RoboCop Kicks Ass!

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ROBOCOP is my favorite movie of all time. Seriously, I love this frickin movie. I saw it in theatres back in '87 and at the time, it was THE SINGLE MOST VIOLENT MOVIE I had ever seen in my entire life. Totally blew me away. I just love the entire concept. It's like a modern, high-tech take on "Frankenstein," or maybe just a really kick-ass comic book come to life.

Paul Verhoeven's original film had everything a teenage action-junkie could want -- bad ass villains, hilarious black comedy, and about 50,000 rounds of ammunition per minute. One thing you gotta love about Verhoeven, when he takes on a genre, he goes totally balls to the wall with it. Give him an action movie like "RoboCop" and he's gonna make it the most action packed action movie ever made. Give him an erotic thriller, i.e. "Basic Instinct," and it's gonna be damn near close to porno. (Seriously, had Sharon Stone EVER been hotter than in that movie, before OR since for that matter?)

1990's "RoboCop 2" was no slouch either. There seems to be a lot of hate for that movie but I thought it came pretty close to re-capturing the twisted heavy metal brilliance of the original, even without Verhoeven in the driver's seat. Frank Miller (the comic book legend of "Daredevil" and "Batman: The Dark Knight" fame) came on board as the script writer and he pretty much picked up where the first movie left off, with the same dark humor and big guns. Plus, it had Babylon A.D.'s killer song "The Kid Goes Wild" on the soundtrack.

Unfortunately, RoboCop 3 was the beginning of the end. Peter Weller didnt wanna play the role a third time so we got a new man in the iron suit (Robert John Burke, whoever he was) and a film that was watered down to the point of Saturday Morning Cartoon level. There's still some decent carnage but the PG-13 rating (and the fact that Robo got a cute little kid sidekick and rocket pack in this one so he could FLY!) gave away the fact that they were aiming for a more kid-friendly audience so they could sell action figures and toys based on the character. Orion Pictures went into bankruptcy protection before the movie could be released and so "RC3" sat on the shelf for nearly two years before finally being sent out to theatres with nary a whimper in 1993. Not only was it the end of the studio, it was more or less the end of the career of director Fred ("The Monster Squad") Dekker. (Where have you seen him lately?)

But even "RoboCop 3" was better than the short lived "RoboCop" TV series that rolled out in syndication a year or two later. By now the character was totally toothless. He didn't even shoot to kill anymore!! Plus they saddled him with a cybernetic love interest (a holographic girl representing the police computer, who came along with him in the cop car as a ride-along... ugh) and some of the dumbest recurring villains in TV history (i.e. a mad scientist whose name was "Cray Z. Mallardo.") Thankfully it only lasted one brief season before being shuffled off to the cancellation graveyard. That series left such a bad taste in my mouth that I have yet to even bother with the made-for-TV mini series "RoboCop: Prime Directive" that was made for the Sci-Fi Channel about ten years ago.

Does anyone else share my love for those first two RoboCop movies?? I just watched them on DVD fairly recently, and they still hold up pretty well. Yeah, some of the stop-motion special effects look pretty goofy now (and now that Kurtwood Smith, who played Robo's nemesis Clarence Boddicker in "RoboCop," is now more famous for playing Red Foreman on "That 70s Show," I kept waiting for him to call RoboCop "DUMBASS!") but those two flicks still kick just as much ass as they did 20+ years ago.

I hear there's a remake of RoboCop in development. I hope that if and when it comes to fruition, it's more like the first two movies than the watered-down version we saw in "3" and the TV show.

Love Robocop! Easily one of my favorite films of the 80's, Verhoven was really firing on all cylinders.

The uncut Criterion edition is even more repulsively gory than the original theatrical version. My favorite line of the movie: "Just give me my fuckin' phone call".

I watched this a few years ago and realized for the first time that it was filmed in Dallas! Since it has so much in common with Detroit.

I haven't seen either of the sequels in a LONG time. I remember liking the second and tolerating the 3rd.

I like all 3, hell I still play the NES game!

"Can you fly, Bobby?"

"RoboCop 3" has its moments I guess... there are a few bits where they try to cop the satirical feel of the first movie, mostly in the scenes involving the OCP corporate assholes... tho I have to say that the OCP scenes suffer from the lack of Dan O'Herlihy as "The Old Man," as he died while RC3 was still in development... Rip Torn tried hard, but he was a pretty piss poor substitute for him. Dan O'Herlihy was just so grim and totally deadpan as the OCP boss, he was freakin' hilarious. (remember his immortal "Dick... I'm VERY disappointed" in the first movie after the malfunctioning ED-209 splatters a junior exec all over the board room? Hahahaha!!) I swear "The Old Man" was my fave character in the series other than Robo himself.

My fave scene in "RoboCop 3" is when Robo walks into the police station and asks his long-suffering Captain where the "Rehab Staging Area" is ("Rehabs" being the crooked mercenaries hired by OCP to clear all the people out of the neighborhood so OCP can build a new development)... when the Captain sez "Down the hall to the left," Robo sez "Thank you... you may want to call the fire department." Hahaha!!

I remember the RoboCop NES game, Akeldama... used to have that one myself. I remember playing the arcade version back in the day too. The ED-209's in the game weren't any smarter than the ones in the movie.

Detuned wrote:

The uncut Criterion edition is even more repulsively gory than the original theatrical version.

I've never seen the Criterion edition of the movie... but I'd love to!

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In addition to the films, TV show, video games, and even a short lived cartoon show (!), RoboCop has had a long history in comic books. Marvel Comics published adaptations of the first two movies and then gave Robo his own ongoing series around '89 or '90 which lasted for about two years if memory serves. It was OK, but not great. I would imagine having the series approved by the Comics Code Authority probably hampered the series because it coudn't match the insane violence and darkness of the films.

Then Dark Horse took over the license in the early 90s and cranked out numerous limited series based on the character. For my $$, the best of the Dark Horse Robo-Stuff was the ROBOCOP VS. TERMINATOR mini-series, written by Frank Miller (of DAREDEVIL and THE DARK KNIGHT graphic novel fame, as well as screenwriter of both "Robo 2" and "3." Crossovers like these were common as dandelions back in the 90s (Dark Horse did numerous "Alien Vs. Predator," "Batman Vs. Predator," "Superman Vs. Predator," and so on and so on) but this was my favorite of all of those. Frank managed to combine both movies' universes pretty simply -- in this book, it turns out that the technology used to turn Officer Murphy into RoboCop was the beginning of what led to the creation of SkyNet, the sentient computer program from the "Terminator" series that eventually waged war against humanity. In the Terminator future, the resistance sends a woman back to eliminate Murphy before he can become RoboCop, the rationale being if there's no RoboCop, there will never be a SkyNet. Unfortunately, they miscalculate the time period in which she's sent back, so when she arrives in old Detroit, Murphy has already become RoboCop. Naturally, when SkyNet gets wind of this they send a few Terminators into Old Detroit to make sure she doesnt' complete her mission. Massive carnage ensues, of course. Excellently written, and killer artwork by Walter Simonson of "Thor" and "Star Wars" fame.

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One Robo-comic I haven't read yet but would like to is a graphic novel simply called "Frank Miller's RoboCop." Supposedly when Frank first turned in his script for "RoboCop 2," the studio told him it was too hardcore and wasn't suitable for filming. What we eventually saw on screen was the result of numerous rewrites, re-edits, and committee meetings. The experience apparently burned Frank's ass enough that he wanted to finally tell the story "his" way, hence the production of the novel, which was based directly on his original script idea.

...and hey, while skimming Google Image Search for the comic book pix used in this post, I found out that there's apparently a new RoboCop comic series on the stands right now, from a company I've never heard of before (Dynamite Comics). The hype claims that this new series "harkens back to its roots in Paul Verhoeven's original, delivering extreme violence, mixed with conspiracy and satire." Sounds cool!

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....and hey, for anyone who missed the "RoboCop" animated series (I know I sure did), here's the intro ...



Wow! The animation sucks, but at least they were faithful to Robo's origin story!!!

"RoboCop 2" director Irvin Kershner (who also directed "The Empire Strikes Back") passed away about two weeks ago. I may bust out "RC2" sometime this week and give it a fresh spin, it's been a while.

Fat Freddy wrote:

"RoboCop 2" director Irvin Kershner (who also directed "The Empire Strikes Back") passed away about two weeks ago. I may bust out "RC2" sometime this week and give it a fresh spin, it's been a while.

I liked that one too - cool flick, saw it in the theater back in the day

I saw all three Robo's in the theatre back in the day.

Considering how fast "RoboCop 3" faded from the nation's Multiplexes, I must be one of only a few dozen people who can say that. Haha.

Thanks for sharing those comic book covers, VERY cool!

I Agree Nice Comic Covers man, I used to have marvels Robocop #1 too, and the damn thing disappeared, never look at comics with a buch of drunk dudes anyway, I used to have a Robocop action figure that took a roll of caps in his back and fired like a gun, like those old cap guns if you know what I mean. It was pretty damn cool, allso got jacked from me, some friends are just bastards. But still nice collection, yeah Robo vs. the Terminators was pretty cool, never had it but read some of them.

Check this out:

So I'm in the FYE store at the local mall today, which is going out of business, scoping out whatever goodies I can scrounge up cheap. I picked up a couple of CDs and while waiting on the checkout line I was flipping through a big bin of random DVDs. I come across a copy of MGM's "RoboCop Trilogy" DVD box set marked down to ten bucks and I just about shit a brick, thinking I just got the deal of the fuckin century. I only have the first two Robo's on DVD-R (recorded'em off of the Encore Action channel a year or two ago) and have been dyin' to upgrade'em to "real" DVDs.

HOWEVER....

here's the kicker... when I took a closer look, it turned out that the entire package was in FRENCH. Seriously, the title on the front was "L'Trilogie RoboCop" and all the descriptive copy/etc. on the back of the box was all in French. I can only assume that this box must've been offered for sale in Canada, and it somehow trickled down to New Jersey by mistake. Since I obviously don't speak a word of French, I put it back with a sigh, paid for my purchases, and moved on.

Now, of course, it's bugging the hell out of me whether or not I did the right thing by throwing it back. OK, so the packaging was all in French, but now that I think about it, I would bet that the DVD's inside the box probably would have the original English language track of each film on'em along with a French language version, so I probably should've grabbed it. It certainly would've made for a weird-as-hell conversation piece too. Oh well. Whenever I go back to scrounge some more I'll see if I can find it again, but Lord knows if that'll happen with the way people are tearing that store apart right now. Oh well. Dang.

Go back and get it man, it's a collectible if nothing else!

Gershom wrote:

Go back and get it man, it's a collectible if nothing else!

Yea, y'know, I've already kinda decided that if I can find that box again next time I go to that store, I'm gonna grab it, French or no French. I dunno if I'll be able to dig it up though. As I said, that store is having its going out of business sale right now so the place is just utter chaos, there's piles of random stuff all over the place. Good luck to me finding it again.

Sometimes a person could just kick there own ass for second guessing something that just should have been, I know I've done it many times over, too bad for you Fat Fred, and then life goes on.

Welp, I made up for my missing out on the oddball French DVD set today by picking up a used copy of this bad boy for $5.00...

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The 2-DVD 20th anniversary edition, features both the theatrical and "uncut" versions of the movie (apparently ol' Paul had to snip a few seconds of gore here and there in order to get the film an "R" rating), plus a shit load of bonus featurettes, deleted scenes, commentaries by Verhoeven, writers Edward Neumeier and animator/special effects guy Phil Tippett, plus a whole bunch of other junk that I haven't even begun to dig into yet. The "uncut" version has previously only been available on the (much more expensive) Criterion Collection edition.

So yeah, I'm a happy camper. I suppose it would've been nice (and weird) to have all three Robo films in that French box but what the hell, this was a deal and a half, and I can always pick up the other two films on the cheap somewhere down the road.

As for me, I'm now gonna put this motha in the DVD player and geek out now.

"STAY OUT OF TROUBLE."

Nice, now you have to find the Robocop cartoon too.

Hahahaha,I remember seeing some of the cartoon show on TV years ago. That was plenty. It was awful!

If you're so inclined, however, it looks like a whole crapload of the Robo-Toon can be found on YouTube.

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I watched the "uncut" edition of the film last night (from the DVD I posted about yesterday).... my first time seeing it. Not radically different from the theatrical edition, really (I understand Verhoeven only had to cut around 30 seconds of blood/gore to get the "R" rating), but the extra bit of red stuff was a nice cherry on top of an already awesome flick.

The scenes that differed were:

When the malfunctioning ED-209 unit blows away the junior executive guy during the demonstration in the board room. The camera lingers on him getting shot far longer than in the theatrical, to the point where he's practically chopped to bits by gunfire -- which of course makes the cry of "Someone call a goddamn paramedic!" even funnier.

The execution scene where Boddicker and his boys shoot Murphy to pieces. When Boddicker blows his hand off, the camera sticks to Murphy staring in shock at the stump where his hand used to be, which spurts blood like a fountain.

The big fight between Boddicker and Robo at the end. When Robo stabs him in the neck with his "input spike," it takes Boddicker a few extra seconds to bleed out.

Awesome!!

Sounds pretty cool FF, wonder why it's only a 2 disc set when there where 3 films? But yeah your right the cartoon was pretty bad, I actually youtubed some of it the other night and was laughing, I couldn't even watch a whole episode. If they did an animated series now a days, I bet it could be pretty damn cool, maybe even throw in the whole vs. the Terminator thing that would be cool to watch.

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Sounds pretty cool FF, wonder why it's only a 2 disc set when there where 3 films?

It's a special "20th Anniversary Edition" of just the first film. One disc is the theatrical cut and the 2nd is the Unrated cut.

I figure I can always pick up "Robo 2" on DVD cheap elsewhere, and I'm honestly in no hurry to ever see "3" again.

Are 'Resurrection' and 'Dark Justice' any good?

Jill Hennesy is the only reason to watch "3".

Akeldama wrote:

Are 'Resurrection' and 'Dark Justice' any good?

I saw Dark Justice just the other night, it's very made for tv kind of stuff, but if your a Robocop fan I'd say give it a chance it's alright I got Resurrection and like two others to watch still, but I'll say it's better than the cartoon series.

oh "Meltdown" and "Crash and Burn" are the other two Robo flicks made.