Robocop (Reboot)

nyarlothothep

Overheal wrote: »

I just watched Dredd (2012) today and frankly thats an example of a reboot that went right. Cult classic in the flesh there. This will probably be no different, though I'd say it will be a bigger commercial success because its ****ing robocop. I liked the trailer, Im not following some of the bickering about the color of his suit or anything like that.

The only thing I nod in agreement on the jezebel article with is that in the original trilogy they made murphy under the helmet seem like a really tragic figure. makeup wise his face was essentially draped over a robot frame and it just looked really spot on, in stark contrast to pretty-boy murphy in this trailer. But ultimately, its a small detail and one Im not going to mull over too much.



Disagree. I just think audience expectations 30 years ago were fairly different. Or the costume tech might have been a limitation.

edit: from wiki

I dont know what elusive snake is supposed to be but I assume Metal Gear Solid's liquid snake? :pac:

I know the production notes say that in Robocop 2 they preserved his face and fitted over a metal skull (because Terminator was popular at the time). However going by what we see in the original they seemed to have taken his head, neck, shoulders/torso. Irc there's the crater of the gunshot wound to his head which indicates that they preserved the front part of his skull/brain and interfaced it with the onboard computer from behind. He also speaks with his own voice and uses it expressively at the end (if they were making a robot cop they would probably lose the expression bit with respect to an artificial voice).Also when Boddicker stabs him through the armour plating he cries out in pain indicating that underneath he still has human parts. It would make sense just to use the organs that are there and mesh them with robotic parts rather than creating synthetic organs from scratch. Also the whole lose the arm comment suggest that he still has human parts.

From that clip the whole running practice thing in relation to the artificial legs...hmm, the cool thing about the original is that as Peter Weller said, the fact that he moved so slowly made him a kind of pitiful creature despite his seeming invincibility. It just added to the latent tragedy of the film. The technological limitations actually added to the theme and led to a very iconic form of motion, which people can emulate today, for example, cant remember the order but one can move one's waist and then follow with moving one's head in the same direction thereby looking like Robocop/a cyborg. Rarely would you get a story this deep in a modern Hollywood blockbuster.

fluke

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I'm not sure why everyone is so outraged by this - it has been a while since I've seen such an Internet ****storm over a mere trailer! It's hardly like the Robocop series has been the ideal example of smart franchising post-Verhoeven. If final reports confirm the remake is indeed an abomination (as incredibly likely as that outcome is, we're still just working off a trailer) just don't go see it. As long as audiences flock to these cynical remakes - these films are never greenlit with artistic ambition in mind, they're just taking advantage of your nostalgia - they'll keep making them. And yes, the studios cackle with glee as they rake it in time after time. Pay to see it, and you forfeit your right to complain about remakes in future

But the original is still there, and you are not a sheep - if it bothers you so much, simply don't watch it,

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I'd hope so, but man I've seen an incredible amount of anger and hostility online about this trailer over the last few days - from boards to facebook and plenty of places in between. I just think the vitriolic reaction over two minutes - edited to appeal to the widest possible demographics - has been quite out of proportion, even more so than usual.

Your overall point is sound, and as a moderator over this thread you'd probably prefer to stab yourself in the eyes with the broken end of cocktail stick instead of having to read & moderate another list thread/ Star Trek thread/ reboot thread. Believe me I sympathise.

That being said you have to face facts and deal with it. People love a good bitch and moan session and this forum is probably where a lot of armchair directors hibernate and dictate, including at times myself.

This particular thread seems like more a communal thread for the time being ('derp der dur Robodowneycop looks shit). Expectations have now being altered for everyone.

If we all agreed and shut up about this film or whatever films Hollywood churns out this forum would be a lot less colourful. Maybe that's a commentary on what Hollywood unleashes these days, or how the internet has allowed everyone to voice their opinion, but hey thems the breaks.

I say just ride this one out and brace yourself for the Batfleck circus that will eventually come to town e.g. costume design, pics etc.

nyarlothothep

Assface as Batman is something I strangely look forward to.

krudler

Yeah I don't feel the hatred for Affleck like t'internet seems to, he wouldn't have been my first choice but I think he's a solid actor when he wants to be and as a director he's impressed. The internet lost its mind when a gay cowboy was going to play The Joker, look how that turned out.

nyarlothothep

Although this is off topic I just have to say, Keaton was the best batman. Bale just fulfilled everyone's expectations of what Batman was supposed to be, he was by the numbers in other words whereas Keaton added a depth to the role that was simultaneously quirky and fit very well with what Batman could be like. Also I think Burton was the first to present us with the first "dark" Batman. Everyone thought the 89 Batman would be cheesy/camp but when it was released it was complete reversal of the 60s Batman. Nolan etc have just been working on the template established by Burton.

DirkVoodoo

It's made quite clear in the first movie that he still has some organic components/organs, he has to eat a nutrient paste to sustain them:

"Tastes like baby food!"

Trailer looked good, a bit too clean and sterile. It seems to be overtly a battle between the man and the machine, whereas the original had a much deeper idea about a man who must confront his new identity as someone both living and dead.

If the trailer is anything to go by, this will be a fairly predictable man versus machine, man wins, yay indomitable human spirit! All wrapped up in a studio-pleasing PG-13.

My biggest disappointment is not preserving the movement work developed by Weller. Watch some youtube videos and see the effort that went into creating a believable machine like movement (mimes, pigeons...it's all there!) similar to what we see now with Asimo. It couldn't have been a limitation of the suit, actors after Weller couldn't replicate his Robocop style, it was perfect.

nyarlothothep

So many classic quotes from the original, tastes like baby food being one of them.

Bullseye1

Just watched the original today and I gotta say its really terrible from the ludricous attempt to review a man who had his brains blown out and to the stupidity of including what was left of Murphys corpse in a robot (why bother). And now MGM are spending more money on this. Hopefully the new movie has a better narrative than the original and better acting.

johnny_ultimate

Bullseye1 wrote: »

Just watched the original today and I gotta say its really terrible from the ludricous attempt to review a man who had his brains blown out and to the stupidity of including what was left of Murphys corpse in a robot (why bother). And now MGM are spending more money on this. Hopefully the new movie has a better narrative than the original and better acting.

I have very little love for cheesy 80s action movies, but in fairness to Robocop it is so self-aware of its ludicrousness that it is completely forgivable. That, and amidst all the squibs, there's actually some sharp satirical intent there.

Of all your Predators, Terminators etc etc... Robocop is perhaps the most fun. It is far from a masterpiece, but its ridiculousness is one of its strongest assets.

Baked.noodle

Big fan of Paul Verhoeven. Not all his films were classics, granted. But the guy made some of my favorite action movies. Satire, substance and style, something sadly lacking in the Total Recall reboot.

Duggy747

I love Robocop, always have since I was a kid (advantage of having an older brother to rent these movies!). Robocop 2 gets a pass for me because of the effects and stop animation work, but the following movies were truly dreadful stuff.

The franchise is pretty woeful so I can't see this film being any worse than those cheaply cobbled together ones that came out after the first two films.

I don't have hatred for the remake, it just seems quite by-the-numbers and generic from the trailer but not an awful looking film like the others.

krudler

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I have very little love for cheesy 80s action movies, but in fairness to Robocop it is so self-aware of its ludicrousness that it is completely forgivable. That, and amidst all the squibs, there's actually some sharp satirical intent there.

Of all your Predators, Terminators etc etc... Robocop is perhaps the most fun. It is far from a masterpiece, but its ridiculousness is one of its strongest assets.

Indeed, it's one big pastiche of 80's consumerism, the scene where the guy is holding the mayor hostage and asking for a new car as one of his demands and the SWAT guy starts going on about the 6000 SUX that there was a tv advert for earlier. It's all played for laughs and works because of it.

conorhal

Baked.noodle wrote: »

Big fan of Paul Verhoeven. Not all his films were classics, granted. But the guy made some of my favorite action movies. Satire, substance and style, something sadly lacking in the Total Recall reboot.

You can say what you like about Robocop, but the film has an identifiable 'personality', you could say the same about Total Recall, they still live in the popular consciousness, you say 'consida dat a divorce!' and people will immediately recognize the quote. This, like the Total Recall remake looks instantly forgettable.

I also fully get the vitriol again the trailer, to the uninitiated it just looks generic and bland, to the faithful, it's stunning how you can in under three minutes show such breathtaking incompetence.

A trailer should be enticing, this was repellant. Even Lucas managed to soak my panties with that First Phantom Menace trailer, if you can’t find three minutes of footage that avoids pissing everybody off, it doesn't bode well for the rest of the movie now does it?

_Kaiser_

10 reasons why Robocop is one of the greatest movies of all time (the original that is!)

I never noticed #5!

ScumLord

Bullseye1 wrote: »

Just watched the original today and I gotta say its really terrible from the ludricous attempt to review a man who had his brains blown out and to the stupidity of including what was left of Murphys corpse in a robot (why bother). And now MGM are spending more money on this. Hopefully the new movie has a better narrative than the original and better acting.

I think the old way made more sense. Automation was around in the 80s but computers were extremely dumb and didn't have much processing power hijacking a human brain to control the machine makes sense.

In the modern version they seem to have the machine part and the programming part down (the machine part takes over in difficult situations and gives the illusion of free will), that makes no sense to me, what's the point in putting the human bits in at all?

Mitch Connor

ScumLord wrote: »

I think the old way made more sense. Automation was around in the 80s but computers were extremely dumb and didn't have much processing power hijacking a human brain to control the machine makes sense.

In the modern version they seem to have the machine part and the programming part down (the machine part takes over in difficult situations and gives the illusion of free will), that makes no sense to me, what's the point in putting the human bits in at all?

Maybe because people will trust the human inside, and not a simple robot. Think will smith in I-robot, his motivations for not trusting a robot. Maybe, just maybe, this movie will have a narrative. Just cause it isn't a carbon copy of the original isn't reason alone to trash it and assume no though has gone into any if it.

ancapailldorcha

On a much more trivial note, is anyone else bothered by Murphy's hand being visible?

pixelburp

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

On a much more trivial note, is anyone else bothered by Murphy's hand being visible?

It's a strange aesthetic decision because it just makes Robocop look even more like a guy in a supersuit, rather than the cybernetic mishmash he's supposed to be. I remember seeing set photos and was sure it was simply that the actor took off a glove to be comfortable. Guess not.

As for criticisms of the original, well I think it's a bit unfair to kick at a film that intentionally had its tongue lodged firmly within its cheek. It would have been very easy to play everything super-earnestly, yet Verhoeven wedged enough subversive, dark humour to make the film memorable; its satire was around the GTA levels of intelligence sure (The 6000 SUX for instance), but it all had a brio and charisma that should earn it a pass.

Skerries

When was the original released in Ireland because it came out in July 87 in the states which would have made me 14 and I went with my friends, but even in those more liberal days I don't think a 14 year old would be let into it?

krudler

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

On a much more trivial note, is anyone else bothered by Murphy's hand being visible?

Yes, it's utterly stupid looking, it'd be the first thing people would shoot at. In the original movie you see them debating over saving his one good arm after Boddicker blows off the other one. Showing how little regard OCP has for Murphy and he's now their property. In this one it just looks ridiculous and incompetent that they'd leave it that way.

jill_valentine

krudler wrote: »

Yes, it's utterly stupid looking, it'd be the first thing people would shoot at. In the original movie you see them debating over saving his one good arm after Boddicker blows off the other one. Showing how little regard OCP has for Murphy and he's now their property. In this one it just looks ridiculous and incompetent that they'd leave it that way.

MTE.

I'm not completely opposed to remaking, but the naked pasty little hand looks silly and spoils the overall look.

And the instruction to the OCP doctor person to "lose it", about his perfectly functionial remaining arm is one of the most memorably awful little touches of his robocopicisation.

It's just weird that in their attempt to make a more modern looking Robocop, they wound up dressing a guy up like a Sega Megadrive, and the product looks more dated than the original.

krudler

jill_valentine wrote: »

MTE.

I'm not completely opposed to remaking, but the naked pasty little hand looks silly and spoils the overall look.

And the instruction to the OCP doctor person to "lose it", about his perfectly functionial remaining arm is one of the most memorably awful little touches of his robocopicisation.

It's just weird that in their attempt to make a more modern looking Robocop, they wound up dressing a guy up like a Sega Megadrive, and the product looks more dated than the original.

"Robocopicisation" is now a word I'm going to try and work into my every day vocabulary

jill_valentine

I bet it sounds even better in German.

bizmark

Bullseye1 wrote: »

Just watched the original today and I gotta say its really terrible from the ludricous attempt to review a man who had his brains blown out and to the stupidity of including what was left of Murphys corpse in a robot (why bother). And now MGM are spending more money on this. Hopefully the new movie has a better narrative than the original and better acting.

Not sure the better acting desire is warranted there's lines in robocop and robocop 2 that are very well delivered "they made this they made this to honor him ...your husband is dead" both heartbreaking and chilling tbh.

Think peter weller does an amazing job playing robocop everything from his movements to showing the pain of the man trying to come to terms to the weird robocop after he gets all the new directives

krudler

bizmark wrote: »

Not sure the better acting desire is warranted there's lines in robocop and robocop 2 that are very well delivered "they made this they made this to honor him ...your husband is dead" both heartbreaking and chilling tbh.

Think peter weller does an amazing job playing robocop everything from his movements to showing the pain of the man trying to come to terms to the weird robocop after he gets all the new directives

That's the thing, his movement in the suit is brilliant, like he way he turns his head then swivels his body when moving around, it's all very robotic and intentionally so, from what I've seen in the new trailer he's just a guy in a suit walking around as normal.

Oafley Jones

krudler wrote: »

Yes, it's utterly stupid looking, it'd be the first thing people would shoot at. In the original movie you see them debating over saving his one good arm after Boddicker blows off the other one. Showing how little regard OCP has for Murphy and he's now their property. In this one it just looks ridiculous and incompetent that they'd leave it that way.

But it's does allow a hack writer to have a ****ty scene where robocop discovers his humanity through the power of touch. I'm sure said scene is briefly in the trailer.

krudler

Oafley Jones wrote: »

But it's does allow a hack writer to have a ****ty scene where robocop discovers his humanity through the power of touch. I'm sure said scene is briefly in the trailer.

Shudder

conorhal

Oafley Jones wrote: »

But it's does allow a hack writer to have a ****ty scene where robocop discovers his humanity through the power of touch. I'm sure said scene is briefly in the trailer.

I seem to remember reading somwhere that the whole 'human hand' thing was a requirement to demonstrate to nervous public authorities that there was a 'humman finger on the trigger' and thus military hardware was not being unleshed on an urban population without a sentient human control element.

All extremely clunky from a narrative perspective, and it robs of of that great 'loose the arm' scene that underscores the corporate indifference to the human aspect of their 'product'.

Goldstein

Anyone else not following this logic - "If he survives he'll be paralysed from the waist down and confined to a wheelchair". Ergo, his life is finished, might as well turn him into a robot?

No legs, one arm, 4th degree burns...here's VaderCop. His loss of humanity looks like it's severely blunted with this remake. What they do to Murphy in RoboCop is unsettling, callous and uncomfortable. His loss of humanity should remind us of Shelley not Lucas. Here it's almost played as an upgrade rather than the tragic loss of everything that made him human. Even the hand is important; it's not trivial if you remember the film. It was Murphy's last human limb and sole biological conduit between his mind and the world and as much as he'd lost they chose to take that from him too. It's disheartening to watch that last thread ripped out as he lies helpless to object. The hand, his lumbering almost pathetic gait, his face stretched over a robot's cranium. Not for one second do you ever think of him as "upgraded" - It's those kind of moments that stick in your mind, those details that determine how we perceive the character and ultimately those things that can help elevate another forgettable 80s action movie into something people will still appreciate and talk about 16 years down the road.

Dtp79

Goldstein wrote: »

Anyone else not following this logic - "If he survives he'll be paralysed from the waist down and confined to a wheelchair". Ergo, his life is finished, might as well turn him into a robot?

No legs, one arm, 4th degree burns...here's VaderCop. His loss of humanity looks like it's severely blunted with this remake. What they do to Murphy in RoboCop is unsettling, callous and uncomfortable. His loss of humanity should remind us of Shelley not Lucas. Here it's almost played as an upgrade rather than the tragic loss of everything that made him human. Even the hand is important; it's not trivial if you remember the film. It was Murphy's last human limb and sole biological conduit between his mind and the world and as much as he'd lost they chose to take that from him too. It's disheartening to watch that last thread ripped out as he lies helpless to object. The hand, his lumbering almost pathetic gait, his face stretched over a robot's cranium. Not for one second do you ever think of him as "upgraded" - It's those kind of moments that stick in your mind, those details that determine how we perceive the character and ultimately those things that can help elevate another forgettable 80s action movie into something people will still appreciate and talk about 16 years down the road.

Or even 26 years down the road!