Judge Dredd (film)

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Judge Dredd

Judge Dredd film poster
Directed by Danny Cannon
Produced by Charles Lippincott,
Beau Marks
Written by Michael De Luca, William Wisher, Jr.
Starring Sylvester Stallone,
Diane Lane,
Armand Assante,
Max von Sydow,
Rob Schneider
Music by Alan Silvestri
Cinematography Adrian Biddle
Distributed by Hollywood Pictures
Cinergi Pictures
Release date(s) June 30, 1995
Running time 96 min.
Language English
Budget US$85,000,000

Judge Dredd is a 1995 action film by director Danny Cannon based on the Judge Dredd strip in the British comic 2000 AD.

Certain elements of the film were altered from the comic series, but it still did not find wide mainstream appeal. Stallone was nominated for the 1995 Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actor based on his work in this film and Assassins. From the beginning the film was intended to receive a PG-13 rating. Due to excessive violence the MPAA refused to downgrade the initial R rating despite repeated appeals by the studio and Stallone. Mostly because of schedule constraints the film could not be re-cut and was released with an R rating.[citation needed]

Contents

Actor Role
Sylvester Stallone Judge Joseph Dredd
Diane Lane Judge Hershey
Armand Assante Rico
Rob Schneider Herman Ferguson (Fergie)
Jürgen Prochnow Judge Griffin
Max von Sydow Chief Justice Fargo
Joan Chen Ilsa Hayden
Joanna Miles Judge Evelyn McGruder
Balthazar Getty Olmeyer
Maurice Roëves Warden Miller
Ian Dury Geiger
Christopher Adamson Mean Machine
Ewen Bremner Junior Angel
Peter Marinker Judge Esposito
Angus MacInnes Judge Silver
Louise Delamere Locker judge
Phil Smeeton Link Angel
Steve Toussaint Hunter squad leader
Bradley Lavelle Chief Judge Hunter
James Earl Jones Narrator (unbilled)
James Remar Block Warlord (unbilled)

The year is 2139. It is a future where people live in violent megacities. The place is Mega City One, located in The Cursed Earth: a radioactive desert wasteland formerly known as the USA. And violent "block wars" are regularly fought by citizens with machine guns.

In order to combat the rising crime rate, the Mega Cities have created special police forces known as The Street Judges, who have the power to act as judge, jury, and, if need be, executioner.

Heavily armored, trained to perfection, and equipped with highly efficient, customized weapons, the judges roam the streets. And the judges live by a very stringent code in order to prevent misuse of their powers.

One of them has become legend. He ranks as the highest street judge and has been on the streets longer than any other judge. He is Judge Joseph Dredd (Sylvester Stallone), who has been created as part of The Janus Project, a failed genetic engineering program that was intended to create the perfect street judge.

Dredd is idolized by many of the other judges, especially the young cadets at the academy, but he is also feared, and considered dangerous and a menace by more conservative parts of society. News anchors have made it their business to question every step he takes.

The corrupt Chief Judge Griffin (Jurgen Prochnow) helps Rico (Armand Assante), Dredd’s psychopathic clone brother from The Janus Program, escape from prison.

A prominent TV news reporter later gets killed, and the incident is captured on video. The killer was wearing the uniform of a street judge, and wearing Dredd’s badge.

Dredd is immediately taken to court, where it also turns out that the bullet that killed the victim was clearly shot from Dredd’s lawgiver gun -- a gun locked by a device that takes and verifies a DNA sample before it allows handling and firing of the weapon.

Sentenced to life behind bars at an Aspen Penal Colony, Dredd's transport plane is shot down en route to the prison by a family of Cursed Earth mutants, providing him with an opportunity to clear his name.

It turns out that as part of an elaborate plot to reactivate the long-dormant Janus project, Griffin had Rico frame Dredd for the murder.

Dredd must make his way back to Mega City One to prevent Griffin and Rico from creating an army of cloned super-criminals.

The film contains several elements that are at odds with the comic series: the face of Judge Dredd is shown in deference to the film's expensive star; a love interest is allowed to develop between Dredd and Judge Hershey (Diane Lane), something that is strictly forbidden between Judges in the comics, (or between Judges and anyone else for that matter) and the movie is largely missing the ironic humour of the original strip.

Although generally regarded as a bad movie by both fans and critics[citation needed], it still made US$113.5 million worldwide.[1]

Film composer David Arnold was originally set to score the film, having previously collaborated with director Danny Cannon on his previous film, The Young Americans. Eventually, Arnold was replaced by film composing veteran Jerry Goldsmith, but as post-production dates fell further and further behind, Goldsmith was forced to drop out of the project as well, due to prior commitments to score other films (First Knight and Congo). In the end, Alan Silvestri was selected as the new composer and would go on to score the final film.

  1. Dredd Song - The Cure
  2. Darkness Falls - The The
  3. Super-Charger Heaven - White Zombie
  4. Need-Fire - Cocteau Twins
  5. Release The Pressure - Leftfield
    Original score by Alan Silvestri
  6. Judge Dredd Main Theme
  7. Judgement Day
  8. Block War
  9. We Created You
  10. Council Chaos
  11. Angel Family
  12. New World

Although his association with the project was brief, Jerry Goldsmith still managed to compose and record an original piece of trailer music for the film. The music was most notably featured in the film's initial teaser trailer, which was comprised solely of Goldsmith's music (with the exception of a short opening quotation by the film's narrator James Earl Jones) set to a montage of footage from the film. Subsequent trailers in the Judge Dredd's advertising campaign re-used the trailer music in various edited forms. The piece has remained popular over time, as the music has been used on many subsequent movie trailers (Lost in Space, The Phantom, Inspector Gadget, Paycheck), and re-recordings of the music have been featured on film music compilation albums (Hollywood '95 featuring Joel McNeely conducting the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Trailer Project: Coming Soon - Previews of Coming Attractions by John Beal).

  • The futuristic taxis used in the film are actually Land Rover 101 Forward Control vehicles (A British Army Gun Tractor from the 1970's & 80's) with a new fibre-glass body shell designed by David Woodhouse. 31 driveable vehicles were built for the film.[2]

  • The Making of Judge Dredd (by Jane Killick, David Chute and, Charles M. Lippincott, 192 pages, Hyperion Books, 1995, ISBN 0786881062)
  • Knowing Audiences: "Judge Dredd" - Its Friends, Fan and Foes (by Martin Barker and Kate Brooks, 256 pages, University of Luton Press, 1998, ISBN 1860205496)



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