The Big Picture: Why Robocop Still Rules

[Knight Templar]

the movie was fine. I don't think I can trust bob anymore seeing how he's teamed up with anita and probably thinks lego is sexist.

That's really an issue on your end isn't it? And I don't see how that connects to his thoughts on Robocop.

So basically, I can expect Bob to not like the remake when he reviews it on Friday?

Having seen the movie and hearing what he likes about the old one, I'd be shocked if he had an overall positive opinion of the film.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I wonder what movies, if any, that are remakes that are better than the originals.

 

[Clovus]

Well, that's perfectly up to you if you wish to see it that way, but I just don't. When I watch it all I can see is special effects and music which combine to give a good atmosphere. Now it does that well, and I'll give credit where credit is due, but like good acoustics won't make or brake a song, that just isn't enough for me to enjoy it.

Oh, yeah, no problem there. I only replied to begin with because you seemed to be taking the position that people who like 2001 are taking part in some kind of mass deception. I'm not personally into Classical music, so I agree with you that lyrics are really important. But, that doesn't mean someone else won't get real meaning out of music without words. Pure sound doesn't often click with me. Visuals do though. Like, I would have been perfectly happy if Melancholia was just 2 hours of the weird slo-mo set pieces in the first 10 minutes.

The 2nd act (the one with Hal) was the one I was referring to. The first act is almost entirely effects and showpieces demonstrating either landscapes, setting up a story that has does fit in with the movie but in the end doesn't effect the story in any way, and showing us what Clark thought the future would look like. The 3rd act, for it's part, doesn't really say anything about anything for the most part and ends with imagery that isn't understandable without reading the book since the context is one that is impossible to show in a visual means.

Movies aren't just stories though. Neither are novels. Like, I guess The Waves by Woolfe and Ulysses by Joyce are both pretty boring stories, but that's not the only reason to read them. The visuals, cinematography, landscapes, etc. aren't just there to be pretty. The transition from a bone flung in the air to a space station wasn't just there so Kubrick could claim he made the longest flash forward ever. He was equating the two objects. The most interesting things about most Kubrick films are things outside of the direct story. He was insanely detailed, so you can find all kinds of interesting things going on in most of his films.

If you have Netflix, try watching Room 237. It's a bunch of people's reactions to The Shining. While some of their interpretations get a bit wild (like that it was Kubrick's admission of faking the moon landing), it really does show the insane level of detail Kubrick included. And not just detail from an aesthetic point of view. He clearly wanted the visuals, camera tricks, music to affect you. Most of the themes of the movie come from those details.

But, yeah, 2001 is not a great yarn.

 

[Seracen]

I hope the reboot causes more people to go watch the original. I expect poor things from the remake, in all honesty.

I'll be pleased if it's no worse than a "popcorn movie," but otherwise, my reaction to it was the same as Peter Weller's: "eeehhhh......"

Oh, and it'd also be cool to see another surge of "Robocop vs" products, like perhaps a proper "Robocop vs Terminator" video game that is actually playable!

 

[DrBonBon]

Robocop is kind of like the Half Life of action movies, by which I mean you can watch it just as a fun action movie, but if you want to, you can find a deeper story inside of it.

 

[blackrave]

Totally agree with Bob
Robocop is one of my favorite movies
I loved it when I was child (and probably shouldn't have watched it) and love it now (and not because of nostalgitis)
Too bad that eventually they made it into sitcom

And I'm pretty sure that Verhoeven knew exactly what he was doing with Starship Troopers. The genius of that film is how writer Ed Neumeier managed to disguise a vicious satire of fascism and war movies in the skin of a dumb action blockbuster. Most people write off Starship Troopers as a horrible case of Hollywood screwing up adaptations of novels. In reality, yes, it is a horrible adaptation, but it's also a damn good film in its own right. The cheesy acting and the sincerity of the actors just sells you on the absurd premise. When you can put the wooden as fuck Casper Van Dien in the same scene as the deadly serious Michael Ironside and have neither look out of place, you've made a good film.

One of the underlying jokes of Starship Troopers I think is that the actors don't even seem to be aware of what movie they're in. You can just tell most of them are playing it as this 'Mankind vs. Evil' tale. And from what I've heard, the only reason it even got finnished is because executives ignored it. Had they seen dailies of Neil Patrick Harris dressed as an SS officer, they probably would've put a stop to it right quick.

I think actors acted perfect.
In internal universe of "Starship Trooper" soldiers really DO believe they are fighting absolute Evil
Only as outsiders we can evaluate war for what it really is
Not as much "Mankind vs. Evil" as "Dumbasses vs. Shitheads"
Only reason to feel for Dumbasses is because we share DNA with them
I think it is a law or something

 

[blackrave]

It's slightly dissapointing that Bob didn't mention Lewis, which is desexualized to appear as a valid partner in law enforcement and as a person who has Murphys back, which is in contrast to most things we see today, where women are just token love interests with gorgeous bodies and faces.

I totally disagree with this statement
She wasn't desexualized (Charlize Theron in "Monster" was desexualized)
She was simply not hypersexualized

Also, stupid haircut aside, I think she's hot.

 

[blackrave]

"After being cast as Anne Lewis, Nancy Allen had to get her hair cut several times, until it was short enough for Verhoeven, because he wanted to desexualize her character." -Robocop Wiki

Keep in mind that the movie is from '87, the age of perms and leg warmers.
The point is that she's Murphys partner, she has his back, she's the rational one and she's not a love interest.

Disagree all you want, the intention is clear and as far as I'm concerned, she is desexualized, unless women in uniforms, steel tipped boots and bulletproof vests is a fetish of yours.
A person can still be attractive despite not meeting mainstream requirements for being "beautiful" or sexy. I don't blame you for feeling that way about her, in fact I agree that she's quite an attractive person, but I don't see any effort to make her look like more than she is.

So hair WAS intentional?
Good job, Paul, good job.

Also, I wouldn't call it fetish, but there is something about such women ;D

As for terms "desexualized" and "hypersexualized"
I see one as actions to diminish beauty, sexuality and appeal, while another is opposite
And haircut aside I don't see how she was made uglier or unattractive
That's why I argue that she wasn't "desexualized"

 

[maximara]

I should probably watch Robocop again. I saw it on TV years ago and thought nothing of it. If Bob finds all this stuff in it, why not watch it again?

Speaking of Robocop on TV I'm surprised Moviebob didn't touch on the 1988 cartoon (12 episodes) or the short lived 1994 TV series (24 episodes). I always felt the live TV series was a better sequel then Robocop 2 was. A major plus is the live TV series acted as if Robocop 2 and 3 never happened though it did down play OCP as a bad guy by making the CEO into one of those heart of gold characters though OCP still did bad things but as the result of greedy underlings.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Bob, did you just put the dross that was Moon up there with Blade Runner as a great all-time modern science fiction film? For shame. I died a little inside today.

How was Moon dross? I loved that film, but opinions being what they are, I can understand that someone else wouldn't appreciate it. I just can't understand *how* that can be. Can you please elaborate, maybe in a PM so the discussion doesn't get hijacked?

As for Robocop - the Robot Jesus angle is pretty obvious. Verhoeven considered the character as some kind of quintessentially American, pseudo-religious figure. The violence in the flick is largely put on display as a kind of commentary; it's Verhoeven going "Jeeze, you guys, what's with you and badass mofos with guns?"

A question that seems trivial, but which does merit some thought.

As for Emil's death - Jesus Effing Christ. I saw this around my eighth birthday. I was EIGHT YEARS OLD and I saw mutated man-sludge plead for assistance in the most pathetic means possible, while inspiring nothing if utter revulsion. And of course, he gets exploded by that asshole Boddicker's car.

I remember having nightmares about this for weeks, Emil's wails and gurgles following me around corners...

Nevertheless, it was an awesome movie.

Captcha: gadzooks
Oh, hello, Mister Weatherbee!

 

[SixShooter]

More mindless Nolan bashing by Bob to start the video - no thanks. What's hilarious is the new twists his putting on it to cover his own tracks. After getting owned as to the themes and metaphors in Man of Steel (he didn't catch any of them), he's now pretending he saw them all along and that they were "heavy handed" LOL nice try.


It's more than a little suspicious though that he keeps bashing the left wing Nolan movies though, while he defends Randian trash like the Iron man set (lol at how he twisted himself into knots to defend Iron Man 3). Such advocacy is clearly done in bad faith.


Unprofessional.

 

[Zontar]

bashing the left wing Nolan movies

Nolan, left wing? Does not compute, does not (*circuits fry*). On a serious note though: Man of Steel was most definitely heavy handed in its themes and metaphors, even the critics who where overall positive towards the movie tend to point that out. Though I really don't see what's wrong with Iron Man 3. Is it an American thing? Because no one I know had a problem with it.

 

[ThreeRandomWords]

I wonder what movies, if any, that are remakes that are better than the originals.

John Huston's 1941 version of the Maltese Falcon with Humphey Bogart was the third time the book was adapted to a movie. It was preceded by The Maltese Falcon in 1931 and Satan Met a Lady in 1936. Alfred Hitchcock made The Man Who Knew Too Much in 1934 and again with James Stewart in 1956. Casino Royal was first adapted from the book to a TV movie in 1954 before being made into the Daniel Craig version. Not counting the 1967 comedy with David Niven, that one just kind of borrowed the title. John Carpenter's The Thing is a remake of The thing from Another World. Ocean's Eleven is a remake of a Frank Sinatra movie of the Same name. The 1983 version of Scarface is a remake of the 1932 version.

I think there is an argument for a remake being as good or better than the original, it just doesn't happen very often.

 

[Looming_Shadows]

Anyone who loves Robocop should Elite Squad; seriously good movie and one of Brazil's best movies

 

[Looming_Shadows]

Anyone who loves Robocop should Elite Squad; seriously good movie and one of Brazil's best movies

 

[pokepuke]

I wholeheartedly agree on Children of Men being pretentious. That is the foremost thought I was left with after seeing the movie. Surprising to me that people here disagree so strongly. The acting was decent, the story was somewhat interesting, the dystopian future was done in nearly an acceptable way; but it seemed that by far the most prominent feature was the seemless interpolation of special effects onto the screen (save for the super campy and obvious fake bit about shooting ping-pong balls from mouth to mouth (I mean really, that scene portrays how utterly patronizing the sum of all the parts adds up to)). Plus Julianne Moore was a horrid choice.

Then at the end there are actions scenes that fail in every way, except for displaying how cool it looks when super red hot bullets fly right in front of your face. And then apparently everyone suddenly understands the importance of the girl and she gets some Deus Ex Machina help, shipped off to La La Land.

It starts off with a grim and potent premise, but ultimately came across as some pseudo-liberal circle jerk about how white people aren't the future and we have to exorcise our xenophobia to survive on this planet.

 

[pearcinator]

I hope they don't remake Starship Troopers next...that movie was a fluke. Nobody could remake that movie to the same effect. Hell, I hardly think Paul Verhoeven knew what kind of movie he was making at the time he made Starship Troopers!

Bad news: they are making a Starship Troopers remake. And don't let the Hollywood buzz that they are making it "closer to the original novel" fool you. They are going to rip off the Verhoeven film like no tomorrow.

And I'm pretty sure that Verhoeven knew exactly what he was doing with Starship Troopers. The genius of that film is how writer Ed Neumeier managed to disguise a vicious satire of fascism and war movies in the skin of a dumb action blockbuster. Most people write off Starship Troopers as a horrible case of Hollywood screwing up adaptations of novels. In reality, yes, it is a horrible adaptation, but it's also a damn good film in its own right. The cheesy acting and the sincerity of the actors just sells you on the absurd premise. When you can put the wooden as fuck Casper Van Dien in the same scene as the deadly serious Michael Ironside and have neither look out of place, you've made a good film.

Plus, it also has one of the best soundtracks ever. Basil Poledouris forever.

Noooooo! The original still hold up today! (I'll still see it but won't expect much at all)

It's one of my favourite movies...and NOBODY could do biased propaganda like Paul Verhoeven! They try too hard by making it way too obvious as an attempt at humour (to the point where it's not funny). Case in point...the new Robocop movie has Samuel L. Jackson as the incredibly biased talk show host but they made it way too obvious and could tell they were trying to parody Fox News.

Also, co-ed showers!

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I think there is an argument for a remake being as good or better than the original, it just doesn't happen very often.

I have seen a few of those remakes, but not the originals they are based off of. Are the remakes generally considered to be better?