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I've been a fan of 2000AD for over thirty years, and was bitterly disappointed by the first Dredd movie (may as well have been called "Super Fun Future Action Cop"), so I was wary of this new one. But I heard plenty of positive reviews, and have just been to see it. I loved every minute of it. Grim, dirty, brutal, action-packed. Urban makes an excellent Dredd, and I think he judged (ha!) the tone of the character very well. I also enjoyed the occasional references to other 2000AD characters (watch out for block names and graffiti). The trailer is a little misleading, as it makes it look like it's just a relentless non-stop battle through a tower-block with little more than shooting and explosions, but there's a lot more to it than that. I just wish I'd been able to see it in 2D instead of 3D, as 3D adds nothing to the experience and after a while you completely forget about it, so it may as well be 2D anyway. Until they start throwing broken glass etc. out of the screen and then it distracts you from the story while you think "Ooh, 3D effects - hang on, that's pretty shoddy 3D, isn't it?". Sadly, on the way out of the cinema I heard two separate people say to their friends "I preferred the original". 
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Sep 18, 2012 23:20
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Somebody has already scanned those banned strips: http://unseendredd.blogspot.co.uk/
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Sep 18, 2012 23:43
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I've not read much Judge Dredd, aside from a few collections a few years back, but I loved this. I hope it makes money, because a sequel would be great. Karl Urban pretty much nailed Dredd, and Olivia Thirlby did a fine job as Anderson.
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Sep 18, 2012 23:50
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That was great, I loved it. My only quibble is the low budget shows through sometimes with the vehicles not being as futuristic as I'd like, but that's a minor concern. I'm so glad they didn't get bogged down in some unnecessary origin story or some backstory requiring classic villain from the comic- just a day in the life of Dredd and Anderson. Both leads did a great job and I just want to see more of them, I really hope this does well enough to get a sequel with an expanded budget so they can really show how crazy Mega City 1 is. A lot of people have been comparing this to Verhoeven with the violence but it reminded me of John Carpenter, the grimy locations and gang members could have come straight out of Escape from New York. I haven't picked up a Dredd comic for years, but now I'm thinking it's time to get those complete case files and work out where I put all my old 2000ADs and Megazines.
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Sep 18, 2012 23:50
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As great and awesome the Face of Fear/Fist of Dredd moment would be to see on screen, I have a soft spot for the story where Death is hiding out quietly killing in a more restrained fashion and renting a room from a sweet, little old lady who obviously must need new glasses and a better sense of smell. I can just picture Betty White in the role, telling a murderous, immortal spirit-corpse of pure evil to be sure to be back at the flat before midnight, and said guy meekly obeying because he doesn't want to piss off or disturb his landlady.
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Sep 19, 2012 02:09
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I haven't read a lot of Dredd, so what sticks out most for me is a pin-up of him I first saw in, I think, 1991. It was hanging in the local comic shop and was my introduction to the character. Dredd was walking down a typical Mega-City One street with his usual scowl, with the citizens standing well away from him and looking at him with this mix of contempt and fear. I still remember being really struck by it, maybe because it mirrored my own feelings on policemen at the time. Sadly, I've never seen that pin-up anywhere else. "Democracy" was a good story, though. If it were up to me, I'd do five movies -- with Judge Death/Necropolis as the third, then a wind down film, with an adaptation of Democracy as a finale that owns up to how fascist the Judge System becomes.
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Sep 19, 2012 04:15
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marktheando posted:A lot of people have been comparing this to Verhoeven with the violence but it reminded me of John Carpenter, the grimy locations and gang members could have come straight out of Escape from New York. I thought the opening scenes were very Robocop-esque, but it kinda lost that feeling as we moved to the tower and became more Carpenter.
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Sep 19, 2012 09:51
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Read a couple progs last night where Death escapes from captivity when Anderson is offworld and one of the first things he does is Judge a whole room full of orphans, on-page  Really drives home the fact that 'The crime is life, the sentence is death', guy will kill anyone.drat.
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Sep 19, 2012 10:42
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NoneMoreNegative posted:Read a couple progs last night where Death escapes from captivity when Anderson is offworld and one of the first things he does is Judge a whole room full of orphans, on-page I just read one where a guy tried to kill himself and then after Dredd stops him he sends him to jail and the person trying to tell Dredd that he does not need jail time he needs help.
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Sep 19, 2012 13:09
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picosecond posted:"Democracy" was a good story, though. If it were up to me, I'd do five movies -- with Judge Death/Necropolis as the third, then a wind down film, with an adaptation of Democracy as a finale that owns up to how fascist the Judge System becomes. Becomes? The Judge system has always been pretty fascist. That's the joke.
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Sep 19, 2012 13:36
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Cream_Filling posted:Becomes? The Judge system has always been pretty fascist. That's the joke. Yup it's taking people's demand for the police to get even more tough on crime to its logical satirical conclusion.
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Sep 19, 2012 15:25
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I'll be incredibly happy if they can somehow include the Chief Judge Cal storyline, even just a little bit. I guess what I'm saying is that Judge Fish on the big screen would be incredible.
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Sep 19, 2012 15:29
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Any chance of spoilertagging the comic spoilers that seem to be popping up in this thread now? I intend on reading the poo poo out of Judge Dredd once I get cash.
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Sep 19, 2012 15:31
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MrBling posted:I'll be incredibly happy if they can somehow include the Chief Judge Cal storyline, even just a little bit. That, and the Klegg war-dance 
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Sep 19, 2012 15:48
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etalian posted:Yup it's taking people's demand for the police to get even more tough on crime to its logical satirical conclusion. Also, Meg One is basically Thatcherite fear-mongering about a nanny state taken literally. Sugar is illegal, there's like 95% unemployment due to robots doing all the work, and almost everyone lives entirely on welfare and sits around either zoned out watching future-TV or is out causing trouble mostly out of boredom. The Cursed Earth, on the other hand, is basically corporate libertopia, all the way down to fast food companies running their own societies. It's one of the few places on earth worse to live in than the Mega-cities. Oh, and people realizing how horrible their life is and going on a violent killing spree is so common that they're called futzies, short for "Future Shock Syndrome." This last one is basically actually like real-life America now. OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 16:00 on Sep 19, 2012 |
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Sep 19, 2012 15:49
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Cream_Filling posted:Becomes? The Judge system has always been pretty fascist. That's the joke. Isn't there a progression, though? Like, when we first see Dredd, things are already pretty fascist and it just gets worse from there. What I'm saying is that this would be a cool thing to watch over the course of a movie series -- the hero of the piece getting more and more violent, rigid, authoritarian. By the 4th or 5th movie, it's to where he only looks good at all against enemies who are even worse. But I guess that might make him totally unsympathetic, which makes him unmarketable. For you guys who are more up on 2000AD stuff: Does Rogue Trooper happen in the same universe as Judge Dredd?
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Sep 19, 2012 18:34
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picosecond posted:Isn't there a progression, though? Like, when we first see Dredd, things are already pretty fascist and it just gets worse from there. What I'm saying is that this would be a cool thing to watch over the course of a movie series -- the hero of the piece getting more and more violent, rigid, authoritarian. By the 4th or 5th movie, it's to where he only looks good at all against enemies who are even worse. But I guess that might make him totally unsympathetic, which makes him unmarketable. No - there was at least one dimension-hopping crossover though if I remember correctly. For more stories from Dredd's universe, your best bet is the Megazine which is pretty much themed along those lines (or used to be - I haven't read it in a while).
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Sep 19, 2012 18:37
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picosecond posted:Isn't there a progression, though? Like, when we first see Dredd, things are already pretty fascist and it just gets worse from there. What I'm saying is that this would be a cool thing to watch over the course of a movie series -- the hero of the piece getting more and more violent, rigid, authoritarian. By the 4th or 5th movie, it's to where he only looks good at all against enemies who are even worse. But I guess that might make him totally unsympathetic, which makes him unmarketable. No, not really. He was pretty fascist from the get-go. Personally, I'm against any character progression. Nobody would notice it over the course of a movie series, and it would be pretty much unrecognizable from the typical Flanderization the characters in your typical movie franchise undergo anyway. At the same time, it's not a bad idea or anything. I prefer them playing him as basically an anti-character that refuses to develop. Attempts to humanize Dredd rarely work out well. The only reason Judge Dredd is even sympathetic in the first place is because he's the protagonist, and the antagonists are even worse than he is. That's already more or less how things are. You're not really meant to sympathize with Dredd. He's basically a faceless robot built to uphold the law. He's more a plot device and force of nature than a person, at a certain point. I'd rather have the next movies move towards more exploration of the greater society of the series. Generic future slum is ok and all, but I think insane future city of bored consumers is a relatively less covered topic in film. OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 19:14 on Sep 19, 2012 |
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Sep 19, 2012 18:49
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Cream_Filling posted:Also, Meg One is basically Thatcherite fear-mongering about a nanny state taken literally. Sugar is illegal, there's like 95% unemployment due to robots doing all the work, and almost everyone lives entirely on welfare and sits around either zoned out watching future-TV or is out causing trouble mostly out of boredom. And the Block Wars is also pretty much the ultimate US gun nut fantasy of being able to deal with their annoying neighbors using their small weapon collection.
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Sep 19, 2012 18:49
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etalian posted:And the Block Wars is also pretty much the ultimate US gun nut fantasy of being able to deal with their annoying neighbors using their small weapon collection. Ha, yes. Each block in the original comic is like a self-contained arcology or city-state, usually with its own militia, and they get in these ridiculous spats that occasionally escalate into all-out war, especially since everyone has nothing better to do anyway. Also sounds kind of like some American libertarian fantasies, actually. Most are named after ancient celebrities, which is usually played for laughs, like Tom Cruise block getting into a block war with Nicole Kidman block back in the 90s (during their divorce IRL). Fatties are funny, too. Originally, they're just people who dealt with their boring, meaningless lives with overeating. But in a society where everyone's food is carefully rationed to maintain a healthy weight, they're basically forced to become sort of like addicts or hackers who try to game the system in order to get more food and get fat. Now it's become a cult-like identity because, gently caress it, why not? It's a literally consumerist identity that people adapt because of an empty, meaningless existence in a bleak, loveless society. Sound familiar? Now that I think about, focusing too much on that side of the IP would basically turn it into ultra-violent gritty live-action Futurama: the movie. Wait, no, that would still be cool. I also hope the movie shows/eventually shows the Statue of Justice, which is a enormous statue of a judge that keeps watch on the much smaller Statue of Liberty. Not exactly subtle symbolism there, but, hey, it's a comic book about people being kicked in the head by future supercops. OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 19:13 on Sep 19, 2012 |
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Sep 19, 2012 19:10
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etalian posted:Yup it's taking people's demand for the police to get even more tough on crime to its logical satirical conclusion. It's as much a satire of the "dangerous cop" movies like Dirty Harry, where the cop breaks more laws catching the criminal than the criminal broke in the first place and guns the bad guy down when in real life he'd have to take him into custody or be suspended for use of excessive force. But yeah, the whole thing is basically about taking everything about America and cranking it up till the dial breaks. By the way, having had scans of the banned Dredd stories posted, would anyone like to see IPC's apologetica to Green Giant Foods?
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Sep 19, 2012 19:19
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etalian posted:And the Block Wars is also pretty much the ultimate US gun nut fantasy of being able to deal with their annoying neighbors using their small weapon collection.
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Sep 19, 2012 19:19
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Aaron A Aardvark posted:No - there was at least one dimension-hopping crossover though if I remember correctly. For more stories from Dredd's universe, your best bet is the Megazine which is pretty much themed along those lines (or used to be - I haven't read it in a while). Johnny Alpha time-or-dimension jumped to Mega City 1 one time, and there have also been crossovers with Batman and Aliens.  (You can see why they really had to tone down the uniforms for the movie.)
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Sep 19, 2012 19:32
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Aaron A Aardvark posted:No - there was at least one dimension-hopping crossover though if I remember correctly. For more stories from Dredd's universe, your best bet is the Megazine which is pretty much themed along those lines (or used to be - I haven't read it in a while).
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Sep 19, 2012 19:35
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Stoatbringer posted:Johnny Alpha time-or-dimension jumped to Mega City 1 one time, and there have also been crossovers with Batman and Aliens. In the early progs, he was a skinnier and had slightly less ridiculous shoulders:  Movie Dredd actually looks shockingly similar. Too bad the movie gun looks kind of wonky in stills (not that it really matters in motion). Johnny Alpha, too: 
OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Sep 19, 2012 |
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Sep 19, 2012 21:40
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Payndz posted:'Helter Skelter' threw in cameos from just about every major 2000AD character to date. I don't think there's a 2000AD strip less likely than Nemesis the Warlock to be made into a AAA Hollywood effectsathon, but Grud would I love to see it.The 25th anniversary prog was another big smile-inducer, Tharg trying to white-out poor Bill Savage and his shootah from existence, sending some of the less popular strips on a trip into the sun, Nikolai Dante tying to hook up with Halo Jones and a quick cameo from my avatar  Info | Pages Enjoy 
NoneMoreNegative fucked around with this message at 22:56 on Sep 19, 2012 |
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Sep 19, 2012 22:53
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Payndz posted:Dreddverse series are: Judge Dredd (duh), Anderson: Psi Division, America, Low Life, Helltrekkers, The Dead Man, Judge Death, Chopper, Lenny Zero, Armitage, DeMarco PI, Banzai Battalion, The Simping Detective, Shimura, Mean Machine and probably another dozen others. There have also been crossovers with Strontium Dog, Flesh, the original Harlem Heroes, Ro-Busters and ABC Warriors (although that seemed to be retconned out because the dates in the ABC timeline for things like WW3 don't mesh with Dredd's), and 'Helter Skelter' threw in cameos from just about every major 2000AD character to date. Harlem Heroes (and hence its sequel, Inferno) are straight up Dreddverse stories. John 'Giant' Clay's grandson was the original Judge Giant, and Clay himself appeared in the strip twice. Strontium Dog used to be set in the the Dreddverse with continuity some 75 years or so ahead of Dredd, but it's since been stated that the events of Helter Skelter altered the timeline to prevent the Second Atomic War of 2150. Strontium Dog now takes place in a different timeline, which itself changed slightly so Johnny Alpha no longer died in The Final Solution.
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Sep 19, 2012 23:01
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picosecond posted:Isn't there a progression, though? There is, but it takes decades. Spoilers ahoy! Young Dredd is sort of naive. He's an unquestioning Judge who wouldn't dream of saying there's anything wrong in the system. Once mad Judge Cal takes power, the tone changes a little. Dredd becomes a little more cynical, and while some of the more insane acts of Cal are repealed, others are not. Remember the wall built around the city to keep people in? Still there, and if something happens to it they rebuild it. The new, cynical Dredd reaches the peak at Letter from a Democrat where he's portrayed at his worst. After that becomes a period of self-doubt, of which John Cassavetes is Dead is probably the best single story of many great ones. This in turn culminates with Dead Man and Necropolis, where Dredd recognizes the Judge system as being the least terrible choice. At this point we're 13 years into the comic, and all the major changes in the character have taken years. Dredd of 1978 is barely recognizable as the same man as Dredd of 1990. The character ebbs and flows like that as time goes on. At times there's a genuine attempt to make the world a better place, at others the unbridled cruelty of the system reigns. Part of the fun is seeing the man who killed half a billion people squirm uncomfortably at tea time with his niece. Trying to fit both extremes in the same movie would be very hard.
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Sep 19, 2012 23:23
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All this talk has made me want to read the comics, so I bought the first three case file paper backs of Amazon. Is there anything else you folks recommend I get?
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Sep 20, 2012 04:42
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Momotaros posted:All this talk has made me want to read the comics, so I bought the first three case file paper backs of Amazon. Is there anything else you folks recommend I get? The other sixteen Case Files. Seriously, you'll want to pick up America - mainly for the first story. The second isn't bad but Colin MacNeil ran foul of an early attempt at computer colouring and it's hideous, while the third ties the last two into the Dredd mainstream. You could also do worse than pick up the Anderson: Psi-Files phonebook. As you go deeper, you'll also want The Dead Man, a story set in the Cursed Earth that provides some important background info for Necropolis (which is in CF14, I think), and Chopper: Song of the Surfer because it's brilliant.
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Sep 20, 2012 08:26
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Hob_Gadling posted:At times there's a genuine attempt to make the world a better place, at others the unbridled cruelty of the system reigns. Incidentally, under the comic's laws as they were, movie Anderson would have been exiled from the city as a child. 
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Sep 20, 2012 08:57
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I got the latest 2000AD to give it a whirl and the Judge Dredd artwork is shambolic. Every single panel is noticeably pixelated, like they've stretched out a low resolution version of the strip. That can't be normal can it?
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Sep 20, 2012 08:58
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Leyburn posted:I got the latest 2000AD to give it a whirl and the Judge Dredd artwork is shambolic. Every single panel is noticeably pixelated, like they've stretched out a low resolution version of the strip.
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Sep 20, 2012 09:12
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Momotaros posted:All this talk has made me want to read the comics, so I bought the first three case file paper backs of Amazon. Is there anything else you folks recommend I get? Case Files 5 has some of my all-time favorite stories. Death Lives! is a classic and has some of the best Bolland artwork ever, including That Panel. Hotdog Run is good fun for all the odd sights. The drat farm gives me creeps. The crime files are ok, with some better and some worse. The real payoff is in the end. Block Mania and Apocalypse War are probably among my top 5 comic book stories ever, for the sheer visceral impact and over-the-top aspects of it all. All along the way I kept thinking "there's no way they're gonna actually do that" and then they do. It sort of spoils all other end-of-the-world stories in other comics.
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Sep 20, 2012 09:36
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How are the Dredd stories collected? Is it just the numbered casefiles or are there different, named collections as well? Do the 2000AD stories and the Megazine stories get collected seperately? what about side stories, AUs and crossovers?
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Sep 20, 2012 16:08
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Fatkraken posted:How are the Dredd stories collected? Is it just the numbered casefiles or are there different, named collections as well? Do the 2000AD stories and the Megazine stories get collected seperately? what about side stories, AUs and crossovers? There are named collections covering specific major stories from throughout the run. Then there's the Case Files, which cover everything in chronological order, and the Restricted Files which are the side stories from annuals and specials. There are no special books for alternate universes or crossovers.
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Sep 20, 2012 16:24
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I've got crazy mixed feelings about this film. On one hand it's a great, fun, ultraviolent action film. On the other it's a pretty positive endorsement of fascism. I know Dredd's supposed to be satirical, but when you drain the satire away as this film does what's left? Anyway, if anyone cares I've written this up in a bit more detail here (slight spoilers): http://londoncitynights.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/dredd-2012-directed-by-pete-travis-19th.html
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Sep 20, 2012 18:09
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Mr. Flunchy posted:I've got crazy mixed feelings about this film. On one hand it's a great, fun, ultraviolent action film. On the other it's a pretty positive endorsement of fascism. I know Dredd's supposed to be satirical, but when you drain the satire away as this film does what's left? I think something you miss is that, while people who don't know about the property won't know its origins as satire, they also to some extent won't know that Dredd is a fascist. Not just in the strict sense of fascism but even in the more colloquial sense of rigid authoritarianism. Especially since the most non-standard part of the movie's premise - having one man as judge, jury, and executioner - isn't actually fascist per se and instead is a more veiled idea of a warped judicial system as a whole, since the judges are basically extrajudicial death squads that have been given official sanction. Which is basically what your typical movie cop or action hero is much of the time anyway. In the course of the film, the viewer for the most part don't actually see the judges doing anything your typical action hero wouldn't do. Even the most extreme action of ostensible peace officers summarily executing criminals is pretty heavily normalized in your typical action movie anyway, and even in real life to a limited extent (at least if you live in the US). The simple fact of a violent, militarized police force with no accountability is similarly pretty much status quo for the US, too. Yes, there are definitely troublesome implications if you think about it, but at a surface level, the film is hardly a "ringing endorsement" of fascism since so much of the fascist content is latent and there's not a lot of room for it to be expressed in between slow-mo face-shootings. To some extent, your knowledge of the property itself simply brings the inherently disturbing aspects of your typical "badass cop kills bad guys" movie to the fore, though not to say that this is entirely so. Certainly there are bad implications, again particularly the summary executions part, which is of course admittedly distinct from what I've characterized before as "typical movie cop behavior." But I wouldn't say they are as visible to the viewer as you'd think. Even then, it doesn't reach particularly far past the level of famous renegade cops/unlawful vigilantes from its classic movie influences like Dirty Harry or Death Wish era Bronson, and though the legal implications are subtly different, they are much more subtle than they are overt. I do agree, however, that the film could have done with more satirical elements or showed more negative consequences to Dredd's actions, though. OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 20:23 on Sep 20, 2012 |
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Sep 20, 2012 18:30
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Very good stuff this film. Enjoyed the soundtrack, the brutal action, and the sexy 3d scenes. Used to read the odd 2000ad back in the day, so it's good to see the character captured as expected. Have just ordered myself Case File 2.
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Sep 20, 2012 19:25
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Mr. Flunchy posted:I've got crazy mixed feelings about this film. On one hand it's a great, fun, ultraviolent action film. On the other it's a pretty positive endorsement of fascism. I know Dredd's supposed to be satirical, but when you drain the satire away as this film does what's left? I think the best way to approach the fascism in Dredd is to compare it to Nick Love's The Sweeney. In that film, the "heroes" behave in much the same way as Dredd does, comitting horrible atrocities in the name of justice, whatever that really is beyond some arbitrary rules. The point is that Dredd ends up feeling like a self aware horror film while The Sweeney wants you to think it's The A-Team for Tories. The presentation of fascist ideals doesn't necessarily mean condoning them. Look at Killer Joe, which gives us horrible, despicable mysoginy in an effort to make us sick and angry.
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Sep 20, 2012 22:53
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