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ORIGINAL: Rgirvan44

The actual Empire front cover is very cool - he looks great I think. 

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Sounds like Dreadhead123, judging from your comments and the picture you posted your looking for something more in keeping with the look of the Stallone Dredd, which would be a massive mistake.

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ORIGINAL: dreddhead123
So basically what we're getting with Dredd 3D 2012 is

A) A guy that looks nothing like Judge Dredd

B) Running about in a uniform that looks nothing like Judge Dredd

Heck, why not just call the film

Soldier Man With Helmet Shoots And Kills People In 3D

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ORIGINAL: Dpp1978
There are certainly times where calling a person a cunt is not only reasonable, it is a gross understatement.

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ORIGINAL: elab49
I really wish I could go down to see Privates

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ORIGINAL: dreddhead123

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Sounds like Dreadhead123, judging from your comments and the picture you posted your looking for something more in keeping with the look of the Stallone Dredd, which would be a massive mistake.

Well,even taking into account Dredd is an exaggerated character looks-wise, Urban still looks NOTHING like Judge Dredd.

http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/8976/urbanvsdredd3.jpg

He's got no Dredd chin at all.

And the uniform looks nothing like the original comic book version:

http://img855.imageshack.us/img855/6034/dreddvsdredduniform1.jpg

So basically what we're getting with Dredd 3D 2012 is

A) A guy that looks nothing like Judge Dredd

B) Running about in a uniform that looks nothing like Judge Dredd

Heck, why not just call the film

Soldier Man With Helmet Shoots And Kills People In 3D

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ORIGINAL: sauchieboy

Arguing over whether the new film faithfully represents the look of the 2000AD original is fruitless, since one of the comic’s strengths is the heterogeneity of approach it has historically encouraged in its artist’s depictions of Megacity One’s premiere fascist, including whether to portray Dredd with stubble or with realistically proportioned human anatomy and physiognomy. There is no Golden Age Marvel house-style to adhere to or standard model for any film venture to copy or deviate from in adapting Dredd for the screen: they’re free to do anything they want as long as it looks cool. I don’t care whether the uniform is an exact replica of the comic design; Dredd (2012)'s makers are entirely justified in changing the uniform to make it look cooler or work better on screen, but the flimsy, outsize plastic helmet that appears to hover slightly above the head of the wearer and the crotched Kevlar cardigan are not cool.

The argument that Dredd (2012) is portraying an earlier era of Dredd history, and that the production design of the film reflects this, is an egregious piece of post-rationalisation on the part of the film’s producers. Budgetary strictures are the reason they can’t attempt to match John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra’s conception of Dredd or his milieu; not even the earliest Dredd stories show him tooling around in a Nissan S.U.V. Financial restraints are, again, the impetus behind scriptwriter Alex Garland’s determination to concentrate on the ‘visceral’ aspects of Wagner and Grant’s stories; reducing the outrageous ambition, humour and genre-defying invention of their work to familiar shooting and shouting fare, but with the protagonists wearing unaccountably silly hats. That will not be cool.

Nor are the promised future instalments of the intended franchise likely to provide the increased budget, invention or ambition Dredd (2012)’s producers dangle in front of us like shiny keys to misdirect our critical faculties. I don’t know if any sequel has ever enjoyed the significant budget increase that would be required to take the modest Dredd (2012) from single-location shooter to the mega-budget, gonzo effects-showcase an adaptation of the strip would be, but the guiding principals of Hollywood are ‘if ain’t broke don’t fix it’ and the law of diminishing returns. Why would they risk their money making our dreams come true when we’re willing to swallow the same old crap again and again?

It’s a pity no-one seems interested in attempting to portray the unique and distinctive elements of Dredd’s world on screen, especially considering that your local multiplex’s back teeth are swimming in the rising effluential tide of tawdry comic adaptations made possible by cheap computer processing power and our inexhaustible faith that, unlike previous sundry misfires, this time they’ll get it right. We’re like victims of domestic abuse: always able to be convinced that this time it will be different; that they really love us; that somehow it was our fault it went wrong before, or that we’re not able to put up with their crap without complaining. That is not cool.

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ORIGINAL: eldospinks

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Edit - please keep fights from other sites on those sites and off Empire please. 

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ORIGINAL: sauchieboy

Spaldron, I agree the real meat in Dredd stories is found in shorter, focused stories; most Dredd epics are notable more for the scale of their destruction than their narrative invention.
 
My reservations regarding Dredd (2012)’s determination to observe the precepts of Greek theatre concerning unity of time and location are that it limits any opportunity to show the extremes of wider Megacity One society and demonstrate the correlation between the endlessly inventive, self-destructive idiocy of the citizenry and the brutal coercion of Justice Dept. All the explicatory dialogue in the world can’t match the communicative power of a widescreen vista filled by rioting fatties being baton-charged by a small squad of judges.
 
Without the context provided by a city where the genre-fucking narrative audacity of Cry Of The Werewolf takes place just around the corner from the political and human tragedy of Gort and Hester Hyman, Dredd’s not much more than Harry Callaghan in Blue Oyster Bar-threads. DNA may well be correct in thinking people will want to see such a character in the familiar context of a Die Hard scenario, but I’m still not sure that would lead future films to adopt a much wider perspective.
 
Imagine if Spielberg had pitched Jurassic Park with the line: “we don’t have the money or technology to do all the cool dinosaur stuff from the book; so instead we’ve set the action in a small shed, long before the first park’s built. The focus is more on character than spectacle; the maths guy has to use his skills to escape, we find out how those two palaeontologists get together and the climax is the birth of John Hammond’s two weird little grandkids”. If that had been greenlit, and if it was a hit, I don’t see why any studio would splurge on the CGI dinosaurs for a sequel. Maybe they'd set the action in a slightly bigger shed. 
 
If Judge Dredd (1995) had been succesful, do you think we'd be getting a darker take on the character or watching Judge Dredd Vs Rocky III?
 

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ORIGINAL: Spaldron

Thing is the big budget, epic MC1 vista shots and battles have already been done in Judge Dredd (1995) and that was crap. And just because this film is on a lower budget doesn't mean it won't look awesome or have some scale. You can achieve a lot more with today's technology than you could 15 years ago, just watch District 9. CGI is a lot cheaper these days and don't forget, like District 9 they're filming in South Africa where presumably rates are super low.

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ORIGINAL: nemesis prime

little off topic, but i was scrolling through the comments and was reminded of something.
didn't someone on a previous dredd board warn us that dreadhead123 and superdan are the same person? and that they were banned from various dredd and 2000ad boards for being not quite right in the head?

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ORIGINAL: sauchieboy

The new Dredd film will only be about two hours long and its makers had to choose what elements of the comic they spent their limited resources upon. Possible sequels may choose to depict other aspects of Dredd’s world. All these things I know and understand.

I only cited Requiem For A Heavyweight, Cry Of The Werewolf and Rebellion to demonstrate the variety of subject matter, tone and narrative modes employed by the strip's creators (often within the same story), not to demand their inclusion in a film that has already finished principal photography. The afore-mentioned stories illustrate why I think the new film’s makers have erred in concentrating on a singular aspect of the material they have licensed: they are all simultaneously funny, tragic, scary and visually spectacular; a trick most of the more successful Dredd tales manage to pull off and one worth emulating in any film adaptation.

By his own admission (in the article which accompanies the pictures we're all discussing) Alex Garland's reductive concentration on the 'visceral' aspects of Dredd sidelines the 'humour' and 'satire', which- in my opinion- would distinguish Dredd (2012) from the massed ranks of dour, dumb and derivative genre movies it will be competing with. If it’s viscera you want, you can’t do much better than the ambush scenes in America and it’s companion Total War; stories which are tragic, original and thought provoking as well as bloodthirsty and wierd. I’m not arguing that Dredd shouldn’t be a violent action movie; rather, that there's no practical reason it can't be a hilarious, gross-out, fantastical, police procedural thriller as well.

For example, in Requiem, it's possible to laugh at the ridiculousness of the hero (somebody remind me of his name, it wasn't Two-Ton Tony Tubbs); empathise with his dignity and quiet determination to be the best; enjoy the story's Rocky parody and satirical use of US sports commentary (a Wagner/Grant staple); as well as simultaneously revelling in and being repulsed by the gusto with which Carlos Ezquerra depicts the grand guignol of The World Heavyweight Eating Championship (what the fuck are they gorging from those huge hoppers- sometimes it looks like elephant offal). Dredd's investigation of the body in the pit serves as a framework to contain the story’s disparate elements, which never jar; never disrupt the impetus of the wider narrative; and leave you wondering what the hell you’ve just seen and how you can get your hands on some more.

It won’t have escaped the attention of those of you who’ve managed to stay awake this far that there’s nothing particularly new in any of the individual story elements mentioned above, which I claim would make Dredd (2012) a unique and distinctive cinematic proposition. Great big fat guys have featured in Austin Powers and Se7en; Dodgeball and Robocop sent up sport and newscasters respectively; and Clive James showed us those real-life eating competitions which were counter-intuitively dominated by skinny Japanese guys suggestively necking horribly phallic hotdogs. Don’t worry; I have a pseudo-intellectual rationalisation that will do the heavy lifting for me and get us all out of here in time for dinner.

If you’re keen to avoid summary execution under Sharia law, there’s never a good time to cite Salman Rushdie, but I’ll make an exception and reference his essay How Newness Enters the World. Rushdie takes the timeworn observation that there’s no such thing as a new idea as the starting point for his theory of Hybridity; the essence of which is that; no matter how hoary the material, stories, characters and ideas are made new and interesting from cross-pollination with other narrative forms and transplantation to foreign cultural contexts. It’s the ability of Dredd to incorporate and reconceptualise familiar material from different sources to form something which is unique and compelling on its own terms that forms the basis of its appeal, for me at least.

Dredd is many things to many people, there’s no one correct visual or narrative approach to portraying him or his world. A Die Hard knockoff action movie might very well be a sound basis for bringing Dredd to the big screen; I'm hoping the film's makers remember the source material is capable of incorporating elements of The Evil Dead, Blazing Saddles and Full Metal Jacket as well. How much did those films cost?