This quote from Karl Urban, actor currently in post-production as the title character in a new cinematic version of Judge Dredd, my favorite comic book, is music to my fanboy ears:

If anyone is familiar with Dredd, over the years there are many times when he removes his helmet but you never fully see his face. This was a construct by the creators because he represents a faceless system of justice and law. I say this hypothetically. If I went to a movie called Judge Dredd and the lead actor at one point took off his helmet so we could see his full face I would just puke in my popcorn because that’s not Dredd. He is mysterious and enigmatic. We’re doing it right, it’s gonna be harder, grittier and above all faithful to the comic. It’s gonna kick ass. (Emphasis mine)

Indeed, I lost all hope for the 1995 craptacular at the very moment Sylvester Stallone’s face appeared on the preview screen. I understand why an A-list celeb would want to be seen, but was it too much to ask that Hollywood employ an actor capable of pronouncing the character’s catchphrase? “I am the law” simply should not come out as uyum de luhhh.

Set for a September release, the new film is being made for half as much as that 17-year old box office bomb, which makes franchise possibilities much more likely. And the timing couldn’t be better. Beginning all the way back in copies of 2000 AD from 1977, the dystopian future of 2100 shows every sign of becoming our present, especially in our era of militarized police departments. Dredd is not a celebration of those trends so much as a hyper-noir British take on them.

Mega City One, the metropolis Dredd patrols, was inspired by a satellite view of the Eastern seaboard of the United States. Artist Carlos Ezquerra created mile-high skyscrapers and flying freeways stacked twenty high; this vast urban environment has 87% unemployment, raging crime rates, and limitless science fiction permutations of classic criminal conspiracies.

Bizarre fads rage through a citizenry fed synthetic food and 1000 channels of programming: Mega City One saw “fatties” gorging their way to victory long before “competitive eating” appeared on American TV. Years before the first “reality” TV show hit American airwaves, the disfigured Otto Sump appeared on the show Sob Story, received the largest viewer-donations prize in the history of 3-D television, and started up a highly-successful group of clinics to feed a sudden mania for hideous warts. Our current media culture was transparent before it happened.

Dredd is necessary in this world: faceless, uniformed, he is always the final pin holding Mega City One to sanity. Violence is a constant and fear is total. The judges arrest “perps” and handcuff them to steel poles mounted on street corners like fire hydrants, then drive off armies of robots, zombies, mutants, and aliens. While Dredd has eschewed the Chief Judge’s chair, he has also deposed many judges from it. Being in charge of a crazyhouse can drive anyone crazy.

Judge Dredd’s world is therefore a study of our postmodern relationship with authority. The judges are both a cause of, and reaction to, the challenges of 22nd Century life. In one of my favorite passages, a team of muggers (“tap gang”) working a busy street causes one man to sweat and avoid eye contact as their victims cry out for help. At the end of the piece, Dredd rounds up the criminals with his truncheon while the same pedestrian walks past…sweating, and avoiding eye contact.

In another, a sports riot is ended by the arrival of padded bulldozers — “Movement Assisting Vehicles” — and green “Stumm Gas.” Ubiquitous surveillance by hovering drone cameras is not enough to bring order. Yes, this is a perfect era to bring Dredd to the big screen.

My hopes may be dashed; the movie might suck. Some fans are not happy, preferring a grand view of the city (which was also missing from the earlier version, IMO). The script of this “origin story” was apparently written in the mold of Dredd‘s shorter, one-off crime tales rather than its sweeping epics. This is exactly the opposite approach from 1995. That version’s writers included far too many epic Dredd story threads in one picture (there was no need to include the Angel Gang at all, IMO).

It was not the title character’s faceless grimace or his many adventures that made me like the comic. Like Joseph Dredd, I came of age during Thatcher and Reagan. Dredd was my first step to reading Huxley and Orwell and Zemyatin. Many of the threads running through this blog begin for me in those pages of 2000 AD. So I will keep my fingers crossed (the ones that aren’t holding a Lawgiver) and hope that a script set in a microcosm of Dredd’s world may illuminate our own.

A little ass-kicking won’t hurt, either.