Robocop

[Newski]

Robocop is one of my all time favorite films... Mostly because its everything I want out of "pop" cinema. And it was a real phenomena, spawning two awful sequels (one that merely didn't understand the first one, and one that was just childish and poorly made), two cartoon series (one as good as a Children's cartoon based on an ultra violent film can get, on that was just plain forgetable) and a Short lived Live action TV Series in 1994 (I'm leaving out "Prime Directives" and the like because I have yet to see them).


Am I the only one who stands by the campy, toned down 1994 for TV series? I mean, really? Despite being toned down, silly, and painfully conventionally, I sort of manages to capture a lot of the sense of humor from the films, and actually brings us the character movie at the logical place where he should be after the first film (whereas the other films took away his new found humanity and turned him back into a soulless automaton).

 

[Christopher]

Am I the only one who stands by the campy, toned down 1994 for TV series? I mean, really? Despite being toned down, silly, and painfully conventionally, I sort of manages to capture a lot of the sense of humor from the films, and actually brings us the character movie at the logical place where he should be after the first film (whereas the other films took away his new found humanity and turned him back into a soulless automaton).

I agree with you completely. The live-action series was my favorite incarnation of RoboCop by far, and it dismays me that it's never had a DVD release (I have most of it on tape, but the tapes are getting worn out). As you say, it had the character essence and the broad satire of the films, but without the excessive violence. Which was a wise choice, since RoboCop was very popular with children, and it would've been irresponsible to make the show ultraviolent when it was a given that children would be watching. It was also more realistic, since police rules of engagement require avoiding lethal force except as a last resort, and RoboCop is built to follow police procedure to the letter and has the precision to make "shoot to disarm" shots plausible. The showrunner was an ex-cop, and he brought a credible approach to police procedure and some interesting police futurism (the use of nonlethal gadgets like immobilizing airbags, slippery foam, etc. that were actually in development).

It also had a great cast. Richard Eden was an even better RoboCop than Peter Weller. He was superb at conveying emotion with a bare minimum of surface expression. And Yvette Nipar as his partner Madigan was not only one of the most stunningly beautiful women I've ever seen, but a fine actress to boot (her lengthy rant in "RoboCop vs. Commander Cash" is a tour de force).

 

[Timby]

Am I the only one who stands by the campy, toned down 1994 for TV series? I mean, really? Despite being toned down, silly, and painfully conventionally, I sort of manages to capture a lot of the sense of humor from the films, and actually brings us the character movie at the logical place where he should be after the first film (whereas the other films took away his new found humanity and turned him back into a soulless automaton).

The Series is good -- to an extent. Its problem is making everything horrifically over-the-top. However, it's far more entertaining than either film sequel, and a few galaxies away from the abortion that was Prime Directives.

As for Murphy's character, RoboCop 2's one and only positive hits the nail on the head -- in its first 15 minutes. At the end of the first movie, Murphy has regained his humanity and that humanity has asserted its control over his machine body. RoboCop 2 begins to explore the psychological effects, however, of what is essentially "cybernetic rape," in that Murphy's body was discarded, his mind and memories kept, in favor of this cold, metal body. He was denied death, and instead Alex Murphy has to live inside that metal shell. RoboCop 2 starts to explore that with Murphy stalking his ex-wife and son, but the idea is given lip-service and subsequently discarded in favor of THE WAR ON DRUGS. A shame.

Fuck you, Frank Miller. (That said, Frank Miller's original script was an unfilmable abomination. Given the week that Walon Green had to fix it up, it's a miracle the movie is even barely watchable.)

 

[nx1701g]

I, believe it or not, really enjoyed the series to a point that I liked it better than some of the films. As a younger fan of Robocop (I was 8 in 1994 and still remember staying up late to watch the show because it was on at 12:30am) it was different from the films but it was always a good watch. There were rumors a few years ago of a DVD release but that is growing more and more unlikely.

As for Prime Directives... well it wasn't horrible but it wasn't great either. I still remember discussing the series with Julian Gant around the time that the series came to Sci-Fi. It was a film miniseries that had promise with the introduction of a cyborg that would replace Robo, Robo being on the verge of decommissioning, and it showed OCP as still being an evil corporation; but it could have just been different. The decision to have Murphy's son as an OCP exec was a good idea too, but what should have been an interesting ending just seemed to drag. It's too bad that Richard Eden wouldn't sign on to return for this and they got Page Fletcher because it was too much of a change.

 

[Newski]

Am I the only one who stands by the campy, toned down 1994 for TV series? I mean, really? Despite being toned down, silly, and painfully conventionally, I sort of manages to capture a lot of the sense of humor from the films, and actually brings us the character movie at the logical place where he should be after the first film (whereas the other films took away his new found humanity and turned him back into a soulless automaton).

The Series is good -- to an extent. Its problem is making everything horrifically over-the-top. However, it's far more entertaining than either film sequel, and a few galaxies away from the abortion that was Prime Directives.

Well, the show knows how cheesey and over the top it is, and revels in that. It's almost a self parody... And it's preachy as hell, but in a way that, well, it's so silly you really don't care.

As for Murphy's character, RoboCop 2's one and only positive hits the nail on the head -- in its first 15 minutes. At the end of the first movie, Murphy has regained his humanity and that humanity has asserted its control over his machine body. RoboCop 2 begins to explore the psychological effects, however, of what is essentially "cybernetic rape," in that Murphy's body was discarded, his mind and memories kept, in favor of this cold, metal body. He was denied death, and instead Alex Murphy has to live inside that metal shell. RoboCop 2 starts to explore that with Murphy stalking his ex-wife and son, but the idea is given lip-service and subsequently discarded in favor of THE WAR ON DRUGS. A shame.

Fuck you, Frank Miller. (That said, Frank Miller's original script was an unfilmable abomination. Given the week that Walon Green had to fix it up, it's a miracle the movie is even barely watchable.)

The premiere for the series was actually an unproduced script for the sequel written by the original Robocop writers... Obviously, they've completely changed large portions of it.

I actually find Robocop 3 better than the second, if only because of the so bad it's good qualities it has. And that's different from the over the top silliness the series had.


I would have actually liked to have seen a Robocop film that was more about Murphy coming to terms with what has happened... Still acting under programming, but also slowly becoming more and more human, accepting his limitations, and the life he can't have. I mean, we do have the makings of a great franchise here.


I've read the Graphic Novel that is supposed to be Frank Miller's Vision of Robocop 2. Is it better than the movie? Yes, but just barely. It's got some amazing action sequences, funny one liners, but it's void of any sort of character development.

 

[miraclefan]

I too, enjoyed ROBOCOP: The series (I was happy they kept the THEME song of the original) Question? Why did the producers change the original Director, writers & music director?

 

[Christopher]

The Series is good -- to an extent. Its problem is making everything horrifically over-the-top.

No more so than Verhoeven did in the movie. It's just that Verhoeven was over-the-top with violence and profanity as well as everything else, and somehow people think that means it should be taken more seriously.

However, it's far more entertaining than either film sequel, and a few galaxies away from the abortion that was Prime Directives.

Absolutely. Even the lame RoboCop: Alpha Commando animated series was better than those.

As for Murphy's character, RoboCop 2's one and only positive hits the nail on the head -- in its first 15 minutes. At the end of the first movie, Murphy has regained his humanity and that humanity has asserted its control over his machine body. RoboCop 2 begins to explore the psychological effects, however, of what is essentially "cybernetic rape," in that Murphy's body was discarded, his mind and memories kept, in favor of this cold, metal body. He was denied death, and instead Alex Murphy has to live inside that metal shell. RoboCop 2 starts to explore that with Murphy stalking his ex-wife and son, but the idea is given lip-service and subsequently discarded in favor of THE WAR ON DRUGS. A shame.

I prefer the series' take on it, which is that Robo wasn't just Murphy in a robot body, but a hybrid personality formed from the synergy of the RoboCop programming and the residual, but incomplete, memory engrams of the late Alex Murphy. In a sense, he embodied the best of both worlds -- the decency and humanity of Murphy, and the unwavering integrity and reliability of RoboCop. Yet at the same time he was incomplete, mentally as well as physically, unable to be fully human. He was at once a paragon and a tragic figure. It was a wonderful characterization.

The mistake the movie sequels made was to assume there was nothing interesting about RoboCop as a character and to try to de-emphasize him in favor of other characters. The series did feature a whole ensemble, but it made RoboCop a rich central character as well.

As for Prime Directives... It's too bad that Richard Eden wouldn't sign on to return for this and they got Page Fletcher because it was too much of a change.

Well, it was terrible in every way, but Fletcher's casting was one of the worst missteps. He got the character totally wrong, playing him as just another wisecracking action hero who happened to be in a robot suit (though that's as much the script's fault). He was way too small for the suit, and there was no attempt made to recreate the movement style Moni Yakim developed for the character in the original film -- both of which made him look ridiculous, like a kid prancing around in a Halloween costume, jerking his arms around and going "Look-I-am-a-ro-bot."

Well, the show knows how cheesey and over the top it is, and revels in that. It's almost a self parody... And it's preachy as hell, but in a way that, well, it's so silly you really don't care.

I think what a lot of people fail to realize about the original film is that it was a comedy. A dark, harsh, satirical comedy, but in its own way quite broad and farcical. The series continued in that vein, just lightening it up some and making it more accessible to a family audience. So I think it's the only followup that was really authentic.

The premiere for the series was actually an unproduced script for the sequel written by the original Robocop writers... Obviously, they've completely changed large portions of it.

Not that much, necessarily. They changed the character names, but it's pretty obvious that Madigan was written to be Lewis (she even had Lewis's bubblegum habit in the pilot, though fortunately that was dropped afterward) and Sgt. Parks was a substitution for Sgt. Reed. And I've always figured Pudface Morgan was meant to be Emil, the guy who had a face-melting toxic-waste accident in the film, though he pretty clearly died right afterward, I think.

It's odd that they were able to use the character of Murphy/RoboCop but couldn't use any of the other character names. They even had to refer to the OCP boss as "The Chairman" rather than "The Old Man." But then, rights in Hollywood are bizarre and byzantine. But I think it worked, since they changed the precinct too. I think the idea was that RoboCop had been reassigned back to Murphy's old precinct, the one he was transferred from at the start of the original film, and that Madigan was his first partner. So I don't think there are any real inconsistencies between the original movie and the series; they fit together pretty neatly in a single continuity, as far as I know.

 

[theenglish]

I really enjoyed the original movie even though it was probably the most graphic film I had seen up to that point in my life.

It should have ended there, however. I thought that everything after that was abyssmal.

Sorry to those who liked it, but that's my opinion.

 

[davejames]

I would agree that, as cheesy as the TV series was, it was definitely the best out of all the various spinoffs they made over the years.

The problem with all of them though, is that they treat Robocop like he's just another superhero in a flashy costume. But you watch the first movie, and it's more of a really dark revenge fantasy-- this poor cop gets brutally murdered, he's reborn as a badass cyborg, and we get a HUGE thrill watching him kick some ass and get revenge on all those who wronged him.

THAT was the driving force that made that first movie work -- not the fact it was just a really cool-looking character.

 

[nx1701g]

I really enjoyed the original movie even though it was probably the most graphic film I had seen up to that point in my life.

I'm amazed by some of the cuts on the Ultimate Edition of the film.

 

[davejames]

I really enjoyed the original movie even though it was probably the most graphic film I had seen up to that point in my life.

I'm amazed by some of the cuts on the Ultimate Edition of the film.

Yeah a lot of the violence in old movies looks pretty tame now, but the boardroom scene in Robocop is STILL brutal as hell to watch.

 

[Christopher]

The problem with all of them though, is that they treat Robocop like he's just another superhero in a flashy costume. But you watch the first movie, and it's more of a really dark revenge fantasy-- this poor cop gets brutally murdered, he's reborn as a badass cyborg, and we get a HUGE thrill watching him kick some ass and get revenge on all those who wronged him.

Speak for yourself. I think there's nothing stupider or uglier than stories driven by revenge. Revenge just makes you as bad as your enemies. It perpetuates the cycle of violence and death. Revenge is what prevents peace in the Middle East, and anywhere else where people wallow in a cycle of bloodshed and are too obsessed with vengeance to realize they're just condemning their own people to more death because the other side will want revenge too. Revenge is a force of pure evil and destruction, and it disgusts me when movies glorify it.

Besides, have you ever read interviews with Paul Verhoeven about the film? He and the original screenwriters intended RoboCop to be a comic-book superhero. That was the whole idea. The original movie was just the origin story, depicting the process by which Alex Murphy began his career as the superhero RoboCop. So depicting his continued adventures in superheroing is entirely in keeping with the intent of the character's creators.

 

[Newski]

I would agree that, as cheesy as the TV series was, it was definitely the best out of all the various spinoffs they made over the years.

The problem with all of them though, is that they treat Robocop like he's just another superhero in a flashy costume. But you watch the first movie, and it's more of a really dark revenge fantasy-- this poor cop gets brutally murdered, he's reborn as a badass cyborg, and we get a HUGE thrill watching him kick some ass and get revenge on all those who wronged him.

THAT was the driving force that made that first movie work -- not the fact it was just a really cool-looking character.

It's really not that at all. Coffy this is not. Of course he's going to hunt down Boddecker and his gang.... They are the most wanted criminals in Detroit?

Besides, if it was a revenge story, why would he be out for Dick Jones? Dick Jones, while connected to Clarence Boddecker, had nothing to do with the brutal crime that killed Murphy, nor was Dick Jones in anyway responsible for the Robocop Project. He was, however, doing many evil things along the way.

It's an ultraviolent Superhero action film. That is often times painfully thematic. What they aren't trying to say through dialog are points they make through production design. Which is why I love the movie anyway.

 

[Samurai8472]

I remember in the Science and Tech forum there was thread about the internal workings of Robocop. I recently was looking for "Robocop Schematics"

Well, it was terrible in every way, but Fletcher's casting was one of the worst missteps. He got the character totally wrong, playing him as just another wisecracking action hero who happened to be in a robot suit (though that's as much the script's fault). He was way too small for the suit, and there was no attempt made to recreate the movement style Moni Yakim developed for the character in the original film -- both of which made him look ridiculous, like a kid prancing around in a Halloween costume, jerking his arms around and going "Look-I-am-a-ro-bot."

That was so sad. It looked liked they cut off a foot in length for the short actor to wear the Robocop suit.

 

[miraclefan]

^ SWEET!

 

[Sephiroth]

i'm trying to remember where I saw it, it was a long time ago, but it was a poster of a visible robocop and his insides looked alot like a terminator

 

[davejames]

It's really not that at all. Coffy this is not. Of course he's going to hunt down Boddecker and his gang.... They are the most wanted criminals in Detroit?

Besides, if it was a revenge story, why would he be out for Dick Jones? Dick Jones, while connected to Clarence Boddecker, had nothing to do with the brutal crime that killed Murphy, nor was Dick Jones in anyway responsible for the Robocop Project. He was, however, doing many evil things along the way.

It's an ultraviolent Superhero action film. That is often times painfully thematic. What they aren't trying to say through dialog are points they make through production design. Which is why I love the movie anyway.

Ok maybe "revenge" is too strong a word, but how can you watch this poor guy get shot up and kicked around the way he was and NOT want to root for him to come back and kick some serious ass??

It's a perfectly natural response. And it's that powerful emotional undercurrent that fuels the entire movie (and the fact it's missing from the sequels and spinoffs is why they feel so cheap and pointless-- once he becomes just another cop chasing bad guys, he ceases to be interesting).

Besides, if we weren't supposed to get a thrill from watching Robo blow away the bad guys, we wouldn't be seeing them die in the most bloody and violent ways imagineable. There certainly wasn't anything noble and "superhero-y" about the way he treated Clarence when he found him. lol

 

[Christopher]

^Again, speak for yourself. I don't find revenge "interesting." I find it stupid and contemptible. Heroes are people who are better than the villains, not people who act exactly like them. If both sides are equally contemptuous of human life, if both sides think that sating their personal desires (whether greed, anger, retribution, or anything else) justifies killing, then why should I root for one side over the other?

And as much as Verhoeven embraces violence, I don't think the intent was for the viewer to approve of it. His goal, according to interviews I recall, was to take the violence so far over the top that it went clear past being horrific and became farcical. It wasn't glorifying or celebrating that violence, it was mocking it. We weren't supposed to approve of it, we were meant to recognize how insane and ridiculous it was.

 

[DWF]

The problem with all of them though, is that they treat Robocop like he's just another superhero in a flashy costume. But you watch the first movie, and it's more of a really dark revenge fantasy-- this poor cop gets brutally murdered, he's reborn as a badass cyborg, and we get a HUGE thrill watching him kick some ass and get revenge on all those who wronged him.

Speak for yourself. I think there's nothing stupider or uglier than stories driven by revenge. Revenge just makes you as bad as your enemies. It perpetuates the cycle of violence and death. Revenge is what prevents peace in the Middle East, and anywhere else where people wallow in a cycle of bloodshed and are too obsessed with vengeance to realize they're just condemning their own people to more death because the other side will want revenge too. Revenge is a force of pure evil and destruction, and it disgusts me when movies glorify it.

Besides, have you ever read interviews with Paul Verhoeven about the film? He and the original screenwriters intended RoboCop to be a comic-book superhero. That was the whole idea. The original movie was just the origin story, depicting the process by which Alex Murphy began his career as the superhero RoboCop. So depicting his continued adventures in superheroing is entirely in keeping with the intent of the character's creators.

Paul Verhoeven saw Murphy as a Chist-like figure not a superhero, he talks about this in the commentary for the first movie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robocop#Themes

Director Paul Verhoeven, known for his heavy use of Christian symbolism, states in the documentary "Flesh and Steel: The Making of RoboCop" (featured on the RoboCop DVD) that his intention was to portray RoboCop as a Christ figure. This is represented in Murphy's horrific death, his return as RoboCop, and a scene near the end of the film where RoboCop is seen walking over water.

 

[davejames]

^Again, speak for yourself. I don't find revenge "interesting." I find it stupid and contemptible. Heroes are people who are better than the villains, not people who act exactly like them. If both sides are equally contemptuous of human life, if both sides think that sating their personal desires (whether greed, anger, retribution, or anything else) justifies killing, then why should I root for one side over the other?

Um, I think everyone agrees it's contemptable in the real world. This is entertainment we're talking about. Do you have this big an issue with EVERY action movie?

If these movies don't make us hate the bad guys and want to see the good guys kick their ass, then they're probably doing something wrong. lol

And as much as Verhoeven embraces violence, I don't think the intent was for the viewer to approve of it. His goal, according to interviews I recall, was to take the violence so far over the top that it went clear past being horrific and became farcical. It wasn't glorifying or celebrating that violence, it was mocking it. We weren't supposed to approve of it, we were meant to recognize how insane and ridiculous it was.

I know the director was satirizing the media, our consumer culture, and corporate greed, but I'm not so sure about the violence. Yeah it was outrageous and over the top, but I think that was used more to show what a crazy and violent place that world had become.

And also because it's just a stylistic thing Verhoeven does with ALL his movies.