Important Question Concerning Kraken

[Stan]

As a rooky, should he really have an eagle?

[Frank]

Rico (redux), Dekker and Giant (part two) all rock the bird on their shoulders when Dredd takes them out for their final assessments. I think anyone taking their final assessment has already qualified as a judge (of some sort) and passed out of the academy. The final assessment is just the last hurdle between them and the streets; or life behind a desk.

[TordelBack]

Cadets on their final assessment with a senior judge typically have an ordinary uniform with a regular-style helmet, but coloured white, and a half-badge.  I've always taken it that the Academy is finished with them at that point, hence they no longer wear the Academy uniform (although various Hotdog Run stories suggest this is not the only time they wear 'street' gear - which when you think about it makes sense).  It's up to a Street (or relevant Division) Judge to see if the Academy has done its job.

[Frank]

Cadets on their final assessment with a senior judge typically have an ordinary uniform with a regular-style helmet, but coloured white, and a half-badge.  I've always taken it that the Academy is finished with them at that point, hence they no longer wear the Academy uniform (although various Hotdog Run stories suggest this is not the only time they wear 'street' gear - which when you think about it makes sense).  It's up to a Street (or relevant Division) Judge to see if the Academy has done its job.

The only instances I can recall of learner judges wearing cadet uniforms on the streets of MC1 are when Joe and Rico are given special dispensation to subdue the chaos of Civil War in Origins, and Giant (Forever) and his gang of Bash Street Cadets during the even greater chaos of Necropolis. 

Brothers of the Blood makes it clear that Dolman's brief spell tagging along with Rico (Havana Nights) is an unprecedented one-off, and is due only to that particular cadet's genetic inheritance.

[a chosen rider]

Kraken's badge is definitely a bit of an oddity; in "The Shooting Match" he's shown to have a standard full eagle with his name on, which he takes off for the duration of the assessment (although he is wearing a white rookie helmet).  In "Necropolis" he has a sort of generic badge that says 'Rookie' (shaped like the full eagle, but with no design on it) rather than the usual half-eagle.  But you could always chalk it up to Odell's efforts to reinforce his mental identity as a Mega-City Judge, plus Kraken is actually something of a special case, being a retrained adult rather than an academy grad.  Could be that the generic 'Rookie' badge is something they use for qualified Judges who already have a badge but need to be reassessed for some reason, like if they're moving from admin to street or transferring from another city.

(Or it could just be an art mistake, but where's the fun in that? )

[Frank]

Kraken's badge is definitely a bit of an oddity; in "The Shooting Match" he's shown to have a standard full eagle with his name on, which he takes off for the duration of the assessment (although he is wearing a white rookie helmet).  In "Necropolis" he has a sort of generic badge that says 'Rookie' (shaped like the full eagle, but with no design on it) rather than the usual half-eagle.  But you could always chalk it up to Odell's efforts to reinforce his mental identity as a Mega-City Judge, plus Kraken is actually something of a special case, being a retrained adult rather than an academy grad.  Could be that the generic 'Rookie' badge is something they use for qualified Judges who already have a badge but need to be reassessed for some reason, like if they're moving from admin to street or transferring from another city.

(Or it could just be an art mistake, but where's the fun in that? )

One day, you're going to make some man very happy.

[Stan]

Well movie Anderson appears to have an eagle so at least there's consistency.

It'd be nice to see a white-helmetted rooky in the background or something though. It's not like it'd cost anything.

[Richard]

What bikiki kill said.

I always assumed that the full eagle meant the eagle on the badge, not the shoulder-pad.

[Spaceghost]

I raised the issue of Anderson not wearing a different uniform to deliniate that she's a cadet with MichaelVK over on the Dredd film thread. He pointed out that the last thing you'd want to do is draw attention to the fact that one of the judges is senior and the other has no experience. You'd only be creating targets for the baddies.

Don't know if that was just his opinion or official movie-version logic.

Makes sense I suppose.

[a chosen rider]

I always assumed that the full eagle meant the eagle on the badge, not the shoulder-pad.

Yeah, I think the 'correct' rookie uniform is shoulder eagle, white helmet and half-eagle badge (though some artists seem to forget to depict the half badge).  Cadets out on their hot dog run seem to wear the same.  I think the shoulder eagle basically signifies that they're acting in the capacitiy of Judges, with the senior Judge along just to observe and watch for screw-ups, whereas cadets without shoulder pads are trainees out with a teacher and need special authorisation to be allowed to do anything.