Dredd - Offical Trailer

[JOE SOAP]

Trying to organise a gang-takeover of a block housing 75,000 people can't be easy.

[Misanthrope]

Trying to organise a gang-takeover of a block housing 75,000 people can't be easy.

Cheap Slo-Mo.

[Dirty Sanchez]

Having had some time to digest this trailer and weigh up everything I know about this movie compared to the comic it's trying to adapt, I think I've spotted a huge gaping hole in the Dredd movie, which I believe is the same flaw that helped sink the Stallone flick.

I like the look of the film, I like Urban in the lead, I like Anderson, I like MC-1, I'm even OK with the generic piss-boring concept of an elite supercop taking down an untouchable druglord; overall, as the man said, I'd be happy with a solid 7/10 80s style action movie which, for me, will be pushed up to an 8/10 just because it's Dredd.

The big, glaring, possibly fatal flaw in the movie is this: Dredd is a reactionary idea, and the movie seems to have missed that.

Mega-City One, in the comic, is present-day Western society with all its self-obsessed, facile, faddish nuttiness projected 150 years into the future. The Mega-City Judge, as an autonomous lawman with limitless judiciary power, personifies the logical state response to such a society, which is illustrated in the comic as a vast,  uncontrollable conurbation full of 800 million unemployed loonies. The Judges' powers are a logical response to the citizens' self-destructive insanity: in the comic we can see clearly that without an extreme and immediate response to some of the deranged lunatic shit the citizens keep coming up with, the whole of what's left of society would quickly collapse.

Without this appropriate social milieu to work in, Judge Dredd is basically SS, or Dirty Harry with state backing.

Putting Judge Dredd (the exaggerated, logical conclusion of a scary political idea) up against drug dealers in a slum (a problem that exists right here and now) is a bad mismatch of the superlative vs the mundane. The trailer, and I'm assuming the whole film, doesn't properly illustrate why Judge Dredd needs to exist. My big concern about this movie is that, for the audience to buy into the story, it's going to require them to support a Nazi stormtrooper's crusade against the citizenry. It's veering dangerously close to being a pro-fascist movie.

[Beaky Smoochies]

My big concern about this movie is that, for the audience to buy into the story, it's going to require them to support a Nazi stormtrooper's crusade against the citizenry. It's veering dangerously close to being a pro-fascist movie.

[Goaty]

Yep, that is Dredd, Dirty Sanchez!

Did you read America?

[Dirty Sanchez]

Yes, it was a powerfully anti-fascist story!

[Goaty]

Yes, it was a powerfully anti-fascist story!

Yep, good example.

[JOE SOAP]

You haven't seen the milieu in the film yet Sanch, whatever you think of the big bad. As Dredd states in his narration, they're bringing order to chaos, I think there'll be some more of that chaos in the film. It' all ready been glimpsed in the newsreel footage of the riots. Ma ma and her boys are the tip of that chaos and it's 2 judges against a whole block. The reason why Dredd '95 failed was it's a terrible film with an awful performance of an ill drawn character.

[Dirty Sanchez]

True, I haven't seen the movie yet. I do think it's a legitimate concern, considering 99.9% of people who will see this trailer won't have a clue who Dredd is.

[Goaty]

Well to be honest, I think people will see the film this Septemeber, as it only one of violent film of that month, people would come without questions, just paid the tickets and see it, it part of the entertainment,

Yesss it is Field of Dreams! good quote;
Terence Mann: Ray, people will come Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won't mind if you look around, you'll say. It's only $20 per person. They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.

And it will be DREDD time!

[Dirty Sanchez]

Well that's all right then

[JOE SOAP]

I think it's been quite well set-up in the trailer and I think the idea alone of 75,000 people housed in 200 storey city-blocks is a pretty good throw to the audience that this place ain't too great and needs a different type of policing. It's these bits of sociological stats that the Stallone film never even broached at any grounded level that will make Dredd work. Dredd's opening monologue really sets this up and will be extrapolated on via the vibe and visual we get from the Meg and Peach Trees.

[ming]

I gather from this that pre mama takeover that the lower levels were actually policed?

The Yellow levels must have been deemed safer

I think that lower level text says 'Judged' which I assumed was a gang name... Either that or a status report, as Dredd and Anderson make their way up the block?

[Syne]

I gather from this that pre mama takeover that the lower levels were actually policed?

The Yellow levels must have been deemed safer

I think that lower level text says 'Judged' which I assumed was a gang name... Either that or a status report, as Dredd and Anderson make their way up the block?

I assumed it meant those lower blocks were under the control of Justice Dept to start with. I like the "status report" idea too though.

[Syne]

The big, glaring, possibly fatal flaw in the movie is this: Dredd is a reactionary idea, and the movie seems to have missed that.

Mega-City One, in the comic, is present-day Western society with all its self-obsessed, facile, faddish nuttiness projected 150 years into the future. The Mega-City Judge, as an autonomous lawman with limitless judiciary power, personifies the logical state response to such a society, which is illustrated in the comic as a vast,  uncontrollable conurbation full of 800 million unemployed loonies. The Judges' powers are a logical response to the citizens' self-destructive insanity: in the comic we can see clearly that without an extreme and immediate response to some of the deranged lunatic shit the citizens keep coming up with, the whole of what's left of society would quickly collapse.

Without this appropriate social milieu to work in, Judge Dredd is basically SS, or Dirty Harry with state backing.

Putting Judge Dredd (the exaggerated, logical conclusion of a scary political idea) up against drug dealers in a slum (a problem that exists right here and now) is a bad mismatch of the superlative vs the mundane. The trailer, and I'm assuming the whole film, doesn't properly illustrate why Judge Dredd needs to exist. My big concern about this movie is that, for the audience to buy into the story, it's going to require them to support a Nazi stormtrooper's crusade against the citizenry. It's veering dangerously close to being a pro-fascist movie.

Interesting post, but I find your bolded section particularly problematic.


Why does Dredd need to exist, in the movies or the strip? Because the Mega City government needs him to exist for its own survival, that's it. Maybe other systems of government would work equally well, but the story thats most interesting (or at least the one the writers have decided to tell) is the one of Dredd, the Judges, and how the citizens survive under them.

It's perfect possible to have a hero, working for an unfair system, who the audience can root for without supporting the real-life implications of that system. In fact, that's pretty much what the comic Judge Dredd has been doing for the past 35 years.

If you're right about the '95 movie justifying the Judges's tyranny over the cits, then it's actually a worse movie, morally speaking. Because then it's saying: "society crazy as hell? Bring on the jackboots and the summary executions!"

As for what Dredd is really saying, we'll have to wait and see.