The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (film): Difference between revisions
take it to the talk page Boris |
m →Planned sequels: according to multiple sites the movie was a box office hit. YOU are not qualified to judge the critical status- please discuss on the talk page |
||
| Line 172: | Line 172: | ||
==Planned sequels== |
==Planned sequels== |
||
According to [[IMDb]], all of the main actors save Townsend signed for a three-movie deal. The possible sequels were to have resurrected Quatermain (as hinted by the movie's ending) and introduced [[Campion Bond]], possibly played by [[Roger Moore]]. However, given Connery's retirement from acting |
According to [[IMDb]], all of the main actors save Townsend signed for a three-movie deal. The possible sequels were to have resurrected Quatermain (as hinted by the movie's ending) and introduced [[Campion Bond]], possibly played by [[Roger Moore]]. However, given Connery's retirement from acting, any sequels are unlikely. |
||
==Novelization== |
==Novelization== |
||
Revision as of 04:49, 9 August 2007
 | This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. (July 2007) |
| The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Stephen Norrington |
| Written by | Comic Book: Alan Moore Kevin O'Neill Screenplay: James Robinson |
| Produced by | Trevor Albert Rick Benattar Sean Connery Mark Gordon Don Murphy Michael Nelson |
| Starring | Sean Connery Naseeruddin Shah Peta Wilson Tony Curran Stuart Townsend Shane West Jason Flemyng Richard Roxburgh Max Ryan |
| Music by | Trevor Jones |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
Release dates | July 11, 2003 |
Running time | 110 min. |
| Language | English |
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is a 2003 film adaption of the comic book limited series. It was released on July 11, 2003 in the United States. It is an adventure film set late in the 19th century, featuring an assortment of literary characters appropriate to the period. However, the adaptation's plot and general atmosphere is very far from the original comic book.
Plot
| This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. (July 2007) |
The Beginning of a War
The film opens in 1899 with dramatic thefts taking place in both London and Berlin. A Mark I tank , piloted by German soldiers, assaults the Bank of England to steal a set of plans drawn up by Leonardo Da Vinci for the foundations of Venice. Only one soldier out of the whole unit assigned to protect the bank is left alive to tell the story. In Berlin, German scientists are abducted and a zeppelin hangar is destroyed, seemingly by British troops. The governments of each country threaten war. Behind both crimes is a masked, scarred figure, The Fantom.
An emissary of the British government, Sanderson Reed, arrives in a gentlemen’s club in Kenya to recruit the legendary, but now aged, hunter and adventurer Allan Quatermain. However, Reed finds that Quatermain has no great patriotic concerns and refuses to return to London. At this moment, a group of armoured men armed with machine guns appear, killing several club members. Quatermain defeats the attackers single-handedly, and before he can interrogate the last survivor, the assasin takes poison and dies, followed by the destruction of the club by a bomb planted before the fighting began. Quatermain agrees to return to England, deciding that a full scale war between the nations of Europe will quickly spread to Africa and its colonies.
The League
Quatermain arrives in London, quipping that his voyage wasn’t as quick as that of Phileas Fogg, and is taken into the bowels of an impressive Whitehall building. There, in a darkened underground meeting room, he meets the mysterious "M".
M explains his plan to recreate a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen to combat the threat of The Fantom and ensure world peace, by stopping him from destroying Venice. "M" has his roster planned and we first meet the legendary Captain Nemo, followed by the invisible gentleman thief Rodney Skinner, who with a flourish, introduces himself in a completely normal way, but knowing it will look extraordinary to Quatermain. He slams some books down, puts on a coat, and daubs his face with plaster so he is visible. Finally, Mrs. Mina Harker who is, we are told, a chemist of some note. It is then stated that Skinner stole the invisibility formula and is now helping the government so they will search for an antidote.
Before they can set off to save the world, two more members must be rounded up, so they climb into Nemo’s six-wheeled "automobile" driven by Nemo's first mate (“Call me Ishmael”) and set off to London’s East End to the home of Dorian Gray.
Once inside Gray’s dockland home Quatermain points out that a painting is conspicuously absent on one wall and we learn that Mina Harker and Gray have some sexual history together and that Gray was chosen for his "experience". Just as Gray turns down their request to join them in their efforts, The Fantom and a dozen of his men show up from nowhere. A momentary stand-off takes place, during which Quatermain notices one of the henchmen giving him a look. The whole room erupts in a blazing gunfight when the henchman shoots another of The Fantom's men.
Nemo utilizes a lightning fast form of martial arts to vanquish his foe. Skinner throws some scotch onto himself to strip the plaster, and throws off his coat, defeating his foes with a book, attacking them from empty air, beginning with comments like, 'hang on,' and 'do you mind' and finishing with 'night-night.' Gray simply takes a burst of automatic weapons fire in the chest, flamboyantly removes the straps holding his foes armor on, then stabs him with a sword. As the dying foe grabs Gray's now-frayed shirt, pulling it off while asking "What are you?" as Gray's wounds vanish in grey ash, to which Gray responds in a bored manner “I'm complicated”.
The Fantom escapes (for the first of many times) and the sequence ends with Mina being held, knife at her throat, by the last remaining thug. Out of the shadows steps the winking gunman, whom we learn is American Secret Service Agent Sawyer, ready to come to her aid. Mina remarks that she needs no help, which becomes obvious when her eyes suddenly turn completely red and she rips the throat from her assailant and feeds from his neck, while her rather stunned teammates look on. In a minor comic moment, Sawyer indicates that she has a bit of blood on her lip and she turns with suitable embarrassment to clean it off. Mina then explains something of her background in the Dracula affair and reveals her scarred neck. The previously reluctant Dorian agrees to join the League when the other members suggest that Agent Sawyer would be a good replacement for him.
At the nearby docks Nemo unveils his submarine – the Nautilus. Looking like a giant scimitar without a hilt as it rises from the depths; the group is stunned by the extraordinary vessel. A panel opens, a plank is lowered and Nemo’s first mate welcomes them aboard before they head off to France to round-up the League’s last recruit.
In the streets of Paris at night where Quatermain and Sawyer are stalking a beast leaping from building to building up on the rooftops overlooking the Rue Morgue. The beast is knocked from a roof and dragged back to the Nautilus in a net, where we find the huge beast is actually Mr. Hyde who quickly reverts to the meek and haunted Dr. Jekyll. He is happy to help when he learns that the Queen will allow his return to London if he does so.
Venice
The team is now complete, so the Nautilus sets off for Venice. Some character development is injected along the way as Quatermain bonds with young Sawyer while teaching him to shoot effectively rather than in "the American style, all out gunfight" and we learn that Quatermain is haunted by the loss of his son. Sawyer hits on Mina, but his clumsy advance is quickly rebuffed by the very non-Victorian vampiress. Mina and Dorian then reveal a bit of their past as the anxious Jekyll looks on, taunted by the voice and image (visible to Jekyll in any reflective surface) of Hyde all the while. Seeds of a traitor in their midst are planted when flash powder is found in the wheel room of the Nautilus and a vial of Jekyll’s serum is determined to be missing. Naturally, all think that invisible thief Skinner is the culprit, but nothing can be done about it since Skinner is nowhere to be found.
Later a carnival in the Piazza San Marco is fully underway as the impossibly huge Nautilus sails up the narrow canals of Venice, apparently with no trouble until it comes to a stop under a bridge where it can go no further. We are shown that a series of bombs are somewhere under the city, the League's members have no idea where, until they start to detonate and begin toppling buildings in a domino effect, one explosion after another. To stop the total destruction of Venice, they decide that knocking one of the buildings out of the sequence is the only way to stop the chain of explosions. To achieve this, Nemo has a missile that can be fired from the Nautilus at the building in question, but only if a beacon can be set in place. So, since Nemo can track his "automobile", the League piles in with Sawyer at the wheel and go racing along the streets of Venice (although primitive cars existed at this period, they would not be as fast or as maneuverable as Nemo's car).
Dozens of The Fantom’s gunmen appear out of nowhere along the rooftops and start firing on the speeding vehicle. Dorian drops out of the car to fight the gunmen and disappears. Moments later, Mina too takes her leave by flying into battle and becoming a swarm of bats, which provide cover from the gun shots overhead.
The Villains
Quatermain also bails from the vehicle to give chase to The Fantom on foot. The two fight in a graveyard where Quatermain dislodges The Fantom's mask who, before he makes his escape, is now revealed to be none other than the mysterious "M". At the same time, we see Sawyer crash the car into the target building, while firing a flare, which signals Nemo to launch his missile. The building is destroyed, the chain of explosions stops and Venice is saved. Meanwhile, back at the Nautilus, the first mate is met by Dorian Gray and blames Skinner for their troubles, but is quickly proven wrong when Gray shoots him.
The League regroups at the Nautilus, where Quatermain reveals that "M" is behind the whole thing, when the near-dead Ishmael reveals that Gray is the traitor, not Skinner. At that moment, a small submersible vessel breaks from the Nautilus and Dorian makes good his escape with a smile and wave to the assembled team.
Nemo sets the Nautilus in pursuit, but moments later, a record is found and played on a gramophone. The voice of "M" floods the room, and we see the recording session as black and white footage in flashback, while he reveals the scope of his plans. Everything leading up to this moment is revealed as a ruse so that "M" could steal elements from each of the League members to construct an army of super-powered soldiers; Jekyll's formula, Mina's blood, and a sample of Skinner's invisible skin. He also explains that he needed Quatermain only to capture Mr. Hyde. Dorian Gray also managed to photograph the Nautilus.
While the record plays on, Jekyll sees his Hyde persona reflected in a porthole, the beast has his hands clamped over his ears and pleads with Jekyll to stop the record, just as 'M' discloses that another track has been playing on the record at a frequency outside human hearing which is set to trigger the bombs planted by Gray. Nemo immediately smashes the gramophone - but it is too late already, and bombs planted by Gray go off in the bowels of the submarine.
Chaos ensues as lower decks flood, with Nemo’s crewman trapped by the water. To release the water, Jekyll takes his formula and dives into the flooded chamber. Transformed into Hyde, he uses his massive strength to save the vessel by forcing open a set of vents that drain the water. Once again in pursuit of Gray, a Morse code message is received from Skinner,(beginning with "hello my freaky darlings", the crew guess who its from because of that), who has stowed away on Gray’s escape vessel, revealing the coordinates of M’s hideout somewhere in a remote and frozen Mongolian sea.
The Final Fight
The Nautilus breaks up from under the ice and our heroes travel across the frozen wastes to a cave overlooking M’s flame and smoke industrial fortress. Skinner appears and tells them that "M" has a number of scientists and their families held as hostages and slave labor in his munitions factory. The workers are constructing Nautili (from the Latin plural of Nautilus) while the scientists are working on an army of Hyde-like brutes, invisible spies and vampire assassins.
Splitting into teams or (in the case of Mina and Skinner) going single, the League infiltrates the factory and battle against various threats. Nemo and Hyde attempt to free the scientists and their families while Sawyer and Quatermain go after "M", Mina goes for Dorian, while Skinner sets off to plant some explosives.
Sawyer, thinking that he’s met up with the invisible Skinner, breaks from Quatermain, only to discover that it is one of M’s men who has become invisible (although not revealed in the movie, this man is actually Sanderson Reed, who recruited Quatermain to M’s LXG at the beginning of the movie.) To further complicate matters, an armored soldier with a flamethrower also turns up and nearly fries the American agent, but is saved by Skinner who stabs the soldier's gas tank. The soldier spins, throwing flame, and Skinner is caught in the crossfire, and illuminated in flame. He runs, screaming in pain. Skinner is later found by Sawyer, collapsed on a pile of scrolls, his skin raw, bleeding and scorched. Skinner manages to weakly moan, as is his way of making fun of everything, "That's the last time I play with matches."
Meanwhile, Nemo and Hyde run up against M's right-hand man, Dante, leading yet another group of armoured machine-gun wielding men. When the gunmen are quickly beaten by Hyde and Nemo, Dante desperately downs a full beaker of Jekyll's serum that quickly turns him into a massive and powerful monster several times bigger than Hyde at which Hyde moans, "Not the whole thing.". The heroes make their escape from the factory moments before it explodes, the crash finally destroying the mad beast that Dante had become. Simultaneously, Mina has her showdown with Dorian, who decays before her eyes when she shows him his portrait.
Quatermain confronts M in his lair (he has now shaved off his moustache) and reveals his deduction that "M" is none other than the supposedly dead Professor James Moriarty, at which he declares himself the "Napoleon of Crime", who did not perish at Reichenbach as the world believed, and seeks to profit from a starting a world war by selling the powers of the League to the highest bidding country. Quatermain, holding Moriarty at gunpoint, sees in a reflection that an invisible man has Sawyer held at knifepoint behind him; he turns and shoots Sanderson Reed, the invisible villain, only to be stabbed in the back by Moriarty just before making another escape and fleeing across the ice. This is the point where Sawyer has to use what Quatermain had taught him and shoot Moriarty before he can get into the submersible vessel with a suitcase containing all he needs to rebuild his empire. In a similar way that Quatermain shot a gunman at the beginning of the film, Sawyer kills Moriarty with a bullet to the back of the head just before he reaches the vessel. Moriarty's box containing the items Gray stole from the League falls into the ocean.
Ending
The final sequence of the film takes place in Africa, where the group has assembled to bury Quatermain. After the group departs a tribal witch doctor appears and performs a ritual at the grave. Viewers paying attention earlier in the film will recall that Quatermain had explained Africa would not let him die because of a witch doctor’s blessing (for the unattentive, Skinner throws this out as an idle remark during the scene). After everyone leaves, the witch doctor grabs the dirt that was over Quatermain's grave and begins a ritual chant which (according to the DVD commentary) translates to "awaken, arise". The entire earth shakes violently, making the rifle (that Sawyer had left on the grave) shake. Lightning strikes Quatermain's grave right before the screen cuts to black.
Cast
Characters
Allan Quatermain
Allan Quatermain is the elephant hunter and African explorer of H. Rider Haggard's 1885 novel King Solomon's Mines and its various sequels and prequels. In the film, he is the leader of the League and is not recovering from an opium addiction as he is in the comic book. The character matches with his original storyline as we are informed that he had two wives and a son. Although he does die in the movie, the final sequence with the shaman indicates that Africa "won't let him die," and that he is being resurrected. Allan describes himself as "an old tiger sensing his end" who wants to "go down fighting".
Tom Sawyer
The Tom Sawyer character is taken from the novels by Mark Twain and was not part of the comic book version of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The film anachronistically portrays Sawyer as a young man (although Twain published a Tom Sawyer, Detective story in 1896, in which Sawyer was 17 years old, the story was set in pre-Civil War 1840s). In the film, Sawyer is an American Secret Service agent sent by Theodore Roosevelt. Tom Sawyer is never directly mentioned by name in the film, instead referring to himself as "Special Agent Sawyer", while the end credits refer to him as "Tom". However in a deleted scene Dr. Jekyll calls him Tom, and he mentions his childhood friend whom M killed. This friend was, most likely, Huck Finn. Tom Sawyer only makes a brief cameo in the comic.
Captain Nemo
Captain Nemo is the Indian submariner from Jules Verne's 1870 novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, The Mysterious Island and Journey Through the Impossible.
In the film, he has a brutal array of martial arts skills, and shows an advanced level of swordmanship. He shows no sign of feeling pain within the midst of battle. His primary contribution to the League's mission is the use of his ship and her crew. He is shown to be a worshiper of Kali, the Hindu goddess of death. This marks him as the only League member whose religious leanings are specified at any time. In a deleted scene, it is mentioned that he agreed to join the League in return for the British considering giving India independence.
Nemo's feelings toward the other League members are somewhat enigmatic, but he does appear to become at least somewhat close with both Quatermain and Jekyll; it is also vaguely implied that he respects both Sawyer and, at the end, Skinner. During the League's first battle with the Fantom's men, Nemo's immediate reaction is to grab Mina Harker and pull her to safety, suggesting that his moral code includes at least some level of chivalry.
He is very different from his comic-book counterpart, who is portrayed as a snobbish, world-weary, retired underwater terrorist with undertones of sexism, xenophobia and misanthropy. In the comics he is also far more important to the League, realizing before the rest that their superiors cannot be trusted, and deducing both their identities and their plans. In the movie, the Nautilus does not bear any resemblance to the comic version (which has tentacles).
Wilhelmina Harker
Mina Harker is the character from Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula, but this time a vampire. Here, Jonathan Harker has been dead for years, although it's unknown if he was killed by his wife's vampiric instincts. Unlike in the comic book, in which Jonathan is alive but had divorced his wife, Mina Harker did not change her name back to Murray after her husband's death and is not the leader, nor is she identified as a vampire. Mina is a radically different breed of vampire than Dracula, lacking many of the traditional strengths and weaknesses.
She can stand in the sun (something that Dracula could also do, but resulted in his powers being vastly diminished), cross the ocean easily, is never shown to need to sleep in a coffin, and she freely entered Moriarty's lair without invitation. Her powers include rapid healing, immortality (she can survive being stabbed in the chest, though she did say the attacker missed her heart, and says at another point that it's possible she can't die), she can turn (completely or partially) into a flock of bats, she can fly and cling to walls like a bat, and she is strong enough to overpower one of Moriarty's men and jump large heights and distances.
She was once a lover of Dorian Gray's, but claims that their love died. They briefly rekindle their affair during the course of the film, which makes his later actions a very personal betrayal.
Rodney Skinner
The filmmakers were unable to obtain the rights to H. G. Wells' original Invisible Man character so they created a new version of him known as Rodney Skinner, a thief blessed with the lightest of fingers, the most cunning of minds and a talent for trouble, who has stolen the invisibility formula from the original Invisible Man, Griffin (in the graphic novel, it is explained that the Invisible Man killed at the end of The Invisible Man was actually a half-wit albino that Griffin made invisible as a guinea pig).
While Dr. Hawley Griffin from the comic is a sociopath and a rapist, Rodney Skinner is merely mischievous, though for a while he is believed to be the traitorous villain.
His heroic side shines through eventually, as he is the one to stow away on M's little sub with Gray, and he nearly dies in saving Sawyer from a horrible death, receiving some horrific injuries as a result.
No-one seems to like him and is rebuffed by everyone throughout the beginning of the film, but, towards the end, everyone warms to him, possibly Sawyer most of all for saving his life.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Dr. Henry Jekyll and/or Mr. Edward Hyde, from Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 short novel Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde appear in the film, but they are portrayed in a more favourable light than they are in the novel or the comics. Differing from the novel, Jekyll must still drink the potion to transform, and his alternate side is shown to be a huge, hulking character, rather than the smaller, evil man of the book.
The film retains the comic's idea of Hyde's size being proportionate to the amount of evil he has done.
Dorian Gray
Gray is the main character from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.
He possesses an enchanted portrait of himself that ages for him and absorbs all his injuries, rendering him immortal. However, looking at the picture reverses the magic, causing him to disintegrate as his actual age catches up with him.
A mistake in the reading of the cover of the collected edition of the original comic led to his more resembling Sir Francis Varney in the film; the cover depicted both the original portrait of Gray as depicted in Wilde's book, and a portrait of Varney, which became the basis for the movie Gray's character. Like Tom, Dorian only makes a cameo in the comic.
Other characters
- In a move reminiscent of the James Bond novels, the League is recruited by a character known as "M".
- The mysterious character that attacks military bases and banks is referred to as the "Fantom" who resembles the Phantom of the Opera or French master villain Fantômas. Upon first hearing that their adversary is known as the Fantom, Quatermain remarks, "How very operatic."
- When Quatermain arrives in London he mentions Jules Verne's Phileas Fogg.
- In the library where Quatermain meets M, Nemo, and Mina, there are paintings meant to represent members of past generations of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Among those featured are Zorro, Doctor Syn, Robin Hood, Natty Bumpo, and the Three Musketeers.
- Captain Nemo's first mate is named Ishmael, suggesting the protagonist from Herman Melville's Moby-Dick. The character's first line of dialogue is "Call me Ishmael," the first line of Melville's novel.
- The key villain is Professor James Moriarty, enemy of Sherlock Holmes.
- After the battle in Gray's house, when Mina explains her power, she mentions her husband Jonathan Harker and Abraham Van Helsing from Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula.
- Before entering Gray's house, Skinner mentions Jack the Ripper.
- In Paris, while hunting for Mr. Hyde, Quatermain makes the observation that "this big monkey has terrorized the Rue Morgue for months." This is a reference to Edgar Allan Poe's story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", in which an orangutan is responsible for a series of grisly murders; the implication is that the so-called monkey causing the deaths may really have been Mr. Hyde. In the comic book, however, Chevallier Dupin asserts that it was an orangutan, though several years in the past. Now, the present series of murders only resemble those of the monkey. Furthermore, references are made to Jack The Ripper.
- In a scene deleted from the film (but which can be viewed on the DVD), Sawyer informs the rest of the League that he joined them because the Fantom murdered his Secret Service partner -- his childhood friend, Huckleberry Finn. This is also the only scene in which anyone uses Sawyer's first name, identifying him as Tom Sawyer.
Eva Draper
Intriguingly, there was a character cut from the release version of the film that was not removed from the promotional materials, and still appears in one of the trailers (“Trailer B”). Eva Draper, played by Winter Ave Zoli, is the daughter of the German scientist (named “Draper” and played by Rudolf Pellar) who shouts, “Are you crazy?” at The Fantom when he shoots down Zeppelins during the film’s opening.
She originally appeared twice in the movie. Her first scene was completely excised and no further details are available; her second scene actually remains in the finished film, however she has been digitally replaced by another character. The scene in question occurs at the film’s climax, where she attacks Quatermain and Sawyer in a moment that leads to Sawyer’s “Eyes open” rebuttal line.
“This sequence was originally shot with a young blonde woman coming in and hitting Shane West over the head and interfering with this apprehension of M,” said LXG producer Trevor Albert, on the DVD commentary. “We realised, because we’d cut out another little bit of the movie, it made no sense… [Through] the miracle of digital effects we basically totally removed the character and put another character in, which made it less complicated. We were afraid that having the girl introduced in that sequence would’ve confused the audience, and as I say we had removed a sequence where we sort of indicated who she was earlier.”
In removing Eva, the filmmakers actually integrated a brief fight scene between Sawyer and the replacement character by rotoscoping footage of him from another scene, which completely took Shane West (the actor portraying Sawyer) by surprise when he saw the finished film. “There was a girl that was supposed to be the daughter of one of the kidnapped scientists,” said West, “and it just did not make sense throwing her into this and not having some sort of backstory, so they decided to cut her out. They replaced her successfully with some sort of soldier who’s creeping up behind me as Sean and I walk into this scene. And somehow, even though I never made the move, I butt him in the head with the butt of my rifle, and somehow I’m able to knock him out when it’s – I mean, it was just amazing. I didn’t know – I’d forgotten. I was sitting there with my eyes, my mouth was open wide, and Trevor [Albert, LXG producer]was just laughing, and I was like, ‘What happened to the girl? And how did I kick some guy’s butt when I never really did that?’”
Despite her appearance in the trailer, Winter Ave Zoli remains uncredited for her excised role, which is standard practice for characters omitted from the release prints of films.
Planned sequels
According to IMDb, all of the main actors save Townsend signed for a three-movie deal. The possible sequels were to have resurrected Quatermain (as hinted by the movie's ending) and introduced Campion Bond, possibly played by Roger Moore. However, given Connery's retirement from acting, any sequels are unlikely.
Novelization
A novelization of the movie was written by Kevin J. Anderson and released shortly before the movie. Anderson would later go on to write The Martian War, a book with several similarities to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume II.
Trivia
| This article contains a list of miscellaneous information. (June 2007) |
- Towards the end of the movie, during "The Final Fight", Mina Harker's hair-style changes from scene to scene. When she is stabbed, and appears to die, she has (very obvious) curls, and when she awakens, she has very long hair. This occurs in other scenes as well.
- During the scene on the London docks just before the appearance of Dorian Gray, a poster appears on a wall with a headline describing the sighting of "mysterious explosions on the planet Mars, may be volcanoes", an allusion to H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds, which provided the major backdrop for the second comic series.
- After the saving of Venice, during the revealing, Gray shoots Ishmael with a golden Luger. This could possibly be a reference to the James Bond movie.
- There are two wooden deck chairs and a table with fruit clearly visible on the upper deck of the Nautilus before she sinks beneath the waves for the first time. A long shot shows the characters entering the interior of the ship with no deckchairs visible.
- In one scene, Hyde is completely submerged underwater, and he screams but no air bubbles come out of his mouth.
- It has been noted by many critics that a.) you could not drive a car through the streets of Venice because Venice does not have streets, and b.) the Nautilus, which emerges from the "depths" of Venice's canals, would not actually fit in the canals much less be able to make 90 degree turns.
- In the original graphic novel Alan Quatermain had written himself out of public life and become an opium addict. At the start of the story he is rescued from an opium den by Mina Harker and enlisted as a member of the League. In the film adaptation, Sean Connery reportedly refused to play an opium addict, so the writers changed his story so he was merely hiding from the public.
- Alan Moore, the author of the original graphic novel, was reportedly unhappy with the adaptation of his story, with it being vastly different from his original story - a complaint he has had with other movies derived from his writing.
- The film's creators were sued in 2003 by Martin Poll and Larry Cohen. Poll and Cohen claimed that they had pitched a similar idea to Fox between 1993 and 1996, under the title Cast of Characters. They alleged that Fox hired screenwriters to adapt Alan Moore's comic long before it was finished, and instead used ideas from their screenplay to make up the story. The case was settled out of court.
- This is the last film to star Sean Connery before his retirement from acting.
References
External links
- The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen at IMDb
- The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen at Rotten Tomatoes
- Article at FilmForce about the film
- Official movie website
| Early British works | |
|---|---|
| DC Comics | |
| Image Comics / Awesome Comics | |
| America's Best Comics | |
| Avatar Press |
|
| Miscellaneous | |
| Comics based on Moore's prose | |
| Books | |
| Spoken word CDs | |
| Other | |
| Related people | |
- Wikipedia articles with plot summary needing attention from July 2007
- Articles with trivia sections from June 2007
- 2003 films
- American films
- Crossover fiction
- English-language films
- Films based on comics
- The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
- Steampunk
- Superhero films
- Vampires in film and television
- Works inspired by Jules Verne
- Alternate history films