A Cardinal Error to Avoid

[Beaky Smoochies]

This is really just to set something down while i's occurred to me and I remember it. I haven't been avidly following the development of New Dredd, but I can't escape the mentions of gritty-tone and action-sequences, redesigns and whatnot, and thinking this does not bode well.

The core of Dredd was never about those sort of peripheralia, and to treat it as that, as a 'Franchise', is to miss the point. There's a reason, after all, that Ezquerra designed the bloody costumes like they could have been on Franco's police force from the start. And there's a reason why the Stallone Dredd is noted by people who know as the precise point where the blockbuster action-movie bit the big one.

I've long been an apologist for the Stallone Dredd, and how the man rocketed in my estimation when he fought to salvage something from the mess - but case in point about the Mess ...

That sequence, right, where SJS Judges are on hoverbikes and chasing Dredd through the City for an Exciting Action Sequence. Within the basic context of that sequence, those SJS guys were innocents, duped by the Big Bad, and the audience was expected to cheer when they flew into stanchions or whatever and exploded.

The audience didn't cheer. The audience stayed away in droves. The movie lost sight of the flinty heart of basic decency that should have been its centre, and I can only hope New Dredd doesn't do that.

Stallone "salvaged" the mess that was the 1995 Judge Dredd 'movie' (?), it was a mess PRECISELY BECAUSE Stallone seized control of the whole project, demanding changes to the script and everything else, I still firmly believe that if Danny Cannon's vision of that film had prevailed, I don't know if it would have been a great Judge Dredd film, but it would've been a pretty excellent big-budget futuristic epic, although I lay some of the blame at Cannon himself, he was offered Die Hard with a Vengeance  in 1993, and he turned it down, wanting to do Judge Dredd instead, but he didn't have the creative and/or commercial cred in Hollywood to insist on doing it his way, if he had directed the third Die Hard  movie, it would have been a guaranteed blockbuster, and he could've used the cred from that to do Judge Dredd the way he felt it should have been done, still holding out for a 'director's cut' someday though...

RoboCop  a "terrible" movie, which one were you watching, the pilot for the television series...?

[JOE SOAP]

OK then, seriously ,there was absolutely no depth of characterisation in anyone ,clumsy sentimentalism, dour humour, wafer thin plot and completely over-the-top violence.That should cover it.

Well it is an out-and-out satire -pointed sarcastic wit, exaggeration and ridicule- of all those things you mention that are present in American culture. Verhoeven did say RoboCop is the American Jesus plus it's very well directed and written, the plot is rightly and completely secondary.

[JOE SOAP]

I still firmly believe that if Danny Cannon's vision of that film had prevailed...but he didn't have the creative and/or commercial cred in Hollywood to insist on doing it his way, if he had directed the third Die Hard  movie, it would have been a guaranteed blockbuster, and he could've used the cred from that to do Judge Dredd

I doubt it. Dredd '95 was a producer/writer/star led vehicle long before Cannon was ever hired. People like Lippincott/Pressman had carried the property for a long time and they wanted someone as green as Cannon but who had enthusiasm. If it hadn't been him it would have been some other bub willing to accept whatever script the Vajna/DeSouza duopoly handed over.

[Satanist]

...Robocop went for ultra-violence and was a completely terrible film (form an orderly queue to disagree)...

BITCHES LEAVE!

[Proper Dave]

As I understand it, Stallone wanted to do Dredd, went away to do other stuff, came back to see what the executive production ginks had done and was instrumental in at least trying to fix some of it. Hence the famous Musical Eagle - and if you don't know what that is, count the number of birds on any Judge's uniform in any given shot.

Robocop, on the other hand, is the closest thing to Proper Dredd that has ever made it to the screen, and there's an end on't.

[I, Cosh]

Blimey! Not even two weeks in and 2012 is already a vintage year for profoundly ludicrous statements on the forum. First "Obama's hard left socialism" and now this!

Robocop went for ultra-violence and was a completely terrible film

Before you know it, some eejit will be banging on about characters coming back from the dead in Dante.

[Proper Dave]

Purely cos I can't be arsed to search for it, who said the phrase 'Obama's hard-left socialism'? Just so I can go and point and laugh.

[Beaky Smoochies]

Purely cos I can't be arsed to search for it, who said the phrase 'Obama's hard-left socialism'? Just so I can go and point and laugh.

I did, on the political thread, and I stand by it (what would you call playing outright and highly divisive class warfare for political ends?), but wrong thread to elaborate here, besides, I think we pretty much covered it there...

As for the 1995 movie, even Sly Stallone admitted in an interview some years ago that they handled it in a sloppy way, and should have been closer to the source material, now he gets it , mind you, after the pretty hardcore last Rambo movie, I think if DNA Films weren't doing a new Dredd adaptation, I'd be willing to let ol' Sly have another crack at it, I think he would do it right this time...

[Dreddzilla]

As for the 1995 movie, even Sly Stallone admitted in an interview some years ago that they handled it in a sloppy way, and should have been closer to the source material, now he gets it , mind you, after the pretty hardcore last Rambo movie, I think if DNA Films weren't doing a new Dredd adaptation, I'd be willing to let ol' Sly have another crack at it, I think he would do it right this time...

I don't think he does.
And no I would NEVER give him another ''crack'' at it. 

[Beaky Smoochies]

... which was why I said clearly IF the DNA Films guys weren't doing a new Dredd movie adaptation , and thank goodness they are...

[judgefloyd]

quick, somebody start a thread about Obama's Hard-Left socialism right away!  Put it next to the one about Richard Dawkins' devout Catholicism

[Beaky Smoochies]

...he replied, a whole THREE months later, quick on the uptake I see, judgefloyd mate, crack open a tinnie for me ...

[judgefloyd]

why yes, it was three months ago, I hadn't noticed. I've been out of touch with the board, so I'm just looking around and answering things when I feel like it.  Never mind, I'm quicker on the uptake than anyone who thinks Obama is in any way socialist. 

[Tiplodocus]

Wah-ey! - Floyd is back. Awesome.

Don't diss the Floyd.

[Frank]

Given the breadth of debate in US politics, Obama might as well be sharing a toothbrush with Hugo Chávez.