If Hollywood Lets Taika Waititi Ruin 'Judge Dredd' I May Set Things On Fire
No. Just no. Now now, not later. Let's try never, ever
My happiest memory of the 1980s is discovering Judge Dredd. Before Sylvester Stallone removed the iconic helmet to reveal his famous face, blowing his chance to start up a film franchise, Dredd was a comic book superhero with a difference. For unlike the X-Men imitations that covered the racks — teenage mutants with teenage drama, appropriately satirized by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, who took on a life of their own — or Batman or Superman, Dredd was decidedly not mainstream, certainly not in the United States. He was enigmatic, devoid of narcissism, a Stoic. He was Dirty Harry with antigravity.
The world of Dredd was terrifying and fascinating, a Thatcherite Britain’s view of Ronald Reagan’s morning in America, but stretched more than a century into the future. The central narrative facts of Mega-City One are that it constantly shrinks in size and population while its way of governance always declines. Whereas it began as a conurbation of the entire east coast of the United States reaching into the Midwest, an island of 800 million citizens lying between the Cursed Earth and the dead ocean surrounded by a wall, in today’s canon, Mega-City One is a revenant of its former self, reduced to a mere 100 million or so.
Meanwhile, Dredd — a perfect machine of justice — has removed multiple Chief Judges from office for megalomania and insanity without ever accepting the role for himself. Chief Judge Hershey, the current executive of the Mega-City One state, is Dredd’s protegé. He prefers to work the mean streets, dispensing justice one perp at a time, immune to the siren song of power. But even if he is more machine than man, Dredd is mortal. Thus the franchise would seem ready for an astute filmmaker to pose questions about the role of justice in a collapsing civilization, more or less the central premise of the comics since 1977, a theme appropriate to our post-BLM reckoning.
I have serious and critical doubts that Taika Waititi is that astute filmmaker, though. Dredd has been through two cinematic versions: the forgettable 1995 Stallone version, and the good, but unsuccessful 2012 version starring Karl Urban in the title role. Following the three strikes rule, Hollywood investors must ask Mr. Waititi serious questions before they give him any money to ruin what would likely be the final chance for a good Dredd franchise.
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