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Robocop (robotic police officer film)

Started by St_Eddie, June 03, 2018, 03:29:52 AM

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St_Eddie

Quote from: BeardFaceMan on June 03, 2018, 12:42:23 PM
Alright, im gonna say it, did anyone bother with the remake?  i cant think of a more pointless idea, I steered well clear. Just how bad was it?

I've seen it.  It's not awful per say but rather just completely pointless, middle of the road, forgettable and inferior to the original in every single way, with none of the satire which made the original film more than just a simple action flick.  In many ways that's actually worse than being a truly awful movie, in my opinion.  At least something that's truly awful can make for a fascinating hate watch.  The remake doesn't even have that going for it.

Sgt. Duckie

Agreed St Eddie. It also featured an extremely bland performance from Michael Keaton as the villain, and I usually enjoy most characters he plays.

phantom_power

I thought the remake had some quite interesting things to say about the nature of humanity and AI and where one merges with the other, but I think that could have been done in a similar way in a film with a different name and no link to Robocop

mothman

I've seen the remake, within the past couple of years, and I can remember nothing at all about it. I haven't seen the original in at least a decade, and I can remember all sorts.

greenman

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on June 03, 2018, 01:37:29 PM
Has anyone read Frank Miller's comic based on his original script for Robocop 2? He seems both the perfect and worst possible choice to write one of these.

Not read it but looking at the synopsis it seems like a lot of stuff we saw in the second and third films. Personally I love the second film just pushing the satire of the original as far as possible, not as much drama but really there was never intended to be plus of course it seemed to be an Empire Strikes Back like situation only we never got the intended sequel following up on his wife.

Brundle-Fly


Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: mothman on June 03, 2018, 10:07:38 PM
I've seen the remake, within the past couple of years, and I can remember nothing at all about it. I haven't seen the original in at least a decade, and I can remember all sorts.

I've not seen the remake but I knew it'd strip everything that made Robocop great; the self awareness and that.

St_Eddie

Quote from: greenman on June 03, 2018, 10:24:44 PM
...plus of course it seemed to be an Empire Strikes Back like situation only we never got the intended sequel following up on his wife.

Obligatory mention that both The Empire Strikes Back and Robocop 2 were directed by Irvin Kershner.

You're right though, it is strange that there's never any real resolution to the Murphy's wife subplot.  I suppose that one could interpret that subplot as simply being a way of showing that Murphy is choosing to let the past go and hoping that his wife will now move on but then again, why even introduce it in the first place, if that's the case?  It wasn't a plot thread which was left dangling from the first film.  As it stands, it does feel half-baked and incomplete, in terms of resolution.

Famous Mortimer

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on June 03, 2018, 03:41:58 PM
Ferrer's greatest role was obviously this: https://youtu.be/EVESMxs4rbA
I was keeping my fingers crossed that would be the clip you used. In the top (small number) of one liners in movie history for me, that.

popcorn

#39
I have long maintained that a major part of Robocop's brilliance is his plump, kissable lips.





Nothing but cold steel and rubber - except for those pert, plump smackers. Smooch!

The other Robocops can't compete. A parade of dry, joyless chops. Robert Burke (Robot Berk) has the kissers of your nan.


biggytitbo

Robert Cop 3 more like!


But yes, the original Robo-policeman really is a sexy sod, the lips, the voice, the pert titanium arse. Lovely stuff.

greenman

#41
Quote from: St_Eddie on June 03, 2018, 11:32:40 PM
Obligatory mention that both The Empire Strikes Back and Robocop 2 were directed by Irvin Kershner.

You're right though, it is strange that there's never any real resolution to the Murphy's wife subplot.  I suppose that one could interpret that subplot as simply being a way of showing that Murphy is choosing to let the past go and hoping that his wife will now move on but then again, why even introduce it in the first place, if that's the case?  It wasn't a plot thread which was left dangling from the first film.  As it stands, it does feel half-baked and incomplete, in terms of resolution.

It would surely need to be addressed to some degree after the first film's climax and again the impression I got was that it was likely intended to be followed up on with a third film. The third film we got did use some of Millers ideas from the script for the second like OCP hiring a private army but was generally a lot more conventional so perhaps just avoided this plot on purpose in favour of the cheesier drama we got?

It doesn't have the central drama of the original but I think Kershner does a good job with what drama he does have, the above scene is played well IMHO and as is the Hobb plot IMHO as both a link to murphy's son and a satire on children being pushed to grow up too soon.

It just feels like a strange situation to me where the second film is viewed as some kind of studio cash in when really it actually focused even more on satire than the original, at least in terms of politics. Generally I think besides the original Robocop it was undervalued at the time just how political a lot of action cinema of this era actually was, far from being mindless Reagan actioners the majority of the big films were pretty strong anti establishment with a decent amount of intelligence to them. It was actually the 90's during the Clinton era that action cinema moved into jingoism and glorification of the US establishment far more.

Shit Good Nose

Both Robot Garda 1 and Robot Garda 2 are excellent, with 2 being very worthy because it goes for different things rather than just doing more of the same.  Shout Factory's recent blu ray release is worth a mention as it's packed to the gills with decent extras and features a 2K scan, which looks amazing.

The remake, as nearly everyone else who has seen it said, is not a terrible film, but just a totally pointless and uninteresting PG-13 action film.  It does a little bit more with the human aspect (in the the original he's been made a robot who then has to come to terms with his human side, whereas in the remake he's a human that has to come to terms with his robot side) but, that interesting take aside, it's just a watch-once-and-never-again film.

And yes - 3 and the subsequent series, cartoon (which, if memory serves, I saw before I saw the film) and straight to DVD films are total gak.

Blumf

Re: RoboWidow

For some reason I have it in my head that, after Murphy's death, she and their son moved away to Southern California and ended up getting killed by that SDI space laser misfire you see reported in the news. It makes sense; you can see it as being another of OCP's 'glitchy' mil-industrial boondoggles, and would be yet another example of how Murphy's life has been fucked over by the corp.

However, clearly that did not happen.

phantom_power

Roboplod 2 is a mental film. It throws a hundred plot threads at the script and sees which ones stick on which pages. There are some good bits but it is a real mess in terms of plot and tone.

AsparagusTrevor

It is a bloody weird film. Really callous streak running through it, contrasted with some wacky comedy that gives it an odd, yo-yo-ing tone. I do have a soft spot for it despite its issues, and it isn't Robertcop 3 so it has that going for it.

momatt

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on June 03, 2018, 01:37:29 PM
I haven't watched it and I've heard it's not much (Robo) cop, but (heretical as it may be) I don't think the idea is inherently pointless. As a satire, there's surely plenty of material in today's world for a new version to sink its teeth into. I've always thought District 9 was a worthy spiritual successor.
I thought the remake was alright.  It was suitably different to make it worth watching, rather than just using the same script with better effects.
Easily better than the threequel.
But yes, not as much satire, more of a well-designed action film.

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on June 03, 2018, 01:37:29 PM
Has anyone read Frank Miller's comic based on his original script for Robocop 2? He seems both the perfect and worst possible choice to write one of these.
I thought that comic was fucking shiiiiiit.  Really hated it.
The artwork was awful and the story made no sense.  I even found the 3rd film more enjoyable.

popcorn

The comic is a hideous, embarrassing wreck.

The failed robocops in Robocop 2 are ace. I love the meta thing of them attempting to build "Robocop 2" in the film Robocop 2.

colacentral

Robocop 2 is horrible. They bring the wife story back to provide Murphy with an emotional arc to justify the sequel's existence, but there's nowhere else to go after the end of Robocop 1 - he's sort of Murphy again, that's it. Don't need anymore.

Also, am I remembering right that they make the old man more villainous in the second one? In the first one he's just a bit doddery.

popcorn

I think there's a good chance Robocop 2 isn't very good, but I'll have to rewatch it. But I remember it having a number of good ideas and good scenes, like the failed prototypes, and Robocop malfunctioning - "I'm having trouble" is delivered so well, and also love the concept of a criminal baseball team. And I thought Caine was genuinely scary.

Replies From View

Was the baddy robot in Robocop 2 addicted to drugs or something?  I remember it having an internal chest claw thing that was twinging for a bit of the old drugs.

Whereas Robocop himself wasn't addicted to anything so could get through the whole day without any twinges.

popcorn

Quote from: Replies From View on June 04, 2018, 05:18:18 PM
Was the baddy robot in Robocop 2 addicted to drugs or something?  I remember it having an internal chest claw thing that was twinging for a bit of the old drugs.

Whereas Robocop himself wasn't addicted to anything so could get through the whole day without any twinges.

Yes, Caine was addicted to Nuke. Robocop subsists on a rudimentary paste.

Rolf Lundgren

Quote from: colacentral on June 04, 2018, 05:02:36 PM
Robocop 2 is horrible. They bring the wife story back to provide Murphy with an emotional arc to justify the sequel's existence, but there's nowhere else to go after the end of Robocop 1 - he's sort of Murphy again, that's it. Don't need anymore.

Also, am I remembering right that they make the old man more villainous in the second one? In the first one he's just a bit doddery.

Totally agree, the second film is an absolute mess. The heart of the first movie is that there's a real person behind Robocop. In the second one they spend about 10 seconds of screen time on it.

All the clever, nuance of the first one and tongue-in-cheek satire is replaced by bombastic, over-the-top darkness laid on so thick it loses any impact other than being unremittingly grim.   

Blumf

Quote from: Replies From View on June 04, 2018, 05:18:18 PM
Whereas Robocop himself wasn't addicted to anything so could get through the whole day without any twinges.

RoboCop was addicted to justice. Couldn't get enough of it. If he went a day without justice there would be trouble.

greenman

Quote from: Rolf Lundgren on June 04, 2018, 05:50:15 PM
Totally agree, the second film is an absolute mess. The heart of the first movie is that there's a real person behind Robocop. In the second one they spend about 10 seconds of screen time on it.

All the clever, nuance of the first one and tongue-in-cheek satire is replaced by bombastic, over-the-top darkness laid on so thick it loses any impact other than being unremittingly grim.   

It lacks the centric dramatic hook of the original but I would say theres a decent amount of heart to it still.

The satire becomes a bit less tongue in cheek but also IMHO a bit smarter going after OCP and government as a whole rather than the odd corporate bad egg. Cain as well I think seems rather ahead of his time as a hippish character pushing a new economy with ruthless greed.

Generally to me it feels like a film that's had a surprising amount of care taken with it in just how densely written/designed it is rather than just going for maximum darkness/gore.

Osmium

The corporate cunts in RoboCod 2 becoming Nazis is good illustration of its lack of subtlety.


BEHAVE YOURSELVES!

popcorn


St_Eddie

Quote from: biggytitbo on June 04, 2018, 08:25:54 AM
...the original Robo-policeman really is a sexy sod, the lips, the voice, the pert titanium arse. Lovely stuff.

Shhh!  Pipe down, lest @Cerys becomes jealous.

Quote from: greenman on June 04, 2018, 09:01:44 AM
...It just feels like a strange situation to me where the second film is viewed as some kind of studio cash in...

Aye, I'll agree with you here.  It baffles me somewhat when I hear people talking about Robocop 2, as though its an awful sequel.  It may not be as good as the first film but then again, few films are.  It's a very worthy sequel, in my opinion.

Quote from: Blumf on June 04, 2018, 01:55:19 PM
For some reason I have it in my head that, after Murphy's death, she and their son moved away to Southern California and ended up getting killed by that SDI space laser misfire you see reported in the news. It makes sense; you can see it as being another of OCP's 'glitchy' mil-industrial boondoggles, and would be yet another example of how Murphy's life has been fucked over by the corp.

However, clearly that did not happen.

I'm wondering if you've somehow mixed up a scene from Robocop with a similar scene from Starship Troopers, as both were written by Ed Neumeier and directed by Paul Verhoeven.  As you say, there's the scene where we see a news report of the space laser misfiring in Robocop but there's a somewhat similar scene in Starship Troopers where an asteroid destroys Buenos Aires, killing the main protagonist's parents.  We see this asteroid attack kill his parents via a video chat between the two parties and then later, we see a news report covering that same asteroid incident.

Quote from: popcorn on June 04, 2018, 04:57:29 PM
The comic is a hideous, embarrassing wreck.

Aye, it's gubbins.  Horribly misogynistic too, if my memory serves me correctly.  I used to have a Robocop Versus Terminator comic when I was a kid, which I remember as being fun, despite the daft premise.  On that note, Robocop Versus Terminator for the Megadrive is a great game and a childhood favourite of mine (there was even a cheat code, to make the game even gorier!  Coo!).

colacentral

Quote from: greenman on June 04, 2018, 07:11:31 PM
It lacks the centric dramatic hook of the original but I would say theres a decent amount of heart to it still.

The satire becomes a bit less tongue in cheek but also IMHO a bit smarter going after OCP and government as a whole rather than the odd corporate bad egg. Cain as well I think seems rather ahead of his time as a hippish character pushing a new economy with ruthless greed.

Generally to me it feels like a film that's had a surprising amount of care taken with it in just how densely written/designed it is rather than just going for maximum darkness/gore.

I don't agree re: the satirical elements. The first one suggests that privatization of public services can't work because corporations don't work the same way, and ethics are not a major priority for them; whereas the old man becomes a villain in the sequel, which shifts the fault on to the actions of individual people, rather than an inherent flaw in the system of privatization.

The fault of the old man and OCP in the original is their drive for profit: removing human officers to make the police more efficient, something which is completely believable in today's world of self-driving cars and self-service checkouts. The problem obviously being that they are cutting corners while building robotic killing machines which are prone to error. That is much more grounded in reality than the moustache-twirling plot of the sequel.

greenman

Quote from: colacentral on June 04, 2018, 07:51:42 PM
I don't agree re: the satirical elements. The first one suggests that privatization of public services can't work because corporations don't work the same way, and ethics are not a major priority for them; whereas the old man becomes a villain in the sequel, which shifts the fault on to the actions of individual people, rather than an inherent flaw in the system of privatization.

The fault of the old man and OCP in the original is their drive for profit: removing human officers to make the police more efficient, something which is completely believable in today's world of self-driving cars and self-service checkouts. The problem obviously being that they are cutting corners while building robotic killing machines which are prone to error. That is much more grounded in reality than the moustache-twirling plot of the sequel.

I would argue the sequel actually shows that a lot more, the original is really driven by Dick Jones being a very obviously villainous cooperate bad egg and his conflict with Morton rather than any OCP culture as a whole. In the sequel we get the old man taking on somewhat of that role but more being a ruthless reflection of the whole culture rather than so clearly villainous plus showing a good deal of belief in the rightness of his position with the comments about anyone buying OCP stock and indeed the comparison to the dodgy local government being willing to deal with gangsters.

It actually seems very ahead of its time for a mainstream blockbuster politically to me taking aim at hallow issue politics and Cain as a hippy turned ruthless messianic capitalist.