Whats even cooler about this reading of the film is that the film was shot primarily in Cape Town, South Africa. All the ideas the film postulates and displays are realities for many people there. Its frankly scary when the fictional world resembles the place its actually made in so well. Its a shame this movie bombed so badly - i would have loved to see these creators take on other Dredd stuff like Death and the Cursed earth.
Thanks for this essay. Dredd deserves so much more credit than it gets in the mainstream. I wish the Marvel/DC film franchises could be even half as good of a moral tale told via action as Dredd.
As I recall, the comic books say that there's a strained but working social security system in Megacity One, that keeps the unemployed from outright starving, save for a proportionally small underclass with no citizenship. The city would have been engulfed by riots long ago without it. But there's no safety or hope for the better. People don't join gangs because they'd die of starvation, but because it gives at least a small modicum of protection from victimhood, that the Judges can't provide. Plus, especially for the youth, there's simply absolutely nothing else to do.
In the comics, critical things like food production seem to either be done by robots or require very few humans. So it makes sense that the Justice Department is able to hand out free food to keep most people from starving and build super-crowded apartment blocks to house most of the people, but not provide meaningful employment.
In the comic citizens leaving school attend a class in how to not get driven insane by lifelong unemployment by taking up a hobby (most of which are themselve rather crazy making).
I really love your Renegade Cuts, they're some of the most insightful "reviews" on TH-cam and elevate the vlog to the video essay. Plus you always pick the movies I like watching!
I also liked how the movie turned up the colours during the slowmo scenes. The brightest parts of the movie are also probably the brightest parts of their lives, but it's something illegal that gets literally shot down by the law.
I don't think they're mentioned in the movie, but the prisons in Judge Dredd are small cubes that can compress a decades long sentence into weeks. It's all punishment, no rehabilitation, and the criminals are thrown right back onto the streets. The only difference is they're aged and out of practice, and less capable criminals.
This is years late but thank you for this read of Dredd. I love the character, especially his 3 amazing Batman crossovers, but the read of trying to find heroics in fascism is valuable is finding common ground with and rehabilitating fascists. Thank you for your hard work in this and other videos.
THANK YOU! I've been arguing for so long that there's more to Dredd (both comics and film) than people realise. Here, you've stated the case far more eloquently than I ever could.
Dredd is Dirty Harry turned up to eleven, and this was shown in a joking way as he lived ,in the comics, at Rowdy Yates block, another well known Clint Eastwood role.
I don't think Dredd is particularly fascistic. More of an authoritarian. Fascists have an ideology about extreme nationalism and celebration of millitary : this does not appear anywhere in Dredd. I view Dredd more as an experiment of what happens when you don't separate executive and judiciary powers and why there needs to be an oversight over police, or an inevitable police brutality will follow.
I thought this was a great movie when I first saw it in the cinema. Thanks to your analysis, I want to watch it again. I cannot understand why this movie isn't popular. You are the first person I've come across who has made a commentary about it and I really enjoyed it.
Awesome video! One quick note: I don't know if the prison system in this world is overcrowded. They Judge's threaten criminal with imprisonment in "Iso-Cubes." Which I assume means they carry out the entirety of their sentences in solitary confinement. I suspect their overall prison population is enormous, but as to the prisoner's general day-to-day contact with one another, there could be absolutely none.
I think he couldn‘t really get the gentleman part, maybe the playboy/billionaire part though , yet he would be PERFECT for the action part of „Bad Man“ which still means he would only get 1.5/3 parts of Batman’s personality (Christian Bale got 2.75/3, in my humble opinion). Great idea though👍🏻 But man would I love a „Dredd“ sequel...
i agree! how people perceive them Judge Dredd is more accurate then Dredd, American audience simply just aren't ready for what Judge Dredd originally represent, it is a story or stories that suppose to be told as a satire not gritty dark or bright or whatever...
First video of your's I've seen, I quite liked it. I walked into this film at the cinema with a few friends as we had some time to burn and we were thinking it'd be so so... how wrong we were, and every now and again lament that this take on Dredd never got a sequel, under rated when it first came out. I've liked and subscribed, I hope your other videos are both as entertaining and thought provoking.
It's an absolutely magnificent homage to the better class of 1980's action films. The story and characters are simple, but in the best sense of the word -- there's nothing unnecessary tagged on to take attention away from what is important.
This film was badly mis-marketed and under-promoted; in the UK at least, it was released only in 3D (which people have got thoroughly fed up of at this point). It also had the misfortune to come out around the same time as The Raid (a film with a similar premise of cops trapped in a building full of criminals) and had to deal with the baggage of the campy Stallone film from 1995.
Lightice1: I think you have it the wrong way around. Judge Dredd (the comic) inspired those 1980's action films in the first place. (RoboCop being of-course the most blatant example.) The film isn't as much homaging those film as it's trying to be faithful to the tone of the source material which those films also tried to replicate.
It's an interesting analysis, though I would have liked to see a comparison to the old Stallone film and contrasting how the two movies approach the satire aspect of the judges and society they portray, because for all the Stallone movie's faults, it had a great scene when Dredd is framed for a murder and placed on a prison transport next to a man that he himself convicted on shaky grounds, and when Dredd tries to justify his previous arrest of the man by stating that the law makes no mistake, the man simply responds with "Well, if the law makes no mistakes, how come you got here?".
+Renegade Cut That's probably the best analysis of Dredd I've seen. As a Brit, I'm conscious of the fact that Americans might not be familiar with the character, but that was really enjoyable.
there was the'96 Stallone film thst had it's moments but the Dredd film was a well built machine.Own both on dvd. Guess I had the same hope 4 Dredd as the Lucasfilm material: that they would end up w/dedicated production companies that would go n2 overdrive putting out constant product that kept true 2 earliest imagings of their universes.I must b an overgrown idiot 2 think that there wouldn't be a mouse house sellout w/Lucasfilm & that anybody in appreciable #s would gravitate 2 Megacity 1's harsh & horrible playground of dystopia.Way of the🌎 I guess
I grieve when I see the message of Dredd as a whole and the message of this movie pass people by, there seem to be fascistoid assholes all around that just see the surface level and just hail Dredd as the hero, even more so with this version than the comic Dredd.
That was a very interesting analysis. You could definitely see the comparison with how some cops are today...especially in Chicago, where there is so much crime going on that some of the police actually do very little. Like Dredd said, can only respond to 6%.
I agree Stallone's Dredd had a big budget style, while Urban's Dredd had a low budget substance, combined the permutations of both, you've got the perfect Judge Dredd movie.
I have always seen judge Dredd as more of a metaphor for order not justice. Justice is the radical belief but the real goal is order it reminds me of cyberpunk where there is a goon squad that well only respond to a gun shot and will quell the problem with force.
Nice really nice please tell me that you can re-upload your video about The LEGO Movie soon because that was one of my favorite videos and it has bin nowhere to be fund for almost one and a half year
Dredd is perfect with that, and while I disagree vehemently with the notions of intersectionality and the rest of it, but I will say that dredd is one of the few movies that doesn't bring up anything of differences, something many films that try to be of it's caliber fail miserably. I like dredd and 40k and things of that nature due also to this. There is no one group to be called the "good guys" or the "bad guys" there are grays and blacks and maybe a lighter shade of gray in it, but not much lighter.
The world of Judge Dredd is clearly explained in the comics and if anything is how such a world should be, the street judges are what is needed to maintain order and without them the mega cities would go into the trash and it would have all been for nothing. It’s like bearing the weight of a pair of crutches or a full body cast or a wheel chair. As the Earth heals and slowly recovers, the mega cities are humanity’s last hope at civilization coming back and everyone is gonna suffer in them due to overpopulation, drugs to take away the sadness, Crime syndicates vying for power and wealth as they always have and everyday crimes because no one is perfect, however, mutants and xenophobia, actual aliens, demon creatures from parallel earths and zombies are just to make things interesting as well as just being another symptom of nuking civilization when we were so close to space travel and etc.
Dredd was never a hero, glad you acknowledge this. Dredd was the protagonist, but was a fascist cop in a fascist system. His character arc in the comics went from I Am The Law - to Maybe The Law Can Be Slightly Bent On This One Occasion, over the span of 40 years. He's a great character. Again; never a hero.
I strongly disagree with your criticisms of the movies governing principles, the strongman government in this movie is more of a necessity and utilitarianism rather than an imposition of preference.Also, I wouldn't call it 'fascist' the same way one shouldn't call any left leaning policy 'communist'. The existing Police State in Dredd's dystopian society may not be the idealistic 'Nanny State' that treats criminals as if it was a medical condition simply because it doesn't work in that reality since a government cannot exercise altruism without imposing order first. Evidence of such is the various human civilizations throughout history in which the most successful and most powerful empires are those that prioritize order first only to reach a point where the stability is at its height then its people suddenly are seduced to the abstract form of social justice to the point that they disdain the very pillar that holds their mighty nation on a pinnacle of humanity. We'd like to think that the criminals around us are criminals because they weren't given an option because of society, it is a half-truth no different from the people who think criminals are criminals because they chose to be criminals, however Dredd is a person who is not paltry to a conversation of some political left-right spectrum, he is the personification of the LAW and the latin adage of Dura lex sed Lex.
My only problem with this movie were the ultra slow mo scenes, because they basically date the movie to being what it was originally "Dredd 3D", but they just take me out of the movie because they are so much different looking and it's just too obvious.
I have to say that i never saw the fascist view from this films world. I saw it more as a world, becouse of nuclier war and massiv overpopulation, the justice Department are doing as mutch as they can in a faild world. Becouse the world i don't fink became bad becouse of fascism, but the world became so big it have no time for anyting. Dreed, i also saw, to be the best exempel of a judge in this world. He know the lawbook in and out. He has sympaty for civiliens, and tries to not kill kids who are there to kill him. But that is at lest my opinion
Whats even cooler about this reading of the film is that the film was shot primarily in Cape Town, South Africa. All the ideas the film postulates and displays are realities for many people there. Its frankly scary when the fictional world resembles the place its actually made in so well.
Its a shame this movie bombed so badly - i would have loved to see these creators take on other Dredd stuff like Death and the Cursed earth.
a great movie and a criminally underrated one, just like this channel!
Thanks for this essay. Dredd deserves so much more credit than it gets in the mainstream. I wish the Marvel/DC film franchises could be even half as good of a moral tale told via action as Dredd.
As I recall, the comic books say that there's a strained but working social security system in Megacity One, that keeps the unemployed from outright starving, save for a proportionally small underclass with no citizenship. The city would have been engulfed by riots long ago without it. But there's no safety or hope for the better. People don't join gangs because they'd die of starvation, but because it gives at least a small modicum of protection from victimhood, that the Judges can't provide. Plus, especially for the youth, there's simply absolutely nothing else to do.
In the comics, critical things like food production seem to either be done by robots or require very few humans. So it makes sense that the Justice Department is able to hand out free food to keep most people from starving and build super-crowded apartment blocks to house most of the people, but not provide meaningful employment.
In the comic citizens leaving school attend a class in how to not get driven insane by lifelong unemployment by taking up a hobby (most of which are themselve rather crazy making).
Two Renegade Cut's in one day? What a treat.
I really love your Renegade Cuts, they're some of the most insightful "reviews" on TH-cam and elevate the vlog to the video essay. Plus you always pick the movies I like watching!
I also liked how the movie turned up the colours during the slowmo scenes. The brightest parts of the movie are also probably the brightest parts of their lives, but it's something illegal that gets literally shot down by the law.
I don't think they're mentioned in the movie, but the prisons in Judge Dredd are small cubes that can compress a decades long sentence into weeks. It's all punishment, no rehabilitation, and the criminals are thrown right back onto the streets. The only difference is they're aged and out of practice, and less capable criminals.
This is years late but thank you for this read of Dredd. I love the character, especially his 3 amazing Batman crossovers, but the read of trying to find heroics in fascism is valuable is finding common ground with and rehabilitating fascists. Thank you for your hard work in this and other videos.
THANK YOU! I've been arguing for so long that there's more to Dredd (both comics and film) than people realise. Here, you've stated the case far more eloquently than I ever could.
Dredd is Dirty Harry turned up to eleven, and this was shown in a joking way as he lived ,in the comics, at Rowdy Yates block, another well known Clint Eastwood role.
One of my favorite movies, because it shows what Scifi is capable of, and the amount of issues it can bring up and make comment on.
I don't think Dredd is particularly fascistic. More of an authoritarian. Fascists have an ideology about extreme nationalism and celebration of millitary : this does not appear anywhere in Dredd. I view Dredd more as an experiment of what happens when you don't separate executive and judiciary powers and why there needs to be an oversight over police, or an inevitable police brutality will follow.
Wish more people went to the theater to see Dredd. Best use of 3D so far.
I thought this was a great movie when I first saw it in the cinema. Thanks to your analysis, I want to watch it again. I cannot understand why this movie isn't popular. You are the first person I've come across who has made a commentary about it and I really enjoyed it.
brilliant analysis. That's all I can say, it's just the best breakdown of Dredd i've ever seen.
You just made me love one of my favorite movies even MORE! THANK YOU SIR!
Awesome video! One quick note: I don't know if the prison system in this world is overcrowded. They Judge's threaten criminal with imprisonment in "Iso-Cubes." Which I assume means they carry out the entirety of their sentences in solitary confinement. I suspect their overall prison population is enormous, but as to the prisoner's general day-to-day contact with one another, there could be absolutely none.
Also been linked to the Warhammer universe, in which an emperor takes over mankind and there are arguably no good guys at all. Only war.
KARL URBAN FOR BATMAN
-me in 2013
I hadn't thought of that, but I am 110% with you.
NOOOOOOOO! MORE DREDD!!
No, Karl Urban for Judge Dredd Mega City One tv show 2019
I think he couldn‘t really get the gentleman part, maybe the playboy/billionaire part though , yet he would be PERFECT for the action part of „Bad Man“ which still means he would only get 1.5/3 parts of Batman’s personality (Christian Bale got 2.75/3, in my humble opinion).
Great idea though👍🏻
But man would I love a „Dredd“ sequel...
is that what andersen saw reading dredd's mind? his underlying doubt in the system, or some such?
Cool a double upload! Much appreciated Leon.
Good lord your videos are incisive and insightful. Thank you for another fantastic video.
I had to check the date on this video because of how shockingly prophetic this has turned out.
i agree! how people perceive them Judge Dredd is more accurate then Dredd, American audience simply just aren't ready for what Judge Dredd originally represent, it is a story or stories that suppose to be told as a satire not gritty dark or bright or whatever...
two renegade cuts in one day? He really does love us
First video of your's I've seen, I quite liked it. I walked into this film at the cinema with a few friends as we had some time to burn and we were thinking it'd be so so... how wrong we were, and every now and again lament that this take on Dredd never got a sequel, under rated when it first came out. I've liked and subscribed, I hope your other videos are both as entertaining and thought provoking.
Originally had zero interest in this, but after seeing this video I think I might have to check it out after all
Nightmare Lyra it's so good
Nightmare Lyra i felt the same but a friend recommended it to me. Really pleasantly suprised!!
It's an absolutely magnificent homage to the better class of 1980's action films. The story and characters are simple, but in the best sense of the word -- there's nothing unnecessary tagged on to take attention away from what is important.
This film was badly mis-marketed and under-promoted; in the UK at least, it was released only in 3D (which people have got thoroughly fed up of at this point). It also had the misfortune to come out around the same time as The Raid (a film with a similar premise of cops trapped in a building full of criminals) and had to deal with the baggage of the campy Stallone film from 1995.
Lightice1: I think you have it the wrong way around. Judge Dredd (the comic) inspired those 1980's action films in the first place. (RoboCop being of-course the most blatant example.) The film isn't as much homaging those film as it's trying to be faithful to the tone of the source material which those films also tried to replicate.
It's an interesting analysis, though I would have liked to see a comparison to the old Stallone film and contrasting how the two movies approach the satire aspect of the judges and society they portray, because for all the Stallone movie's faults, it had a great scene when Dredd is framed for a murder and placed on a prison transport next to a man that he himself convicted on shaky grounds, and when Dredd tries to justify his previous arrest of the man by stating that the law makes no mistake, the man simply responds with "Well, if the law makes no mistakes, how come you got here?".
I want another Dredd movie so bad.
6:40 2020 says hi.
Amazing cut as always
Truly amazing renegade cut
+Renegade Cut
That's probably the best analysis of Dredd I've seen. As a Brit, I'm conscious of the fact that Americans might not be familiar with the character, but that was really enjoyable.
there was the'96 Stallone film thst had it's moments but the Dredd film was a well built machine.Own both on dvd.
Guess I had the same hope 4 Dredd as the Lucasfilm material:
that they would end up w/dedicated production companies that would go n2 overdrive putting out constant product that kept true 2 earliest imagings of their universes.I must b an overgrown idiot 2 think that there wouldn't be a mouse house sellout
w/Lucasfilm & that anybody in appreciable #s would gravitate 2 Megacity 1's harsh & horrible playground of
dystopia.Way of the🌎
I guess
I grieve when I see the message of Dredd as a whole and the message of this movie pass people by, there seem to be fascistoid assholes all around that just see the surface level and just hail Dredd as the hero, even more so with this version than the comic Dredd.
i love this movie, want a sequel
One of your best. Thanks for that.
That was a very interesting analysis. You could definitely see the comparison with how some cops are today...especially in Chicago, where there is so much crime going on that some of the police actually do very little. Like Dredd said, can only respond to 6%.
This movie is so good
Dredd was an awesome ride through and through.
I'm interested in seeing this film now
Thumbs up for the bibliography at the end.
I need to re-watch dread. I remember really liking it once I'd recalibrated my brain to stop expecting mindles action schlock.
I tried to watch this video a few times before the reupload, but it woukd always say that it's not availabe in my country or something to that degree.
Such a fucking great movie.
I really like this one.
Did you time travel to 2020 before writing this? Great movie, great commentary.
For some people it has always been 2020.
Dredd needs more love.
Re-upload? Did something happen?
I agree Stallone's Dredd had a big budget style, while Urban's Dredd had a low budget substance, combined the permutations of both, you've got the perfect Judge Dredd movie.
I have always seen judge Dredd as more of a metaphor for order not justice. Justice is the radical belief but the real goal is order it reminds me of cyberpunk where there is a goon squad that well only respond to a gun shot and will quell the problem with force.
One of the best actions ever
Oh wait, this wasn't made this week? Just goes to show...
Have you made a 28 days later video if not could you
Thanks TH-cam home for suggest me this video. I may actually found a good channel
reupload?
What a crying shame we'll never a see a sequel. - at least not by the same people.
Nice really nice please tell me that you can re-upload your video about The LEGO Movie soon because that was one of my favorite videos and it has bin nowhere to be fund for almost one and a half year
Is This a Re-Release?
I don't know why, but your "Only God Forgives" analysis is not showing up on your TH-cam page. I would really like to see it.
Great !
Nice!
You missed that the MaMa clan wiped out all the other gangs
Dredd is perfect with that, and while I disagree vehemently with the notions of intersectionality and the rest of it, but I will say that dredd is one of the few movies that doesn't bring up anything of differences, something many films that try to be of it's caliber fail miserably. I like dredd and 40k and things of that nature due also to this. There is no one group to be called the "good guys" or the "bad guys" there are grays and blacks and maybe a lighter shade of gray in it, but not much lighter.
The world of Judge Dredd is clearly explained in the comics and if anything is how such a world should be, the street judges are what is needed to maintain order and without them the mega cities would go into the trash and it would have all been for nothing. It’s like bearing the weight of a pair of crutches or a full body cast or a wheel chair. As the Earth heals and slowly recovers, the mega cities are humanity’s last hope at civilization coming back and everyone is gonna suffer in them due to overpopulation, drugs to take away the sadness, Crime syndicates vying for power and wealth as they always have and everyday crimes because no one is perfect, however, mutants and xenophobia, actual aliens, demon creatures from parallel earths and zombies are just to make things interesting as well as just being another symptom of nuking civilization when we were so close to space travel and etc.
Dredd was never a hero, glad you acknowledge this. Dredd was the protagonist, but was a fascist cop in a fascist system. His character arc in the comics went from I Am The Law - to Maybe The Law Can Be Slightly Bent On This One Occasion, over the span of 40 years. He's a great character. Again; never a hero.
Wait this is similar to The Raid
But Dredd did open up a gatlin gun with armor piercing rounds on an entire floor of innocent people
iso cubes dude
🐐
I never watched this one
Boy this sure aged didn't it
Bitchin'.
One could also argue that without the threat of Judges, crime would be even more widespread and intense.
I strongly disagree with your criticisms of the movies governing principles, the strongman government in this movie is more of a necessity and utilitarianism rather than an imposition of preference.Also, I wouldn't call it 'fascist' the same way one shouldn't call any left leaning policy 'communist'. The existing Police State in Dredd's dystopian society may not be the idealistic 'Nanny State' that treats criminals as if it was a medical condition simply because it doesn't work in that reality since a government cannot exercise altruism without imposing order first. Evidence of such is the various human civilizations throughout history in which the most successful and most powerful empires are those that prioritize order first only to reach a point where the stability is at its height then its people suddenly are seduced to the abstract form of social justice to the point that they disdain the very pillar that holds their mighty nation on a pinnacle of humanity. We'd like to think that the criminals around us are criminals because they weren't given an option because of society, it is a half-truth no different from the people who think criminals are criminals because they chose to be criminals, however Dredd is a person who is not paltry to a conversation of some political left-right spectrum, he is the personification of the LAW and the latin adage of Dura lex sed Lex.
My only problem with this movie were the ultra slow mo scenes, because they basically date the movie to being what it was originally "Dredd 3D", but they just take me out of the movie because they are so much different looking and it's just too obvious.
if this piece of shit movie is so great, why not make it an original IP cyberpunk movie!?
I thought this movie sucked, I guess I was wrong.
I have to say that i never saw the fascist view from this films world. I saw it more as a world, becouse of nuclier war and massiv overpopulation, the justice Department are doing as mutch as they can in a faild world. Becouse the world i don't fink became bad becouse of fascism, but the world became so big it have no time for anyting. Dreed, i also saw, to be the best exempel of a judge in this world. He know the lawbook in and out. He has sympaty for civiliens, and tries to not kill kids who are there to kill him.
But that is at lest my opinion
the word 'Fascism' is almost entirely meaningless ... almost any English person would accept 'bully' as a synonym for 'Fascist