RoboCop’ Returns

[KRYPTON INC.]

I am down for a Neil directed film. I have no big issue even with the Joel re-boot. It was decent but not mind blowingly great. My thing is... The owners of the IP should abandon film. Forget TV/streaming even.

Robocop as it was in the first film is tailor made for the modern gaming world, period. Everything about it, the setting, the characters, the general stories that lend themselves to the franchise, the modular nature of Robocop as a "product" of OCP... This all lends itself to BATMAN/ARKHAM level games in my opinion. I'm not even a gamer and it seems a no brainer that more money could be made with the IP as a game than this continual attempt at trying to crack it as a film or TV show again.

 

[Aximili86]

Weirdly, I think half of the reason I hated the reboot was because of Joel. He's a decent enough actor, The Killing and stuff, but the guy just comes off so unlikable. None of that "we're rooting for you" everyman good-guy charm of Weller's Murphy, he just came off as this cold d*ckbag from frame one.

The movie's direction was fine, some decent enough photography, whatever, I didn't hate it. Aside from a few weird choices and the fact it just blended in with every other CG-action-techy-blockbuster out there. It was just...there, which in a strange way was almost worse than it being bad. I can have fun with Robocop 3, but I don't really have any desire to watch 2014 Robocop again. Even if it does have Keaton & Oldman & Jackson.

 

[Alien Anal]

Weirdly, I think half of the reason I hated the reboot was because of Joel. He's a decent enough actor, The Killing and stuff, but the guy just comes off so unlikable. None of that "we're rooting for you" everyman good-guy charm of Weller's Murphy, he just came off as this cold d*ckbag from frame one.

The movie's direction was fine, some decent enough photography, whatever, I didn't hate it. Aside from a few weird choices and the fact it just blended in with every other CG-action-techy-blockbuster out there. It was just...there, which in a strange way was almost worse than it being bad. I can have fun with Robocop 3, but I don't really have any desire to watch 2014 Robocop again. Even if it does have Keaton & Oldman & Jackson.

I think a big part of that is because the Murphy in the 2014 film is written and set up in a completely different way, apart from their name and becoming Robocops there isnt really any similarities. The film also misses the biggest angle of Robocop, a human becoming a machine and a machine gaining humanity but knowing it will never be Human/Murphy again.

 

[Neno_Kos]

I wouldnt mind Weller back. Him for close ups and voice. And rest stuntman in suit with CGI for action scenes. I dont see problem with older Robocop. He is still a human in machine. Human part should naturally age, even though I wouldnt mind touch of makeup so he doesnt look 72.

That's the thing between human-machine hybrids. Regardless of age, machine parts should allow you do same thing you did 20 or 30 years ago. But then again it really depends on the script. Is movie made just 2 years after first one or did pass 30 or more. Doesnt make sense using "older Robocop" if movie is happening soon after first. Then you need do full recast.

 

[Aximili86]

Yeah, in-universe it's not a big deal at all. Murphy post-factory shooting was basically a head, a torso, and one arm, and they cut the frickin' arm off. Assumedly they'd found some way to sustain brain function at least as long as a regular human would live, if not more, so it's not an issue in-movie.

Personally I just wouldn't want Weller if it's only a voiceover and a close-up or two, though. It'd be great in a nostalgic sense, I just feel like if you're doing Weller again you should go all-in. If not, plenty of other actors out there that could pull it off, similar/deferential to the original but bringing their own stuff to it too.

 

[TheVileOne]

I don't think they retained anything of Murphy other than his brain and part of his face.

 

[Aximili86]

Well, they mention he still has an arm, Morton orders it amputated and replaced with the giant hydraulic mechanical thingamajig. You'd think it'd be attached to something.

He's pretty much just a head in the reboot, but pretty sure in Verhoeven's take he was at least a partial torso in there, and still had his (left? right? can't remember) arm when in hospital before Morton got his way with the full-prosthesis-everything.

 

[TheVileOne]

Morton also says FULL BODY PROSTHESIS. That's what he wanted.

 

[Aximili86]

Yeah, guess that could go either way with the final product. When you're seeing the POV shot in the lab, he supposedly still has an arm, so you'd figure that's not...severed. But yeah, by the time he's complete, there's nothing really indicating whether there's flesh inside the torso bit or not. Could be the same as the reboot, yeah.

 

[TheVileOne]

Yeah, guess that could go either way with the final product. When you're seeing the POV shot in the lab, he supposedly still has an arm, so you'd figure that's not...severed. But yeah, by the time he's complete, there's nothing really indicating whether there's flesh inside the torso bit or not. Could be the same as the reboot, yeah.

Going by the second movie it doesn't look like he had much in the way of organics left at all. I think what they did was graft his face over a cyborg chassis.

So maybe they started with some of his original body, but more and more they just stripped it all away.

I think the TV series hinted that he might have some organic innards, but that's the TV series.

 

[titansupes]

^ He's definitely got more to him that just the face-- remember the baby food.

 

[TheVileOne]

Not sure how accurate this is. But basically, I still think he's got some organic parts in there, but it's a very minimal amount. He doesn't have any human arm or torso left.

Like in Appleseed, Briareos is a human-turned-cyborg. Apparently his conversion was 75 percent. So on that spectrum, RoboCop looks about 90 percent cybernetic if not more. It's just his face, brain, and likely some other organic mater.

 

[TheVileOne]

^ He's definitely got more to him that just the face-- remember the baby food.

Yeah but he likely doesn't have a whole upper torso.

 

[OutOfBoose]

I think it's only his face and brain. Baby food is to support living tissue. I don't know why at some point they wanted to leave his hand, doesn't make much sense, but what we got in the end is just that.

 

[Aximili86]

I think what we're getting at is, we don't really have any information on exactly what's inside that torso. Clearly there are the cybernetic elements, and the outer armor, but as far as if the internal stuff (torso) is cybernetic as in tech-connected-to-human-tissue or just full-on robotic and the baby food is only to sustain the head/brain, we just don't know. The arms & legs are full-on mech, for sure.

I'd still kind of lean toward there being some remnants of him left in the chest bit though, of some description. Only due to them bringing him online for the first time they mention his arm is still there before Bob orders it done away with: so the head's more-or-less operational/complete already, but he still has a human arm? That'd seem strange, he's pretty far along in the process. I'd have to guess that's actually connected to a human shoulder (though likely altered/reinforced/whatever).

His chest is pretty clearly severely damaged from the Boddicker & Friends gun-down, but that doesn't necessarily mean they just cut his head off and attached him to the Robocop body at the neck. Personally I always got the impression the baby food was keeping some remnants or other alive, inside that metal protective casing. Who knows, maybe they even repaired his heart enough to work, supplemented it somehow, you'd figure there's still blood flowing around the head part.

 

[TheVileOne]

I guess the baby food helps sustain what's left of his brain? Maybe he has a bit of a spinal column.

By comparison, if anyone ever read Appleseed, same creator as Ghost in the Shell, the main cyborg character Briareos appears to have a very radical cybernetic body. He still has I think his brain, nervous system, spinal column, digestive track, and his circulation system. Like if you shoot his body, he still has blood and bleeds like a normal human. He still eats and consumes food and drink. And apparently, he still has his reproductive organs intact. Why is that important? Briareos and his girlfriend character Deunan apparently have sex.

Sort of a weird tangent, but the whole cyborg thing in sci-fi has always fascinated me in how it could work conceptually. FYI, the original Appleseed manga and Briareos PREDATE RoboCop

 

[Aximili86]

Yeah, but what about his remnants of...not memory exactly, he says he doesn't remember his wife & kid, but he "feels" them. I'm not so sure they'd go that angle if his mind is pure 1s & 0s, a digital facsimile of who Murphy used to be. If part of the brain's active, don't you sort of need blood flow to sustain that? You can artificially pump it I guess, but I don't know that they've just replaced his entire nervous system with metal tubing.

Kind of sounds more like the legs & one arm came off, they were keeping the body alive (on a technical level, even if he would have died of the injuries without the experimental procedure they were doing) and building around it. Like the body's completely ****ed, but there's still a general heartbeat/pulse to sustain basic brain activity, it just needs an artificial boost/reinforcement to keep operating? Murphy's basically braindead on an awareness level until the digital functions are brought online, but in a purely organic sense there's still life there? I don't know how that works if they just decapitate him.

Interesting discussion though, I love how really good movies like this can inspire this type of back-and-forth. Leaving it vague enough that people draw their own conclusions.

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

^ He's definitely got more to him that just the face-- remember the baby food.

Not only that, but he screams out in pain when Bodicker stabs him in the chest. I think some torso is definitely still there.

 

[Alien Anal]

Not only that, but he screams out in pain when Bodicker stabs him in the chest. I think some torso is definitely still there.

That could be Robocop gaining back humanity and recalling that Murphy would scream out in pain if stabbed like that but its not actual real pain.

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

That could be Robocop gaining back humanity and recalling that Murphy would scream out in pain if stabbed like that but its not actual real pain.

I don't know, there seemed to be blood.

But not only that, in RoboCop 2 when they were cutting Murphy apart, he only started screaming when they started on his torso. Also, isn't it stated in both movies that Murphy's heart is still intact?

 

[Persona]

The 2014 Robocop movie is such a nothing flick I don't mind someone else taking a stab at a new Robocop movie already, and I think Blomkamp is actually a great fit for the property. He's got the right kind of style and headspace to make a really good Robocop movie.

I am really glad this story/script is coming from Neumeier, Miner, and Rhodes, because Blomkamp's major weakness is his writing. D9 was a perfect storm of writing with his partner Terri Tatchell (who I suspect is the better writer of the two, I believe she went to university for it), the freshness and simplicity and resonance of the idea, the improvisation of Copley, the mockumentary format that took up big portions of the film... all that hid Neill's weakness as a writer. Chappie and Elysium, yeah, not as much. But I think you see how some of his Oats Studios shorts play to his strengths... concepts, design aesthetics, making stuff look really good on modest budgets. Rakka and Firestorm are strong entries (though the cheesiness of the writing and some of the acting hampers Firestorm a bit), Zygote is actually a kind of great riff on The Thing.

I think the jury is still out on Blomkamp as an action director. D9 was strong in this area because of the slow build to the action at the end and then just the incredible impact certain moments had (when the mech first powers up) along with the straight up Half-Life ideas behind some of the weaponry. It seemed very promising as a debut for what could be a great new genre action director, but then Elysium and Chappie were just far too sloppy in how their action was constructed, even though there were still some cool ideas and moments to the action. While Elysium is a more solid film overall than Chappie I thought it was particularly disappointing in this regard because the whole movie is basically a set up to action (they make a huge deal about our hero having an exoskeleton grafted onto his body that should enhance him) that it fails to deliver on, as there really isn't much action at all in the movie and what little there is isn't particularly great or memorable, and they don't really do much interesting with the exoskeleton. Chappie delivered a bit more but unfortunately that film is just a mess on so many levels that it's hard to even appreciate the action in that movie.

For Robocop the action is important, obviously, so I think Blomkamp needs to take the next step to refining his construction and execution of action scenes, and then hopefully the screenwriters give him a decent script and he focuses on the right elements to make the story work.

 

[Aximili86]

Also, isn't it stated in both movies that Murphy's heart is still intact?

I don't recall that line, but it's been a while. Could be.

I do vaguely remember blood all over him when he's laying in the water outside the rusted-out factory, but whether that's before or after he gouches Clarence's throat is escaping me.

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

I don't recall that line, but it's been a while. Could be.

I do vaguely remember blood all over him when he's laying in the water outside the rusted-out factory, but whether that's before or after he gouches Clarence's throat is escaping me.

He also needed a heart transplant in Robocop 3 after taking a grenade to the chest outside the church.

 

[Marvel united]

I highly doubt there was anything left of Murphy after the shootout. Why and how exactly would they keep his torso when Clarence basically destroyed it? I mean, how would that work, exactly? I think the only thing left of him is his brain and spinal cord

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

I highly doubt there was anything left of Murphy after the shootout. Why and how exactly would they keep his torso when Clarence basically destroyed it? I mean, how would that work, exactly? I think the only thing left of him is his brain and spinal cord

The bullett proof vest he had on meant the damage wasn’t as bad. He was still alive on the operating table. Wouldn’t happen if his chest was totally obliterated.

This was stated in the movie/s