Dredd – He is the Law

Title: Dredd – He is the Law

Description: Today Steve is joined by frequent guest Erik Fogg of the Reconsider Podcast to talk about the 2012 incredible sci-fi action drama Dredd. We discuss what can be learned social movements and law enforcement in our times through this amazing film.

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Erik Fogg of the Reconsider Podcast
Reconsidermedia.org

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“Crossing the Chasm” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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Begin Transcript:

Thank you again for listening to Beyond the Big Screen podcast. We are a member of the Parthenon Podcast network. Of course, a big thanks goes out to Erik of the Reconsider Podcast. Links to learn more about Erik and Reconsider can be found at reconsidermedia.org or in the Show Notes.
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[00:00:00] I am very excited to welcome back Eric fog of the reconsider podcast to talk about the 2012 cult classic dread. Eric, how are you doing well? I’m better now because I’m talking about one of my favorite movies of all time. Uh, just, uh, people are in for a rare treat today. Th I, you know, I mean, look, last, last thing we put out was on pre-media.
So you got to hear that you got to hear Eric and Steve rant about how crappy a movie it was. And we’re just going to totally flip it on its head and talk about how like masterfully this bad boy is put together. So this movie at stars, Karl urban, Olivia Thoreau, B Lena Hadley. And domino Gleason, who was, he was magnificent and it, but what we’ll get to that, let’s slow down.
Um, it’s based on the comic book, judge dread, and there’s no connection to the 1995 Stallone movie, judge Dredd. I personally liked judge dread, but it’s a very different movie and they’re not sequels or prequels in any way. Uh, now as always, we [00:01:00] feature plenty of spoilers. That’s what we’re calling with.
That’s what we’re here for. You can listen to this episode and learn a lot about the movie, having never watched it. And you’ll definitely want to watch this movie and listen to this episode several times, I guarantee it. You will. Uh, we will, and we definitely would love to hear what you have to think about this movie.
So reach out to us on social media, send an email, whatever you want to do. The very high fly over of the basic setting of the movie, as it takes place in a dystopian future where the earth has been irradiated. And most of the planet’s been left to uninhabitable. 800 ish million people are jammed into what’s called a mega city one, which is basically the Northern half of the east coast of the United States.
And this city has what you might call a crime problem. The city’s police forces, the judges and the judges are more than just law enforcement. They are the law. Should we say that in Stallone style, [00:02:00] the law, and they really are. They are the law and this movie, it brings up so many different issues. And Erica, where should we start?
I’ll put that on you. Okay. Decide. Well, I think one of the things to emphasize in terms of the setup for this movie that makes some of the morality of the, of the judge read university and, uh, well, so interesting. I’ll get to another point in a sec, is that, uh, at the very beginning of the movie, when, um, Karl urban dread is training, Olivia Thoreau, beat Anderson.
So this is dread and Anderson. These are the two main characters when he’s starting to train her. Um, he says, yeah, we got like, like we got like a million reports a day or something, and we can respond to no more than 6% of them. Right. And so like, they can’t even like 94% of crime. They’re just like, Nope, can’t even, can’t even do anything about it.
And, um, and the crime is brutal. Like a lot. This isn’t like, you know, this, the stuff that actually gets reported is the stuff that’s bad enough to get reported. So there’s a lot more crime beyond that that’s not getting reported. [00:03:00] So, um, what that means is like, this is an extreme version of a society that.
That’s uh, gone like very, I dunno, like that’s gone bad. And, um, what he talks about is like mega city is a it’s cramped, it’s poor. Um, it’s basically a powder keg. And, uh, and so one of the big questions that is often being explored is this question of like Liberty. Um, Liberty and political rights. And like at what point do they erode right.
At what point is it worth it to get rid of them? And, and we’ll talk about that in a sec, but the other thing to note here is a lot of the stuff like this movie is so faithful to the, to the basics of judge dread. Um, cause judge, like the comic book gets weird. There’s all sorts of like, uh, radiated monsters and like supervillains and stuff like that.
Um, this is the basics. This is like, it’s all humans. Um, it’s just like exploring the society, [00:04:00] but it’s very faithful to that. So a lot of what we’ll be talking about is the mastery of the film. A lot of what we’ll be talking about is the judge dread universe and decisions made in the judge at university, got translated to the movie.
One of which is the city has a bit of a crime problem. And I thought that it was really cool how they laid that out in front. That it’s only, it only answers 6,000 or 6% out of just an astronomical amount of calls that they get. Most of the movie is actually set inside of one location. They have these tower blocks that are basically cities inside of cities.
Uh, there’s a, there’s a cool, uh, chase scene where we kind of learn a little bit about dread right up in the front and who these judges are. And they’re how would you describe their, their law enforcement, uh, technique? Yeah, so the judges are very, the reason they are the law is they are judge, jury and executioner and police.
So basically [00:05:00] what, what happened in this society where crime went through the roof is, you know, they basically said some rights and some like liberties are worth, are worth eliminating in order to improve as much as we can, our ability to give people the right to be safe from crime. And, um, and so we’re going to give total dictatorial power to these judges and these judges have to be qualified, but there they are.
Um, they are ruthless, they are merciless. And, um, and what happens is the, uh, you know, the mega city sends them out. Um, to deal with crimes and they get total authority, you know, it’s like James Bond is licensed to kill. They, they have that license to sentence someone on the spot. Um, and so there’s very much a who watches the Watchman question, um, because these folks have, you know, these judges have so much power.
Um, and so little oversight that, that this is the dystopian part. That dystopian [00:06:00] part is not that the world is radiant. The dystopian part is the part is the way that the world decided to respond to or mega city one decide to respond to it’s mega crime problem, which is, which is give certain people total authority over.
Individual life and Liberty, um, to, to dispense with both of those, the little bit of the exposition that they get to before we go to the peach tree tower, where everything really unfolds is that dread is teamed up with a she’s a wash out from the judge program, but they’re giving her one more shot because she’s has psychic abilities and may set up just a little bit.