Robocop (Reboot)

pixelburp

Good video there, thanks Oafley Jones; Weller comes across as a very learned, thoughtful individual and it's always nice to see a genre actor maintain a passion and respect for their career-defining role; too many of his peers tend to adopt a bitter resistance to the bigger entries in their CVs, especially if they're genres like action, sci-fi etc.

It's also funny to note that once again again in Hollywood adversity and near-disaster were the key ingredients in birthing the triumphant final product. You'd wonder if directors have a superstition that if things haven't completely fallen apart, they feel they must be doing something wrong

Equally funny that Weller says the initial plan was for a more agile, 'spider man' esque Robocop, 'cos for me that was one of the problems with the reboot: this new version was simply too nimble, too obviously fake.

Duggy747

Oafley Jones wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66uduSIp-3k

Even though he says he cant move like him anymore, he's unmistakably Robocop in that short burst he does. I've seen him in other videos describing and doing the movements but he's never lost the knack for it. :pac:

MakeEmLaugh

One can admire this remake for not aping its predecessor, plot-wise. There are interesting uses of Robocop's database of criminal statistics - as in the scene where a criminal pleads for his wife and child, neither of whom exist.

That being said, I do not understand those critics who say José Padilha captured the spirit of the original. The original truly put its audience through the wringer. The violence was vicious and cruel. And that made the emotional heft - which didn't arrive until the last half or so of Verhoeven's film - pack even more of a wallop.

Here, the emotion is present from the get-go. It isn't about a machine gradually coming to terms with its previous life (as in Peter Weller's poignant line "I can feel them but I can't remember them" in the original); here, Murphy never suffers an identity crisis.

Also, the inevitable showdown with Murphy's murderer is extraordinarily anti-climactic. This glossy remake might look good, but it's still needless and inferior.

Rubber_Soul

IMO they did ape the original. The one interesting thing I felt this film did was to initially abandon the original theme of a man regaining his humanity. By having Murphy awaken with his own personality in his machine body was an interesting departure from the original and actually gave me hope it could be a worthy remake with a story of its own to tell. Instead they just abandoned the idea halfway through and rehashed the same theme with shinier graphics and none of the emotional weight of the original.

Zubeneschamali

I think you must all have seen a different original Robocop with the emotional weight and the character development and stuff.

What the new movie is missing is the entire point of the original movie: it's a satire! And it's frickin hilarious!

The original was taking the piss out of a whole class of movies, and the new one is just an average example of that class.

MakeEmLaugh

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

I think you must all have seen a different original Robocop with the emotional weight and the character development and stuff.

You don't think this scene carried emotional weight?

krudler

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

I think you must all have seen a different original Robocop with the emotional weight and the character development and stuff.

What the new movie is missing is the entire point of the original movie: it's a satire! And it's frickin hilarious!

The original was taking the piss out of a whole class of movies, and the new one is just an average example of that class.

That's why it worked so well, it has the satire and pastiche elements and takes massive not so subtle digs at 80's cultural excesses, but it does have a large element of humanity under it all. Same as Starship Troopers, yeah on the surface its just a bunch of way too good looking teenagers fighting asteroid farting space bugs but there's way more to it than that.

senordingdong

Finally got around to seeing this and if I had to sum it up on one word, I'd have to say 'pointless'.