I guess due to a somewhat conservative budget, the makers of the film couldn't make MC1 as flashy and spectacular as it is in the comics (and to some extent, in the Stallone movie). There's a distinct lack of flying cars and stuff. The only really overly futuristic elements are the stupidly tall buildings and those planes that fly around beaming images back to control.
Personally, I actually prefer it. It actually feels like a real city and I can kind of identify with it a bit more. In the Stallone movie it's like a gleaming metropolis (totally wrong) yet here it looks thoroughly FUCKED up and nasty. And plus, the opening chase wouldn't have been as thrilling if it had been in the air.
This is a great example of something being changed to suit a different medium, and I think the more grounded vision of the city (and I guess, of the future) works better.
Whilst the overtly futuristic element works gangbusters in the comic, it just looked totally stupid and plastic in the 95 film. I'm glad the newer one took this approach. Just made the movie ten times better.
What do you guys think?
I think the Judge Dredd film's version of the city is one of the things it actually got right. It's pretty close to the comic version in my view and looks okay. People - not you ChickenStu (heh. That rhymes,) - criticise it for being too much like a generic future metropolis with all those curvy shapes, etc, but from what I've seen of the comics, that's how it is often depicted.)
I was initially a bit disappointed when I saw the route Dredd's version took but... I now think it works very well. It's more 'on your nose' dystopian (while the comic/Stallone version is a dystopia disguised as a utopia) but that fits the story well. And those spaced out megalithic structures work very well.
It's a chilling vision that's for sure - sort of like Mega City crossed with the City of God.
I do not think it looked like MC1 at all. MC1 is always sunny and has lots of huge curved buildings. It is not drab with huge rectangular buildings.
Was there ever a set in stone blueprint to MC1 that all artist's followed, and the cities depiction was uniform week in and week out?
MC1's look changed every time a different artist was employed on the strip - McMahon, Bolland, Ezquerra, Smith, Dillon, Kennedy....
I think the MC1 in Dredd is pretty darn top notch - and is as totally a valid depiction of MC1 as the comic depiction's are, and is for me one of the many highlights of that film. Of course i would have like to have seen more of this world, and no doubt we would have, had we been lucky enough to get a sequel(s).
Quote from: Judge Jack on 13 April, 2013, 06:43:20 PM
Was there ever a set in stone blueprint to MC1 that all artist's followed, and the cities depiction was uniform week in and week out?
Not set in stone, no. But take a look at Pat Mills blog: http://patmills.wordpress.com/2012/09/22/dredd-the-lawman-of-the-future/ (http://patmills.wordpress.com/2012/09/22/dredd-the-lawman-of-the-future/). He talks a lot about the city on this page and it having huge curved buildings.
I think if you asked most Dred artists to draw a city block they would draw the sort of fat bullet shaped buildings, sometimes with a roof that opens to have a garden. Bolland, McMahon, Ezquerra, Dillon, Kennedy etc have all drawn buildings like this as have many other artists. Ron Smith always stuck to fairly normal looking rectangular buildings like in the film, I think.
When i think off MC1 (the comic version) the 'fat bullet shape' look does spring to mind the most readily, but a quick flick through the early Case Files shows that the depiction of MC1 - while never a 50/50 split, does range from that, to the more traditional skyscraper look. Ewins, Bolland, Dillon, Gibson and Smith all employed that look to varying degree's. Or drew MC1 as a combination of those two styles.
Offhand only McMahon and Ezquerra (out of the early big name artist's) drew MC1 totally like nothing else on earth.
Still, i guess the original question was whether we like the film depiction or not. I do - its grand!
I think Mega-City One as depicted fitted the tone of the film perfectly-it was the very antithesis of a generic future cityscape.
If you want one of those, look at the recent Recall remake.
Quote from: WhizzBang on 13 April, 2013, 05:52:57 PM
I do not think it looked like MC1 at all. MC1 is always sunny and has lots of huge curved buildings. It is not drab with huge rectangular buildings.
It seemed quite sunny in the film and there are drab parts of the city aplenty in the comic.
I prefer it. I love that we have both versions, the various styles used in the comic suit it well and I love them. But the movie is a more "realistic" take on the Judges and their world, and as such there's no way in just 90 years time there will have been an atomic war and then rebuilding of a humongous city that itself is concreted over the old ones, that could have grown to such a size and in such luxurious style. The city shown in the film looks like the beginnings of MegaCity 1 when they're still struggling to get over the effects of the war and deal with all the problems and shortages that would create. I love the look in the film.
Indeed. Twelve years later and WTC1 is yet to be finished. And that's under ideal circumstances by comparison.
I like it too.
The films mega blocks are like todays tower blocks on a gigantic scale. It makes sense that they'd just scale up a familiar design, and they probably had to get them up quickly and cheaply, so they stuck with what worked. The way they spaced them out works better for a film as well, instead of the density usually seen in the comics. We can see how they compare to the regular buildings.
QuoteIt's a chilling vision that's for sure - sort of like Mega City crossed with the City of God.
Exactly.
- C
On the first viewing I experienced something of a perspective shift - unless you look closely it can be easy to miss the fact that the low-level stuff is actually normal tower blocks and big buildings with elevated roadways and THEN the mega blocks tower above these - It's easy at a quick glance to see it as normal tower blocks over low-level buildings. I think if there had been a bit more variety of height in the lower level stuff, it would be more obvious and impressive just how big these blocks are.
I think it's spot on. Taking something like the odd designs depicted in early Dredd's and making it celluloid will only age terribly. Look at a lot of the 90's and early 00's sci-fi films. Fifth Element for example, hasn't aged to well and looks incredibly dated, the same problem plagues Dredd 95. By taking a much more probable and actually scarily realistic take on MC1 Mega-Blocks I feel it'll age very well indeed.
Best of all, it avoids the unfortunate trap of looking like a 'Tesco-Valu' version of Bladerunner.
It may have beaten Elysium somewhat to the punch too.
(http://b.vimeocdn.com/ts/434/320/434320438_640.jpg)
No.
The idea is often posited that you could have a successful Dredd strip without Dredd because the world and city and citizens are what makes it work.
And I don't think that's true of the movie.
It was functional, but not striking.
All the same, I suppose there's no reason there couldn't be more affluent sections of the city and Dredd in the film just happened to work in a bit of it that was a shithole while way over by the East Wall the buildings are domed and spaghetti highways choke the skies or something.
But the bits we saw in Dredd 3D weren't any of that, they were just skyscrapers.
Quote from: Tiplodocus on 15 April, 2013, 11:33:19 PM
No.
The idea is often posited that you could have a successful Dredd strip without Dredd because the world and city and citizens are what makes it work.
And I don't think that's true of the movie.
Yet the city wasn't the focus of the film, the Judges were and what they do, so while in this film the city wasn't the main feature, there's no reason it couldn't have been in any continuation. Personally I think you need Dredd and the Judges for the more off-kilter aspects of the city to play off so it can be more than just a city of the future.
Quote from: Professor James T Bear on 16 April, 2013, 01:31:31 AM
It was functional, but not striking.
Hard to make the all too familiar cluttered future metropolis striking these days. At least they took the basic concept of utilitarian mass housing and Mega-city-blocks and made them the stand-out feature of the city, I haven't really seen that before in a film.
I liked the blurring between the present and the future. especially blending in the low rise shantytown stuff
to be off style that much and still make it work. The whacky citizen thing is played down and alot of comments about that. I would of like the simps to have been in there as well
overall I liked it. When it broke on me watching for the first time I thought "this is different" but it carried me.
For me, Dredd seemed to follow in the more contemporary Sci Fi aesthetic - the understated near future look as seen in the likes of Minority Report, Children of Men and District 9. Seemed logical considering the tone and budget they were working with. I like it.
The Blade Runner/neon dystopia as seen in less imaginitive films like Total Recall 2012 seems quite played out and a bit cliche these days tbh. Glad they didn't go in that direction.
The MC1 in Dredd wasnt what i was expecting (was it for anyone?), but im glad they went the route they did.
Can anything be original and fresh nowadays? But thats how it felt.
Using the 'Blade Runner/neon dystopia' look is as about as tired and as cliched as its possible to be now, but in Dredd (either real or imagined) i felt there was definite nods to that film, but in this case, they seemed totally right, and the opposite of tired.
A lot of smart people worked on this film, thats for sure.
Dredd, at 90ish minutes was a brief snapshot/introduction the this world, and had me instantly wanting a sequel, so we could see all this expanded upon, and we'd get to see more of the city. Alas..
If were allowed to have a minor niggle, then MC1 didnt especially feel like America - even a near future ruined one. Would have been nice to have seen an old landmark amongst the towering Mega-Blocks.
(Wasnt there some pre-production art showing the Chrysler building amongst it all? Ridley Scott's fave building, btw..)
Yeah, I'm not sure if that was just to help them with scale though.
Quote from: darnmarr on 15 April, 2013, 02:34:56 PM
Best of all, it avoids the unfortunate trap of looking like a 'Tesco-Valu' version of Bladerunner.
This.
I liked it; its bleakness and uniformity suited the atmosphere of the film - if it had looked like the comic MC1 we would have spent the whole film waiting for Dredd to leave Peach Trees and show us around a bit.
It also reminded me a lot of Beijing, a city I lived in for three months and really didn't like. I could empathise with the movie Mega-citizens a bit more (though they had to deal with lots of crime on top of the grey and overcrowded mess).
Quote from: JayzusB.Christ on 16 April, 2013, 10:52:49 PMIt also reminded me a lot of Beijing, a city I lived in for three months and really didn't like. I could empathise with the movie Mega-citizens a bit more (though they had to deal with lots of crime on top of the grey and overcrowded mess).
Kinda reminded me of Hong Kong for the same reason. Although Hong Kong is a lot more cosmopolitan. A bit more colourful aswell. But the high rise buildings, the humidity - all very similair.
If I were to be critical I'd say that they were almost too subtle with it. With all due respect, I only actually noticed how many scenes had cg tower blocks and buildings added when I watched the making of extras. As much as I love the aesthetics, I would have liked to see more a more bustling MC1 - like an ant hive of activity, distant fires, more drones, fliers, perhaps some skysurfers in the BG. They almost get there with that awesome overhead shot of the spaghetti junction - would have liked more stuff like that.
Agree re: the US landmarks - it would have been a nice touch to get glimpses of the Empire State etc, would have helped to sell the scale of the Mega Blocks. Would have been especially cool to see the statue of liberty/judgement (though I suspect they were saving that particular image for film 2...).
Will definitely be interesting to see what they do with the comic version.
has anyone info on who the ARTIST is going to be for DREDD 2 the comicbook ??
Much like Dredd's redesigned uniform, the city itself follows the same logic in the design. They both compliment each other. The city's looks is both practical, and more importantly, believable. You could actually imagine a city built on one of the few habitable patches of land on Earth after a nuclear war to look like MC1 in Dredd. Nothing would really change that much that far down the road in regards to how we build stuff. It would look just like this, plus the mega blocks make sense regarding space and population. The only thing I would liked to have seen would have been roads or bridges, or some sort of rail trasportation between the blocks or leading up to the higher levels. Not all of them. Just some. It would have been a nod to the winding, and twisting roads that seem to stretch into the sky on the pages of the comic.
Quote from: junox on 17 April, 2013, 03:59:09 PM
has anyone info on who the ARTIST is going to be for DREDD 2 the comicbook ??
Henry Flint......nah, just kidding. But i hope he is judging by the brilliant work he did on the prequel story for the Meg a while back. If not Flint then i'd love to see Kev Walker or David Roach.
Quote from: ChickenStu on 17 April, 2013, 10:43:06 AM
Quote from: JayzusB.Christ on 16 April, 2013, 10:52:49 PMIt also reminded me a lot of Beijing, a city I lived in for three months and really didn't like. I could empathise with the movie Mega-citizens a bit more (though they had to deal with lots of crime on top of the grey and overcrowded mess).
Kinda reminded me of Hong Kong for the same reason. Although Hong Kong is a lot more cosmopolitan. A bit more colourful aswell. But the high rise buildings, the humidity - all very similair.
Didn't quite get that vibe off HK, I must say. For me, it was a bit more like the comic MC1, what with its inter-block tunnels, mad lit-up buildings and general oddness. Not as much as Kuala Lumpur though; which was somewhere between MC1 and Frank Miller's Gotham City. (Young, good Frank, that is, not present-day, bad Frank.)