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Rewatching the OTHER Dredd movie...

Started by Alski, 16 August, 2012, 04:40:25 PM

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Diminished Responsibility

The flaw of the JD95 sets (for me anyway) was they didn't look real, ever.  It looks far closer to Total Recalls sets than Bladerunner.

Bladerunner had barely a scene that took you out of the movie, whereas Recall looked fake from start to finish. 

If I wasn't such a fan of the source material, I might have been able to enjoy Judge Dredd 95 in the same way I enjoyed Total Recall, being a fan has its downsides eh? lol

Anyway, I knew I wasn't getting Bladerunner the moment Stallone became attached, he hadn't done anything that wasn't a clichéd actioner since First Blood.
"DANGER! DO NOT TOUCH THESE MONSTROUSLY HAZARDOUS CITRUS FRUITS, MAN!"

Link Prime

Quote from: Toni Scandella on 16 August, 2012, 08:58:49 PM

I don't even blame Stallone all that much - he was just making another Stallone movie.  Some of those are quite good fun.


A Scandella-ous opinion there Toni.

vzzbux

Fuck Stallone (for Dredd 95 only*) and Fuck Schneider.

*Other films may vary.




V
Drokking since 1972

Peace is a lie, there's only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.

shaolin_monkey

Quote from: Toni Scandella on 16 August, 2012, 08:58:49 PM
I liked the line 'Eat recycled food! It's good for the environment, and OK for you!'

Yeah, that bit really made me laugh - great line.  It was probably the funniest part of the film.

Double Whammy though - I mean, WTF?!?

Mark Taylor

Quote from: Alski on 16 August, 2012, 04:40:25 PM...The Uniform, the Hall Of Justice, Mega City's look, The Angel Gang, The ABC Robot, the City Wall... it should have been a great film...

Pretty much all the 'fan-pleasers' they inserted (presumably to make up for the lack of helmet) were either poorly conceived or badly used.

The Uniform - even towards the end of the film when Dredd puts the uniform back on, did you notice how quickly he discards the shoulder pads because they're just impractical to do any thing decent action in? I think it's hilareous when people complain about Urbans understated shoulder pads - as if it isn't better to alter the uniform so the Judge character can keep it on rather than going with a 'faithful' design which forces them to take it of in order to do any half decent action scenes.

The Angel Gang - why bother introducing some of Dredd's classic adversaries only to kill them off within five minutes flat. Total waste. Would have been better to have a random gang of cursed earth muties.

The City Wall - complete with convenient flame-venting exhausts making getting into the city slightly scary but basically a breeze for anybody who can run fast enough (apparently including Rob Schneider's character had he not fallen over so it's not like you need to even be that fast). Apparenly Judge 'fanatical about the security of MC-1' Dredd himself had know about this for ages but just not bothered to do anything about it. (?????)

The council of Five - Let's name-check a bunch of well known characters from the strip, (all chief Judges(?)), put them all in the same room at the same time even though they're actually from different periods in MC-1's history, only to kill the lot of them off for no particularly good reason (much like the Angel gang).

The ABC warrior - looked good, I'll grant you. As mentioned elsewhere though, shouldn't even have been there and was completely superfluous to the plot. It's only purpose in being there there was to make fans go "Oh look - Hammerstein" and non fans go "Oh look - a cool robot".

Bollocks.

radiator

Quoteas if it isn't better to alter the uniform so the Judge character can keep it on rather than going with a 'faithful' design which forces them to take it of in order to do any half decent action scenes.

So so true.

I've banged on about this before, but if you really examine the new uniform closely you'll see that it really is a very accurate approximation of the comic uniform - the helmet is obviously spot on, he has proper gauntlets and boots, shoulder and knee pads (all, as far as I can tell, have a slight green tinge to them), the utility belt is there, as is the belt buckle, and the shoulder pads are there, though as you say, in a more practical form.

I wasn't sure at first, but I think what they've done with the uniform is great.

Professor Bear

I watched half of this last night, and I'm on the fence.

On one hand, it's unquestionably a mess of a film even in and of itself, I mean, just look at the clashing design aesthetics from one scene to the next, nothing really matches anything else, and the script is objectively terrible thematically, with the whole thing about there being no trials or justice anymore undermined by the fact Dredd is stitched up in a lengthy and involved trial in which he gets a fair hearing and the state goes to great (and very silly) lengths to prove its case in order to secure a conviction against someone seen as a paradigm of the Judges' power - they publicly air their laundry even as the script tries to suggest things actually get hushed up via the use of dynastic privilege, and given the extreme nature of crime even in the limited form portrayed here, the Judge system looks like the only viable option for this world and comes out looking better than the arrogant main character who defiantly states "I am the law" as a legal argument rather than as a catchphrase.  The film spends a great deal of time reassuring us that the good guys are thinking long and hard about the lack of democracy and how unfair the Judge system is, but we never actually see how that system is wrong or flawed beyond a single corrupt politician who is at odds with that system and whose plan centers around highlighting how much freedom the citizens actually have - a plan which is instigated by the murder of someone who is clearly exercising freedom of speech and challenging the authority of the state.  The writers come in knowing that the extent of the Judges' powers will be problematic for people here in the real world and write doubts and retractions accordingly, but they never satisfactorily establish in their script why the Judges' powers are problematic in the context of their fictional world: almost a hundred armed citizen riots each day before Griffin starts engineering civil disobedience, cannibal mutant cyborgs at the gates, and the city ringed by a nuclear (one presumes, as it is never stated if there was a war or if everything outside the city just fell down one day) wasteland?  Sorry, but I have no problem believing there might very well be a strong case there for martial law.
It is a mess of a script that makes no thematic sense, but also no logical sense on a scene-to-scene basis, I mean, they can put DNA tagging in a gun but they can't count how many bullets are in it?  They don't know where their single most recogniseable lawman is at all times?  There's only one security camera in the entire city?  There's only two eagle shoulder pads in the entire city?  Who on Earth wrote that Long Walk speech about "bringeth the law unto those who have it not"?

On the other hand: it is so terrible it's entertaining.  The only time I've seen the film mentioned outside 2000ad fandom is as a byword for terrible film-making, with the most prominent example probably being the tv show Scrubs, where one character laments that he no longer has time to hang out with his friend "and watch Judge Dredd with a few cold ones", and the character speaking is supposed to be a complete and total idiot who only likes utter shit.  "Court is adjourned" "how do you plead?" - these soundbites make no sense at all, they're just campy Batman And Robin style one-liners meant to evoke a comic book in the same way all the primary colours do.  The only sensible approach to this film is to stop trying to make sense of it and just let the campy, illogical nonsense wash over you, lap it up as an experience, and stop telling yourself the legendary Director's Cut might have been better - it wouldn't.  It might have given you the satisfaction of seeing Fergie buy the farm, but the rest of the movie would still be there, the plot would still be there, the characters would still be there, and it would still be an unsalvageable contradictory mess of superhero cliches tossed together in a time when Blade and Spider-Man hadn't redefined the genre and made something like Dark Knight possible.

The new Dredd movie might still be a bad film, admittedly, but at least it won't be as bad as this.

radiator

Said it before, but Demolition Man is a far stronger film - it's funny (both intentionally and unintentionally) is genuinely satirical and has way better action scenes - and a much better villain.

I've never subscribed to the school of thought that DM is somehow a Dredd rip-off though.

Mudcrab

On the "Hammerstein" thing, I believe he had no hammer (both hands had guns), ergo...

Was an ABC Robot yes, of the Hammerstein model, but he's not OUR/THE Hammerstein  :D

I want a proper ABCs film, as unlikely as that is. They could set it on Mars, spend $294736295785736278 on it, advertise it badly and compleltely fail to make any money, but damn we'd have a good film  :D
NEGOTIATION'S OVER!

Stu101

Quote from: Mark Taylor on 17 August, 2012, 01:00:18 PM
Quote from: Alski on 16 August, 2012, 04:40:25 PM...The Uniform, the Hall Of Justice, Mega City's look, The Angel Gang, The ABC Robot, the City Wall... it should have been a great film...

Pretty much all the 'fan-pleasers' they inserted (presumably to make up for the lack of helmet) were either poorly conceived or badly used.

The Uniform - even towards the end of the film when Dredd puts the uniform back on, did you notice how quickly he discards the shoulder pads because they're just impractical to do any thing decent action in? I think it's hilareous when people complain about Urbans understated shoulder pads - as if it isn't better to alter the uniform so the Judge character can keep it on rather than going with a 'faithful' design which forces them to take it of in order to do any half decent action scenes.

The Angel Gang - why bother introducing some of Dredd's classic adversaries only to kill them off within five minutes flat. Total waste. Would have been better to have a random gang of cursed earth muties.

The City Wall - complete with convenient flame-venting exhausts making getting into the city slightly scary but basically a breeze for anybody who can run fast enough (apparently including Rob Schneider's character had he not fallen over so it's not like you need to even be that fast). Apparenly Judge 'fanatical about the security of MC-1' Dredd himself had know about this for ages but just not bothered to do anything about it. (?????)

The council of Five - Let's name-check a bunch of well known characters from the strip, (all chief Judges(?)), put them all in the same room at the same time even though they're actually from different periods in MC-1's history, only to kill the lot of them off for no particularly good reason (much like the Angel gang).

The ABC warrior - looked good, I'll grant you. As mentioned elsewhere though, shouldn't even have been there and was completely superfluous to the plot. It's only purpose in being there there was to make fans go "Oh look - Hammerstein" and non fans go "Oh look - a cool robot".

Bollocks.

The above basically sums it up!
I'd also like to add that the bikes were shite (how slow did they move, and they flew!!!) The set seemed small and confined, and too new (unlike bladerunners beautifully realised world, they did benfit from loads of extra time to work on their set due to a writers strike though) and those shitty Land Rover vehicles were terrible.
As a fan I'd like to never see that movie again!

Roll on september  :)

Alski

I have to agree that Demolition Man is a far superior movie. Action packed, fun AND with Sandra Bullock. Lovely...
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nicklarr

There is a few designs of the '95 movie that I do like and still find it an enjoyable movie,but in terms of a Dredd adaption this new movie will blow it to bits  for sure!

Regarding comments that the Angel Gang being one of the good parts I would like to say that it was the Mean Machine that was spot on, especially in that "izzat so" - moment  :)

Pa with his vodoo-staff thingy and the others looked like crap - hallelujah cannibals, that was just silly..

radiator

Never got the Sandra Bullock thing - just don't see it.

As for making the Angel Gang into cannibals, I never had a problem with it, and there's been a suggestion that it was a concious move to bring them closer to their inspiration - the cannibal gang in The Hills Have Eyes.

Doesn't Ewen 'Spud' Bremner play Junior Angel or did I dream that?

Bat King

No reason an ABC robot can't be in the film, they exist in the continuity - Pat Mills penned Dredd story 'Hammerstein'. Whether 'our' Rojaws and Hammerstein do is debatable due to conflicting dates but ABC warriors do. The two stories are not in the same reality but there are some similar occurences - not an issue.

But on the other hand, there was no need for it either.

Angels - I've said it before, one of the few treatments I actually was OK with.
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Frank

Quote from: radiator on 17 August, 2012, 09:18:07 PM
As for making the Angel Gang into cannibals, I never had a problem with it, and there's been a suggestion that it was a concious move to bring them closer to their inspiration - the cannibal gang in The Hills Have Eyes.

I couldn't have cared less about turning the Angels into the Dahmer Family; but compared to the gleeful relish that bunch of sadistic cunts took in tormenting Old Joe Blind (and his horse), it was fairly tame stuff.

It was that jouissance, their happy ability to derive endless pleasure from their evil acts, which endeared the characters to readers. When the good guys are morose pricks like Dredd and Old Joe Blind, characters like Junior and Pa are the ones readers enjoy, identify with, and look forward to seeing again. (Mis)-applying the fond indulgence of a doting parent to Pa, and the teary-eyed pride he takes in the prodigous psychopathy of Junior, makes for endlessly funny dialogue.

If the filmmakers had understood that, they'd have seen that there was no need to lighten Dredd's character or give him a wisecracking sidekick to play off.