I understand the skepticism many feel when it comes to the remake of RoboCop, releasing February 12th. The 1987 original has gained legendary status in the years since its release; a black comedy, blending satire and violence to mock American excess and naked capitalism while telling the story of a man fighting to regain a shred of humanity taken from him by a corrupt corporate oligarchy.
How could a PG-13 remake dumped in the middle of February possibly have any hope of recapturing that magic?
But I remember 1987, when people thought RoboCop wouldn’t be much more than a cheapjack ripoff of The Terminator, a notion helped by the use of that film’s score in the trailers.
That trailer certainly doesn’t hint at any social commentary or biting satire. It hints at a lot of shit blowing up in obnoxious ways as leathery people yell things, yeah. It was only later, after being released on VHS and Laserdisc, that people really peeled back the bloody, smirking layers that Paul Verhoeven and Ed Neumeier had built into the film.
Amazingly, it turns out people had to actually watch the movie about the Robot Policeman in order to find out there was a brain working under that goofy helmet of his.
So why is almost everyone sure that Jose Padilha’s attempt to revive Alex Murphy is doomed to dull failure?
It’s because people have placed an artificially high bar for what a good RoboCop movie can be. That bar sits where it does because some really loud people on the internet are making a conscious decision to ignore what a fucking shitshow RoboCop quickly became.
Like John Rambo and Sgt. Mahoney of Police Academy before him, Murphy transitioned from the ultra-violent world of film to the cereal-selling wonderland of Saturday morning cartoons. As if that didn’t tarnish the shine on Murphy’s ample chest, there was RoboCop 2 which took a bad script from Frank Miller, butchered it further, and hired Irvin Kershner to deliver on the promise of tone-deaf mediocrity the original’s trailer provided. RoboCop 3 was even worse than that, and once the seal on that particular turd was broken, a grunting flood of dookum was released in the form ’90s syndicated television that made Mortal Kombat look like Downton Abbey.
Also, somewhere in there, Murphy apparently saved WCW wrestler Sting from being stuck in a cage for all of 2 minutes.
So, with the above banished to a memory hole, I guess it becomes a matter of “remake fatigue,” which seems to be in this case a blend of genuine concern for the death of originality with an affected feigning at cinema sophistication that doesn’t fit so well with legit worries that something called RoboCop will be too dumb for moviegoing audiences.
It’s that hint of affectation, that scent of fronting, that leads to people pretending they really liked the original due to the incisive satire. That aspect’s become vastly overstated, leaned on by fans who find it just a touch uncouth to admit they love it because it’s a movie where Red Forman tells bitches to leave, and that annoying doctor from E.R. gets splattered all over a windshield, and someone gets their dick shot off.
Why can’t those simple pleasures be enough, somehow? They absolutely can, you know. It’s why you’re so pissed off that the film is PG-13 instead of R. You don’t worry about that sort of thing if you’re super-concerned about the satire aspect. It’s not like satire needs a .50 caliber round tearing through someone’s glans to pack that thoughtful punch.
And if that’s all that’s bothering you, I get that. You’d like Murphy to be stabbin’ and shootin’ and splatterin’ folks like he did in the good ol’ days of the ’80s. PG-13 doesn’t make that very easy. And if you do remember the cinematic dingleberries clinging to Murphy’s metal bottom throughout the ’90s, I understand the expectation that this probably won’t be good because nothing with the name RoboCop on it has been good for 27 years, not counting a few video games here and there.
But is it so hard to believe that a director with two of the best action films in the last decade on his resume might possibly make a movie about a Robot Cop that is – at the least – visually interesting? That Michael Keaton, Samuel L. Jackson, Gary Oldman, Michael K. Williams, Jackie Earle Haley, and Joel Kinnaman could maybe turn in some decent performances? That in all those decades of study and analysis, the people making this film might have absorbed some of what made Paul Verhoeven and Ed Neumeier’s original film an appealing mix of eye-candy, violence, and basic social commentary?
I’m not saying the movie won’t suck. It’s very possible that it will. Or even worse, it could be a bland RoboCop flavored nothing that slides right off the brain into a puddle of baby food on the theater floor.
But I think that maybe we’re setting the bar for something called RoboCop a little too high, considering the history. It’s an easy thing to miss when you’re too busy freaking out over the fact the costume doesn’t look the same as the one on your mint-in-box action figure.
Keep an eye out later this week for Senior Editor Erik Henriksen’s review of the remake, by the director of the Elite Squad movies, which Mr. Henriksen recently recommended to me in his finest film critic tone with the assertion “Those movies FUCKING RULE.”
Just like Highlander, stop at one.
It didn’t need to be done. And I recently heard they’re remaking Point Break too… blech
Never really liked the first one either.
This one has Kelly Leak. Instant classic.
New RoboCop won’t suck… I’d buy that for a dollar.
I’ll take this remake over all other remakes ever: http://www.ourrobocopremake.com/
I almost posted the scene 27 clip from that remake in the post (you can probably tell where I would have placed it) but I figured that wouldn’t work so well out of context.
Bobby, you’re good at framing your posts so that they elicit reactions*. I don’t even care about this issue, but since you spent so much time telling me that I DO care and why I’m totally wrong, I’m suddenly compelled to chime in.
Anyway, my take is that I think this movie will probably be alright. But there’s very little chance that I’ll see it. And yeah, Robocop 2 and 3 are terrible. While 1 is fun!
*read: baiting for comments.
I’m absolutely NOT baiting for comments. If it were up to me I’d set the comments section on fire and salt the earth afterwards. I find them to be a distraction at best, a weird sort of negative reinforcement that willingly devalues the writer in favor of treasuring the thoughts of mostly anonymous assholes. Comments sections have trained readers to skim an article as fast as possible to get to what’s REALLY important – not the words from the editorial staff at the publication, but instead the small troupe of performing circus ants jumping all over each other in the comments section.
Comments sections are not much more than severely handicapped social media sites glued to the bottom of an article. They’re obsolete when everyone pretty much discusses everything on reddit/tumblr/facebook/twitter, where conversations can spin out more organically rather than sitting at the bottom of a box like a poisoned, shitty Cracker Jack prize.
They’re essentially the internet’s inflamed appendix at this point.
So no, I’m not interested in trying to figure out how to get that particular organ to burst when I write. 🙂
I think we all tend to forget that Hollywood has been remaking movies for decades – sometimes to a great degree of success (John Carpenter’s The Thing, John Huston’s Maltese Falcon, etc.) but never before has it seemed to actually favor doing so in lieu of original ideas.
RoboCop had sequels, and yes those sequels mostly sucked ass. That said, this isn’t a sequel, it’s more or less a retelling of a story that worked nearly perfectly the first time. After having sat through the trash reboot of Total Recall, I’m quite convinced that any budgets put toward remaking Verhoeven’s films (a Starship Troopers reboot is also on the way I hear) would be far better put to use making original films.
I’ve seen the trailers for the new RoboCop film and yeah, they don’t look that bad. That said, the notion that Samuel L. Jackson and Gary Oldman lend anything to a film at this point has got to be a joke, right? Right?? Those two will show up at your kids birthday party and recite poetry for $60 an hour, hookers that they’ve both become.
I hope it’s good, sure, but on the other hand I’m also hoping it bombs so Hollywood will get a clue and knock it the fuck off with playing it safe all the time. It’s long past time – I give you District 9.
Goddammit Robert I JUST wrote something about the uselessness of comments sections and then you post a measured, well-reasoned rebuttal to both my post AND my dismissal, all in five total paragraphs.
You bastard.
Yeah, Robert Wagner, STFU. We’ll take it from here. DIAF, Gary Oldman-hater.
@ Bobby Roberts: You’re moms an appendix, beeotch!!!!!!!!1!!!!!1
#PETERWELLERISGOD
I’m even more pissed thinking about rebooting a shitty franchise than “ruining” a good one.
But I’m not really pissed. It’s not like multiple shitty movies don’t come out every single week.
I second the “Our Robocop Remake” link. Some of the sketches are less funny than others, but I laughed the whole way through, especially through Fatal Farm’s segment. Definitely don’t watch it at work though: after a seemingly SFW first segment it goes straight to dicks. Lots of dicks. Unless you work at a dick factory, in which case you’ll be fine.
When it came out I was only 5, and I got addicted to that stupid arcade game at the Pizza Hut. By the time I was old enough to see (or have access to) R-rated movies, films like “The Matrix” were pretty much the norm, so I didn’t see it until 25 or so. Robocop 3 was also PG13 if I remember, and unless it’s a remake of something like “Night of the Living Dead” a “Trailer Park Boys” movie, people shouldn’t feel any sort of bloodlust or need for f-bombs.
I’ll wait like I did with pacific rim for it to go to the laurelhurst, but I’m at least interested.
Bobby, full disclosure: my comment was bait for you to lambast commenters. I’ve noticed a few times that you’ve cast disparaging remarks toward our kind.
But, say what you will, I still think an awful lot of your posts are framed like this: “state the opinion of some unnamed, unsourced mass of people (often the opinion of commenters), and then proceed to tear it down.”
Anyway, I’m too off topic. I consider myself an “easily amused” movie goer. I thought the Total Recall remake was dope (even though I’m bummed that they removed the main twist). So, like I mentioned earlier, while I do think I would enjoy the new RoboCop (and the new Point Break – which, I must note, the producers now seem to be calling “Point Break 2”), I’m not PUMPED to see it. I don’t get out to the movies much, and while remakes will likely be consistently enjoyable (same tried and true plot as before), I’d rather take a risk and spend my time seeing something that’s new to me.
I saw RoboCop in the theater and it blew my nine-year-old mind. I avoided everything after that except for that arcade game so, in my mind, RoboCop has always been awesome.
That cartoon looked fucking awful, though.
I thought for the time period Robocop was slightly ok, a film to see once, but not one to see again. Although I too laughed all the way through this great post. I wanted to say remakes are almost ALWAYS terrible, why not just do Robocop4 instead? AND GET PETER WELLER BACK IN THAT SUIT if you are going to do another robocop.
Next movie I want to see is the sequel to The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension!
btw did anyone ever read the robocop spoof from MAD magazine back then? Hilarious.
edit:lol I didn’t even know they remade total recall, that must have sucked! Movies just should not be “remade” unless you lost all the copies of it so no one can see it anymore unless they remake it from the original script.
Dammit. I meant to address the author as “@ BoOby Roberts”, not “@ Bobby Roberts”. Make note of it, fuck-holes.
And, are you seriously still reading this thread?!? LMFAOROTFDIAFLOLlosers!
brb
(#PETERWELLERISstillGOD)