Line #9 YMMV/Dredd


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2	* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation:
3	** The homeless man squatting outside Peach Trees. Dredd quizzes Anderson, who answers the punishment is several weeks in prison, but their murder investigation should take priority, so Dredd tells him to leave before they come back, then later arrests him when he's still there. Was he intentionally trying to get arrested to get off the streets?
4	** Was [[spoiler: Judge Lex]] always the cutthroat mercenary he is in the film proper, a brutal thug with a badge who abuses his authority at the expense of the public he is supposed to serve? Or does his rant to Dredd imply he was once an honest judge who just got ground down by the system?
5	** [[spoiler:The extent of Dredd's CharacterDevelopment. Did the events of the film subtly change him enough to pass Anderson as a Judge? Or did he always have a HiddenHeartOfGold and Anderson merely earned his respect by the end of the Peach Trees ordeal?]]
6	** Cassandra Anderson was given a judge aptitude test as a child which deemed her unsuitable for the job. She was entered into the judge academy anyway on special instruction, but her record was never better than borderline and her final score was 3% below a passing grade. However, in the words of the Chief Judge: "She is the [[TheGift most powerful psychic]] we've ever come across [[ReadingsAreOffTheScale by a huge margin]]." Because of her unprecedented level of psychic power, Anderson is given ''another'' second chance with a supervised day in the field with Judge Dredd. The reason given is that Anderson's psychic abilities are desperately needed by the Hall of Justice in the war for Mega City One. But Anderson's [[{{Telepathy}} telepathy]] and her complete lack of HowDoIShotWeb woes makes her borderline academy record and marginally-lower than a passing grade very suspicious. It should have been simple for her to do very well academically with her ability to read minds. Another interpretation of Anderson's academic history is that she is still unsure of whether she is suitable or wants to be a judge, and her failing grade [[ObfuscatingStupidity consciously or unconsciously reflects that]] - and the Chief Judge suspects or is aware of this and is sending her out into the field anyways - [[SinkOrSwimMentor "Sink or swim. Chuck her in the deep end."]] The Chief Judge seemingly confirms this at the end of the film after Judge Dredd completes Anderson's assessment and gives her a pass as well as his approval to become a judge, jury, and executioner - "I knew she would be."
7	* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: The bracing {{industrial}} score by Paul Leonard-Morgan, in particular the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f99qtV9p06k Slo-Mo theme]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-7N29puH3o "Ma-Ma's Requiem"]], is a brilliantly crafted mix of 1980s-style synths and modern sound modules worthy of Judge Dredd himself.
8	* CantUnHearIt: Creator/KarlUrban as Judge Dredd.
9	* CompleteMonster: The tie-in comics in ''Judge Dredd Megazine'' have a few of these:
10	** "Underbelly" (issues #340-342): "[[SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil Beauty and The Beast]]" are a duo of slavers who decided to fill the power vacuum in the wake of Ma Ma's death. Creating a powerful drug called "[[FantasticDrug Psych]]", the duo started to mass produce psych and spread it throughout all of Mega-City One. To this end, the duo lures countless mutants, who are desperate to get into the city, to their base and enslaves them, working them to death in horrible conditions that ensure their slow and painful demise. Using Psi people as a [[HumanResources secret ingredient]] in their drug, the duo [[WouldHurtAChild kidnaps a young Psi boy]], intending to dissect him to create more doses.
11	** "The Dead World" (issues #392-396): [[AxCrazy Sidney De'Ath]] is a [[MadScientist former member of the Tek Division]] within the Justice Department, who was always fascinated by death. Discovering the Dead Dimension, Sidney led the scientists in opening a portal there, despite the warnings. After being sucked into it, Sidney liked how "peaceful" the whole Dead Dimension was and was furious when fellow scientists brought him back. [[SpreeKiller Starting a killing spree]], Sidney has a whole group of school girls commit suicide to [[DemonicPossession take over the body]] of one of them. Adopting the name Death, Sidney orders three other scientists, who were given powers from the Dead Dimension, to kill as many people as they can, while he uses their physical bodies to bring the Dead World to Earth, [[OmnicidalManiac fully intending to kill everyone within Mega-City One]].
12	* CultClassic: Since its DVD release, it got a bigger following, a sequel petition and won out in Amazon's March Movie Madness poll in 2014, [[DarkHorseVictory beating out such films as]] ''Film/PulpFiction'', ''Franchise/IndianaJones'' and ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings''.
13	* EnsembleDarkhorse: The Clan Techie. While quite underrated and a bit-part at best in the movie, he's played by Domhnall Gleeson, who went on to star in quite a few high-profile movies after ''Dredd''. The Clan Techie has garnered a small fanbase as a result. One of the sequel comics actually focuses on his life after the Peach Trees incident, and [[NamedByTheAdaptation gave him the real name]] of Bill Huxley.
14	* FanNickname:
15	** [[Film/{{Spaceballs}} Dark Helmet]] is Dredd (the large size of Dredd's helmet has caused this joke to be used quite often).
16	** "The Pantene Thug" for the Ma-Ma Clan thug who, despite his dirty appearance, shows off his luxurious long black hair during the scene he says Dredd "hasn't gone down" shortly before Incendiary mode is demonstrated.
17	* HarsherInHindsight: Ma Ma's RapeAsBackstory has a whole new meaning in light of Creator/LenaHeadey being one of the many women accusing Harvey Weinstein of being inappropriate towards her.
18	* HilariousInHindsight: See [[HilariousInHindsight/JudgeDredd here]].
19	* JerkassWoobie: [[http://www.scribd.com/doc/104439907/DREDD-MA-MA In this comic]], Ma-Ma was surprisingly enough, portrayed sympathetically as a prostitute trying to escape the grim life of streets, until she snaps when her friend is tortured and murdered.
20	* MagnificentBastard:
21	** [[UnscrupulousHero Joseph Dredd]] is a brutal Judge of [[MegaCity Mega City One]], enforcing the law in his own creative, vicious way. Tasked with training rookie Judge Cassandra Anderson on the job, Dredd works with Anderson to infiltrate the Peach Trees complex, breaking up the sadistic [[BigBad Madeline "Ma-Ma" Madrigal's]] criminal organization one floor at a time. Dredd uses bait and traps to lure entire groups of criminals to their bloody demises and later deduces that a supposed backup regiment of Judges are HiredGuns, who Dredd efficiently picks off. Even when disarmed and nearly killed, Dredd tricks his foe into [[EvilGloating waxing on a monologue]] to give Anderson time to kill the enemy. Dredd ultimately outsmarts and outguns Ma-Ma, killing the woman with a taste of her own medicine before giving Anderson a passing grade to join the Judges, having grown to respect her enough that Dredd was willing to overlook any of her minor mistakes.
22	** In the tie-in comic storyline "Furies", the "Techie" is a former minion of Ma-Ma forced into the life of crime. Starting off as meek and cowardly, the Techie [[TookALevelInBadass becomes more cunning, effective and fearless]]. Taking the name of Bill Huxley, the Techie managed to build a family, only for Judge Dredd to cause him to be fired from his work, forcing him to turn to crime again. Assisting the Erinyes Crew to enter the Penthouse to kill the guards and steal a Pearl, Techie immediately became reluctant when he discovered that Pearl was a little girl. Taking the situation into his control, Techie has the Erinyes Crew follow him and when they try to get rid of him effortlessly defeats them by unleashing the factory's robots on them, alerting the Judges to their location, while he leaves Pearl to be rescued. In the end, the Techie hacks all of the bank accounts of the Erinyes Crew and steals their connections and wealth, taunting them before their deaths and evades the Judges, using his newfound power to take care of his family from afar.
23	* MemeticMutation:
24	** "Perps were [[{{Beat}} ...]] uncooperative," and variations of it. [[labelnote:Explanation]]At the very end of the film, the Chief Judge's asks Dredd what happened in Peach Trees, to which Dredd -- having mowed down hundreds of gang members, crippled Slo-Mo production, and taken down three [[DirtyCop Corrupt Judges]] all in the space of less than a day -- responds with a hilariously understated "Drug bust. Perps were... uncooperative."[[/labelnote]]
25	** "I am the law." Obviously.
26	** "You ready, rookie?"
27	** "[Insert random comment] is an automatic fail." [[labelnote:Explanation]]When Dredd begins his assessment of Anderson, he lists off several things that will cause her to automatically fail the assessment. This became a minor meme in which reasonably serious issues (disobeying direct orders, incorrect sentencing, losing her weapon) are replaced by a random comment for the sake of comedy by turning Dredd's canonically high standards up to eleven.[[/labelnote]]
28	** Posters of upcoming sequels to subpar films that came out after ''Dredd'' accompanied by a picture of Dredd scowling (particularly the shot of fire being reflected in his visor) have become quite popular on the "Make a DREDD Sequel" Facebook page.
29	** [[https://nerdskulture.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/jdredd.jpg Judge Dredd is not amused]].
30	* MoralEventHorizon: Ma-Ma crosses it for some in the audience in her ''very first scene'', in which she orders a trio of drug dealers to be [[FlayingAlive skinned alive]] and thrown off a ''very'' high balcony, having been [[CruelAndUnusualDeath dosed up on Slo-Mo beforehand to draw out the pain for as long as possible.]] She crosses it for everyone else when she callously massacres an entire floor of innocent people with gatling cannons just to kill the two protagonist Judges. Which even then, she fails at doing.
31	* RetroactiveRecognition: Creator/DomhnallGleeson as the Clan Techie. While Gleeson had appeared in small roles in some high-profile films before this one, he had yet to make a name for himself. Combined with his character's bizarre appearance, this means many people didn't recognize him on first viewing.
32	* SugarWiki/SheReallyCanAct: Olivia Thirlby's [[Film/{{Juno}} best known role before this]] was a ''very'' different kind of film, but she manages to hold her own with Karl Urban and that's no small feat.
33	* SignatureScene: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQJH-zUYOoc Dredd's speech to the inhabitants of Peach Trees]], particularly his stony delivery of the character's iconic [[CharacterCatchphrase "I am the law".]]
34	* SpiritualSuccessor: Those who love Creator/PaulVerhoeven's classic Sci-Fi action films featuring dystopian societies filled with brutalist architectures, psychic mutants, quotable one-liners and lots of bloody violence such as ''[[Film/RoboCop1987 RoboCop]]'' and ''[[Film/TotalRecall1990 Total Recall]]'' can easily see ''Dredd'' as the best Verhoeven film that Verhoeven didn't make.
35	* TheyChangedItNowItSucks:
36	** Some fans voiced dislike of the film thanks to the helmet being bigger and the smaller Eagle (the shoulderpads). It should be noted though, that some early stories had smaller shoulder pads DependingOnTheArtist.
37	** Dredd handing out death sentences can also be a little odd as, depending on the writer, the death penalty is not used in the Mega-City One of the comics.
38	* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter:
39	** The Judged, a group of gangbangers who feuded with Ma-Ma in her BackStory and have Judge mask tattoos, are only in one short flashback scene. Many fans think they had good supporting character potential and wish they'd been prominent {{Mook}}s or had an EnemyMine alliance with the Judges.
40	** Judges Volt and Guthrie are a pair of impressive figures in the comic but are DemotedToExtra in this film and fail to accomplish anything useful during their brief attempt to be TheCavalry.
41	* VindicatedByHistory: The movie's reputation for being great elevated it significantly after its diminishing returns years later--to the point that it most certainly thrived in spite of them.
42	* SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome:
43	** The Slo-Mo scenes are ''gorgeous'', and provide a handy in-universe excuse for the film to use BulletTime.
44	** Mega-City One looks very convincing thanks to the slow production that gave the CGI artists the time and allowed good communication needed to craft believable, lifelike dystopian environments that still hold up a decade later, in comparison to some modern productions that have bigger budgets but end up with less convincing looking CGI due to a rushed development phase.
45	* WinBackTheCrowd: Fans of the comic (and non-fans too) hated the Stallone version. While fans of the comic do (grudgingly) admit that the Stallone film did get the over-the-top look of the Mega City One, the Cursed earth, and the judges uniforms (to a point - rookies should have had white helmets (this one missed that too), the helmets were missing the iconic X on the visor, and Dredd’s codpiece is weird) correct, the characters, particularly Stallone as Dredd, were so awful that the the movie was a bitter disappointment. This gritty version is much more faithful to the comic and Karl Urban's portrayal as Dredd was highly praised.
46	* TheWoobie: The Clan Techie, who had his [[EyeScream eyes gouged out by Ma-Ma with her own hands]], had them replaced with cybernetic ones and is threatened with death or torture if he fails. Or if she's bored. [[spoiler: Thank god Anderson let him go, and the sequel comics indicate that his life at least somewhat picked up afterwards.]]

Context YMMV / Dredd