The Big Picture: Why Robocop Still Rules

MovieBob

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Why Robocop Still Rules

MovieBob lays down the law on why the original Robocop is still a fantastic film.

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Leemaster777

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You know, I've seen bits and pieces of Robocop over my life (the part where the guy gets turned into a mutant and then roadkill sticks in my mind the most), but I've never watched it from beginning to end before.

I think I need to fix that.
 

T3hSource

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Well gaming has done some good homages to Robocop with Blood Dragon, Deus Ex, and even Metal Gear Rising REVENGEANCE! :D
 

Ickabod

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Robocop, the source of some of the best one liners in movie history.

I still remember having "Can you fly bobby?" tied to a hot key for deathmatches in Doom for everytime I got someone with a rocket. Ah memories.
 

JoJo

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I saw the new one last weekend, thought it was pretty good and had some relevance to today's world, e.g. drone references. Haven't seen the original but I see it's on Netflix so I'll probably change that fairly soon.
 

Duffeknol

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The Robocop remake is the only remake I utterly refuse to watch. I can live with remaking pretty much anything, but not Robocop. Even if it turns out to be much better than expected, I'll just rewatch the original one more time instead.
 

Zontar

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Wait, Bob made a list of Sci-Fi movies that people seem to think are good but for one reason or another actually aren't, and he didn't include 2001? I shocked.
 

Barbas

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When Dick Jones falls, look how long his arms are. A bit creepy and Slender-esque.

This film is absolutely classic.
 

Stabby Joe

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Robocop is a dam fine film, easily one of my favorites. Including the reasons Bob has mentioned the thing that struck me was the layers. In order to really enjoy the film, you need to look beyond the title. Yes it is about a robot cop yet I always saw it as a story about identity, while also being a satire of corporate culture.

For example one great thing Bob does not mention here are the various fake adverts littered throughout, such as the also funny yet creepily chirpy "NUK'EM! GET THEM BEFORE THEY GET YOU!" on top of the happy go lucky news reports about atrocities.

Plus while Bob is right that the bad guys are still technically there, the audience still has the satisfaction of Murphy regaining some of his humanity by the end. Seriously, a great film all around...

...HOWEVER, the elephant in the room: Children of Men is not pretentious. Also watch that if you get the chance.

As a side note the character Dick Jones essentially also appears again in the original Total Recall. Good actor, really.
 

Muspelheim

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Children of Men... Pretentious..? But that must mean... Oh no. Oh, dear Christ... Angels and ministers of Grace, no...

I'm... Pretentious... No... No!

"...And while Mr. Heim was experiencing his world collapse around him, the silent walls of N:eek: 20 merely shrugged, whispering 'Big fat surprise there, you dramaprince' to his fevered, beating eardrums."

It really was a terribly violent film, though. But what I love about it is that it wasn't the only gimmick, the lone reason it had to exist. It busied itself with being a good movie, too. Being as clever as it could be with what it wanted to, and could, be.
 

NinjaDeathSlap

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This time around, I don't agree with Bob.

OCP did come off as cartoonishly evil to me. I never believed watching those boardroom scenes that this is what the upper echelons of big business, even 80's big business, is actually like. Now, that would have been okay, if the movie wasn't pushing the 'cautionary tale' button so hard, because in order for that to work, you've got to make me believe that some broadly accepted progression of logic could potentially take us from our present to that vision of the future.

As well as this, OCP are cartoonishly incompetent as well as evil, which also gets in the way of my capacity to believe that a bunch of people this dumb could effectively seize ultimate control of the United States and it's culture. The aforementioned stairs incident with ED-209 stuck out for me, as well as the scene where they test ED-209 using live ammunition in a confined space with the entire OCP board present. I'm sorry Robocop, but do you really just expect me to swallow that shit?! Private contractors being incompetent isn't unbelievable in itself, but there's a limit. It didn't help that there were precisely 4 people in the movie who exhibited anything above a 2-dimensional personality either.

I'm not saying that Robocop is terrible. I'd rate it as a pretty decent 80's action movie even besides some laughably dated special effects, but I don't think it's half as 'smart' as Bob describes. It's trying to be smart, which I suppose in the context of 80's action movies is still a step in the right direction, but looking back at it today it's message comes off as a shallow, half-formed thought to me. Not to say that the remake will be any better (it could certainly still turn out a lot worse), but I think at least, unlike some other remakes, it has a lot of potential to improve on the original, especially with the idea of machines making us more detached from our own conflicts being very relevant at this moment in time.
 

HostileParadox

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Can't wait to see Bob tear Ro-BRO-cop a new one in Friday's review.

That one human hand, all black Mass Effect armor, it's going to be delicious.
 

wildstars

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I'm really surprised Bob didn't mention, or wasn't aware of, the intentional "Robocop was a Jesus Christ metaphore." (google that exact phrase if you want to know more)

I remember seeing this movie in the theater and thinking "nah, it can't be" when he was walking on water in the abandoned factory. I was pleasantly surprised when I got the Criterion LD's, and it was laid out in the directors commentary tracks.


Also a friend of a friend used to claim that there was a even more secret directive, Directive 5: Break Glass.

That said, I loved the original, and I'm guardedly optimistic for the remake.
 

Draconalis

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wildstars said:
I'm really surprised Bob didn't mention, or wasn't aware of, the intentional "Robocop was a Jesus Christ metaphore." (google that exact phrase if you want to know more)
Beat me to it.

All this talk of how the bad guys already won, and how smart the movie was, and I keep thinking to myself

"So how does the Jesus thing play into this? Because Robocop is about Jesus..."
 

Clovus

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Zontar said:
Wait, Bob made a list of Sci-Fi movies that people seem to think are good but for one reason or another actually aren't, and he didn't include 2001? I shocked.
I can't quite follow this, but here's what Bob has actually said about 2001:

Stanley Kubrick's momentous collaboration for sci-fi luminary Arthur C. Clarke is still quite possibly the single most important science fiction film ever made - a one-of-a-kind fusion of hard sci-fi space exploration and surreal musings on the nature of existence. A mysterious mission surrounding the discovery of a possibly alien monolith on the moon eventually strands two astronauts at the mercy of their homicidally malfunctioning ship's computer, HAL 9000. And then ... well, you sort of have to see it.
Source: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/art...Movie-Nerd-Bible-Part-I.3#uvdwxjIv1PdubFoU.99

So, the reason 2001 wasn't mentioned is because it is not only one of the best Sci-fi movies of all time, it is simply one of the best films of all time.

Hope I didn't somehow misunderstand what you were saying ...
 

MonkeyPunch

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Ditto. Love Robocop. Still have the VHS lying around somewhere. I didn't mind 2 so much, though it doesn't hold a candle to Robocop.
Robocop 3 on the other hand... I never even watched that. Even though it probably is as bad as it's made out to be, I really want to watch it.
 

Hutzpah Chicken

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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?