Not again Hollywood, no!

Elessar

Say goodbye to our collective childhoods guys, as Hollywood really has them by the balls now. They are remaking Robocop.

Well… I guess I can officially file my grievances about just one more. Because it seems that for some reason, they’ve decided to remake Robocop.

The circuitry-filled crimefighter has already endured two inferior sequels, a syndicated TV series and a pair of straight-to-cable movies, but that’s not enough damage for Tinseltown, so producer Michael De Luca and Sony have apparently decided to dismantle the scrap and solder it back together for a 21st century version of the heavy-steppin’ police weapon.

Our source is usually quite reliable with intel, as unfortunate as that may be in this case. I honestly thought De Luca was a little better than this – as New Line’s former president of production, he helped make a reality of movies like Blade, Magnolia, The Mask, Austin Powers… And now a remake like this?

Blasphemy? Nah, but certainly idiotic, and a distressing indication of the true depths of creative bankruptcy afflicting Hollywood. Word is that original Robocop director Paul Verhoeven wisely wants nothing to do with it.

As a summary for those six or seven mutants out there who’ve never seen it, the original extra-violent classic was set in a crime-ridden futuristic Detroit, where a mortally wounded law officer becomes part of a corporate experiment in which his remains are encased in a robotic suit and unleashed on the city’s felons.

I mean remakes are inevitable, in the grand scheme of things, but for a film so young? And a sci-fi classic? I don't blame Verhoeven.

Pigman II

Elessar wrote:

Say goodbye to our collective childhoods guys, .

You weren't supposed to be watching Robocop as a child.

^CwAzY^

OMG I am a huge fan of Robocop and am actually delighted to hear this. I think it's gonna kick ass. Imagine ED-209 with todays CGI The straight-to-tv movies were not that bad either, the storylines were pretty good it was just bad acting imo.

ObeyGiant

I don't see why this is so awful - they reset the Batman franchise after a few dud sequels, why not do the same with Robocop? Great movie, and it'll be fantastic to see what it looks like without Verhoeven's expensive-cheap veneer.

Goodshape

Robocop was pretty cool; never really had that much affection for it though. A new movie done well could be good.

monkeyfudge

^CwAzY^ wrote:

OMG I am a huge fan of Robocop and am actually delighted to hear this. I think it's gonna kick ass. Imagine ED-209 with todays CGI The straight-to-tv movies were not that bad either, the storylines were pretty good it was just bad acting imo.

I'd prefer stop motion animation to CGI any day.

And what was wrong with Robocop 2? I thought it was an excellent sequel... It was number 3 that was dire.

Oh... and I also remember their was a pretty poor cartoon series too by the way.

I wouldn't have a problem with them making a new Robocop film... but to remake it is silly... I don't think we need to go over the origins of Robocop all over again really.

Although when you think about it... isn't Robocop really just a remake of the Bible anyway? It's clearly a re-telling of the story of Christ.

ObeyGiant

Yeah, I hear they're calling the new one "The Passion of the ED-209."

madrab

ObeyGiant wrote:

Yeah, I hear they're calling the new one "The Passion of the ED-209."

rofl

Pigman II

monkeyfudge wrote:

I wouldn't have a problem with them making a new Robocop film... but to remake it is silly... I don't think we need to go over the origins of Robocop all over again really.

That's just the way it is these days I'm afraid. I think the studios don't have any faith in the general public 'doing their homework' and getting clued into an existing storyline so they have to start from scratch with every new generation.

Kenneth Johnson is currently in negotiations to get another shot at making 'V' but first he has to agree remake the original 2part series with new actors & CGI etc. He's not happy, existing fans aren't happy but that's the only way we're ever going to see it back on TV it seems.

madrab

Pigman II wrote:

That's just the way it is these days I'm afraid. I think the studios don't have any faith in the general public 'doing their homework' and getting clued into an existing storyline so they have to start from scratch with every new generation.

Kenneth Johnson is currently in negotiations to get another shot at making 'V' but first he has to agree remake the original 2part series with new actors & CGI etc. He's not happy, existing fans aren't happy but that's the only way we're ever going to see it back on TV it seems.

but look at what remaking bsg did to it, probably one of the best shows on at the moment

TerrorFirmer

I don't know why the guy said it had two terrible sequels. Sure Robocop 3 was terrible but Robocop 2 was awesome.

I don't think this is a good thing at all. Firstly Robocop is barely twenty years old. Second of all its a cult classic that was made and directed brilliantly. A re-make is just a joke and whats more will probably be an insult.

Thirdly don't you just know they'll try and jazz him up so he's not the robo we love.... and maybe even make it a 15 rated movie?

On the point of CGI, that's a potentially good or bad thing. I loved the stop animation in Robocop 2 especially. CGi could be great but we don't want to see it over used either.

I don't want to see this at all. Seriously. **** off Hollywood. Go remake something else.

RE*AC*TOR

Who cares about Robocop - they are remaking The Pink Panther with Steve Martin as Clouseau. Robocop was a silly movie anyway.

monkeyfudge

Can I just say one thing?

"I'd buy that for a dollar!"

Maccattack

Robocop was a great film. On the surface it seemed stupid and i can understand why people avoided it. But if you watched it it was great.

why cant they just leave things alone? actually i know why...



ching, ching.

projectmayhem

ObeyGiant wrote:

Yeah, I hear they're calling the new one "The Passion of the ED-209."

it'll all be spoken in binary. never fear, it'll be subtitled in leet-speak

RasTa

Bloody pointless remake. POINTLESS!!!!!!!
What the hell happened in Robocop 2 ? I forget

monkeyfudge

RasTa wrote:

Bloody pointless remake. POINTLESS!!!!!!!
What the hell happened in Robocop 2 ? I forget

Okay....

OCP forces the police force to go on strike so that the city will tear itself appart so they can buy the whole city cheap and then redevelop it.

An evil drug baron called Cain is flooding the city with a drug called Nuke. Robocop tries to stop him but is defeated and chopped into little pieces, so OCP rebuild him but reprogram him so he isn't violent and is more politically correct. So where he only had 4 directives before he now has hundreds of them and they mostly contradict each other so he ends up talking a lot of rubbish and being pretty useless... until he manages to break his programming by administering a massive electrical shock.. he then gets the police force to stop the strike and they go and take out Cain. Cain is mortaly wounded and OCP puts his brian into the new Robocop 2.

The climax of the film is a huge battle between Robocop and Robocop 2... it's pretty cool.

The Robocop 2:

The sound effects when he walked about the place were cool...

Devious

ObeyGiant wrote:

I don't see why this is so awful - they reset the Batman franchise after a few dud sequels, why not do the same with Robocop? Great movie, and it'll be fantastic to see what it looks like without Verhoeven's expensive-cheap veneer.

But we're not talking about a sequel here - these guys are looking to REMAKE the original Robocop, a mere, oooh, 18 years after it was released! I mean, WTF Hollywood? If you DO have to remake classic 80's films, why not pick something that was actually rubbish? Like Delta Force or something?

On a similar topic, I read somewhere that these clowns are looking to remake Predator as well - I believe the phrase is "Jesus wept".

Karl Hungus

It's 100% likely to be a washed out, sterilre, 12s rated, CGI fest simply for the sake of cashing in on the latest generation of comic-book movies. Honestly, you can see some studio exec's great idea of bringing back Robocop in light of the popularity of big-budget comicbook and sci-fi action movies lately, so it certainly seems a logical choice.

Honestly though, this is possibly one of the only remakes that I'm not really that pissed off about. Why? Well, how can it possibly be any worse than what came after Robocop 2? Don't get me wrong, bad films always piss me off, but I don't see how a remake could trample on the memory of Verhoeven's masterpiece any more than the straight to video sequels, and pitifull TV Series.

I don't think we can expect a Batman Begins style "Remake" though. The original film was something very special entirely, because aside from the very comicbook premise, it worked on a number of levels, what with the social commentary and morality of the protaganist. Aswell as that, you had Kurtwood Smith at his absolute best, a preformance the likes of which I doubt we'll ever see again, not to mention Ronny Cox, Miguel Ferrer and or course, Peter Weller.

Capt'n Midnight

Karl Hungus wrote:

Don't get me wrong, bad films always piss me off, but I don't see how a remake could trample on the memory of Verhoeven's masterpiece any more than the straight to video sequels, and pitifull TV Series

easy - you would not see the original anymore, they would shelve it for a decade so you'd have to look at the new one.

I missed seeing the original James Garner Maverick film, and they just don't show it anymore.

Tusky

If it is anything less than 15s I will be very very angry.

Karl Hungus

Oh, and let us NEVER forget the absolutely phenominal score by Basil Poledouris! Masterpiece. Absolute masterpiece.

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

easy - you would not see the original anymore, they would shelve it for a decade so you'd have to look at the new one.

I missed seeing the original James Garner Maverick film, and they just don't show it anymore.

Wasn't the original Maverick a TV show?