Preview: When Ezquerra Drew Stallone – ‘Judge Dredd: The Movie – 30th Anniversary Edition’

by Richard Bruton

Incredibly, it’s 30 years since Judge Dredd hit the big screen for the first time, celebrated here in this new 30th anniversary edition.

Had you been around at the time like I was, you’d remember it was a hell of a big deal, the first Dredd movie, Sylvester Stallone starring, a massive budget. It had everything, all the potential to be pretty great.

And then the movie came out and, well, let’s just say it wasn’t the finest piece of cinema mankind had ever seen. It ended up a complete flop, with a $113.5 million worldwide gross against the budget of $90 million. It wouldn’t be until 2012 and Dredd that we’d get a Dredd movie that at least more Dredd readers enjoyed, although that did far worse at the box office.

But although there’s plenty wrong with Stallone’s Judge Dredd, there’s plenty to enjoy as well, provided you treat it as what it is, a decent popcorn sci-fi blockbuster that’s quite a bit of fun and one that did do a damn good job of getting the look of Mega-City One right.

And that works with the Movie Adaptation as well. Written by Andrew Helfer and drawn by Carlos Ezquerra, there’s much to enjoy in the over-the-top-ness of it all, and Stallone certainly had the chin for Dredd. It barrels along, throwing everything at the screen (and the page). Yes, of course, fans of the comic will find themselves wincing and smiling ruefully at the way things have changed, but hey, it’s a movie adaptation. What do you expect?

It would never happen in the comics part 1 – the whole helmet coming off thing

Ezquerra, of course, is one of the all-time great Dredd artists. Helfer is a great writer (his run on ‘The Shadow‘ is still one of my favourites) but had only written the not-very-good run of Dredd when 2000 AD worked with DC Comics to do a series in 1994. It’s no surprise that there’s none of the real spark in the plot or the dialogue that you find even on your average Dredd serial here. Of course, screenplay writers William Wisher Jr and Steven E. De Souza have to shoulder a lot of the blame for that as well.

Of course, they should have got John Wagner, the greatest of Dredd writers to do the adaptation, but Wagner wasn’t happy with the movie treatment and wanted no part. So Helfer it was, someone whose style here just doesn’t fit Dredd at all. It’s not all his fault of course, he’s working off the plot and script of the movie after all, and that’s was never the best. That’s not to say there aren’t some moments when it still gets the tone right…

As an interesting aside, there was a kind-of Dredd movie adaptation by Wagner, drawn by Ron Smith, that appeared in British newspapers on the movie’s release.

This is Wagner talking to John Burdis at Cellar of Dredd back in 2010:

‘The commission came from the film producers, who owned the rights to the film script. They also chose Ron Smith. Despite deep reservations about the script I have to confess that – greedy and lacking in principle as I am – I did it purely for the money. Other work has paid more handsomely thanks to later royalties/film deals etc, but on a work-for-hire basis that strip remains the most lucrative thing I’ve ever done. Not that it paid a fortune, mind, but it only took four days.’

The other Judge Dredd adaptation of the time – this one for Brit newspapers, written by John Wagner, art by Ron Smith

It would have been interesting to see that adaptation collected here as well, but I imagine the rights issues meant that was a no-no.

So, what you get here is a good writer working on the wrong character and adapting a film whose strongest points were never the plot or the script. Instead, as you’d expect, the strong visuals of the movie carry through here with all that magnificent Ezquerra artwork. And it is absolutely magnificent artwork indeed.

Hell, Ezquerra gets the whole Stallone sneer just right…

The chin – Dredd, the sneer – Stallone. The class artwork, that’s all Carlos Ezquerra

Here’s the 2000 AD blurb for this one…

“In the Third Millenium, the world changed. Climate. Nations. All were in upheaval. Humanity itself turned as violent as the planet. Civilisation threatened to collapse. And then… a solution was found. The crumbling legal system was merged with the overburdened police, creating a powerful and efficient hybrid. These new guardians of society had the power to dispense both justice and punishment. They were police, jury, and executioner all in one. They were the Judges!

When Mega-City One erupts in violent block wars, there’s only one man Justice Department can rely on to suffocate the flames of rebellion. His name is Judge Dredd.

But when the city’s brightest beacon of justice is convicted of breaking the very law he’s been entrusted to uphold, he’s sentenced to spend the rest of his life rotting in the Aspen Penal Colony. In order to clear his name, Dredd must escape captivity, make his way across the toxic Cursed Earth, break back into the city, and find the familiar foe that framed him. All in a day’s work for Judge Dredd.’

I mean, if anyone can make the movie Dredd’s codpiece look good, it’s Ezquerra, right?

So, 30 years really has just flown by. Sure, this adaptation’s understandably got all the faults of the Stallone movie baked into it. But it’s also got the incredible visuals of Ezquerra, and that’s something we should all cherish, as sadly we’re not getting any more of those.

You also get something far more in the vein of how Dredd should be done, with the 2021 story Trinity by Ken Niemand and Richard Elson.

Now, this is waaaay better writing, Niemand one of the really good modern Dredd writers at the moment. Here, tongue is firmly planted in cheek as we get a multiversal-twisting tale bringing together comic Dredd, Stallone Dredd, and 2012 Dredd movie Karl Urban Dredd for a one-off bit of wonderful silliness.

It’s three Dredd’s from three different worlds having to work together – complete with some fine piss-taking of Stallone Dredd and the whole taking the helmet off…