The Law Returns. This Time With His Helmet On! Judge Dredd!

I used to live in Hope. but the rents are too high, so I moved.

 

While it would be fun to see a "straight from the page" adaptation, I think it's fair to say it'd be fairly expensive and somewhat impractical to carry off (especially the costume.)

I can accept the production design a a concession to practicality. For example, the uniforms look like armoured biker gear for a good reason. As for the vehicles...yeah, that's not what I'd hoped for either, but word is that this film was only made because they were able to do it on a very limited budget compared to similar sci-fi action films and slapping printed logo onto real world vans is a lot cheaper than doing what they did last time; fabricating fibreglass shells for 20+ vehicles. Remember, most of this film takes place indoors, so I doubt you'll see much of those cars.

The cityscape is a little deceiving and it's an illusion that was described right there in the script. At forst glance you're meant to think it's a normal modern cityscape with a few skyscrapers surrounded by smaller buildings. But as the shot pulls in you see that those low lying buildings are actually old world skyscrapers and you get a real sense of just how *massive* those city blocs really are.

Oh and to answer someone else's question; no, if the script is any indication, there won't be a lot of slo-mo scenes in the film. In fact I think there's only two or three instances at all and they all appear to be in the trailer.

As for the comparisons to 'The Raid', I suppose it's unavoidable given the timing, but my initial impression (before I'd even heard of 'The Raid') was more along the lines of 'Die Hard' meets 'Training Day'. It's not really played up in the trailer, but Anderson being a not-yet-graduated rookie Judge is a big part of the story. This is really her story as much as it is Dredd's and Ma-ma's.

 

I have to say I quite enjoyed the script, hence I expect the actual story to be good

 

I guess that's the new style for Science Fiction these days. Star Trek ship engineerings are breweries, and Megacities are just some Vancouver suburbs (or wherever this film was shot) and future cars are just slight modifications on today's cars.


To me, personally, all this screams low budget and low quality. But well...

 

^To be fair, the aesthetic and the vehicles do fit in with the way The Meg is described in the trailer: "800 million people living in the ruin of the old world." The implication is that very little is new, most everything except the blocs are left overs or recycled from what was left after the atomic wars and the economy, along with culture and society is stagnant and dying a slow death. Hell, even the food is resyked.

Very Blade Runner, but with several orders of magnitude more square mileage. Remember, this metropolis stretches most of the way up and down the north america's east coast. It's *huge* and to be realistic, the whole thing can't be as densely packed with those bloc mega-structures like in the Stallone film because then you'd be talking a population more on the order of billions.

 

Sounds like a WH40k hive world.

 

It fits with the comics as well - old new york was left *under* the new city.

 

I don't think low budget neccesarily equals low quality.

Off topic slightly but I understood what Abrahms was trying to do by using the brewery, give us the impression that engineering was a huge cavernous place, and make it feel real rather than an obvious CGI affair. It didn't remotely work, but I like the thinking behind it.

As for Dredd, well I think you need to accept that this is a pared down idea of Mega City 1, although it may look better in the film, and possibly if this is succesful enough to spawn a sequal maybe it'll get a bigger budget?

I'm amused that people keep going on about the bikes etc yet completely ignore the fact that there's no evidence Anderson is a psi, which is surely a much bigger deal given that that's the main crux of her personality!

 

If they've stuck to the leaked script, she is.

 

Ah, that's ok then.

If they just wanted a random young female cadet they might as well have gone with Dekker...

 

Really cool motion poster (at least I think it is).

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/07/04/this-dredd-motion-poster-will-growl-at-you/

"Dredd" will be at SDCC.

 

Saw this yesterday, it's very cool.

Be sure to watch it with the sound on

 

That's the coolest part of it

 

I had to rewatch to get the sound, it was very cool.

 

Alex Garland gives brief details on possible sequels from the London Comic Con panel...


http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/07...gy-as-loosely-planned-by-writer-alex-garland/

 

LOL. Slow down, speedy horse.

 

Why is postulating on a possible trilogy funny? He was probably asked a question by someone in the audience and responded as any filmmaker/screenwriter would. This doesn't mean they're actually going to happen.

 

Yeah I agree with him, I don't think you can have Death show up straight away. Still, if what they're saying is true about how much this needs to make to justify a sequel you've gotta think they might well do it.

 

Indeed. If you actually read what he says in context, he's not saying he has some grand epic plan for a trilogy, he says that IF "they" decide to greenlight sequels, he has some ideas that could be developed.

If they do choose to use Judge Death in the sequels, establishing Anderson right off the bat should pay off in spades given her association with the Dark Judges in the comics.

Actually, for such a long running comic book character Dredd doesn't have much in the way of an established rogue's gallery. There's the Dark Judges, P.J. Maybe, The Angel Gang and that robot Judge who's name escapes me (Mechanismo??) From what I recall Rico was always something of a one-shot villain, not nearly the arch nemesis the Stallone film made him out to be.

I'd be interested to see a film with P.J. as the main antagonist, given that he's more of a cerebral (if a little disslecsick ) antagonist. More often than not he's five steps ahead of Dredd and pretty much always gets away in the end.

 

Sov Judges. he's always getting involved in conflicts with the Sovs...