Dredd / YMMV - TV Tropes

Alternative Character Interpretation:
- 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?
- Was 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?
- The extent of Dredd's Character Development. Did the events of the film subtly change him enough to pass Anderson as a Judge? Or did he always have a Hidden Heart of Gold and Anderson merely earned his respect by the end of the Peach Trees ordeal?
- 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 most powerful psychic we've ever come across 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 and her complete lack of How Do I Shot Web? 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 consciously or unconsciously reflects that - and the Chief Judge suspects or is aware of this and is sending her out into the field anyways - "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."
Awesome Music: The bracing industrial score by Paul Leonard-Morgan, in particular the Slo-Mo theme and "Ma-Ma's Requiem", is a brilliantly crafted mix of 1980s-style synths and modern sound modules worthy of Judge Dredd himself.
Can't Un-Hear It: Karl Urban as Judge Dredd.
Complete Monster: The tie-in comics in Judge Dredd Megazine have a few of these:
- "Underbelly" (issues #340-342): "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 "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 secret ingredient in their drug, the duo kidnaps a young Psi boy, intending to dissect him to create more doses.
- "The Dead World" (issues #392-396): Sidney De'Ath is a 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. Starting a killing spree, Sidney has a whole group of school girls commit suicide to 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, fully intending to kill everyone within Mega-City One.
Cult Classic: Since its DVD release, it got a bigger following, a sequel petition and won out in Amazon's March Movie Madness poll in 2014, beating out such films as Pulp Fiction, Indiana Jones and The Lord of the Rings.
Ensemble Dark Horse: 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 gave him the real name of Bill Huxley.
Fan Nickname:
- Dark Helmet is Dredd (the large size of Dredd's helmet has caused this joke to be used quite often).
- "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.
Harsher in Hindsight: Ma Ma's Rape as Backstory has a whole new meaning in light of Lena Headey being one of the many women accusing Harvey Weinstein of being inappropriate towards her.
Hilarious in Hindsight: See here.
Jerkass Woobie: 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.
Magnificent Bastard:
- Joseph Dredd is a brutal Judge of 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 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 Hired Guns, who Dredd efficiently picks off. Even when disarmed and nearly killed, Dredd tricks his foe into 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.
- 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 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.
Memetic Mutation:
- "Perps were ... uncooperative," and variations of it. ^Explanation
- "I am the law." Obviously.
- "You ready, rookie?"
- "[Insert random comment] is an automatic fail." ^Explanation
- 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.
- Judge Dredd is not amused◊.
Moral Event Horizon: Ma-Ma crosses it in the audience in her very first scene, in which she orders a trio of drug dealers to be skinned alive and thrown off a very high balcony, having been dosed up on Slo-Mo beforehand to draw out the pain for as long as possible. She spends the film doing even worse things, as when she callously massacres an entire floor of innocent people with gatling cannons just to kill the two protagonist Judges.
Retroactive Recognition: Domhnall Gleeson 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.
She Really Can Act: Olivia Thirlby's 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.
Signature Scene: Dredd's speech to the inhabitants of Peach Trees, particularly his stony delivery of the character's iconic "I am the law".
Spiritual Successor: Those who love Paul Verhoeven'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 RoboCop and Total Recall can easily see Dredd as the best Verhoeven film that Verhoeven didn't make.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
- 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 Depending on the Artist.
- 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.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
- The Judged, a group of gangbangers who feuded with Ma-Ma in her Back Story 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 Mooks or had an Enemy Mine alliance with the Judges.
- Judges Volt and Guthrie are a pair of impressive figures in the comic but are Demoted to Extra in this film and fail to accomplish anything useful during their brief attempt to be The Cavalry.
Vindicated by History: 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.
Visual Effects of Awesome:
- The Slo-Mo scenes are gorgeous, and provide a handy in-universe excuse for the film to use Bullet Time.
- 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.
Win Back the Crowd: 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.
The Woobie: The Clan Techie, who had his 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. Thank god Anderson let him go, and the sequel comics indicate that his life at least somewhat picked up afterwards.

YMMV / Dredd

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