52 replies to this topic

[steveuk]

Dredd has no sense of humour, but I hope the movie does.

[Dave Wallace]

I read his delivery in the same way as I read a lot of Captain America's dialogue in Ultimates - so sincere and serious that you can't help but find it amusing.

[Russell H]

No complaints with the voice. Much better than Stalone's "stroke victim" slur.

That's just Stallone's voice.

I'm not sure about this. Kurt Busiek had this to say about it on Twitter today:

I like the substance of that but not the style. A JUDGE DREDD movie should look like Blade Runner/A Clockwork Orange/RoboCop/Warriors on steroids. An over-the-top chaotic assault. Maybe it's this trailer, but it felt calm to me. Gravel-voiced but not amped-up, not hyperkinetic. Should feel like a war zone, not a slum. Without an over-the-top world, Dredd just seems like an asshole. His world is so crazy that fascist asshole killer cops should feel like aresponse to it, not like the government woke up one morning and decided to be mean because black leather is more fun.

That said, I hope the movie is good and that Dredd fans are satisfied with it. To me it felt like Dredd had wandered into a too-small setting, and looked out of place as a result. John McClaine trapped in a building with a psycho gang of crooks works because McClaine is so badly outmatched. Dredd in that same setting? You need him to be up against 8-foot-tall guys with chainsaws for hands before it even starts to feel like a fair fight. And better still if the chainsaw guys are just the appetizer.

I'm hoping that the weirder side of Dredd's world has just been toned down for the trailer, and the movie is a bit stranger than it appears... and that there's extra lunacy held back for the sequel. (Boing! Fatties! Sky surfers! Uglies! Robots! Mutants! A bigger shoulder eagle!)

[steveuk]

I think the way the uniform has been reworked indicates what sort of a world this is; quite dramatic, but basically practical.

Busiek is spot on about the Judges, except that, even in the version of Mega City One presented in 2000 A.D. the Judge system is still excessive. It's easier to understand why something like it exists there, but it was never meant to be a realistic or practical creation.

I read his delivery in the same way as I read a lot of Captain America's dialogue in Ultimates - so sincere and serious that you can't help but find it amusing.

Pretty much. He's not trying to be funny, he doesn't quip, he's a true believer and painfully serious all the way.

Cap is one of the many things that Dredd draws from and sends up but Dredd himself is so much more of a plank.

[Johnny Henning]

Looks pretty generic unfortunately.


Still, it could never beat Robocop.

Robocop 2, maybe.

[Steve Sensible]

I really like Robocop 2. Looking back at it, it's pure Frank Miller. There's some surprisingly twisted stuff in there, and it's very funny in places. The FX could have been a lot better, but you could level the same criticism at the first movie. In those pre-CGI days, stop motion was the only way to do that kind of thing.

[Scott Wilkinson]

I can't remember if Anderson ever wore a helmet in the comics when I was reading it (which was a long time ago). I don't think she ever did.

You occasionally saw her with it on, but mostly if you saw her with one she has just taken it off and shaking her hair out like she's in a shampoo ad . . .

[Kurt Busiek]

Busiek is spot on about the Judges, except that, even in the version of Mega City One presented in 2000 A.D. the Judge system is still excessive. It's easier to understand why something like it exists there, but it was never meant to be a realistic or practical creation.

I think that actually supports and expands on what I was saying, rather than contradicts it. I didn't say the Judges were realistic or practical, merely that the world needs to be OTT enough for them to seem like a response, as opposed to sadistic fuckery for the fun of it.

The Judges are an "if this goes on" satire, but you need two "thises" for it -- an OTT world and a justice system perceived as increasingly uncaring.

[Edited to replace Autocorrect wanting the word "fuckery" to be "fakery." Not the same thing, AC!]

[David Chapman]

Pretty much. He's not trying to be funny, he doesn't quip, he's a true believer and painfully serious all the way.

So I guess I'm the only person who heard "Judgement time!" and cringed?

Regarding Anderson's helmet - she's carrying it the first time she appears in Judge Death, but she's never seen to actually put it on that I recall.

[steveuk]

I think that actually supports and expands on what I was saying, rather than contradicts it. I didn't say the Judges were realistic or practical, merely that the world needs to be OTT enough for them to seem like a response, as opposed to sadistic fakery for the fun of it.

The Judges are an "if this goes on" satire, but you need two "thises" for it -- an OTT world and a justice system perceived as increasingly uncaring.

Fair enough, it seems I split the wrong hare.

So I guess I'm the only person who heard "Judgement time!" and cringed?

<SNIP>

Possibly I blanked it out.

Dredd shouldn't make bad jokes, that's Bond's job.

[garjones]

Dredd can use lines like that and does frequently in the comics.



The problem is that Wagner deliberately varies the tone of Dredd way more than a comic of its type does. Sometimes it is downright silly, while the curret Day of Chaos story is almost deathly serious. That means it's very hard to fit into perceptions of tone.

The one thing that has always marked it out, which I think Kurt is getting at, is Dredd himself is a pretty stock emotionless character but the appeal is the complete madness of the world around him. A large proportion of Dredd stories are setting up some ludicrous situation, like Otto Sump's Ugly Clinic and he just appears at the end and arrests/shoots everyone.

The problem here is $45m is never going to adequately reflect that. My hope here is that it is an entertaining action movie, with as much refelection on that madness as they can do, and that because of that does well enough they can get a bigger budget next time.

[steveuk]

True, I think that I always remember Dredd as humourless character, and ignore the quips, because they really don't seem to fit with the rest of what he does and how he does it.

[brucegray666]

Nice touch!