Judge Dredd returns to the silver screen Those of you still recovering from Sylvester Stallone's 1995 interpretation of Judge Dredd will have to wait until 2012 to see if Karl Urban can make a better hash of bringing the classic 2000 AD character to the silver screen. Shooting on IM Global's $45m Dredd is set to kick off in South Africa later this year, and the …
what 1995 movie? i've never seen it. i never want to see it! once it was leaked that stallone would take off the helmet there was no reason to watch the movie as it wasn't true to the comic.
fingers crossed this attempt will do well. would love to see a strontium dog movie. so many great characters and stories from 2000ad.
At least, in the comic adaptation of the film. Bit difficult to keep your uniform on when you've been dishonourably discharged and thrown in the clinker, eh?
Also yes, lots of interesting characters from 2000AD that need films making of them, and don't forget Starlord!
Starlord? Cool game, I thought. And very difficult to find these days, and even harder to run on a modern PC. But I always kind of liked it. Shame no-one remade it. That and Darklands in modern versions would be pretty awesome. And while we're at it, Covert Action, too.
All Microprose, now I think about it. Damn, they knew how to produce decent games, not like the sorry efforts you get these days...
No idea what Starlord was in 2000AD terms, mind. At first I thought you meant that weird alien guy with the skeletal face who went around doing... well, whatever it was he used to do, I can't really remember. But I think he was in Eagle anyway.
"I'tll be around three hours of CGI, pretty much all of it black, over 30,000 levels of black, with very little in the way of plot or acting. But you will be able to see lots of CGI cars flying about in the background"
They should use all the rendering time to do DR and Quinch in 3D.
"I'tll be around three hours of CGI, pretty much all of it black"
Apart from the bits that're orange and teal.
Still, I maintain Karl Urban did a pretty impressive job as McCoy in Star Trek. Never heard of Olivia Thirlby, though. All I can say is, in the name of all my childhood years of fancying the shiny shoulder-furniture and big boots off Cassandra Anderson, I might tend towards the (pardon me) judgemental on that performance... Frankly I always thought Cass was the real star of those stories, anyway. Argh. Did I type that out loud?
/runs for cover
"lone oasis of quasi-civilization on Cursed Earth"
No it isn't, and no it's not. And they use the phrase 'Street Judge' too. Oh grief.
It's not the only Mega-City, and the 'Cursed Earth' is the US wasteland, not the whole planet. Ballsed up from the first press release.
"Don't forget the "Chief Judge" and the council, who are NOT on the "street", ergo the "normal" judges could be said to be "street judges"."
Not to mention, as I recall, quite a few specialised departments. Wasn't there a unit of medically trained judges? I seem to recall Dredd being in hospital at one point and an alarm going off, and doctors and nurses all pulling out Lawgivers and running off to deal with it. I may be a given quantity of wrong.
...but I actually quite LIKED the Judge Dredd movie. Thought it was OK, not brilliant, but a bit of fun.
Stallone was no better or worse than he normally was, and as films go, could have been a lot worse. Love the automated food vending machine:" Eat recycled food; It's good for the environment, and it's OK for you!"
I watched it again recently - first time since '95 - and... I thought it was pretty damn good! Angel Gang very well rendered, Max Von Sydow was great, ABC warrior in there somewhere. What's not to like? OK, Stallone takes the helmet off but that was always going to happen with a a big star.
..it's not Dredd. Apart from taking off his helmet he also snogs Hershey! Dredd snogging someone?! No!
It's not that bad a film (as moronic action films go) but it's nothing like Dredd. It sounds like the new film will be much closer to the real character. Here's hoping....
Not great the first time he did it: standing in the street between two warring blocks and shouting "I Am The Law" as an opener. Moderately unconvincing.
But the second time, in the tribunal:
"I never broke the Law! I AM the Law!"
Now THAT worked. Although it was about the only part of that scene that did.
There was a fuss at first as they had tried to bring too many things in to the story, and there were changes to the setting, but as a whole the story did stick to the basic concepts and Stalone fitted the role quite well (with all those short extras around him to make him look taller).
Those who knock the movie have either never seen it, or watched it when it very first came out and had all the negative hype.
"IM Global teases: "Dredd takes us to the wild streets of Mega City One, the lone oasis of quasi-civilization on Cursed Earth."
Someone should point out that Mega City One is next to The Cursed Earth, and it's not 'a lone oasis'. I'm hoping that they get Ezquerra and some of the writers properly involved...
When did IM Global buy the rights to Judge Dredd? Last I checked they were owned by Rebellion exclusively and a discussion I had with their CEO back in around 2001ish made it clear that they would not permit another "hollywood" Judge Dredd unless it was true to the comic.
No news on Rebellion's web site about the movie either...
Hmmm wonder if John Wagner or Alan Grant know anyting about this new movie...time to send a few emails I think.
Saw that the team behind 28 Days Later was doing this film a while ago, but couldn't think of who'd make a good Joe Dredd. My personal thought was for Idris Elba (Stringer in The Wire and Luther on the BBC). Anyway, Urban has a good jawline and plays intensity well, and those are the two main characteristics of Dredd.
Shame Danny Boyle isn't directing, but he's probably too old to have been into 2000AD at its peak. Hopefully Pete Travis is a fan and as he's English he's probably gonna have a good feel for the Mega City atmosphere. The Dredd strip was written as an outsider's comment on the US (Wagner, the originator of the character, was born in the US but raised in Scotland) and contains more social commentary and black humour than mainstream Hollywood can deal with.
WTF! they booked a brunnett to play Cassy ???????
(who as all real 2000AD fanbois know is a tall - very busty Blonde)
if Dredd is keeping his hat on this time then they must have an ex-TopGear lawyer do the contracts, or was Stallone having a ego trip when he insisted that he gets to take the helmet off.
Dredd is known only from his chiseled stone jaw and low idiot perp tolerance.
any reason why we haven't seen a 2000AD spin off game yet? they've had dozens of well received and written cartoons over the years that could easily be realised utilising Doom4 or later rendering engines.
. . . the scale right, it might work.
Stallone's effort, even with the budget, failed to get across the fact that a city block was more akin to an archology than a skyscraper.
As has been posted above, the opening statement is wrong, since it is Mega City *ONE* and the Cursed Earth is the wasteland between Mega City One (East Coast) and Mega City Two (West Coast).
Unless they do a good job of the scale, it's difficult to see how they will do much of a job of the rest. Suffice to say, those who grew up with Dredd are most likely to be disappointed, mostly because the character isn't one to empathise with on any level, he just is - something the studios really don't like doing.
Evil Gav 1 writes:
"As has been posted above, the opening statement is wrong, since it is Mega City *ONE*
and the Cursed Earth is the wasteland between Mega City One (East Coast) and Mega
City Two (West Coast)."
... are we talking about future sci-fi here, or current day cultural reality?
Except for the obvious problem that Sly Stallone and Armand Assante were supposed to be identical twins, I thought it worked great. I mean, look at Dredd. Single-minded musclebound killing machine. Stallone even comes with the curled lip built in. How much more perfect casting do you want?!
Sure, if we were talking about a comic with a bit more depth like a lot of the Marvel stuff, then maybe the fact that it was a fairly mindless blowing-sh*t-up-fest would be an issue. But Dredd (and indeed most of the 2000AD stuff) was never really big on existential angst - if there's a problem then you kill it, and that's about as far as it goes. Perfect match for a dumb summer movie.
I don't believe you got 8 downvotes for your opinion, must be moron day on El Reg. Don't worry mate, I absolutely agree with you. The 5th Element is a plotless, pointless montage of special effects mixed with Milla Jovovich's little white body, and as for the "5th Element" being "luuurrrve", well - says it all really. Anyone who thinks this movie was worth the time wasted watching it is a twit.
Go on commentards, downvote me. Prove your idiocy!
I liked the lawmasters, loved the land rovers, thought the angel gang was well portrayed (with the exception of fink, needs more fink angel IMO) and loved the fact that of all the Judges uniforms, Dredd's was the only one that resembled the original comic (seriously, Joe Dredd's uniform was the only one to have the eagle as one of the pauldrons) as has been noted though one of the problems was stallone/assante as twins, the other was McGruder being slaughtered by rico before she was Chief Judge, but let's not let that get in the way of a good story :)
While I don't fully agree with your opinion of Alan Moore, he has said that he will never revisit Halo Jones and I hate to think what he would do if he did. I just wish he would allow Ian Gibson to complete the series, as he is willing and more than able to do so.
On the subject of D.R. and Quinch, I am fully in favour of a movie. Maybe they could do "D.R. and Quinch Get Drafted" or "D.R. and Quinch Go To Hollywood"
Fresh from his runaway success in The Expendables - Sly actually managed two (count 'em, two!) whole facial expressions - I would've thought El Blobface would've been the ideal pick for the remake of Judge Dreadful. Of course watching the judge flatten baddies with his walker might have taken something away from the spirit of the original.
Judge Dredd himself is a fairly one dimensional character, albeit rigid and violent. The appeal of Judge Dredd is not Dredd himself, rather what happens in the dystopian Mega City he inhabits. As long as the writers and director understands this.
... Stallone was willing to keep the helmet on, but the studio overruled him, having paid "big" money for a well-known star. He regards the film as a lost opportunity for the Cursed Earth scenario among others. The opening montage of 2000ADs was his idea.
Wonder how much of that is true?
They'll never make a screen Dredd like the comic book Dredd because the comic book Dredd has zero appeal for most people. Hell, many comic book villains are more likeable than Dredd. Dredd is basically an asshole; an asshole with too much power.
I can't think of a comic book "hero" who is less likable than Dredd, and if they made him like the comic book half the audience would walk out.
While we're all grousing about the good old days of Toothy and how accurate the film will (won't) be, why not sell the Nemesis / Torquemada rights off to a Japanese studio? There are a number of magical / demons / robots / corrupt leaders themed series of anime around, and they're bent enough to pull it off. Just a thought. Off to the shed to clean Cheryl.
Mr Pedantic here.. I'm looking at a freeze-frame of the 1995 movie, whose intro reads:
In the third millennium, the world changed. Climate. Nations. All were in upheaval... the earth transformed into a poisonous scorched desert, known as "the Cursed Earth".
So the first movie used rather ambiguous wording which could refer to the planet Earth, or since the text above lacks a capital E on Earth, simply that some earth became scorched and it was called 'the Cursed Earth'.
For the new movie, one could argue that "on Cursed Earth" is dramatic wording implying that events transpire on earth which is considered cursed, and is not necessarily referring to the entire planet or even a region that we fans know as "_the_ Cursed Earth", i.e. that area of nuclear wasteland occupying much of what is currently mainland USA.
I, for one, welcome the new retelling of the old favourite, and will be grateful for what we get. My memories shall remain unsullied.
Althogh I'm a huge fan, Johnny Alpha would be a far better film character than Dredd. Throw in Midden Face McNulty and a cameo from Joe Pinapples and all would be right with the world. Although if they do it a la Batman and Batman Rreturns with the baddie as the star and make it about Judge Death that would
And whichever Japanese crew take on Nemesis and Torquemada should pick up Slaine as well. :)
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