If you saw Dredd and thought, "Couldn't they have cut out all the parts without gratuitous CGI blood, and still pretty much have the same movie?": Yes! And now someone has proven that, cutting out all the film's superfluous legal system explanation and not-CGI-blood-soaked parts, leaving us with just a frowning core of Karl Urban morosely killing a bunch of people. (Spoiler: all these people die horrible deaths.)
The first trailer for Dredd strongly hinted that a slow-motion drug in the film might function equally as a source of conflict and a bizarre contrivance to excuse the film's excess of slow-mo action. This first clip from the film quickly (but also realllly slowly) confirms this theory, with Karl Urban taking the video's full one-minute running time just to dispatch four guys with a machine gun. Adding several more level of gratuitousness, the clip also features CGI blood that literally bursts out of the frame (into the letterboxing!), seas of grossly rippling flesh, an out-of-focus tit, and, because that still isn't excessive enough, a slowly precipitating haze of miniature lens flares permeating throughout. At last, visual evidence of the aether visionary director Zack Snyder has long-theorized as the transmission medium for totally sweet fight scenes.
You have to give some credit to Dredd that, in adapting its comic book namesake, it at least looks nothing like the miserable Sylvester Stallone/Rob Schneider vehicle of summer 1995. It does, however, look quite a bit like this year's The Raid: Redemption, only with less martial arts, way more grumbled catchphrases and comically-exaggerated frowning.
From JoBlo, here's the first poster for Dredd, and--hey, come on, guys, who left Judge Dredd home alone all day without a light on again? And with no water in his bowl! It's no wonder he's so very grumpy.
Even placed beside the lovely Olivia Thirlby, still futuristic sourpuss Karl Urban remains perpetually sullen as Mega-City One's judge, executioner, and personified frown emoticon, Judge Dredd. Such noble commitment to helmeted petulance.
As collected by ECBT2000AD (via), here are a few new shots from Peter Travis's upcoming Dredd. Since rumors started about behind the scenes problems from the editing room, little has come out to reassure anyone about the adaptation of the 2000AD comics property, but if nothing else, the below photo of an exploding head does at least seem to confirm a darker take than the 1995 adaptation. As I recall, Rob Schneider's brain was, disappointingly, never so graphically shot out the back of his skull.
Still no footage from Peter Travis's upcoming comic book reboot, Dredd, so we'll just have to make due with this new photo from the film--a frowning reminder that Judge Dredd is indeed coming back this September, and this time, he is quite gwumpy.
As a Street Judge Judge Dredd serves as police, judge, jury, and, if necessary, executioner in enforcing the laws of Mega-City One. Chief among those laws? NO KISSING.
Dredd--the new take on Judge Dredd in which Sylvester Stallone has been replaced by Karl Urban, and Rob Schneider has been replaced by a merciful silence--comes out this fall, but outside of a few images from the new adaptation of the 2000 AD comic, very little is still really known about it. Producers have made the promise that Urban, in keeping with the comic book tradition, will never remove his helmet, but what else is there to know about the character? Well, for one thing, he will not be kissing co-star Olivia Thirlby, no matter how insistently we mutter "kiss her!" whenever they're on screen together.
Speaking to the L.A. Times, Dredd creator John Wagner revealed some reasons he's optimistic about the new adaptation. The new actors (i.e. the exclusion of Armand Assante), he explained, for one thing; the smaller scope of the project, for another; also, the lack of smooching:
On Friday, thanks to an article in the L.A. Times, word spread that the reason behind Judge Dredd's grumpy face was that director Pete Travis hadn't done such a great job with shooting Dredd, leading to his being kicked out of the editing room and getting replaced by producer-screenwriter Alex Garland. Well, that article has since been updated with a joint statement from Travis and Garland, and they would like you to know that everything is going just great with their Judge Dredd movie. The reason Garland is editing the film instead of Travis? Because they're going to blow your mind with some "unorthodox" filmmaking! From their statement:
"During all stages of the filmmaking, 'Dredd' has been a collaboration between a number of dedicated creative parties. From the outset we decided on an unorthodox collaboration to make the film. This situation has been misinterpreted. To set the record straight, Pete was not fired and remains a central part of the collaboration, and Alex is not seeking a co-director credit. We are all extremely proud of the film we have made, and respectfully suggest that it is judged on viewing when its released next year."
I'd love to trust you on this, guys, but this sounds an awful lot like the semantic trickery Mom and Dad used to explain that they weren't getting a divorce, it's just that Dad would live in that complex next to the Wendy's now.
Lionsgate's Judge Dredd reboot, simply titled Dredd, has faced some criticism for things like buying the wrong size helmet and letting Karl Urban do the facial equivalent of Christian Bale's Batvoice, but for fans of the comics, hope remained that director Pete Travis might be able to put together something better than the Sylvester Stallone/Rob Schneider vehicle of 1995. Well, there's still a slim chance of that happening, but if it does, it's not going to be the result of Travis's grand vision of Karl Urban's grumpy face. In fact, Travis isn't even being allowed to finish this film up at all. According to the L.A. Times, after shooting Dredd, Travis has since been removed entirely from the editing phase of the film. Snooty bloggers weren't the only ones disparaging of how goofy this thing was turning out, and producers reportedly "did not see eye-to-eye on footage Travis was delivering," leaving writer-producer Alex Garland to take on the postproduction process. Word is Garland may now even seek a co-director credit on the film, so extensive are the changes he's made to the footage, and reshoots are a distinct possibility. Just so long as there's still cartoonish scowling, Alex.
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I Watch Stuff is a movie and video blog dedicated to bringing you the best and worst that Hollywood and the Internet have to offer and then, more often than not, making fun of it because it sucks.
