Robocop (Reboot)

Goldstein

Dtp79 wrote: »

Or even 26 years down the road!

Arse. Concentrating on the 6 bit.

ancapailldorcha

I never really appreciated the significance of removing Murphy's left arm in the original before. It's been so long since I've seen it. In this remake, it looks like a daft design choice but in the original it's the last remnant of his body's ability to interact with the world around him the same way a human being would.

oxygen

[QUOTE=Goldstein;86473651]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.

[/QUOTE]

What a post :eek:You have single handily spotted the major flaw in the theme of the remake. Based on your comments above, I think they really need to weigh up a fairly heavy re-edit.

For my money, the original is a classic, as you have so well stated above. This remake will be nothing on it... nothing!

nyarlothothep

Just rewatched Robocop. Do you think Bob Mortimer was really a total asshole? Compared to Dick Jones he wasn't actually that bad, he legitimately won "the game" as Dick called it, Dick got pissed and then ordered his execution which was basically cheating. Bob was an asshole but as Clarence is about to kill him, you cant help but feel sorry for him, he's human after all. OCP was the perfect example for the typical corporate environment that encourages douchebag behaviour, in the grand scheme of things Bob was just competing in that environment and his personality was influenced by it as a result.

nyarlothothep

Also something I noticed about this and Conan the Barbarian (1982), the heros really work for their victory, I mean Murphy goes to hell and back and almost gets killed again by Boddicker (that's how tough he is as a boss character). The payoff though is that much more rewarding when he finally takes out Boddicker and exposes Dick. In Conan a similar trajectory can be discerned, Conan almost gets killed by his enemies and only through an intervention of fate, his girlfriend, is he able to come out on top. Again the reward factor is huge. Nowadays, the hero goes from point A to point B with minimum difficulty/suffering, and the human element is diminished, I guess this may have something to do with the prioritisation of plot over character in modern Hollywood films?

Watching Robocop 2, rubbish in comparison, but good nostalgia value. The script by Frank Miller is way too comic book for it to be a patch on the original which was majestic. Also the suit design isn't as realistic or maybe it's just a poor choice of shot angles, you can see that he's wearing a shirt just where the arms connect to the body. I dislike the way Miller thought he could reverse all the character development in the first film. Robocop 1 is the definitive Robocop film, everything that comes after it is irrelevant.

Edit, the guy who plays the principle in season 1 of Buffy is in Robocop 2! as the guy who talking to Robocop about how he's bugging his wife.

_Kaiser_

New trailer.. still don't like it - not a patch on the original. Just another generic sci-fi shoot-em-up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbP4Ky5TUO0

Mr Freeze

nyarlothothep wrote: »

I dislike the way Miller thought he could reverse all the character development in the first film. Robocop 1 is the definitive Robocop film, everything that comes after it is irrelevant.

I found that bizarre in Robocop 2, the first film spent a lot of time showing that he was still Murphy, only for him to be all Robocop, no Murphy in the follow up.

Professey Chin

Mr Freeze wrote: »

I found that bizarre in Robocop 2, the first film spent a lot of time showing that he was still Murphy, only for him to be all Robocop, no Murphy in the follow up.

There was a lot of Murphy in Robocop 2

Mr Freeze

The Dark Lord Cthulu wrote: »

There was a lot of Murphy in Robocop 2

Was there? Now I am totally confused........

Do they not have a scene in it where he confronts his wife or she confronts him, and he says he is not Murphy anymore, and then he just goes on fighting Kane for film, no mention of Murphy (well they call him Murphy alrite) or his past at all after that scene, and its early in the film.

Professey Chin

Mr Freeze wrote: »

Was there? Now I am totally confused........

Do they not have a scene in it where he confronts his wife or she confronts him, and he says he is not Murphy anymore, and then he just goes on fighting Kane for film, no mention of Murphy (well they call him Murphy alrite) or his past at all after that scene, and its early in the film.

Theres a scene he denys knowing her after one of the fellas from OCP tells him to stop giving her hope since he'll never be able to be with her because he was always following her and parking across from the house. I always thought he denied knowing her to make her move on.

ScumLord

Mr Freeze wrote: »

Was there? Now I am totally confused........

Do they not have a scene in it where he confronts his wife or she confronts him, and he says he is not Murphy anymore, and then he just goes on fighting Kane for film, no mention of Murphy (well they call him Murphy alrite) or his past at all after that scene, and its early in the film.

That was kind of covered in the first film though. I preferred sequels like that. These days they keep going over and over where the hero character came from, even in the sequels and it just wastes a load of time.

Artful_Badger

Kaiser2000 wrote: »

New trailer.. still don't like it - not a patch on the original. Just another generic sci-fi shoot-em-up:

You cant compare the movie to the original or call it another generic scfi fi shoot-em-up on the back of a trailer though. They have to amp up the shoot-em-up aspect if they want to sell the movie in a two minute clip.

No point in writing it off before ya see it.

FlashD

A plus point is that Michael Keaton is in this, he's a great actor, always entertaining but doesn't do enough stuff these days.

Mickeroo

FlashD wrote: »

A plus point is that Michael Keaton is in this, he's a great actor, always entertaining but doesn't do enough stuff these days.

I hope he plays the chief of police and throws in a few TLC quotes while he's at it.

ScumLord

Artful_Badger wrote: »

No point in writing it off before ya see it.

I'll be shocked if it's not utter tripe.

Marty McFly

Mickeroo wrote: »

I hope he plays the chief of police and throws in a few TLC quotes while he's at it.

:pac::pac: brilliant love that film.

FlashD

According to Wiki, Keaton is playing 'Raymond Sellars, the villainous CEO of OmniCorp.' which is good enough for me.

....also says that Aronofsky was originally supposed to direct back in '05.

MJ23

Omar Little, Commissioner Gordon and Jules are in it. Should be good.

Duggy747

Looks more like a Robocop game for the PS4.

pixelburp

I don't think that trailer has improved my impressions of this film, if anything they have probably lessened because it looks even more soulless and witless than before; also, maybe it's just me and maybe it's just the way the trailer was edited, but it all comes across as that bit more ... douchebag'y, if you know what I mean. It's all very well saying wait n' see, but when nearly every avenue of information about this remake screams mediocrity, then it's a fair judgement to say 'ergh, no thanks.'

Professey Chin

His speed in the trailer is annoying me. In that scene with the other robots he's running around like theres no weight on him.
I prefer the slow thumping walk

krudler

The Dark Lord Cthulu wrote: »

His speed in the trailer is annoying me. In that scene with the other robots he's running around like theres no weight on him.
I prefer the slow thumping walk

Exactly, him being a lumbering tank of a thing was much cooler. Weller's performance is brilliant physically, even how he turns his upper body then rotates the rest of him as he walks around. There's none of that in the new version it seems.

ancapailldorcha

krudler wrote: »

Exactly, him being a lumbering tank of a thing was much cooler. Weller's performance is brilliant physically, even how he turns his upper body then rotates the rest of him as he walks around. There's none of that in the new version it seems.

I've read that the original idea was that Robocop would move like that but the suit was far too cumbersome for that so Weller suggested that they make him slow instead.
I just see a poor man's Iron Man here. I know you can't judge a whole film solely by the trailer but when the trailer makes the film so unappealing, it's hard to justify a trip to the cinema.

syklops

Hate the color.

ScumLord

krudler wrote: »

Exactly, him being a lumbering tank of a thing was much cooler. Weller's performance is brilliant physically, even how he turns his upper body then rotates the rest of him as he walks around. There's none of that in the new version it seems.

It did seem very robotic and more realistic because of that. It's very difficult to make a robot work like a human, we're still discovering parts of the human design that makes us so good at walking and running upright. Really we're a running machine, not a walking machine.

If they're going for current robotic movements they should have made it like the mule system that's constantly hoping about the place.

krudler

ScumLord wrote: »

It did seem very robotic and more realistic because of that. It's very difficult to make a robot work like a human, we're still discovering parts of the human design that makes us so good at walking and running upright. Really we're a running machine, not a walking machine.

If they're going for current robotic movements they should have made it like the mule system that's constantly hoping about the place.

Yeah exactly, it'd make more sense now to have a robot with those blade leg things the special olympics runners wear

Mickeroo

FlashD wrote: »

According to Wiki, Keaton is playing 'Raymond Sellars, the villainous CEO of OmniCorp.' which is good enough for me.

....also says that Aronofsky was originally supposed to direct back in '05.

Between that, Batman: Year One and Wolverine I think Aronofsky just likes to get linked to popular comic book/sci-fi franchises in order to get the fan's hopes up then leave the project and laugh at us.

MagicMarker

Only really reading up on this now. The cast alone will make me go and watch this. Michael Keaton obviously goes without saying, but the choice of RoboCop is a good one, and even Omar is in there:D

CastorTroy

And The Asylum strike again with Android Cop

Mickeroo

Looks better than Robocop plus its got Michael Jai White in it. An Asylum film I might actually watch.