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He was an entire floor above them. He had a head start.
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Sep 4, 2013 22:21
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Besides Bifford what about my other examples? The wounded perp, the torture, throwing Ma-Ma through a window. Also they were not gunning for him untill he led them to that exact spot. PerfectTommy fucked around with this message at 22:26 on Sep 4, 2013 |
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Sep 4, 2013 22:23
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Baron Bifford posted:[...]I don't think modern cops would have proceeded like that (all I know is from playing the game SWAT 4). Maybe you could fix that?
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Sep 4, 2013 22:25
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Baron Bifford posted:Dredd doesn't wear a cape and he actually hates superheroes (see the crossover with Batman), but he's still a very outlandish character. He's not just a cop, he's judge, jury and executioner. His partner is a telepath. His firearm packs the firepower of a modern day platoon. He's got guns built into his patrol bike. But he's still a cop, and you can relate to his job. Compare this to Spider-Man - you can wish you had powers like Spider-Man's, but nobody relates to Spider-Man because Spider-Man is outside reality. Who readers relate to is Peter Parker, who was bullied at school, struggles to find the rent and has a hard time talking to girls. If you want to see Dredd done as an outlandish superhero-type character, you should read Pat Mills' Marshal Law. In fact, you should read Marshal Law anyway because it's great.
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Sep 4, 2013 22:26
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PerfectTommy posted:Besides Bifford what about my other examples? The wounded perp, the torture, throwing Ma-Ma through a window. They were gunning for him from the moment Ma-Ma sealed the building and ordered her followers to kill the Judges. He lured them to that phone booth by making him think he was in there, and they shot it up before even checking who was inside (actually one of their buddies). Jedit posted:But he's still a cop, and you can relate to his job. Compare this to Spider-Man - you can wish you had powers like Spider-Man's, but nobody relates to Spider-Man because Spider-Man is outside reality. Who readers relate to is Peter Parker, who was bullied at school, struggles to find the rent and has a hard time talking to girls. Dredd is not a superhero, but he is outlandish. An outlandish anti-hero. I will check out Marshal Law. One hint of MC1 being extreme is Dredd's opening monologue that says the Judges are the only ones fighting for order in the chaos. It's like he doesn't think any other social institution can be trusted to share the responsibility. Baron Bifford fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Sep 4, 2013 |
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Sep 4, 2013 22:31
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Remember not even Ma-Ma or her hacker had any idea where he was untill he used the intercom. Dredd set up that death trap.
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Sep 4, 2013 22:33
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Yeah. But they wanted to kill him, which is why they fell into the trap in the first place.
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Sep 4, 2013 22:38
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I agree they wanted to kill him. He set up that situation however. Leading guys who before had no clue where you were into a flaming death trap is not self defense.
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Sep 4, 2013 22:41
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OK, I admit I don't think a cop might pull that sort of trick.
Baron Bifford fucked around with this message at 22:52 on Sep 4, 2013 |
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Sep 4, 2013 22:42
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Cool. I think there are scenes in the film that are definitely self defense. The stairwell gas fight or the corrupt judges. Its just that a lot of the film has Dredd mirroring the violence and attitude of the gangs.
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Sep 4, 2013 22:47
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Also, whether or not that was acceptable to do at that time, at that place is besides the point. The movie shows a law man pouring white phosphorous on a bunch of dudes. I mean the more justified he is within the narrative to use that kind of force, the thicker the evident sarcasm. If they had included a flashback to "judge training" where an omniscient supercomputer tells Rookie Dredd that superscience has worked out what the perfect moment to use WP looks like, establishing that Dredd is always 100% tactically correct when he employs it... That doesn't change the connotation of the image present in the movie. Which is one of cruel, excessive force applied by the ostensible protagonist. The depicted scenario is one in which the optimal solution for the "good guy" involves dousing citizens in an excruciating chemical bath. They could have gone with "Lawgiver, area stun gas! *pow* Heh, when those guys wake up, they're gonna be on the inside of an iso-cube" but no: WP applied liberally. Plus that one henchman had a FULL head of lustrous hair, so you just KNOW that stack went up like a motherfucker. In fact, beautiful hair guy is probably the charred, bald dude we see during Ma-Ma's descent 
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Sep 4, 2013 22:53
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That hair is the true victim of this vicious war in Peach Trees 
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Sep 4, 2013 23:02
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PerfectTommy posted:Cool. I think there are scenes in the film that are definitely self defense. The stairwell gas fight or the corrupt judges. Its just that a lot of the film has Dredd mirroring the violence and attitude of the gangs. Shanty posted:Also, whether or not that was acceptable to do at that time, at that place is besides the point. The movie shows a law man pouring white phosphorous on a bunch of dudes. I mean the more justified he is within the narrative to use that kind of force, the thicker the evident sarcasm. Shanty posted:Plus that one henchman had a FULL head of lustrous hair, so you just KNOW that stack went up like a motherfucker. In fact, beautiful hair guy is probably the charred, bald dude we see during Ma-Ma's descent
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Sep 4, 2013 23:06
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Baron Bifford, are you familiar with the term 'subtext'? Could you say what you think it means, for us? Not being sarcastic, it's a genuine question.
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Sep 4, 2013 23:14
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sebmojo posted:Baron Bifford, are you familiar with the term 'subtext'? Could you say what you think it means, for us? This is text. This is subtext. Simple!
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Sep 4, 2013 23:43
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Baron Bifford posted:Although I can't fault Dredd for using those tactics against his aggressors, you must wonder what kind of city would have its lawmen pack incendiaries as their standard equipment.  "There was an area of about 200-300 square meters of glazed sand.... We understood this resulted from white phosphorus, and it was upsetting… in training you learn that white phosphorus is not used, and you're taught that it's not humane. You watch films and see what it does to people who are hit, and you say, 'There, we're doing it too.' That's not what I expected to see. Until that moment I had thought I belonged to the most humane army in the world." http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8151611.stm and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_phosphorus_use_in_Iraq
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Sep 5, 2013 00:18
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Baron Bifford posted:Although I can't fault Dredd for using those tactics against his aggressors, you must wonder what kind of city would have its lawmen pack incendiaries as their standard equipment. Gee whiz, it's almost like that was one of the many things showing MC1 as a humongous shithole that you seemed to miss, what with your constant crying about them not showing MC1 to be a humongous shithole.
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Sep 5, 2013 00:36
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It really isn't something you have to wonder about. Its all in the film. MC1 is the kind of city where resources are so scarce they have to recycle the dead. Where a building housing the population of a normal city has almost 90% unemployment. The kind of place where you can get shot in the face by police for doing a non-violent drug.
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Sep 5, 2013 00:42
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:So what do you make of the scene where she tortures a perp (and incidentally, reveals in the process that she has a more sadistic and cruelly imaginative mind than a violent criminal?) I guess I just saw her as someone who got in over her head, and was using every dirty trick she could to survive. I couldn't give the same benefit of the doubt to Dredd obviously, he does this poo poo every day. But they really don't go into Anderson's back story a whole lot outside of the psychic thing. I had forgotten that she actually does try to hand in her badge at the end, she obviously wasn't happy with what she had to do and had changed in a way that she didn't like. Still not sure if she is really at fault though, especially compared to Dredd. Basebf555 fucked around with this message at 01:20 on Sep 5, 2013 |
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Sep 5, 2013 01:17
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What we do know about Anderson is she is a mutant which seem to be looked down on in MC1. She was also adopted by the justice department but had seen life in the megablocks up close and although she was deemed unfit for service they decided to try and test her as a weapon anyway. She does kill the wounded guy and torture the cuffed perp, but in doing those it seems she realizes the flaws in the justice system and tries to hand in her badge. I agree for Dredd it was just a drug bust.
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Sep 5, 2013 01:42
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Danger posted:
I'm not sure if the comparison is quite accurate. Dredd is locked in a building with hundreds of armed gangsters gunning for him, and running low on ammo. Can we say the same for the ones who dropped the WP in that image? Of course, there's also the element of Dredd representing the system that causes situations like Peach Trees to occur, so yeah. That said, there was something I was curious about. Dredd ends up running out of ammo, resulting in him using his last Hi-Ex round on a single human target, and getting shot by the armed Lex. What I'm confused about is, why doesn't he just grab one of the guns the dead Ma-Ma clan members were using? Anderson does, though that's admittedly only after her Lawgiver is entirely destroyed. Are Judges disallowed from using any weapons other than the Lawgiver unless said Lawgiver is lost?
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Sep 5, 2013 03:08
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BreakAtmo posted:I'm not sure if the comparison is quite accurate. Dredd is locked in a building with hundreds of armed gangsters gunning for him, and running low on ammo. Can we say the same for the ones who dropped the WP in that image? Of course, there's also the element of Dredd representing the system that causes situations like Peach Trees to occur, so yeah. Nah, it's because the flow of the action in the movie demands that Dredd and Anderson start off well armed and gradually run lower on ammo and have to result to increasingly innovative tactics to survive. If they just kept picking up guns off the ground, the entire movie would've been "And then Dredd and Anderson fired thousands of machine gun rounds at the bad guys and faced no problems".
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Sep 5, 2013 03:17
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Crappy Jack posted:Nah, it's because the flow of the action in the movie demands that Dredd and Anderson start off well armed and gradually run lower on ammo and have to result to increasingly innovative tactics to survive. If they just kept picking up guns off the ground, the entire movie would've been "And then Dredd and Anderson fired thousands of machine gun rounds at the bad guys and faced no problems". Well, yes, obviously that's the reason it was written that way - I was just wondering if there's any rule in the comic about Judges having to use their Lawgivers only, especially since I remember hearing something about Lawgiver bullets being DNA-tagged and thus needed for investigations and such. Or was that just in the Stallone movie?
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Sep 5, 2013 03:26
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I wondered that too. Is it like how a Jedi isn't allowed to use a weapon other than their lightsaber?
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Sep 5, 2013 04:28
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BreakAtmo posted:Well, yes, obviously that's the reason it was written that way - I was just wondering if there's any rule in the comic about Judges having to use their Lawgivers only, especially since I remember hearing something about Lawgiver bullets being DNA-tagged and thus needed for investigations and such. Or was that just in the Stallone movie? That was only in the Stallone film, if they had run out of ammo they would have reverted to a mix of boot knives and whatever guns came to hand. It's just that the lawgiver is the superior weapon and the average Judge wouldn't abandon it until absolutely necessary.
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Sep 5, 2013 04:37
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Vengeance of Pandas posted:That was only in the Stallone film, if they had run out of ammo they would have reverted to a mix of boot knives and whatever guns came to hand. It's just that the lawgiver is the superior weapon and the average Judge wouldn't abandon it until absolutely necessary. I think it's more that that is his weapon, there are many others like it but that one is his.
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Sep 5, 2013 05:07
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BreakAtmo posted:I'm not sure if the comparison is quite accurate. Dredd is locked in a building with hundreds of armed gangsters gunning for him, and running low on ammo. Can we say the same for the ones who dropped the WP in that image? Of course, there's also the element of Dredd representing the system that causes situations like Peach Trees to occur, so yeah. I think the comparison is accurate because the film uses white phosphorous specifically. How justified the use of it is in that particular situation is a different discussion. What we see is "protagonist uses a weapon which is universally reviled as completely inhumane without so much as batting an eye" and that should inform the reading of the film. If the movie had shown Jesus Christ himself come down to tell Dredd that willie pete-ing those dudes is the only right thing to do, with an extradiegetic text on screen saying "REAL JESUS, NOT A HALLUCINATION, PLUS HE'S RIGHT", it wouldn't wouldn't change the central imagery of inhumane weapons being used by a law enforcement officer in an urban, civilian context. It's just such a great and blatant way of saying "this poo poo is hosed up". I'm trying to think of a scenario where Dredd, low on ammo, checks his Lawgiver and finds he has something he can use which is more repulsive than white phosphorous. The only way I can visualize this scene as more satirical is if he'd fired actual Syrian sarin gas at them.
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Sep 5, 2013 09:10
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So how does the Judge Dredd "valiant lawman of Peach Trees who seeks only to defend himself" narrative work in the first scene where he kills people for what is essentially reckless driving?
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Sep 5, 2013 10:20
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Shanty posted:I think the comparison is accurate because the film uses white phosphorous specifically. How justified the use of it is in that particular situation is a different discussion. What we see is "protagonist uses a weapon which is universally reviled as completely inhumane without so much as batting an eye" and that should inform the reading of the film. If the movie had shown Jesus Christ himself come down to tell Dredd that willie pete-ing those dudes is the only right thing to do, with an extradiegetic text on screen saying "REAL JESUS, NOT A HALLUCINATION, PLUS HE'S RIGHT", it wouldn't wouldn't change the central imagery of inhumane weapons being used by a law enforcement officer in an urban, civilian context. It's just such a great and blatant way of saying "this poo poo is hosed up". Fair point. Although we don't actually see his eyes.  Unoriginal Name posted:So how does the Judge Dredd "valiant lawman of Peach Trees who seeks only to defend himself" narrative work in the first scene where he kills people for what is essentially reckless driving? "Reckless driving"? Bit of un understatement - they splattered a dude all over the road and attempted to kill Dredd, while driving high on drugs, then the last of them took a hostage and held a gun to her head.
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Sep 5, 2013 10:34
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BreakAtmo posted:Fair point. Although we don't actually see his eyes. Ahaha well that's true. Maybe underneath that helmet he's got the saddest puppydog eyes throughout the entire film  That's what Anderson was detecting underneath the anger and control, just the biggest, blubbering bleeding heart.
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Sep 5, 2013 10:40
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Judges are not police officers, they are highly trained soldiers on permanent "peacekeeping". That they have encyclopaedic knowledge of the law is very nice and all, but that is what they ultimately are. How did they seize power? They fought the actual military and won.
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Sep 5, 2013 10:56
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BreakAtmo posted:"Reckless driving"? Bit of un understatement - they splattered a dude all over the road and attempted to kill Dredd, while driving high on drugs, then the last of them took a hostage and held a gun to her head. They did that because Dredd was chasing them. But I guess Dredd was chasing them out of self-defense, too? Coming back to the white phosphorus-trap, what would have stopped Dredd to make Ma-Ma and her cronies believe he spoke through the Intercom from the cellar? He was obviously able to rig it so that they believed he was at X location, why didn't he just send those guys all the way down and then marched up to Ma-Ma whistling a tune while they searched Level 0 for him? Oh that's right, he had to defend himself.
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Sep 5, 2013 13:45
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Grendels Dad posted:They did that because Dredd was chasing them. But I guess Dredd was chasing them out of self-defense, too?
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Sep 5, 2013 13:54
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:So what do you make of the scene where she tortures a perp (and incidentally, reveals in the process that she has a more sadistic and cruelly imaginative mind than a violent criminal?) I took it as Anderson is trying to be a good cop, but with these kind of criminals she has to become a Judge if she's going to survive. Like Dredd, she'll need unleash her inner sadist if she's going to make it as a Judge, against these criminals, in MC1. It felt just like those scenes you see in modern cop movies where the rookie tries to play it straight against a bad guy, then finds out (usually the hard way) that only force is going to be effective. Be an effective bad cop or a dead good one. With all of of the extreme judge-jury-executioner/might-makes-right MC1 awfulness added in. That might be an overly simple read of that scene but that's how it felt to me. RadioDog fucked around with this message at 14:04 on Sep 5, 2013 |
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Sep 5, 2013 14:01
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Baron Bifford posted:For some reason they didn't want to pull over to the side and stop. Maybe because they had guns, drugs, and prior offenses. That's beside the point. You said they were a danger therefore Dredd had to stop them. But we only saw them becoming a danger when Dredd started chasing them. Dredd didn't chase them because they ran over a jaywalker, they ran over a jaywalker because Dredd was chasing them.
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Sep 5, 2013 14:02
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Well, this is a scene that plays out a lot in the modern day. Do you ever watch police chase videos? In America, if a car doesn't pull over on the orders of a cop, the cop will chase it down. Sure, this opening scene was not self-defense, but it's normal procedure. The violence that ensued was extraordinary, though.
Baron Bifford fucked around with this message at 14:37 on Sep 5, 2013 |
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Sep 5, 2013 14:10
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Whereas in Britain the police would abandon the chase and maintain observation from a distance if it became dangerous to bystanders. By those standards Dredd is the one who recklessly escalated the situation.
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Sep 5, 2013 15:58
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Baron Bifford posted:Well, this is a scene that plays out a lot in the modern day. Do you ever watch police chase videos? In America, if a car doesn't pull over on the orders of a cop, the cop will chase it down. Sure, this opening scene was not self-defense, but it's normal procedure. The violence that ensued was extraordinary, though. That's why Dredd is satire though, it's making fun of what happens in the real world by showing it in an extreme and ridiculous way. It might even be trying to say something about the police!
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Sep 5, 2013 16:02
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Saw this on netflix last night and really liked it. I liked how the action wasn't so overwrought that I began to sleep though it (transformers) and that its satire of fascism wasn't so on the nose that it made me hate it a little bit (Starship Troopers). Also it was nice to see a comic book movie that wasn't like 3 hours long. Too bad there's no way there's going to be a sequel I guess.
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Sep 5, 2013 16:27
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meatsaw posted:I took it as Anderson is trying to be a good cop, but with these kind of criminals she has to become a Judge if she's going to survive. Like Dredd, she'll need unleash her inner sadist if she's going to make it as a Judge, against these criminals, in MC1. I don't entirely disagree with your assessment, but I do think that in a realistic sense those scenes in most movies are bullshit and part of a larger cultural narrative about how it's okay to be a "bad" cop as long as you only victimize bad people and are doing your job.
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Sep 5, 2013 16:34
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