The Big Picture: Why Robocop Still Rules
- Thread starter MovieBob
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This is a true story.
When I was a kid, I heard everyone call Robocop "Murphy", I think I had missed the part of the movie earlier where you see him as a human, so I naturally assumed that Robocop was Eddie Murphy. It wasn't until much later that I rewatched the movie and I realized that these two were separate people and that Eddie Murphy was just the actor and not Robocop. I was disappoint.
Think about it though, what if Robocop really WAS him.
When I was a kid, I heard everyone call Robocop "Murphy", I think I had missed the part of the movie earlier where you see him as a human, so I naturally assumed that Robocop was Eddie Murphy. It wasn't until much later that I rewatched the movie and I realized that these two were separate people and that Eddie Murphy was just the actor and not Robocop. I was disappoint.
Think about it though, what if Robocop really WAS him.
Mostly, some of them are are still pretty good movies in their own right and worth watching. The Bogart version of Maltese Falcon is vastly superior to the previous versions. I haven't seen the original Man Who Knew Too Much but the remake is generally better know, it being in color and staring James Stewart. Casino Royal was the first Bond story adapted for screen and is very different from other versions. It's more faithful to the book than most Bond movies, despite Bond being an American. It also stars Peter Lorre as Le Chiffre, so it's worth checking out Lorre as a Bond villain. It's only an hour long and you can watch it on youtube, I think it's worth checking out if you are a fan of either the Ian Fleming books or Peter Lorre. Thing From Another World is also very different from John Carpenters remake. The creature was more of a big, slow moving but hard to kill creature. It was fun 1950's sci-fi cheese. Like wise Ocean's 11 with Frank Sinatra is a very different than the George Clooney version. They are both kind of fun movies, with Sinatras version having few twists and more likely to breakout into song. Think this would also be a good place to mention The Manchurian Candidate. Personally I think the original is one of the greatest movies ever made, but I have some friends who liked the remake better. They are both very different movies made at very different times. Both are worth watching at lest once if you haven't seen them, neither one entirely spoils the other. I haven't seen all of the original Scarface, so I'm not going to comment on that one.008Zulu said:
I'm not sure if it's really fair to compare those two, as London After Midnight is a lost silent film and Mark of the Vampire is a watchable talky. It could be argued that the presence for sound may make it seem better, or at lest more watchable to a wider modern audience. Speaking as someone who has really enjoyed some silent movies, I don't feel want to compare them until I've seen them both.maximara said:
I remember the Robocop TV series, he had an AI sidekick not unlike Cortana, and there was an episode where the guy who designed his visor used it to frame him, leaving me with a wonderful image of an old man wearing Robocop's helmet burned into my memory.
Not if Internet Sources have anything to say about it. [http://www.ifc.com/fix/2012/06/starship-troopers-remake-2]Soviet Heavy said:
Infact, it may be even MORE dreadful than a straight rip-off of the Paul Verhoeven film. WORSE.
Awesome job on this retrospective on the original Robocop, Bob. Paul Verhoeven made some awesome movies in the 80s and 90s that not only pleased action/sci-fi fans but poked at your brain without realizing it (see the original Total Recall and Starship Troopers) Plus its main actor, Peter Weller, is one of those actors I really wish he'd get more movie roles. If you're like me and crave some more Peter Weller goodness, hunt down a copy of The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. It's a bizarre sci-fi comedy movie that has to be seen before you die... or, at least, made into a future Big Picture episode (giving you an easy one, Bob).
I just got through it, and I'd agree. I was looking for the "Smart" movie Bob described. It doesn't exist.NinjaDeathSlap said:
The events of the film are set in motion by Murphy's female partner holding up a perp with an unzipped fly. A dick joke and a look down later and she's down for the count. Yeah. "Smart". Oh yeah Bob, she's a great female character. A real fucking gem.
Then there's the ludicrous live fire exercise in the boardroom, Dick admitting the 209s don't work and then trying to use them as guards for OCP (How high is he? I mean, 80's execs liked cocaine, was that the joke?). He admits he's trying to sell them to the military to guarantee a long term contract, even though they don't work. But then he uses them to guard headquarters from the now out of OCP's control Robocop.
The supercop apparently doesn't bother with booking or charging, or even sometimes arresting his perps, so it's no wonder they're right back on the streets. "He's a cop killer." Oh, I guess they can work out the rest, or were you hoping they'd lynch him Murphy?
And is that really their idea of violent crime? Very obvious stick ups with weapons which probably cost more than the take? So sophisticated. If we really must dump movies into decades, Die Hard is a hell of a lot smarter, a hell of a lot less pretentious, and a hell of a lot more engaging.
And dear god "I'd buy that for a dollar". Really? Is that the social commentary?
I mean, it's a passable film, but it's not smart. It's contemporaries were often smarter, and Verhoeven has done much better. Starship Troopers leaves Robocop in the dust.
And this sounds like the typical hipster conservative 'racism is over' stance, paying no heed to the idea that half of the U.S.'s and U.K.'s current populations already harbor irrational fears about foreigners they've never met or seen in person. Even a good number of my Democrat-inclined friends here think that places like Iran and Palestine are completely overrun by terrorists and I've talked to British people who hold terribly-racist views of Romanians, Bulgarians, etc..., as well as Muslims.pokepuke said:
You're also being incredibly superficial with your racist conspiracy theory, or willfully ignorant of the entire plot-line. I recall the movie portraying both white and black people in fairly neutral senses. True, the British government's military was predominantly white, but what the hell did you expect? It's England. Places like the refugee camp had plenty of white people living inside of it alongside foreign peoples and, upon the protagonists' entry to the camp, the soldiers at the checkpoint ended up singling out the white woman in their party. As well, let's not forget that the white protagonist is essentially the one who saves the day. Did his sacrifice nullify everything about his actions? As well, the head villain was a black dude. I'd say that balances out the 'psuedo-liberal circle jerk' decision to (*GASP*) have the first baby born in the dystopian hell be a non-white. Racism seemed 'over' in this movie from the get-go - any phobias that existed were economically-driven hegemonic dynamics of inner-circle/outer-circle, in other words, simply citizen/non-citizen. If you want to deny that such behavior is possible given our current historical circumstances, you're probably indulging in technocratic pro-Western/pro-capitalist idealism.