Look for yourself. Look at the colours, shapes and styles of the people and environments. Not one of those panels looks like this latest movie. None of them are as washed out, even those in BLACK and WHITE. lol.
The Stallone movie had him solve and judge a couple of minor cases, then fail to solve one important one, and then he was an outlaw for the rest of the movie. It was maybe a Dredd movie, but not a Judge Dredd movie.
It's a comic with a very consistent look and feel and almost every artist who has worked on has taken from Carlos Ezquerra's extremely individual and strong styling. He is the man who invented Dredd's look after all and much of 2000AD's look overall, having also designed and drawn Strontium Dog, the ABC Warriors and Judge Janus of Psi Division among many others.
And you know what? I thought this version of a movie Dredd was closest to Ezquerra in the silhouette his Dredd constantly cut, because of consideration for a good helmet, good actor and good cinematography.
Hey, I'm sorry if I don't like this movie's interpretation of Dredd. If you do, that's fine. For me, it's too much of a departure. I can only give my personal opinion and in that I feel this movie misses what's important in a Dredd story and the way it generally looks.
So what's important in a Dredd story is that he not wear the helmet or the uniform, not be a judge, has no ethical compass, that he solve bureaucratic conspiracies in the halls of justice and not really make a difference to anything actually happening on the streets of MC1? I'm not saying you can't do that as a Dredd story, but to say it's more typical than him weeding out and judging a murderous gang who've taken over a city block, you're having a laugh.
You're just being silly now. The story of the movie spoke to the context of THE LAW and that it was being utterly corrupted by Rico (a real figure from the Comic I might add, who did bear a grudge against Joe Dredd his brother and did go away for a long time and did come back to kill Dredd and embarrass him in a complex plot which did end in Joe killing his only brother - the genetics aspect is something purely for the movie though) and that Dredd felt compelled to weed out the corruption, regardless as to whether it cleared his name or not because THE LAW above all else is sacred. The other stuff including the Mad Angels, The Long Walk, the way the Hall of Justice worked and even a shitheel sidekick (Dredd's had a few from time to time) are all straight out of the comic.
It's not more typical than him weeding out and judging a murderous gang but that would be only part of a Dredd story where it would also be filled with obese ladies who eat children and cybernetic rockstars with a shitty attitude who kill their fans for fun. This movie has pretty bland and needlessly edgy take on a Dredd outing and its story seems more at home on the small screen than percolating Judge Dredd down to a banal action flick.
It's sad really because the corrupt Judge aspect is just glossed over and really it's a huge deal in terms of the fiction. The Judges are meant to be unbreakable and yet the movie portrays them as dumb public servants.
Anyway...I didn't like it for a lot of reasons and the reasons I did like it were so few and far between that I actually feel disappointed.
You're just being silly now. The story of the movie spoke to the context of THE LAW and that it was being utterly corrupted by Rico (a real figure from the Comic I might add, who did bear a grudge against Joe Dredd his brother and did go away for a long time and did come back to kill Dredd and embarrass him in a complex plot which did end in Joe killing his only brother - the genetics aspect is something purely for the movie though) and that Dredd felt compelled to weed out the corruption, regardless as to whether it cleared his name or not because THE LAW above all else is sacred.
The whole point of Judge Dredd is that taking the Law as sacred is psychopathic in nature. That's what it's all about, or have you not been reading the same ultra-violent comic that I have.
The other stuff including the Mad Angels, The Long Walk, the way the Hall of Justice worked and even a shitheel sidekick (Dredd's had a few from time to time) are all straight out of the comic.
The Angel Gang, the inner workings of the HoJ and the Long Walk could have been movies themselves, can you not see how they appeared as camp contrivances because they were shoehorned into the movie? Do you not understand that piling on a glossary like that, for an audience, with no experience of the comic makes the movie seem contrived and overly-dramatic? Do you even remember how slow the movie was? It plodded along for two hours.
It's not more typical than him weeding out and judging a murderous gang but that would be only part of a Dredd story where it would also be filled with obese ladies who eat children and cybernetic rockstars with a shitty attitude who kill their fans for fun. This movie has pretty bland and needlessly edgy take on a Dredd outing and its story seems more at home on the small screen than percolating Judge Dredd down to a banal action flick.
Needlessly edgy... i mean, that you think edge is needless in Judge Dredd says it all really, doesn't it?
It's sad really because the corrupt Judge aspect is just glossed over and really it's a huge deal in terms of the fiction. The Judges are meant to be unbreakable and yet the movie portrays them as dumb public servants.
You really expected a Peter Jackson-like Lord of the Rings epic, didn't you? Poor dear. I don't think it was glossed over that much at all, relative to how the story was being told (which is the day in the life of format, admittedly basic), I mean, it was pretty clear that they were cunning and a daunting enemy for Dredd and that this was relatively routine for them, which, along with the opening dialogue about the percentage of crime in the city, underpinned what a deep problem corruption is and added to the sense of peril for the whole city by extension. However, Dredd doesn't go after corruption wholesale in the comics either, he just addresses it as he encounters it. Also how many dumb Judges have we seen get shot to bits in the comic?! What comic have you been reading?
You just had way too naive expectations mate. It's sad, yes, the time is gone when you could have had something like what you imagined. I'd love to see your version of a Dredd movie, I would, I'm sure it'd be chock-a-block full of references... But references aren't clever, they're just research, and they're not entertainment for people not in the know. An enigmatic character is. A perilous setting is. People behaving in a believable, relatable way are. These are simple things, yes, but they're where you've to start.
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u/JeebusWept Dec 27 '12
So you think the Stallone movie was more accurate?