Reading Marshal Law yesterday (great by the way) and in teh back it says that Pat Mills wrote the screenpaly for the movie that was planned. This got me thinking, Mills always wrote Dredd as a hero which is what is needed in the film so why not get Mills to write it?
Well its an idea.
Boy, you are really living up to your name!
Hex McHexo
No! The last thing a Dredd movie needs is him as an unblemished hero. The guy is a facist working to uphold a facist system - but his actions can have good effects. However, he is not an unmitigated good. At best, he is a necessary evil.
For me, a film which could examine this complexity, missing from most Hollywood films, would be better.
That said, I'm not sure that Mill's wrote Dredd as a 'hero'.
>.That said, I'm not sure that Mill's wrote Dredd as a 'hero'.
He certainly did, in the early days, most notably in The Cursed Earth, when Dredd was proabably at his most human and heroic ever.
That said, the last time I recall Pat writing Dredd was the 'Rico remix' story he did at the time of the movie's release. IIRC, he seemed to have more sympathy for Rico than Dredd, portraying Rico more as a rebel against the system this time round, and Dredd as the authoritarian stooge.
Thta was eight years ago, and I suspect Pat's feelings on this portrayal of Dredd would probably only have intensified over the years.
Frankly, I think a Mills Dredd screenplay would be an unmitigated disaster.
If you;re going for a droid-written screenplay, John, or John & Alan, would surely be the one to go for.
Why Mills? I have nothing against his stuff (well, his earlier stuff...), but if a 2KAD scribe's going to write it, It might as well be Wagner, since he's produced by far the best stuff with the character over the years.
I think that's too simplistic a comment to be honest GC, though it's the easy description everyone bandies about. One of the reasons that Dredd was changed so much for the first film was that everyone got nervous about it being a movie with a fascist for a hero.
There is no fascist ideology at the heart of Judge Dredd. There is no political belief system at all. The laws and all the aparatus of the law exists to protect the city and it's citizens. Whether you agree with those laws and the system is a different argument.
Yes, there is no democracy, but that also doesn't mean it's a fascist state. It's a totalitarian state. Where one party, the judges, allows no other parties (yet) to govern, and protects it's own position (rightly or wrongly) to protect the city.
++That said, I'm not sure that Mill's wrote Dredd as a 'hero'++
That comment was based on my muddled understanding of Pat's confusing political standpoint expressed through his writings. Next time, I will make reference to the source material.
I'd go for Wagner and Grant, as those stories are, to me, the quintessential Dredd.
Or Oliver Stone.
Yeah, I think it's a real shame that Wagner and Grant can't be paid to have a go. At least on one of the movies. You can't help but feel there'll be another of those screenings where they sit down and point out all the mistakes they made.
To not get Wagner/Grant to write it (or at least plot it) is just shooting themselves in the foot.
i think the emergency government of the judges has being going on too long BUT when the people voted they voted to keep the judges so its an elected dictatorship really... init ?
++ so its an elected dictatorship really++
Gordon Bennett! Jason you could get a job with Glasgow Labour Party/ City Council PR unit,
Welldone to The General C and Oddboy! its a worry cause they make sense to me...
Helpful Huffy
Do you reckon the mills fan is really Mr. Mills himself? I've noticed a bit of Mills promotion on the board recently, and that letter in this weeks prog was down right suss, "oh i'm trying to remember a Slaine story that featured Cythrons & the Guildig, is it available as a Graphic novel as I haven't seen it reprinted" Nice timing Tharg!
Yes, that was a pretty simple analysis of Judge Dredd, glossing over a lot of stuff. Still, I feel that Fascism is the closest analogue for the government of Mega-City 1. All the governmental structures are highly militarised, with no democratic oversight. The population is very tightly controlled and scrutinised. They even expelled the mutants.
I do want to be corrected, with regards to the appropriate analogue for Dredd's system. Though they lack motives beyond the security and well-being of the city and people, isn't this what the public face of Fascism presents?
This is a bit off thread. Sorry.
So, Oliver Stone for Dredd screenwriter/director.
It's not fascism...
Fascism is a far right political viewpoint that stresses the binding of individuals into a state that enfources the needs of the state over the needs of the individual ('together we are strong'). It also has strong roots in the history of the state ('It was much better in the old times when men were real men women were real women and we did not have all those filthy degenerate (insert hate group here)'). Citizens are encourage to join the 'party' and take their place in a well-ordered society were the trains run on time.
MC1 is ruled by an elite self-electing group
MC1 was a year zero where the old times have been rubbed away.
MC1 is a totalitarian Police State, rather appropiatly
Erm Gary your description of Fascism, could easily by Communism!!
Yer two sides of the same coin Slippo
Well the far right and the far left do kind of meet eventually...
But then there is Maxist 'communism' and what Stalin ruled over and they aint the same by a long way...
Stalin was no more a communist than the Democratic Republic of Congo has been a prime example of democracy.
hello, i'm new here and this is my first message. am i the only one who reckons that the new dredd film is simply not going to happen? it just seems so unlikely to me. what do you lot think?
Well, according to interviews Alan Grant did at the time of the first film, Wagner and Grant were asked to put forward a treatment for the first movie. Having spent weeks coming up with a suitable and original way to go with the film, they were hocked to discover that they would receive no money for there efforts, so refused to hand over the work they did. This is allegedly now sitting in Alan Grants bank vault...
I wonder if Rebellion were aware of this, and if they pursued it further?
Thats "shocked and "their"...tut tut....
do you still get Torys? werent they all burnt at the stake or something?
pfff i know nothing of these engerlandishways.
So william i'm guessing you don't like much else thats in the prog, much ?
TB Grover all the way for a Dredd screenplay!!(who arsed up that Stallone vehicle?) mind you I'd like to see Nemesis as a live action or cgi movie that would have to be written by Mills or a Charleys War movie/mini series now theres a story that desrves live action treatment
"
hello, i'm new here and this is my first message. am i the only one who reckons that the new dredd film is simply not going to happen? it just seems so unlikely to me. what do you lot think?"
Link: Discuss the new Dredd films
"Still, I feel that Fascism is the closest analogue for the government of Mega-City 1."
As Gary pointed out, it's not.
"They even expelled the mutants."
They did indeed and any mutants found are still expelled. This may look fascist, and it's certainly unpleasant (because hey, mutants are people too) but actually it was done to maintain civil order. Because the citizens and mutants couldn't live together. The judges themselves aren't trying to create a perfect race through eugenics. There is no racial goal of perfection in mega city one. The ultimate fate of any group creating civil disobedience in mega City One, whether they are punks, fatties or grud-botherers is exile.
Citizens are pretty much free to do what they want, and as long as they don't go breaking the laws (which are there to protect the people and the city) the judges aren't interested.
A Totalitarian Police State is as good a term as any.
But to be honest, trying to label something like Mega-City is something of a mistake. What would you need to run a population bigger than the current day USA housed in one city over the ruins of new york?
"Do you reckon the mills fan is really Mr. Mills himself? I've noticed a bit of Mills promotion on the board recently, and that letter in this weeks prog was down right suss, "oh i'm trying to remember a Slaine story that featured Cythrons & the Guildig, is it available as a Graphic novel as I haven't seen it reprinted" Nice timing Tharg!"
I'm not Pat Mills promise!. The only reason I suggested him was that he had written a screenplay for the ML film. Its quite obivous that Wagner & Grant would be the best to script as they have the most experience of the character.
"do you still get Torys? werent they all burnt at the stake or something?"
Hey
"So william i'm guessing you don't like much else thats in the prog, much ?"
You kidding? I thought this prog was great (as they all have been since prog 2003) fav stories ABC Warriors and Snow/Diggle
I always thought Marshal Law was a bit "Judge Dredd with super powers" anyway- but with the Marshal being a bit more 'human'.
Not a criticism or anything- in fact I quite liked it in the early days. Got a bit silly in the end though...
Matt
My apologies. Those comments were a product of the popular labelling of all authoritarian regimes as fascist. That is a mistake that runs right across the modern political spectrum. I'll have to try and be a little more thoughtful in my future analysis.
So... are the Kreelers facists? ;-)
"What would you need to run a population bigger than the current day USA housed in one city over the ruins of new york?"
On a serious note, I am not contrary in this case, I actually agree. It seems to me that the larger the population, the less that meaningful democracy is possible. If this is the case, should we not be attempting to arrest the megalopalization of our conurbations?
I think the Kreelers are basically fascists.
I only make a point of this because Dredd and Mega City got a lot darker in the nineties and there wasn't much benefit for most of this.
I did however like the democracy stuff, I think there could be democracy in mega city one, and more inpuit from citizens, but they blew that one.
The Judges are authoritarian. And Mega-City One doesn't really qualify as a police state. Sure the Judges can be underhand when they need to but they have an overt street presence that rarely requires the use of secret police.
In a lot of ways it makes sense to have the people who have to uphold the law being the same body of people who create the laws - how many times has parliment made new laws or ammended old ones which are completely impractical for the police to enforce?
A case of "you make the bed, you lie in it" for the judges.
Of course it does give oppotunity for mad dictators to assume complete control, but they've got Dredd there to stop any Cal & the monkey of Goodman, and the whole Necropolis fiasco.
If the citizens stopped commiting crimes then they wouldn't have to fear the judges, and the majority of Dredd stories do place him against 'baddies'. (Even Chopper's a baddie really, reckless skyhog!)