Wilful Ramblings

Apologies, what follows contains some ranting and the bulk of it is about 10 years late.

First, here is some context. The subject came up in conversation at the office this morning. We were talking about films and how ‘B’ movies can be done well or poorly. My boss was giving me his review of the Chronicles of Riddick (his verdict: ok if you had no real expectations of it being any good…). The subject moved onto film versions of comic characters in general and how a large proportion of Hollywood movies simply seemed to miss the point and not transfer the spirit of the strip to the screen. With the corollary that those movies that managed capture and honour the spirit of the original often ended up being the best of their type.

So I cranked up my dusty and long forgotten rant about how badly the Judge Dredd movie had been put together and my ‘ideal’ version. I still actually quite like the movie despite some of its obvious suckiness but I regard it as a lost opportunity.

Fundamentally I thought that the plot was used didn’t work all that well. The problem you have is that Dredd has no grey areas in his character. The whole point is that he is inflexible because he is The Law™ after all!

So this is 1995 and as far as I can remember at the height of X Files mania? I felt that the character that was most missed from the film was Cassandra Anderson and the whole of the Psi Division angle was unused. To get your fan boy’s bums on cinema seats you would benefit by having a Scully-like figure and in this case you could invert the X files relationship with the ‘straight as a die’ practical Dredd playing off against the ‘believe everything’ Anderson. (Though it might break the budget, I suggested at the time someone like Sharon Stone could do the part).

The early scenes of the movie would not necessarily be too dissimilar to the movie as it was shot, except with the need to set up Anderson’s character and demonstrate her telepathic abilities.

My major beef was the rate at which the script writers burned years of Dredd story arcs in almost throwaway chunks. These seemed to be stitched in as vignettes to please the fans, eg the use of Block War and then The Angel Gang. An the ABC warriors reference, hell why not stick Middenface McNulty or Halo Jones in there too! And as for that jarringly crappy Hollywood in-joke about Aspen, winter haunt of the tinsel-town set, now being a penal colony. What’s wrong with Titan? You might not want to go down the route of having your stars disfigured by the modifications needed to survive the atmosphere there as per the canon but even so…

But I would chuck the whole Dredd and Rico plot. Though it might have been chronologically ‘correct’ to start with this story, I would rather bring in Anderson and the Dark Judges.

Obviously, you would need to find a plot device that allows the Dark Judges to ‘make sense’ in the internal logic of the film as you can’t always get away with the old dimensional cross-rip macguffin but I believe that they would make great bad guys and the CGI and effects people would have a field day.

Take a moment to imagine WETA let loose on Death, Fire, Fear and Mortis. (Sold already aren't you?)

So a skeleton plot:

Act One: set up Dredd, Anderson and Mega City One. And the daily life of MC1 preferably without crass info-dumping!

Act Two: A cinematic set piece that introduces the Dark Judges and shows the beginning of their reign of supernatural terror.

Act Three: Dredd leading remnants of Judges in support of Anderson fighting back against them. And resolves with their banishment or destruction? Although I have to say that I would probably not follow the canon story where Anderson ends up encased in Boing™ as the denouement! You could end with her self sacrifice in a more cinematic fashion.

See it sounds better already doesn’t it…