42? is the question while 42! is the answer. Jason
Does RoboCop get paid and pay taxes?
- Thread starter Turd Ferguson
- Start date
He’s property of OCP, legally Alex Murphy is dead. However RoboCop is basically Murphy without his memories, other than some flashes and the emotions tied to his life. There’s a line in the first movie where he asks about his family. He can feel them, but he can’t remember them. He seems to feel the full range of emotion, but is unable to express them. He goes by Murphy, the other cops call him Murphy and treat him as one of them.
The curruption of OCP was pretty obvious, on many levels. That doesn't mean all corporations are evil, capitalism is bad, or the government needs to overtax them. Robocop portrays a fictionalized world with a grain of truth and it does so with charm. It's tasteful satire, it doesn't beat the audience over the head with it. That's why it's a classic. The irony of Robocop is that OCP's own product, Robocop, because he was so well made by OCP, ended up cleaning up much of OCP's corruption.
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Splitting hairs. The point is, there are many things that influence our thoughts and actions in ways we don't consciously recognize and have a hard time overcoming. Our free will is nowhere near as absolute as we like to imagine. And it's reductionistic to argue that this is a binary choice between "fully sentient" and "not sentient at all," as if intelligence were a simple on/off switch with no middle ground. One can be subject to compulsions or altered mental states that one cannot prevent or resist, while still being aware of that compulsion and wishing one could resist it. RoboCop being unable to resist his OCP programming is analogous to a mentally ill person being unable to resist a psychotic episode or a post-traumatic anxiety attack. Heck, it's even analogous to someone struggling to stay awake but being unable to resist falling asleep. No human being who has ever lived has had absolute control over what their brain made them do.
On second thought, maybe brain damage is a better analogy. Only parts of Alex Murphy's memories and consciousness survive within RoboCop, because his brain was damaged by a bullet and presumably by ischemic injury after being clinically dead for some time. Brain damage can have neurological effects that a person is unable to resist or overcome; for instance, a brain-damaged person might be unable to recognize their own left arm as part of their body, or might develop uncontrollable verbal or physical tics. But they're still people with conscious awareness and the ability to reason and feel. Their abilities are just impaired in certain ways.
All of which are straw men that I never asserted.
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I don't agree with that analogy. If you could transplant somebody's brain into another body, their personhood would go with them.
Yes. Murphy's soul survived death when his brain and internal organs were fused with cybernetic implants. He was Murphy but he wasn't. He was two natures in one person: part man, part machine, all cop.
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Thank you, Kara. Maybe it could control a civilization while it's at it.
They're like Klingons. On the fields of battle it's to the death! But in the bar, we're all warriors!
Robo says: Dead or alive, you're bringing us another round!
Yes! That's what I should've said.
It’s whatever made Murphy into a person. His memories are mostly gone, but the second movie mentions that the reason he survived and the failed RoboCop 2s killed themselves was Murphy’s devotion to being a police officer.
This seems to answer his legal status though.
Legally he’s a machine, yet inside is the mind and heart of a man. Peter Weller’s acting doesn’t get enough credit. From going to sounding robotic to his voice wavering as if he’s almost about to cry and his haunted look.
I'm an outlier, but personally I like Richard Eden's performance as RoboCop in the TV series much better than Weller's. Eden was better than anyone since Leonard Nimoy at conveying a depth of emotion through the subtlest of outward displays.
I hope he comes back for RoboCop Returns. No one else was quite able to recapture what he did with the role.
They are keeping the original suit, I’m sure that whoever makes the armor can make it light enough that he doesn’t have any difficulty wearing it.
Given OCP's level of influence, I think we can all guess what that ruling would buy. Errr, be.
Where were you when the mice needed you?
To be, or not to be. That is the question.
My prediction is that Robo will be CGI. Perhaps mo-capped by Weller, voiced at the very least.