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I don't care how much they change the uniform, in fact I think they should strip it back and make it more like a swat team/riot cop, as long as they keep some of the distinctive features.

I don't think they should change a single thing (and I don't just meen the uniform) unless absolutely necessary. I'm not saying this out of any kind of crazy fanboyish obsession with detail. I'm simply confident that Dredd and his world can translate to the big screen extremely well 'as-is', and I think the filmmakers stand a far better change of making a great Dredd movie if they share that confidence. A lack of confidence in the source material cannot be a great attitude if you're looking to make a successful movie out of that source material.

As for the uniform being impractical in reality, this is true. However, the great thing about the best comic-book movies to be produced in recent years is that they preserve the look of the comics whether 'realistically practical' or not. When done right this gives a movie a sense of style and attitude which more than compensates for any lack of strict realism. If the characters and story are sufficiently compelling the veiwer's suspension of disbeleif will not be adversely affected. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think anybody but the most obsessive personality reads Judge Dredd looking at every panel and thinking "damn, that uniform just wouldn't work".

GET - IT - RIGHT  !!! Failure is not an option.

I couldn't agree more.

Hollywood films ,which is what this will need to be to get a decent budget to create the Big Meg, are very formulaic.  Characters often start out one way and then through some struggle learn something about themselves and by the end of the film are completely different.

When did this unspeakable bollocks become set in stone by Hollywood that all characters must develop or the film is a narrative failure?

How much does Harry Callaghan develop during the course of Dirty Harry? Not one bit, and that's the closest analogy to Dredd (excluding Robocop) the world of cinema has.

Absolutely. Forcing Dredd to develop over the course of the movie would most likely just turn him into something quite un-Dreddlike and ultimately make for an unsatisfying movie. I think for the movie to truly succeed on all levels it has to be true to the source material (especially the character of Dredd himself) as well as appealing to an audience of the uninitiated.

In addition to Dirty Harry see also the Blade trilogy. The lead character has distinct similarities to Dredd - both are fairly humourless (the humour in Dredd tends to come from other characters and from what's going on around him rather than from Dredd himself). Both are grimly obsessive and uncompromising about their chosen causes. There is little or no change in the character or Blade himself throughout all three movies and they don't suffer from it in my opinion. They ain't Hamlet but they're good entertaining action movies (and successful enough for three to have been made).

All five books look like that been stabbed, their're crumpled at the end of each spine and the Slaine book is bent in the middle.

Sounds pretty bad. Where did you order from? I stopped using Book Depository some time ago because the books arrived in a damaged condition so frequently. As in, every second or third book had at least minor damage. Amazon are usually fine but just recently I have gotten a couple of books from them that had to be returned. At least they never seem to quibble over the returns.

Uk Dane said....

The horror, and the fact that it'll cost you more to send it back for a replacement. I only hope this doesn't happen to me. As I get upset if there merely a few scuff marks.

My replacement has now arrived, thankfully in pristine condition. As I ordered from Amazon, I didn't have to pay for the return.

I guess I will know by the end of this week which is going to be the actual Ro-Busters cover.



or

It's the second one.

VCs arrived and looks very nice indeed! The cover is different (and much better) from the one on display on the website.

Sadly my copy appears to have been bent in transit, badly enough for the back cover and several pages to be creased, so I'm going to have to return it.

Thanks to Wake and IndigoPrime for the useful info!

For those who already have Kingdom, may I ask where do you buy your books?

The 2000AD books site lists it as released but it's not available at Amazon or Play.com yet, it's not even listed on 2000AD's own online shop.

On the other hand, I have already received my copy of The Best of Tharg's Future Shocks from Amazon although the 2000AD books page doesn't list it as released yet!

I'd also endorse the Judge Dredd:  Necropolis  - The Complete Casefiles 14 approach.  Appeals to at least two markets.  And makes more sense of the recent dress upgrade, which is going to look a bit pointless if its only a couple of volumes..

That pretty much sums up my thinking on the subject.

In any case, I'll continue to collect all the books Rebellion are putting out for the foreseeable future as I think they are doing a fantastic job with the line. Out of the entire 120 or so books they've put out so far there are only two I didn't enjoy. They were Red Razors and Family (I normally enjoy stuff by Rob Williams but I found Family quite incoherent). I didn't expect to get much from Invasion but it surprised me by entertaining me far more than I expected. Even Judgement Day, which is by far the weakest of the entire Judge Dredd line has enough entertaining moments to make it a keeper.

Excuse me jumping in with my first ever post to the 2000AD forums in the middle of this discussion, but this topic is close to my heart. I've collected all of the Judge Dredd case files thus far (in fact I've collected all of Rebellion's GNs) and I would consider it something of a tragedy if they were suddenly to end.

I can understand that Rebellion want to push The Dead Man and Necropolis by story title instead of appearing 'anonymously' in just another Case Files volume - after all they have been out of print for ages and there is probably a high demand for reprints.

Couldn't they still keep them part of the case files series by giving them titles along the lines of 'Judge Dredd - Necropolis: The Complete Case Files 14' (or whatever)? They could even put the story title in a much bigger font than the 'Case Files' part of the title if that floats their marketing boat.

I would consider that an ideal solution, but I'll buy them in any case. However, I would like to make the following plea: PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE CONTINUE THE CASE FILES SERIES!