million. He also turned down the roles of Dumbledore in Harry Potter and The Architect in the Matrix Reloaded. Given all that, it's no wonder he agreed to a role in LXG.
Kind of reminds me of how Universal Studios had such massive regrets turning down both Star Wars and Indiana Jones from George Lucas that when he came to them with a script about a talking duck they accepted it without even reading it.
You sounded as good as ever, but I have no doubt you must've felt like garbage. Thank you for your dedication and hope you feel better soon!
Yeah... this was one of my guilty pleasure movies back in the early 00's. I wrote a fanfic that was thousands of words long about Skinner. I haven't watched it again in years and I don't particularly intend to, but I have some good memories of it. Hope you feel better soon, Dom!
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. 2 was crazy. Of all the literary characters they included Mr Toad was the most surprising.
He, along with other anthropomorphic animal characters, were creations of Dr Moreau.
Love that scene, although I think my favourite of Dr. Moreau's hybrids is probably Rupert the Bear, with that sneaky reference to that cartoon from Oz Magazine and the resultant obscenity trial.
"I mean that for a substantial sum of money, she will have congress with him."
This movie will always remain a guilty pleasure for me. I was so amazed by those "dark, edgy" (c) superheroes as a kid while also always having had a big love for steampunk.
Also, that song in the end just killed me!
I remember finding the graphic novel in the local library when I was in my very early teens (I was 12 when it came out, so I was 13/14). I was enjoying the Mina character until... I blocked everything out. It must've burned off the top layer of my brain because I only remembered I read it when I came across my brother's copy in my 20's.
I read Watchmen at that sort of age which led to a strange moment; my dad saw me reading it and was surprised to see the author's name; he had been friends with Alan as a kid and he (my dad) had some movie posters Alan had drawn for him in the loft.