Trailer Trash – Mega-City One

It’s 1995, I’m 13 years old and Sly Stallone is playing Judge Dredd at the movies.

At the time, I’m sure this type of casting was fine in a cheese-on-toast comic book flick such as this, but looking back and – rightly or wrongly – comparing the first Dredd movie to other superhero movies before and since, it’s easy to hate it and poke fun.   The idea of Hollywood taking an iconic British property and doing such a monumentally bad job with it is both shocking… and not shocking, given the other triumphs and duds that have popped up since then.    The ’95 Dredd could almost be used as a case-study of how not to do a comic book movie. Rubbish.  What the hell was Rob Schneider doing in there?

New Dredd actor: Karl Urban may show us a more satisfying version in the up-coming movie in September, but will Dredd keep his helmet on this time?  The forthcoming reboot project written by Alex Garland and directed by Pete Travis, has recently given birth to the first full trailer and apparently, he does.

Thoughts?

With the visuals seemingly getting quite close to the originally intended look-and-feel of Mega-City One, maybe we’ll get something closer to John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra’s original creation than the 95 attempt.  What we do appear to be promised is actor: Urban’s impressive Clint Eastwood impression.  Wagner and Ezquerra were allegedly inspired by Dirty Harry when they first created the character.

Online rumours of the ‘shady’ production process continue including reports that director: Travis was locked out of the editing room at one point while Garland took the reins to “wind things up”.   Apparently, no one really knows quite what the finished product will even look like!… director included.

This Dredd has got his work cut out, at the end of a long summer of superheroes and since it’s taken so long to complete the movie having been planned since 2008, we need this movie to be bold beyond its years and spark some interest back into the deeply beloved books.  With a bit of luck, we will see a spike in book sales when the movie arrives in the UK on 7 September and in the US two weeks later.

C’mon Dredd.  Do something.

Danny Champion
Danny Champion

Danny Champion is a freelance writer and artist. Follow CandyAppleFox on Twitter.

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SREW
SREW
11 years ago

Mega-City One doesn’t look much like Mega-City One in the trailer, but then someone said that what you see in the new trailer is somewhere outside Mega-City One… my worry is that the new film will be too serious and too cautious not to be like the Stallone version – hope it’s good, or that’ll be Dredd’s popularity killed off for another 20 years!

Danny Champion
Danny Champion
11 years ago
Reply to  SREW

Interesting. How else would they do it for the screen?… MC1 I mean. What did you expect to see? I think the more they distance themselves from the Stallone version, the better… no?

I also think Dredd Could’ve been a bit older personally. It’s like Cap in the Avengers/Cap movies, far too young, not enough old fashioned wisdom by a stretch.

Ed Campbell
11 years ago

Stallone’s Judge Dredd is still one of my favourite movies. Sly’s acting wasn’t great by any stretch of the imagination, but the star of the show is Armand Assante. Rico was just a bad ass, and I hope there will be a villain of the same scale in the new movie.

Ed Campbell
11 years ago

Cap would’ve only been 26 when he was defrosted in teh comics. Chris Evans is definately older than that.

dannyjameschamp
11 years ago
Reply to  Ed Campbell

Did you like it because it was cr*p? like… a guilty pleasure?

dannyjameschamp
11 years ago
Reply to  Ed Campbell

31 apparently. I think 26 in the 1940’s was a lot older than 31 is now, especially if you’ve been to war. I just think he lacks that leadership and military experience in the movies. I need him to seem older than he is (Cap)… weathered. He’s too wet and would never take charge in the movies. He doesn’t look as cool as the others either, his mask is kind of clunky. Room for improvement.

Ed Campbell
11 years ago

It played like a B movie, and sometimes they are the best movies. Like Machete or Hobo With a Shotgun.

I didn’t have too much exposure to Judge Dredd, so that was my first experience to the character. I liked it.

If Batman and Robin was the very first Batman movie, I would have been ticked because I love the character Batman and that movie didn’t represent Batman properly.

There is a lot of things I really like with Stallone’s Dredd, the part I hated most was Rob Schnieder. But that was the 90’s and for some stupid reason they thought action movies should have comedy in them. Since Sly couldn’t tell jokes as Dredd, someone had to.

Danny Champion
Danny Champion
11 years ago

You like what you like man. I’m kind of glad they didn’t make Dredd tell the jokes… thinking about it. Good point.
What WAS your first Batman experience? Just curious.

Ed Campbell
11 years ago

First exposure to Batman was in 1979(ish). I found an old tin Batmobile in the spare bedroom in our house. It was from the last 60’s and was either my parents or my uncles. It wasn’t too long after then that I saw the Adam West Batman series. That’s why Tim Burton’s Batman is amazing. It showed Batman the way it was supposed to be.

So I can really see your point about Sly’s Dredd not being the right Dredd. Hopefully Karl Urban will play the character more comic-accurate… but that doesn’t happen all the time on film.