This post-nuclear city, which is really the size of several states, has changed over the course of the year it's been depicted. The original Judge Dredd comics which were developed in 1976 and 1977 placed the first story in "New York 2099AD", but this was later retconned and New York was made part of Mega City One. Various stories changed its history as well as its size by several hundred million citizens, and while the 1995 film strove to showcase as much of the elaborate sets built as possible, Dredd chose to only visit certain sections of Mega-City One in order to highlight how claustrophobic it was for its citizens.

Mega-City One's History In Judge Dredd

In the 21st century, Mega-City One was established between the distance of Boston to Washington DC to handle the burgeoning population crisis threatening the United States at the time. In the beginning, Mega-City One could house 350 million citizens comfortably, but over time that number more than doubled, and the metropolis found itself overflowing with $800 million people. Atomic Wars, such as the Great Atom War of 2070 and the Apocalypse War of 2104 reduced that number, but the city remained unmanageable, with great competition for resources and a high crime rate.

In order to deal with the effects of its urban sprawl, Mega-City One was forced to introduce the Judge system to maintain law and order under the dictatorship of the Justice Department. Judges patrol the city's 305 sectors as officers that maintain strict law and order, with littering or smoking outside designated areas warranting a citizen months in an iso-cube. Citizens are by and large viewed as a nuisance, with 98% of them being unemployed and forced to resort to petty crime, but Judges themselves are held to an even higher standard, and breaking even minor laws can net them 20 years in isolation.

How Big Is Mega-City One In 2012's Dredd Compared To The US

In the 2012 film Dredd, Mega-City One is smaller than in both the comic series and the 1995 film Judge Dredd. In that film, which stars Karl Urban as Judge Dredd, the city only stretches between Boston and Washington DC, without extending any further along the Eastern portion of the US. In the comics, Mega-City One extended to Florida and later to Ohio, built right over the top of older cities, with the rest of the United States being considered Cursed Earth.

Dredd's city is more compact and suffers in some ways from a lack of breadth to highlight all the different areas of Mega-City One, such as the Aggro Dome and other areas. Judge Dredd is faced with the ramifications of Judge brutality when dealing with the crime-ridden streets through the eyes of the newest probationary recruit he's been tasked with certifying. The city is a reflection of the issues facing a society where Judges are given extraordinary power while citizens are just struggling to survive.

Why Mega-City One Is So Important To Dredd's Plot

Mega-City One as it's presented in Dredd is not only smaller, but focuses on the extreme overpopulation aspect, mentioning the population of $800 million into a much smaller territory than the metropolis from the comics. Its sprawl consists of large structures that aren't well maintained and can become sealed off with blast shields and comm blackouts in the event of another war. Technology in Mega-City One is only advanced in the case of the Justice Department, with vehicles not driven by Judges resembling early 21st-century cars.

Most of the action for Dredd takes place in a 200-story high rise in the control of Ma-ma (Lena Headey) a notorious druglord. By not depicting very much of Mega-City One other than gritty, rain-soaked streets and the high rise, the film makes it feel smaller and more focused towards the plot. While Mega-City One doesn't have quite the same scale as in other parts of the franchise, it does feel more oppressive as a dystopian city, even if it doesn't quite capture the city as vividly as the comics or 1995 film, and if Dredd 2 ever happens it might get expanded.