Very Cool!!!

ridiculous rating

Crappy film

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

At the age of 9 I read the very first edition of 2000ad in 1977 and continued to enjoy the dark comic reality show until the late 1990s. This documentary was interesting . It did have several flaws for me. I wanted to hear about the character development more and the story lines. But, and everything that comes after but is usually bullshit, but in this case it is not:-) I see this documentary as a story of artists disenfranchised, and as such it is merely a another dark story, albeit uninspiring and just sad . Apologies if my judgement upsets you mere mortals

1995:Going to the NEC in Birmingham for a comic convention with my dad,I got given £10 and told that I could spend it on anything I want.Looking round,I spotted amongst the comic sellers two huge robots that you could have a photo taken with.Getting on the stage,I was a bit surprised when someone dressed as a futuristic cop joined for the photo.2016:Since learning the futuristic cop is Judge Dredd,I have read the occasional issue of 2000AD, and have also been a big fan of the 2012 Dredd movie (although I've still not seen the 1995 film that was getting hyped up at the NEC!) After reading an excellent review from a fellow IMDber about a doc on 2000AD a while ago,I was happy to find out from another IMDber that the doc was on Channel 4's 4OD service,which led to me getting ready to go back to the year 2000AD.The outline of the doc:Frustrated over the twee nature of boys British comics, Kelvin Gosnell and Pat Mills decided to create a comic inspired by Punk Rock called Action,which would feature explosive action and hard- edge satirical shots.After gaining a little too much controversy,Action comic was closed down.Wanting to find a way to continue the themes that were started in Action,Gosnell & Mills work with John Wagner to plan a Sci-Fi comic. Believing the comic would be short-lived,Gosnell,Mills and Wagner decide to name the comic:2000AD.View on the film:Revealing the foundation from which 200AD came from with news footage and Punk Rock songs,director Paul Goodwin separates the sections of the doc with 3D,slightly animated versions of 200AD artwork,which gives the film a wonderfully pulpy vibe.Whilst the shifts in viewing the history of 2000AD are slightly jarring,Goodwin smooths things over by offering eyefuls of prime cut artwork from 2000AD history.For the interviews,Goodwin covers an impressively wide ground which goes from the creators to those who the comic has inspired (such as film maker Alex Garland,who used 2000AD artist "Jock" to design the main robot in Ex_Machina.) Offering each of the interviewees plenty of breathing space,Goodwin taps into the Punk spirit of the comic,by letting everyone be as blunt as they want on the rise,fall and rise of a comic which has been handing out "justice" for decades.

As the title of this documentary would suggest, FUTURE SHOCK! is an exploration of the British comic publishers 2000 AD, featuring constant talking head footage consisting of interviews with the key personnel over the last thirty years: editors, writers, and of course the artists. It's obviously a labour of love and anybody with an interest in comic books will doubtlessly enjoy it.I admit that I've never read a single 2000 AD publication, but this didn't stop me enjoying the documentary, which has plenty of insight and anecdotal fun to keep it moving along. I particularly enjoyed the way the differences between American and British comics are explored, with the latter proving far more bloodthirsty and cynical; Superman just wouldn't get a look in on these shores. Plus, the documentary briefly looks at the two filmed versions of Judge Dredd. It's good fun throughout.

I used to buy 2000AD myself back in the mid 80's. I remember it clearly was a cut above the rest of the comics of the time (with the noticeable exception of Warrior magazine which was aimed at a slightly older readership and was the comic that launched Alan Moore's 'V For Vendetta'; sadly there is no reference to Warrior in this documentary which is a shame given that it was a hugely influential British comic in itself). Anyway I digress, 2000AD emerged in the late 70's and this film draws parallels to its birth and the rise of punk rock. I suppose they both were coming from similar places looking back on it, with the anarchic, satirical tone of the comic coming from a similar ball-park to the anger of the music. The documentary focuses a lot on the many ways in which 2000AD differentiated itself from the other boy's comics of the time and it is definitely true that it was coming from a decidedly more original place than the likes of Victor or Warlord. Its true progenitor was Action, however, which was a comic I vaguely remember, which featured strips such as 'Hook Jaw' whose anti-hero was a great white shark that went around eating unscrupulous human beings. The problem Action had was its violent and satirical tone was based around stories set in a more recognisable world and so it was too close to the knuckle and was ultimately banned. Editor Pat Mills decided to make a new comic and he adopted a tactic that Hammer Studios had twenty years before, when they started to bring gory horror films to the British cinemas. They did so by setting the stories in the 19th century and basing them around the supernatural, this distancing measure led the censors of the day to pass them uncut; what 2000AD did was retain the attitude of Action but to give it the distancing element of science fiction. And with this, a British institution was born.The comic was decidedly different from the American equivalents which focused on superheroes. The characters 2000AD introduced seemed altogether more unusual and original. More specifically, what 2000AD brought to comics was the anti-hero. Their flagship character Judge Dredd was the most obvious example of this, while he fought crime he did so in an extremely heavy-handed and fascistic manner as a member of a police force working under a dystopian state. Set in the USA, this character was a British version of America, in a similar way to how the spaghetti westerns of the 60's were Italian versions of the Old West; consequently because they were coming from a different culture both the spaghetti westerns and Judge Dredd were wilfully more cynical and violent versions of America than we had typically seen. The documentary talks a lot about the violence in the comic but I wondered if it might have been not being able to see the woods for the trees a little bit, as while the comic had a violent element, I don't remember actually buying it for this reason. It was more because of the highly imaginative and original stories such as Nemesis the Warlock, Sláine, Strontium Dog, Rogue Trooper, The Ballad of Halo Jones, Ace Trucking Co., D.R. and Quinch etc etc etc. The freedom the comic offered led to lots of creativity and attracted some highly respected writers and artists to develop very interesting comic strips. Sadly, and perhaps inevitably, many left to work for the American comics from the late 80's onwards and 2000AD went through hard times in the 90's as a consequence. The film touches upon some of the anger and frustration of this time and it seems it went close to folding. Fortunately it surfed the bad times and still runs to this day, almost forty years after its inception. This film has a lot of energy and passion about it, with many people associated with the comic on hand to give recollections. It sometimes labours certain points perhaps to breaking point but it tries its best to cover as much ground as possible and succeeds in being both entertaining and informative about one of the most cherished long-running British institutions and exports we have.