Just wanted to say thanks for the continued support, especially with content thin on the ground lately. I moved house and then have been very sick for a couple of weeks. I'll be getting back on things now. Cheers.
Hope you are feeling a bit less knackered, I was wondering if I unsubbed by accident or the RUclips algorithm changed again. At least you turned me onto the columbo series, what a great show.
I agree 💯 it's a masterpiece of film making. Easily one of the greatest films ever made, it's massively overlooked as alot of people see it as a mindless action film, whilst it's anything but mindless. It's satire and political commentary still stand today.
I hope the production isn’t part of why it’s a masterpiece, cuz then I’d have question why you’d rather have bad cgi and production and bad acting, over good cgi, production, and acting
@@Irrelevantusername000 Honestly, Paul Verhoven was on FIRE during that era with Robocop, Starship Troopers and Total Recall. Wish there were more film makers like him.
9:40 (Nitpick: shooting Robocop in the jaw wouldn't affect him unless it's with a high caliber, because his skull is pure metal. The face is grafted on top of it and is purely cosmetic. Until he regains his memory of Alex Murphy, he makes no special effort to protect his face. Afterwards, he can be seen raising his arm to his mouth to protect it during the shootout at OCP.)
Yeah. The reason they grafted his face onto the metal skull was because even with erased memories, the brain wuld still remeber being human. Wish is partly why i think those two prototypes in R2 failed as they didn't have their mirror image. Cain was enough delusional already so for him it was pretty muchg the loss of his wang that he mourned. ^^
Plus shooting someone in the jaw, especially a moving target, is extremely difficult. Guns have a lot of recoil, some more than others, and hitting what you're aiming at, even with a stationary target, isn't as easy as movies make it look. That's why officers are trained to shoot at the torso as opposed to an appendage, it's a bigger target. Shooting at an appendage is pretty much a guaranteed miss. Like shooting at tires on a moving vehicle, it won't work in real life. That said, this is a movie. Since we're using movie logic, maybe a shot in the jaw would work...
One could easily point out that it's likely he only began moving the arm to cover his mouth because that's when they first started trying to hit him in the mouth. Prior to that they were aiming center mass, and no mouth shielding was necessary.
The original works on so many different levels: as a thrilling neo-western, as a smart satire on corporatism/media, as a thoughtful Sci-fi story on the nature of humanity and the soul. And Peter Weller's performance is so underrated. He adds so much subtle nuance to the character that really makes him feel human even as a cyborg.
i do actually love the RCR design much more cyborgish if we do consider modern tech, but the hand was so annoying! why the fuk he need 1 hand?!! to get shoted in pieces when he is in fire fight with his hand straight forward! or was it so he could give some handjob to his lover?!
@@arshameghtedary344 I really disliked the black Robocop design. It just looks so fake. The original silver they had for him looked amazing. You could see the badge stamped on there and lines were incredible.
@White-Van Helsing o.O ok consoomer. You don't have to like it when a studio serves you a plate of dog shit, no matter how many bells and whistles they festoon it with. I loved TFA, nostalgia bait that it was. I actually enjoyed parts of TLJ too, plate of dog shit that it was. Ros was fucking insulting. As was TLJ, but still.
@White-Van Helsing I was almost positive that's what we were talking about. Certainly what I was talking about w my "nihilistic parody" For the record, the OT is art. The prequels are parody, the new ones are nihilistic parody
One of the most interesting things about the movie is how prophetic it was, although since that has little to do with cinema I can see how it got overlooked.
Have any of you ever been to Detroit? You kids talk about it as if it's a huge ghetto. You do realize there are richer areas and commercial areas, right?
Robocop is eerie in it's prescience, on it's base level it's a cheesy cop revenge movie, but i think it is much deeper than that, something about losing our humanity in the name of progress and the ultimate descent into barbarity that causes.
RoboCop 2 and Predator 2 are among my favorite movies, despite being terrible. Their vision of the future is just so fantastically dark. The Jamaican voodoo street gang in Predator 2 is one of the greatest/stupidest ideas ever put to film.
robocop2 predator 2 came out in 1990 that time steven segal also made a movie about jamaican gang. Marked for death. Can anyone tell me wtf had hollywood vs jamaicans at that time?
Short answer: They got worse Long answer: I regret to inform whoever reading this comment that the movie series known as RoboCop has become gradually less enjoyable overall in each installment
i 100% percent agree, even peter weller could not save robocop 2. maybe they needed paul verhoeven back to direct, but to be honest most sequels are ill thought out and just not needed, the first movie worked well as a low budget movie, and it shows that pumping more dollars in to a movie does not always make them better, you need a good story that adds to the original one in my opinion. regards the batman.
yeah that's sadly so true the first one was the best and after that they could never makes anything that was equally as good as the first they were just going down hill after the first movie
@@brucewayne7838 2 was fine. It wasn't the smart satirical take on corporate takeover that 1 was, but it worked fine as a film save some pacing issues. For having been done during the late 80s writer's strike, it worked out well. Everything after that....and I do mean EVERYTHING....was trash.
The "western" idea didn't resonate with me. I get the idea of a "western" that doesn't take place in the western US of the 19th century ( _Firefly/Serenity_ takes place in space in the future!). I think there has to be a "frontier" element to the setting that drives the plot. On what frontier is _RoboCop?_ To me, _RoboCop_ is more reminiscent of a sci-fi version of a _Brubaker_ or _Serpico,_ where a "cog" inside a "broken machine" has to try to find a way to bring some measure of reform to a corrupt system. Malcolm Gladwell dubs this style of a story an "eastern," although I don't know how much currency that carries
I always felt like the final line was what really nailed that it was a Western. The way the President of OCP asks "What's your name, son?" That always struck me as something out of a cowboy movie.
I always had a hunch about 1 and 2 being westerns, but couldn't name it. Another well-deserved point for this channel. All Bodicker, Kane, and the Old Man bask in the idea that they are above the law. In the end only the Old Man gets away with his life as Robo brings the first two down for their crimes. Again, as mentioned in the video, the 3rd as the film to bring the Old Man and OCP to justice is so obvious. And the fact that the trilogy is not done justice, by not going that way, is so sad.
the original is a true classic. I remember watching it when i was 9 and being blown away by the basic story and violence (damn that toxic waste scene is seared into my brain, as is the stop motion ed-209). But each time a re-watched when i was older I appreciated more the black humour and social commentary. Terrific film.
The toxic waste guy scared the hell out of me when I was a kid, I fastforwarded that part a lot. But the Murphy death scene was just awesome to me for some reason. Seeing him get blown to bits and pieces.
13:47 A great example of Verhoeven irony: "Nice shooting, son. What's your name?" "Murphy." A triumph of the character's humanity, immediately stomped on by the ROBOCOP title.
The first movie has such a great assemblage of villainy - Kurtwood Smith, Dan O'Herlihy, Ronny Cox, Ray Wise, Miguel Ferrer. Another great video, thanks!
The Robocop 2 CHARACTER ITSELF is the living embodiment of the sequel movie: it's bigger, meaner, more extreme, it has chainguns because fuck you and when his face is shown, what do we see? Needless uncanny valley CGI.
As a Detroiter, I can attest that we do in fact have a mega conglomerate running our police department. Also personally, my little league team was arrested by a cyborg.
@@subzero8679 The only difference between Democratic and Republican politicians that actually matters is that Republicans are transparent about being boytoys for lobbyists and corporations (though not through lack of trying).
@@dahkdm8787 yeah, at least Republicans don't try to stay on a high horse and admit to what they are doing. Democrats try to hold that moral high horse.
Rods toy box Sony is actually a shortening of their actual name; roughly translated from Japanese: “indescribable motion picture bomb-factory failure festival, Sony.”
Joshua Chap If you actually look beyond DCEU which I'm certain you only focus on when slacking WB, you'd come to realize that WB actually makes/are involved in making some great movies if not the greatest movies.
anything good that cones from Sony is the result of the director, but Sony is to blame for anything bad. They give money to a lot of shit movies. You people realize that Sony isn't a person who makes these movies themselves, right?
The scene that thugs shoot Murphy into pieces still haunts me! My parents were so stupid that they allowed me watch the original robocop movie at the age of 7!
I was 10 and even if I watch the movie now I either go grab a snack or skip that part when his hand gets blown off. I actually saw it in the theater with a friend, no parents with us. That's back when they didn't really check ID at the box office.
For me its the other way around.. Loved every minute of RoboCop 1 and 2 as a 5 year old.. And now in my early 30's.. Rewatching it is literally giving me nightmares.. Putting a psychopath into a machine that has gone completely rouge.. .. Yikes!!
It's funny. The scripts and stories that Paul Verhoeven initially throw away, but then pick up again, end up being the best of his films. It happened with Robocop. And it happened with Starship troopers. The films he stayed committed to from the start, were usually pretty bland and mediocre. Paul Verhoeven should go with the scripts and books that disgust him initially.
It was because they wanted the public reassured it was a man inside the machine in the movie he was basically a publicity stunt so OmniCorp can get drones on the streets of America
@@BiggMatt183 to me , there is no problem with the suit. It's just that we already have a re-imaginated version of the original suit in the earlier scenes in Robocop 2014. If it had more funny moments akin to the original + PG 16 , with that suit of the earlier scenes , it could had been better. The black suit would work wonders for a Robocop 2 in which he faces the new version of Cain and was obliterated by it , so he had an upgraded version of it.
You have always demonstrated a broad knowledge of various subjects. In this video, you took that a step higher by truly understanding what makes a good police officer, "Nuance and humanity." 95% of policing is talking to people. The RoboCop program would never work for day to day policing, but he'd be great for being the first officer to go through the door on a warrant or dealing with a barricaded gunman. Very nice to see that there are people who understand the true nature of police work, cheers!
@Cyberdemon Mike You're definitely right, and I did enjoy watching it, but I genuinely think it was forgettable for a lot of people for pretty much no reason. I actually didn't even know it existed until March of this year, I apologize if you thought I was downplaying the movie as I noticed my choice of words that it "didn't really stand out" makes it seem like i think the movie was boring.
I think and feel that Robocop 2 is the series saying "What have I become?" There was a Robocop Saturday Morning cartoon around the same time as this movie. And when Robocop electrocuted himself to reset himself, the series was saying "I am going to be an Adult R rated movie again."
The movie to the T. And yes, Robocop 2 is a different, yet very enjoyable movie to the 1st. The 3rd only has 1 or 2 ok scenes that does deserve notice, but other than that it was very toned down with a lot less satire than the other 2 films.
robocop 1987: its got the greatest/nastiest bad guy ever seen in a film ( clarence) , murphy has the most shocking death scene in ANY movie still to this day , even though it was trimmed down a bit (they blow his entire arm off too).that was a whole new level of violence to me as a 9yo and i was well used to watching horror movies. as soon as the movie was over i was so scarred by it that i had to instantly watch it again. its a true action masterpiece every bit as good as terminator 1 and 2 , probably better actually.
@@subzero8679 Both parties have done their fair share of that. You are lying to yourself if you think only the dems are responsible for "fixing everything"
Weller made that line up on the spot apparently. He was meant to say something else but fired that line out instead and Verhoeven loved it so kept it in.
Paul Verhoeven was a master of satirical “schlock”. I loved Robocop as a kid purely on its surface level, but as an adult it’s clear that there’s more going on, it works perfectly on a few levels. He’s made some duds, but I think Paul Verhoeven is finally getting some of the recognition he deserves. Also, Peter Weller is a super underrated actor. He’s pretty versatile and should have been a bigger star, in my opinion. I’ve heard he’s a university professor now...
I never thought the jaw of Robocop was vulnerable. They keep the human look to help interact with the public. But especially the original, Peter Wellers face looks stretched. The scenes of Alex Murphy shows a very this, angular face and jawline. Robocops face is obviously larger. I always assumed OCP skinned Murphys face and stretched it over a titanium skull. Remember when Bob Morton argued against saving the left arm in the original? "I thought we agreed on total body prosthesis, now loose the arm."
Yeah, I made a Robocop helmet in art class when I was ten! I grew up on all the classics, die hard, Predator, Terminator, universal soldier etc. Now my wife bollocks me if I let the kids watch a 12!
Those are great too. Honestly, I'm sure I'd enjoy the hour-plus podcast-style episodes too, if I had the time. But I've never clicked on one 'cus I just don't have the time.
God damn, I need to rewatch 1 and 2. They're perfect movies. Also, I haven't stopped calling the movies "Rob O'cop: An Irish Policeman" after John Stewart made that joke interviewing Joel Kinnaman in '13.
I think one of the biggest slap to the face with the remake was the line "I wouldn't buy that for a dollar". It only makes sense in the context of the older films, which means the character must have seen the older films, yet it doesn't take place in a universe where those films existed. It was just a hamfisted way of referencing the original film in one of those ways the major studios do nowadays, so that people will make youtube videos going over the "easter eggs". It's not an easter egg, it's a copout trying to capitalize on the nostalgia of the original in the worst kind of way. An easter egg would have been to have every product visible in a store with the price tag "$1". But even with all of that, I kinda like the new RoboCop (oh yes, one of the big differences that sets the titles apart... a capital C). It has its issues, so many of them, but it's still a fun flick to watch. It is the senseless violence of the first film without any of its thoughtprovoking elements.
This seems like a recurring matter: a movie makes a somewhat big success and then big studio executives come and turn it into a franchise with sequels and merchandise and the following films lose the spirit from the original one. And it's been happening with a lot of movies released in the 80's.
Remember the Robocop comic and animated series? The toys? Corporations exploited these movies even back then. What changed is that back then even a shlocky action movie like Robocop had satire, social commentary. But most importantly it was fun. Now movies lost the fun aspect. They are "realistic", "serious", "gritty" and "dark". Also a lot of writers got stuck in the 80s and think that what could pass as "sci-fi" in the 80s can be still considered sci-fi in the 21st century.
I miss the days where a movie making a profit of $60 million is considered a success. And in this era of endless safe reboots, is it really a shock that robocop turned out bad? People are always quick to blame the director or screenwriter, but I tend to default to thinking its the studio. Your video basically pointed out that's what happened here. And we've seen countless other movies from known risk takers that have come out dry, predictable and boring. We later learn its because producers and studio executives were choking them with so many notes, they never had the ability to do anything creative. From The Hobbit to Star Wars to Jurassic World. And I get it. These people are shelling out $100 million to make a movie. So they want to cut as much risk as possible. But here's an idea. Reduce the budget and take some risks. You know...like the first Robocop did. Here's a good start. Don't hire huge expensive actors that take up 50% of the budget.
Interesting how success is a curse. Original Robocop cost $8mil. Sequel cost $35mil. With that expenditure increase, the sequel should have been more than 4 times better. But obviously money does not equal quality. If money isn't quality, what is? No studio exec can answer that question.
Like Zetetik said. There is still quality movies being made but many of them don't reach the cinema. I say, screw the cinema. It is too expensive anyway.
You never know, what with projection / screen tech getting SO much better / cheaper, year by year We might even see a resurgence of smaller indie cinemas make a big comeback in the next decade, showing some actual great / surprising / interesting movies! - and maybe, even bring back the proper Midnight Movie scene! :) And, in practical terms, it finally looks totally do-able, now. ......I'd SO love to see this happen! :D
RoboCop is one of my favorite movies. It is so savage and fearless. The humor is dark and cynical. The action is ruthless. The theme song is incredible - it really adds a depth and atmosphere to the movie. I enjoy it more today than when I was young. And damn, the RoboCop suit was friggin SICK!
this movie was filmed in Dallas tx. i thought it was funny when i first watched this movie set in futuristic Detroit and see the skyline of the city a few miles away from me.
6:40 you don't think Pouledaris' score mattered in Conan the Barbarian?? Wat? That score is as much an embodiment of Conan as the Robocop score is of Robocop.
There were also the magnificently awful live-action TV shows - a weekly series made around '94, followed by the "Prime Directives" miniseries in 2000. If I recall correctly both were Canadian productions, so as a Canadian, I wholeheartedly apologize on behalf of my country.
The original Robocop was definitely one of my all time favourites. This added to my appreciation of it with a good critical reading and very good commentary. Bing! Subscribed. More!
Robocop was too far fetched. Not only were there store fronts unboarded but they were opened after dark. Cyborgs i can believe but sometimes movie makers take it too far.
The original trailers for Robocop used the Terminator theme. Robocop's face/jaw are not "exposed." It's not Murphy's face you see but a synthetic likeness of it. According to the OG movies and their novelisations, OCP use very little of Murphy to make Robocop. I remember being hugely disappointed by Robocop 3 as a child. Even back then, the greenscreen was Superman IV bad and flying Robocop would have always looked silly even with better greenscreen/CGI. Robocop is a great example of a franchise that fell prey to Muppetisation.
you have to admit though, it is a bit creepy how many nails this film hit right on the head way back in the 80s, i mean a shit load of little seemingly meaningless details in the movie that became literal reality not that that long ago. from the city going bankrupt, to crime taking over to the point of a corporation taking power over the mayor, to the talks of hiring private contractors as the peace keepers of the city.
These videos, about how a given film franchise changed over time, are my favorites of your videos. Just a suggestion, but you might consider expanding these to other franchises. On this video in particular, though, I think you ignored (and to be fair, I think most analyses of the Robocop franchise ignores this) the change in the way OCP and its chairman are portrayed from the first film to the second. In the first, OCP as a whole is not clearly evil; Dick Jones is evil, and he's largely running things, but he's still just one man. There is nothing to suggest, for instance, that the Old Man knew about Jones' dealings with Boddicker. And remember, at the end of the first film, the Old Man talks to Murphy as a person: "Nice shootin', son. What's your name?" You don't call a machine son and ask him his name. This is a very different character from the man who says at the end of the second film, "They'll have relatives. They always do." The change to that character changes the movies a lot.
I've always felt the second movie feels like a tv series condensed into a movie with all it's different plot threads that are given short shrift which really needed an episode each to develop. I actually think the third movie has a lot of potential had it not been toned down and had it ditched the kiddie sidekick. The remake however is utterly pointless and souless.
I will defend the first Robocop movie all the way to my grave, as being one of the greatest sci-fi / action hero movies of all time. You’re move, creep!
Nu Robo was a waste if of a lot of things. I don't know if it was the studio interference or if Padilla just didn't really grasp the satirical nature of the original, but the too serious tone of the remake was a big problem in it. Sam Jacksons parts had some of it, but the rest of the movie was lacking. Then again, it was done in a time when everythign had to be serious.
TMM The new Robocop film was fine, it’s just that it was unnecessary and it had one of the best films ever made to be compared to. So pretty much lose-lose.
Peter Weller said that they developed RoboCop's classic walking and movements because he is to be a golem. I don't think it's supposed to be literal but the sort of mindset for the actor.
I remember hearing, way back when the film first came out, that they originally planned for him to have a very graceful and detailed movement style, for which Weller practiced intensively. Then they put the suit on and discovered that it was impossible to perform them properly, so they had to switch to the simple clunky mechanistic style you see in the film.
I remember watching this in the theater. And what affected me the most is when RoboCop came in, and the way they had the sound set, and with each step, the theater shook.
You guys weren't wrong about the wife. It's #17. screenrant.com/robocop-1987-original-secrets-facts-trivia/ "The studio, undeterred, sent a second copy of the script to Verhoeven and urged him to read it for subtext. Still unconvinced, Verhoeven instead decided to have his wife, Martine Tours, read it and give him her thoughts. When she recommended it, Verhoeven re-read it and realized there was more to the story than first met the eye. He signed on soon after."
I love the whole 80s technology going on forever look (Robocop, Aliens) is such a look that's timeless and dated at the same time. Big monitors and big computers from the future
I grew up with Robocop, Saw the film as a kid, I remember renting it on VHS in the early '90s, Loving the film for the action and being scared the violence, but overall as years went by saw the movie for what it is was. Robocop 2 come along and again loved it but it lacked something the original had but it was still a fun movie, they increased the violence but it still had the same elements as the first. Now, this is where I got disappointed. Robocop 3 was released, I remember watching this and thinking why as Robocop got a stupid multi-weapon attachment, silly names like splatter punks, the script was crap and the tone down in the violence and satire and rehashing the story was cheap cash in on the name. I do give Robert John Burke credit for manage to perform in the suit, other than Peter Weller (which the suit was made for) he actually managed to get the robocop movements even though the suit didn't fit him. Robocop was never meant to be made for TV but they tried in 1994 and wow how bad was that, I saw the pilot and thought oh yeah it's written by the original movie writers so maybe the story might be it's saving grace, Being this was the mid 90's this was going to be rubbish and wow was I right, the actor they got to play murphy was awful, the voice didn't fit. But I watched the pilot and how bad did they ruined the character, yet again a cheap cash-in for the name. Now the next attempt at a TV mini-series which was extremely low budget was Robocop prime directives in 2001. They got an actor who was a midget, He didn't in fit the suit, at times you saw the chin guard didn't even fit him and he walked like Frankenstein! oh yeah, they made Robocable, They switched the tone to be more violent but again miss the point of the first movie. The 2014 movie, I gave high hopes for but I felt let down by it, the film came across like a typical Hollywood superhero movie, the suit looked like a generic superhero costume, the fact he knew who he was, in the original movie he lost his family and they moved on with there lives and that fueled his need for revenge. But in this one, the family was present but felt misplaced. I get they wanted to go in a different direction to the first one but the essences of Robocop was about regaining who he was, the scene where he was shown he was just a hand, lung and head would have been too much for anyone to deal with and actually Robocop 2 dealt with that when they tried to build cyborgs who couldn't cope and they went berserk. .
Welp, they are making a new RoboCop movie, but the good news is that they chose Neill Blomkamp to direct, and he's confirmed it will be rated R, which gives me hopes for it
I hope it's more satirical than "serious" just like the first Robocop. His film "Drive" was good in its own way. At least, it was different than what Hollywood these days have been putting out.
I suddenly feel a great concern for The Predator. Also, Robocop 2014's design looks like every wannabe concept artist's sleek-but-blurry photoshop-sketch portfolio, these days. Iconic designs have gone the way of iconic films.
That's one idea for the movie that I actually found good. There it actually seemed as if the movie was being aware of itself, but unfortunately the rest of the movie didn't match tone.
I always refer to the 2014 remake as "Alexcop." Aside from Samuel L. Jackson's character, I don't recall anyone calling the protagonist "Robocop" even once.
OCP is DARPA. Original Robocop is a eulogy to transhumanism. It would be interesting to see the scores swapped for Robocop and Starship toopers, to see how the aesthetics are affected. Or put 'Cop in a western haha.
In Germany was also a "Robocop 4" movie for rental. Edited with scenes from the TV series (which was not shown on tv) and only those segments were dubbed,
People say Robocop is fascist... Because it has a positive authority figure. Is that all it takes to be fascism now? a good guy who's got a government job? Edit: I don't know why so many people are suddenly responding here a year later, or why a bunch seem to lack reading comprehension, but: I am not saying this movie is fascist. Literally the exact opposite. I am quoting this very video (11:15) when I mention that people claim this movie is fascist. To anyone who responds to this comment with further instances of "You're stupid, that thing you think is true!" I will just tell you to learn to fucking read.
@@Erik-vp5bm My message is over a year old, so you'll forgive me if I can't remember the examples I had seen at the time. But as of This message, we have people declaring "All Cops Are Bad.", So I doubt they'd approve of anything glorifying a policeman... Edit: 11:15 in this very video claims it.
@@calemr pardon me if you've in fact gotten up to speed with the discourse, but i think the idea of him being fascistic is bcs of the government institutions he is doing bidding for
@@calemr You're just projecting bud, no one says that. Robo-cop is a commentary on the rich and powerful being corrupt, and Robo-cop's character arc is fighting with disobeying corrupt orders. Robo-cop is the ideal of what cops /should/ be. He upholds the law, he holds everyone to the law equally, and unlike other cop fetish figures, he believes that punishment must fit the crime aka not murdering someone for a petty crime like real cops do. The way he does things all badass isn't mean to be idealized either, it's like the Punisher and Judge Dredd. They are not heroes, they are anti-heroes. So anyone that blindly cheers them on is stupid anyway.
@@TheLinkandmarioshow Well, take up your issues with the video creator. 11:15. Also, why am I getting so many responses to an over year old response to a two year old video?
I always thought robocop was originally a toy, that ended up adapted into animated series and movie(s). I only found the movie by accident when going through my dad's ripped VHS collection an even then it didn't click that such gory movie was probably not an adaptation for a toy but the actual source material... My brain just kind of accepted that movie as "the 80's / early 90's" :-D
The "remake" gives me the same off-putting feeling that Jurassic World did, a sense that this movie was made for corporations instead of human beings. I think it was attempting some kind of pro-robot subtext, didn't work though, too desperate. It also wants to be The Dark Knight, I swear in a few decades people are going to be baffled by this trend of movies that are the cinematic equivalent of an idiot trying to seem intelligent by feigning an English accent.
At least the remake puts in some effort to examine the question of whether being policed by robots might be a good thing. It seemed to have been made by people who think the concept of RoboCop raises some interesting philosophical questions and they did their best to fill the movie with those questions. These people apparently didn't see the concept of RoboCop as being fundamentally ridiculous the way Georg does, and therefore saw no need to make the movie light-hearted and silly. Perhaps they will be proven right if someday we get the technology to create real-life robocops and are forced to confront these questions as serious issues.
It probably won't turn out as prophetic as the original, but that's probably an unfair comparison since RoboCop somehow turned out to be one of the most strangely prophetic movies ever made.
I believe that boiling it down to these movies (RoboCop 2014 and Jurassic World) lacks quality because of taking themselves too serious, being corporate made etc. is only a half truth. What makes them lack quality is a lack of story. Fx most MCU movies doesn't take themself serious yet we shouldn't accept them, when they clearly have bland story telling, the same goes with Fast Furious, but we do accept them, we accept bad story telling, bland story telling, because it's wrapped in something that wants to be fun/funny. If we don't accept bland storytelling in serious movies, why should we accept bland story telling in unserious movies? Movies shouldn't be forgiven because they don't take themself too serious, they however will be forgotten and rightfully so. The original RoboCop movie knew when to take itself serious and when to take its audience serious (when it didn't take itself serious it took the audience serious = use of satire) and how to actually tell a compelling and interesting story.
I think the first movie posses another question of "are we turning into androids and are we being programed by corporation"? That is the whole point of the advertisements and the questionable news on the military(are they using news to program us towards more war).
Dave Dogge haha! Yes, he is one of those hard to find good RUclips channel. I will not be happy until he reenacts the "are you not entertained!" scene from gladiator. Call me Maximus.
The first one is so good. I actually saw it at a Drive-In theatre when it came out in 1987. I was 7 almost 8 years old, and i don't remember a whole lot from that time, but i distinctly remember seeing it.
One of the things I found distractingly bad about the RoboCop remake was how it seemed like they would introduce the central theme of the movie and then immediately resolve it. At least half a dozen times I thought "Oh, that is what they are going to make this movie about; no wait, they just tied that up" The net result is that it ended up being a poorly made stupid action movie that wasn't very entertaining. If it at least says something it could have been enjoyable, but it didn't.
I actually liked the remake and it was interesting to see how the story would be different in an age of terrorism, the war on terror and early cybernetics and i enjoyed the action scenes.
The most ironic is how Robocop 2 changed for Robocop 3... on the second he fights against control, to be himself, to not conform for "the man"... on the 3rd, he is a kid friendly movie... total letdown :(
Robocop was a movie, but everything after that was just taking advantage of the fact that the robot cop looked so damn cool. Subbtext schmubtext, brap brap! You have 15 seconds to comply! Dead or alive you coming with me. etc
A great review of the greatest thing to happen to man=kind. As a man who treasures these films I must say that you were pretty much saying all the things that I was thinking. I love the first, I like the second, the third was okay, and the remake doesn't exist. I don't know how you got that footage for something that doesn't exist. Great work man, great work.
Robocop 1 and Terminator 2 will always be the greatest cyborg sci-fi robot movies ever made. They set a standard inspiration for every other movie to follow.
I agree that the first film is really the only one that matters, I honestly couldn't remember anything about the next 2 until your summary here, and never even bothered with the predictably shit remake. One thing I remember about seeing the original in 1987 was that it was supposed to be notable that future Detroit cops all had to wear body armor on patrol. This was supposed to be a kind of joke about how crappy the future would get. And now here we are with most American cops wearing some kind of armor and every small town and rural county has a SWAT team and a ridiculous arsenal of military weapons and equipment, which they justify by kicking in doors to serve warrants for even minor crimes.
The last two of the four films for me are unwatchable for a second time - but I DID like this miniseries from the late 90's : 'Robocop: Prime Directives'. There's a fan edit of this miniseries on youtube. If you liked the first two - it's worth a look.
In the 3rd movie he says "you can call me robocop" is him accepting his robot half just as he regained his human half in the 1st.. It is a significant change from making machines seem like a tool for evil instead of just a tool that can be good or evil depending on the User.. in this case Murphy
An element I think that was REALLY missed in 2014 was that Robocop was also an allegory about the human spirit Especially with all the Jesus imagery Murphy's humanity overcomes robocop's program, overcomes OCP's corruption, it even overcomes death. Robocop isn't a sad depressing film, it's about how you can literally torture a man. Mutilate him beyond recognition. But you cannot kill his innate sense of humanity. And that spirit will triumph over everything.
![Kumamoto Masters Japan 2024 | Gregoria Mariska Tunjung (INA) [5] vs. Akane Yamaguchi (JPN) [2] | F](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EIjZybhsWqA/mqdefault.jpg)
Just wanted to say thanks for the continued support, especially with content thin on the ground lately. I moved house and then have been very sick for a couple of weeks. I'll be getting back on things now. Cheers.
Love the content man, keep up the excellent work. Who ate all the babies, by the way?
get well get well soon we wish you to get
well
Glad your doing better, awesome content
Don't give up man, we're always here waiting for more good content.
Hope you are feeling a bit less knackered, I was wondering if I unsubbed by accident or the RUclips algorithm changed again. At least you turned me onto the columbo series, what a great show.
The first Robocop is a goddamn piece of art, and it still holds up to analysis
I agree 💯 it's a masterpiece of film making. Easily one of the greatest films ever made, it's massively overlooked as alot of people see it as a mindless action film, whilst it's anything but mindless. It's satire and political commentary still stand today.
Yup check out this new official documentary on it:
ruclips.net/video/ydgnM2fYAkA/видео.html
It's got the vfx people, actors, a lot of the crew
One of the greatest and most original movies ever created.
I hope the production isn’t part of why it’s a masterpiece, cuz then I’d have question why you’d rather have bad cgi and production and bad acting, over good cgi, production, and acting
@@Irrelevantusername000 Honestly, Paul Verhoven was on FIRE during that era with Robocop, Starship Troopers and Total Recall. Wish there were more film makers like him.
9:40 (Nitpick: shooting Robocop in the jaw wouldn't affect him unless it's with a high caliber, because his skull is pure metal. The face is grafted on top of it and is purely cosmetic. Until he regains his memory of Alex Murphy, he makes no special effort to protect his face. Afterwards, he can be seen raising his arm to his mouth to protect it during the shootout at OCP.)
Sorry man I just parroted what you wrote for some reason RUclips likes to put everybody's comments out of order. You're 100% right
Yeah. The reason they grafted his face onto the metal skull was because even with erased memories, the brain wuld still remeber being human. Wish is partly why i think those two prototypes in R2 failed as they didn't have their mirror image. Cain was enough delusional already so for him it was pretty muchg the loss of his wang that he mourned. ^^
Plus shooting someone in the jaw, especially a moving target, is extremely difficult. Guns have a lot of recoil, some more than others, and hitting what you're aiming at, even with a stationary target, isn't as easy as movies make it look. That's why officers are trained to shoot at the torso as opposed to an appendage, it's a bigger target. Shooting at an appendage is pretty much a guaranteed miss. Like shooting at tires on a moving vehicle, it won't work in real life.
That said, this is a movie. Since we're using movie logic, maybe a shot in the jaw would work...
One could easily point out that it's likely he only began moving the arm to cover his mouth because that's when they first started trying to hit him in the mouth. Prior to that they were aiming center mass, and no mouth shielding was necessary.
Hes a walking tank with little to no weak spots, unless you shoot his gun, then he’s kinda just a zombie. Just walk away from him.
The original works on so many different levels: as a thrilling neo-western, as a smart satire on corporatism/media, as a thoughtful Sci-fi story on the nature of humanity and the soul. And Peter Weller's performance is so underrated. He adds so much subtle nuance to the character that really makes him feel human even as a cyborg.
yes your 100% right, and at the end when he is asked his name, he pauses fro a second and replys "murphy" instead of " robocop".
@@brucewayne7838 he also flips his guns around which was what Murphy used to do.
RC1 - Masterpiece
RC2 - Damn Great Film
RC3 - That Jet Pack was cool...
RCR - Human hand WTF?!
i do actually love the RCR design much more cyborgish if we do consider modern tech, but the hand was so annoying! why the fuk he need 1 hand?!! to get shoted in pieces when he is in fire fight with his hand straight forward! or was it so he could give some handjob to his lover?!
it looks similar to the Ironman suit
Bob Morton wasn't there to tell them to "lose the arm".
@@arshameghtedary344 I really disliked the black Robocop design. It just looks so fake. The original silver they had for him looked amazing. You could see the badge stamped on there and lines were incredible.
for me there's only RC1...
You could NOT have this kind of satire at ANY other time than the '80's. Absolutely perfect!
Apart from some fake limbs and armor, not much is different from real life
Now all we get is nihilistic parody.
@White-Van Helsing o.O ok consoomer.
You don't have to like it when a studio serves you a plate of dog shit, no matter how many bells and whistles they festoon it with.
I loved TFA, nostalgia bait that it was. I actually enjoyed parts of TLJ too, plate of dog shit that it was.
Ros was fucking insulting. As was TLJ, but still.
You could put it out today, and it would hit just as hard. But only to those who understand what's going on.
@White-Van Helsing I was almost positive that's what we were talking about. Certainly what I was talking about w my "nihilistic parody"
For the record, the OT is art. The prequels are parody, the new ones are nihilistic parody
Why do they keep giving these prototype cop robots live ammunition during the demonstrations for executives?
To demonstrate their precision over traditional human platforms. Look at the range scene in the first film.
@@baker90338 that's fine for a range. But an office? Lol
Exigentable they probably forgot to give it blanks
Its OCP and OCP doesnt care.
He was probably planning to show off ED-209 at a firing range after the meeting, and got excited.
Robocop (1987) is one of those classic movies that is near perfect. Also, it's a near documentary on 2018 Detroit.
Except modern Detroit is worse.
One of the most interesting things about the movie is how prophetic it was, although since that has little to do with cinema I can see how it got overlooked.
Have any of you ever been to Detroit?
You kids talk about it as if it's a huge ghetto. You do realize there are richer areas and commercial areas, right?
Robocop is eerie in it's prescience, on it's base level it's a cheesy cop revenge movie, but i think it is much deeper than that, something about losing our humanity in the name of progress and the ultimate descent into barbarity that causes.
That exchange was bottom barrel, even for RUclips.
RoboCop 2 and Predator 2 are among my favorite movies, despite being terrible. Their vision of the future is just so fantastically dark. The Jamaican voodoo street gang in Predator 2 is one of the greatest/stupidest ideas ever put to film.
You want some ganja, man?
"You guys really need to cut down!.
@@anthonylewis2080 ya you neeed some sativa mon.
robocop2 predator 2 came out in 1990 that time steven segal also made a movie about jamaican gang. Marked for death. Can anyone tell me wtf had hollywood vs jamaicans at that time?
Want some candy?
Short answer: They got worse
Long answer: I regret to inform whoever reading this comment that the movie series known as RoboCop has become gradually less enjoyable overall in each installment
Long answer: theeeeeeyyyyy gooooooooot wooooooorrrrrssseeeee
i 100% percent agree, even peter weller could not save robocop 2. maybe they needed paul verhoeven back to direct, but to be honest most sequels are ill thought out and just not needed, the first movie worked well as a low budget movie, and it shows that pumping more dollars in to a movie does not always make them better, you need a good story that adds to the original one in my opinion. regards the batman.
yeah that's sadly so true the first one was the best and after that they could never makes anything that was equally as good as the first they were just going down hill after the first movie
@@brucewayne7838 2 was fine. It wasn't the smart satirical take on corporate takeover that 1 was, but it worked fine as a film save some pacing issues. For having been done during the late 80s writer's strike, it worked out well.
Everything after that....and I do mean EVERYTHING....was trash.
Boring comments
Even the name "Murphy" sounds like it's straight from a western
Murphy just sounds like an Irish cop
@@homelesssheltervidlogg74 Tap of the mornin to ya creeps you be coming with me dead or alive
@@kkay000 *ok that's a good one...*
Audie Murphy did westerns...
The "western" idea didn't resonate with me. I get the idea of a "western" that doesn't take place in the western US of the 19th century ( _Firefly/Serenity_ takes place in space in the future!). I think there has to be a "frontier" element to the setting that drives the plot. On what frontier is _RoboCop?_
To me, _RoboCop_ is more reminiscent of a sci-fi version of a _Brubaker_ or _Serpico,_ where a "cog" inside a "broken machine" has to try to find a way to bring some measure of reform to a corrupt system. Malcolm Gladwell dubs this style of a story an "eastern," although I don't know how much currency that carries
It's one of my favorite films and never thought of Robocop as a Western, until you pointed it out. Well done.
Same thing here: that was a brilliant observation that clicked in so many ways, for me :-)
Now I get why my dad and I watched it 1000 times and why he loved it so much. Dad’s from the spaghetti western era.
I always felt like the final line was what really nailed that it was a Western. The way the President of OCP asks "What's your name, son?" That always struck me as something out of a cowboy movie.
Yeah, good observation. Most movies do follow off of older types of movies though, Tarantino almost does this with every movie he's ever made.
I always had a hunch about 1 and 2 being westerns, but couldn't name it. Another well-deserved point for this channel. All Bodicker, Kane, and the Old Man bask in the idea that they are above the law. In the end only the Old Man gets away with his life as Robo brings the first two down for their crimes. Again, as mentioned in the video, the 3rd as the film to bring the Old Man and OCP to justice is so obvious. And the fact that the trilogy is not done justice, by not going that way, is so sad.
the original is a true classic. I remember watching it when i was 9 and being blown away by the basic story and violence (damn that toxic waste scene is seared into my brain, as is the stop motion ed-209). But each time a re-watched when i was older I appreciated more the black humour and social commentary. Terrific film.
The toxic waste guy scared the hell out of me when I was a kid, I fastforwarded that part a lot. But the Murphy death scene was just awesome to me for some reason. Seeing him get blown to bits and pieces.
My Dad made me watch it when I was about same age. Couldn't sleep for weeks
@@vizuz that's coz the toxic waste special effects are from horror movies not action movies.
Couldn't agree more with you.
1hr 18 minutes the rearview mirror falls off i know this film.
13:47 A great example of Verhoeven irony: "Nice shooting, son. What's your name?" "Murphy." A triumph of the character's humanity, immediately stomped on by the ROBOCOP title.
somehow fitting considering what happens in the sequel.
Finally, someone who can use "irony" correctly.
Robocop doesn't mean non human.
The first movie has such a great assemblage of villainy - Kurtwood Smith, Dan O'Herlihy, Ronny Cox, Ray Wise, Miguel Ferrer. Another great video, thanks!
Robocop one is still the best. I still watch and enjoy it today. The others were a waste of film.
Part one is unbeatable. One of my all time favs. I do like Part 2 only for the RoboCain scenes. After that, I’m done.
I enjoy the original part 2 was cool and had its moments plus peter weller but after that it got ridiculous like after the first 2 Terminators lol
@@grimm_destroyer5566 I couldn’t have said it any better 💯
@@satishrobertson8771 well robocop 2 turned 30 last year now Terminator 2 is gonna be 30 years old this july cant wait for 2029 in 8 years lol
@@grimm_destroyer5566 I know right? Lol I remember being 10 n 11 yrs old when them movies came out time just flew right on by lol
Robocop 2 is probably the only numbered sequel that uses its title in the movie. Not only that, but as a major plot point.
The Robocop 2 CHARACTER ITSELF is the living embodiment of the sequel movie: it's bigger, meaner, more extreme, it has chainguns because fuck you and when his face is shown, what do we see? Needless uncanny valley CGI.
@@drakkenmensch bigger, meaner with a drug addiction. 😂
The only way for me to solve this crisis is to be Superman 4: The Quest for Peace.
As a Detroiter, I can attest that we do in fact have a mega conglomerate running our police department. Also personally, my little league team was arrested by a cyborg.
How's the coach doing?
Shouldn't have been brandishing those uzi's.
Detroit is ruined because of democrats. Everywhere they go they destroy their areas.
@@subzero8679 The only difference between Democratic and Republican politicians that actually matters is that Republicans are transparent about being boytoys for lobbyists and corporations (though not through lack of trying).
@@dahkdm8787 yeah, at least Republicans don't try to stay on a high horse and admit to what they are doing. Democrats try to hold that moral high horse.
Of course Sony was behind the Robocop remake, of course they were.
Rods toy box Sony is actually a shortening of their actual name; roughly translated from Japanese: “indescribable motion picture bomb-factory failure festival, Sony.”
Say what you want about Sony, at least the aren't WB
Liver, Lungs, spine and Brain scene was the only good part of that.
Joshua Chap If you actually look beyond DCEU which I'm certain you only focus on when slacking WB, you'd come to realize that WB actually makes/are involved in making some great movies if not the greatest movies.
anything good that cones from Sony is the result of the director, but Sony is to blame for anything bad.
They give money to a lot of shit movies. You people realize that Sony isn't a person who makes these movies themselves, right?
The scene that thugs shoot Murphy into pieces still haunts me! My parents were so stupid that they allowed me watch the original robocop movie at the age of 7!
@Bubba Sawyer yeah, and I watched the blade movie a year after! No wonder such mad person I've become!
I was 10 and even if I watch the movie now I either go grab a snack or skip that part when his hand gets blown off. I actually saw it in the theater with a friend, no parents with us. That's back when they didn't really check ID at the box office.
@@jackbits6397 I feel the same. I can't watch that scene even to this very day. It traumatized me in a way that the damage never heals!
My parents let me watch it when I was around like 5 or 6 or maybe younger than that
For me its the other way around.. Loved every minute of RoboCop 1 and 2 as a 5 year old.. And now in my early 30's.. Rewatching it is literally giving me nightmares.. Putting a psychopath into a machine that has gone completely rouge.. .. Yikes!!
It's funny. The scripts and stories that Paul Verhoeven initially throw away, but then pick up again, end up being the best of his films.
It happened with Robocop. And it happened with Starship troopers.
The films he stayed committed to from the start, were usually pretty bland and mediocre.
Paul Verhoeven should go with the scripts and books that disgust him initially.
Masterpieces are usually prototypes. That’s how I see it.
Verhoeven didn't throw away the script for Starship Troopers (same writer as Robocop). He threw away the original novel.
@@dahkdm8787 yeah he Cleary did not understand the book or Heinlens message at all. Sargon of arkaad does a great video about this.
@@Vgallo Sargon of Akkad is a fucking idiot
@@dahkdm8787 why? Ime it’s usually those that think he’s an idiot, that are the idiots, especially progressive woke morons.
Even the look of Robocop 2014 didn't look right. It looked like a human in a Nanosuit from Crysis, not a half human half machine cyborg.
Still haven't seen it but the design reminds me of Cyborg Ninja (Gray Fox) from the MGS games.
It was because they wanted the public reassured it was a man inside the machine in the movie he was basically a publicity stunt so OmniCorp can get drones on the streets of America
@@BiggMatt183 to me , there is no problem with the suit. It's just that we already have a re-imaginated version of the original suit in the earlier scenes in Robocop 2014.
If it had more funny moments akin to the original + PG 16 , with that suit of the earlier scenes , it could had been better. The black suit would work wonders for a Robocop 2 in which he faces the new version of Cain and was obliterated by it , so he had an upgraded version of it.
You have always demonstrated a broad knowledge of various subjects. In this video, you took that a step higher by truly understanding what makes a good police officer, "Nuance and humanity." 95% of policing is talking to people. The RoboCop program would never work for day to day policing, but he'd be great for being the first officer to go through the door on a warrant or dealing with a barricaded gunman. Very nice to see that there are people who understand the true nature of police work, cheers!
First one was a masterpiece, second one was pretty good, rest were trash, that's how they changed...
The second one was terrible
Same with terminator
@Cyberdemon Mike 2014 wasn't horrible or bad at all, but it didn't have much to stand out.
wilcox tam yea only the first 2 r good
@Cyberdemon Mike You're definitely right, and I did enjoy watching it, but I genuinely think it was forgettable for a lot of people for pretty much no reason. I actually didn't even know it existed until March of this year, I apologize if you thought I was downplaying the movie as I noticed my choice of words that it "didn't really stand out" makes it seem like i think the movie was boring.
I think and feel that Robocop 2 is the series saying "What have I become?" There was a Robocop Saturday Morning cartoon around the same time as this movie. And when Robocop electrocuted himself to reset himself, the series was saying "I am going to be an Adult R rated movie again."
Wow. That makes sense
The movie to the T. And yes, Robocop 2 is a different, yet very enjoyable movie to the 1st. The 3rd only has 1 or 2 ok scenes that does deserve notice, but other than that it was very toned down with a lot less satire than the other 2 films.
robocop 1987: its got the greatest/nastiest bad guy ever seen in a film ( clarence) , murphy has the most shocking death scene in ANY movie still to this day , even though it was trimmed down a bit (they blow his entire arm off too).that was a whole new level of violence to me as a 9yo and i was well used to watching horror movies. as soon as the movie was over i was so scarred by it that i had to instantly watch it again. its a true action masterpiece every bit as good as terminator 1 and 2 , probably better actually.
RC1 and T2:JD are excellent films of the era.
"They'll fix you..they fix everything.." love that quote.
@@subzero8679 Both parties have done their fair share of that. You are lying to yourself if you think only the dems are responsible for "fixing everything"
Weller made that line up on the spot apparently. He was meant to say something else but fired that line out instead and Verhoeven loved it so kept it in.
@@subzero8679 Pls stop.
Paul Verhoeven was a master of satirical “schlock”. I loved Robocop as a kid purely on its surface level, but as an adult it’s clear that there’s more going on, it works perfectly on a few levels. He’s made some duds, but I think Paul Verhoeven is finally getting some of the recognition he deserves.
Also, Peter Weller is a super underrated actor. He’s pretty versatile and should have been a bigger star, in my opinion. I’ve heard he’s a university professor now...
Weller is a professor. I believe some of his lectures are on youtube.
It's amazing how many people still think Starship Troopers is just a dumb action film
I know right, it's almost irritating. Same goes for the first Robocop though
Compared to the source material, Starship Troopers is actually a dumb action film.
As far as I know the author is an right wing army nut, and Verhoeven made it a satire about right wing army nuts, so not a dumb action film for me
I never thought the jaw of Robocop was vulnerable. They keep the human look to help interact with the public. But especially the original, Peter Wellers face looks stretched. The scenes of Alex Murphy shows a very this, angular face and jawline. Robocops face is obviously larger. I always assumed OCP skinned Murphys face and stretched it over a titanium skull. Remember when Bob Morton argued against saving the left arm in the original? "I thought we agreed on total body prosthesis, now loose the arm."
The "boot up sequence" is one of my favorite movie or tv moments of all time.
The 90's were very much a time when kids watched R movies. I grew up in the 90's and I still have my Robocop action figure.
Moonbeam I wasn't born back then but I still go back and watch these movies,they are definetly worth it
So what, I’ve got underwear older than that.
Yeah, I made a Robocop helmet in art class when I was ten! I grew up on all the classics, die hard, Predator, Terminator, universal soldier etc. Now my wife bollocks me if I let the kids watch a 12!
Right?! 90's were awesome!
Total Recall at my friends house.
Robocop is too unrealistic for me to enjoy. I just can't imagine Detroit being such a nice place as portrait in the movie.
You sir, made me laugh. Well done.
I blame the filthy corporations, but I'll buy that for a dollar!
Way too many white people in the movie to be Detroit.
Now I just have to found this company called Universal Buyer Commodities or UBC. And sell a new product called the DroidLawman to the Detroit police.
Portrayed*
This is the format I subbed for.
Jesse H. I miss the short "just a thought" format now and again though. His December vids were great.
Those are great too. Honestly, I'm sure I'd enjoy the hour-plus podcast-style episodes too, if I had the time. But I've never clicked on one 'cus I just don't have the time.
Bingo.
God damn, I need to rewatch 1 and 2. They're perfect movies. Also, I haven't stopped calling the movies "Rob O'cop: An Irish Policeman" after John Stewart made that joke interviewing Joel Kinnaman in '13.
Basil Poledouris' music for Conan is Legendary. It matters so much to the movie that it wouldn't have become what it was without it. Period.
I think one of the biggest slap to the face with the remake was the line "I wouldn't buy that for a dollar".
It only makes sense in the context of the older films, which means the character must have seen the older films, yet it doesn't take place in a universe where those films existed. It was just a hamfisted way of referencing the original film in one of those ways the major studios do nowadays, so that people will make youtube videos going over the "easter eggs". It's not an easter egg, it's a copout trying to capitalize on the nostalgia of the original in the worst kind of way.
An easter egg would have been to have every product visible in a store with the price tag "$1".
But even with all of that, I kinda like the new RoboCop (oh yes, one of the big differences that sets the titles apart... a capital C). It has its issues, so many of them, but it's still a fun flick to watch. It is the senseless violence of the first film without any of its thoughtprovoking elements.
Kinda like the "You Beautiful Motherfucker" line in the newest Predator movie. Which was garbage.
Yeah that shits corny
This seems like a recurring matter: a movie makes a somewhat big success and then big studio executives come and turn it into a franchise with sequels and merchandise and the following films lose the spirit from the original one.
And it's been happening with a lot of movies released in the 80's.
Metalders Finally someone said it
Remember the Robocop comic and animated series? The toys? Corporations exploited these movies even back then. What changed is that back then even a shlocky action movie like Robocop had satire, social commentary. But most importantly it was fun. Now movies lost the fun aspect. They are "realistic", "serious", "gritty" and "dark".
Also a lot of writers got stuck in the 80s and think that what could pass as "sci-fi" in the 80s can be still considered sci-fi in the 21st century.
*Gasp* If they did something creative, they might... uuugh, make a good movie!
I miss the days where a movie making a profit of $60 million is considered a success.
And in this era of endless safe reboots, is it really a shock that robocop turned out bad? People are always quick to blame the director or screenwriter, but I tend to default to thinking its the studio. Your video basically pointed out that's what happened here. And we've seen countless other movies from known risk takers that have come out dry, predictable and boring. We later learn its because producers and studio executives were choking them with so many notes, they never had the ability to do anything creative. From The Hobbit to Star Wars to Jurassic World. And I get it. These people are shelling out $100 million to make a movie. So they want to cut as much risk as possible. But here's an idea. Reduce the budget and take some risks. You know...like the first Robocop did. Here's a good start. Don't hire huge expensive actors that take up 50% of the budget.
Interesting how success is a curse. Original Robocop cost $8mil. Sequel cost $35mil. With that expenditure increase, the sequel should have been more than 4 times better. But obviously money does not equal quality. If money isn't quality, what is? No studio exec can answer that question.
Thread Bomb I agree the first and original RoboCop was my favorite!
Plenty of _superb_ movies being made now - you're just unlikely to see them in the cinemas as 'this seasons BIG whoop-dee-doo!'
Like Zetetik said. There is still quality movies being made but many of them don't reach the cinema. I say, screw the cinema. It is too expensive anyway.
You never know,
what with projection / screen tech getting SO much better / cheaper, year by year
We might even see a resurgence of smaller indie cinemas make a big comeback in the next decade, showing some actual great / surprising / interesting movies!
- and maybe, even bring back the proper Midnight Movie scene! :)
And, in practical terms, it finally looks totally do-able, now.
......I'd SO love to see this happen! :D
RoboCop is one of my favorite movies. It is so savage and fearless. The humor is dark and cynical. The action is ruthless. The theme song is incredible - it really adds a depth and atmosphere to the movie. I enjoy it more today than when I was young. And damn, the RoboCop suit was friggin SICK!
Rewatching Robocop in college, that "stay out of trouble" line made us laugh so hard.
Robocop needs to do more PSAs.
this movie was filmed in Dallas tx. i thought it was funny when i first watched this movie set in futuristic Detroit and see the skyline of the city a few miles away from me.
2 in Houston , felt the same way when you see the city model lol
6:40 you don't think Pouledaris' score mattered in Conan the Barbarian?? Wat? That score is as much an embodiment of Conan as the Robocop score is of Robocop.
Utterly agree.
There were also the magnificently awful live-action TV shows - a weekly series made around '94, followed by the "Prime Directives" miniseries in 2000. If I recall correctly both were Canadian productions, so as a Canadian, I wholeheartedly apologize on behalf of my country.
Yes! I was wondering if I was the only one who knew about those! Magnificently awful is a good description. :)
Ive only really thought of the first film, it ends perfectly with Murphy remembering who he is and continuing to fight crime. Doesnt need a sequel.
The original Robocop was definitely one of my all time favourites. This added to my appreciation of it with a good critical reading and very good commentary. Bing! Subscribed. More!
Funny enough it (the original) is set in Detroit but shot almost completely in Dallas, Texas (Reunion tower at 2:15)
AmyD wtf your right lol
@Ultimate Warrior X2 a few years ago, the movie Kill The Irishman filmed in Detroit, as a stand in for 50s to 70s era Cleveland (when it takes place)
Robocop was too far fetched. Not only were there store fronts unboarded but they were opened after dark. Cyborgs i can believe but sometimes movie makers take it too far.
Also, a major corporation has its head office in Detroit? In real life the OCP head office would have fled for silicone valley.
The original trailers for Robocop used the Terminator theme. Robocop's face/jaw are not "exposed." It's not Murphy's face you see but a synthetic likeness of it. According to the OG movies and their novelisations, OCP use very little of Murphy to make Robocop. I remember being hugely disappointed by Robocop 3 as a child. Even back then, the greenscreen was Superman IV bad and flying Robocop would have always looked silly even with better greenscreen/CGI. Robocop is a great example of a franchise that fell prey to Muppetisation.
I saw the original robocop when I was far too young to see it, but it's my favorite robocop film.
you have to admit though, it is a bit creepy how many nails this film hit right on the head way back in the 80s, i mean a shit load of little seemingly meaningless details in the movie that became literal reality not that that long ago. from the city going bankrupt, to crime taking over to the point of a corporation taking power over the mayor, to the talks of hiring private contractors as the peace keepers of the city.
yeah USA can really use a robocop right now! the current situation of USA remind me RC3 so much! criminals roaming free and looting
@@arshameghtedary344 for real!
@@arshameghtedary344 a robocop to fight criminals and corrupt cops
These videos, about how a given film franchise changed over time, are my favorites of your videos. Just a suggestion, but you might consider expanding these to other franchises. On this video in particular, though, I think you ignored (and to be fair, I think most analyses of the Robocop franchise ignores this) the change in the way OCP and its chairman are portrayed from the first film to the second. In the first, OCP as a whole is not clearly evil; Dick Jones is evil, and he's largely running things, but he's still just one man. There is nothing to suggest, for instance, that the Old Man knew about Jones' dealings with Boddicker. And remember, at the end of the first film, the Old Man talks to Murphy as a person: "Nice shootin', son. What's your name?" You don't call a machine son and ask him his name. This is a very different character from the man who says at the end of the second film, "They'll have relatives. They always do." The change to that character changes the movies a lot.
"Dead or alive, you're coming with me" - Alex Murphy/RoboCop.
That line is more than enough to scare criminals shitless!.
Anthony Lewis I’m off to buy the tshirt,,,,,,for a $
I've always felt the second movie feels like a tv series condensed into a movie with all it's different plot threads that are given short shrift which really needed an episode each to develop. I actually think the third movie has a lot of potential had it not been toned down and had it ditched the kiddie sidekick. The remake however is utterly pointless and souless.
rodster6 There is no 2nd movie.
rodster6-I think you've hit the nail on the head with 2-great ideas not developed and too much going on.
don't forget there was a TV series Robocop
I will defend the first Robocop movie all the way to my grave, as being one of the greatest sci-fi / action hero movies of all time. You’re move, creep!
I will help you out on that one I also agree it was the greatest sci-fi movie ever made
agreed.
*your
Same!!!
the first one was sooooo good; even with the dated effects it still holds up INCREDIBLY well
The new Robocop was a waste of Gary Oldman.
Imagine if Robocop 2014 was about Gary Oldman's character from Leon the Professional being turned into a robot after John Reno blows him up
Think about it chum, good business is where you find it. I work for Dick Jones !!, Dick Jones !!!
Nu Robo was a waste if of a lot of things. I don't know if it was the studio interference or if Padilla just didn't really grasp the satirical nature of the original, but the too serious tone of the remake was a big problem in it. Sam Jacksons parts had some of it, but the rest of the movie was lacking.
Then again, it was done in a time when everythign had to be serious.
I didnt know you watched good you tube videos too hahaha
TMM The new Robocop film was fine, it’s just that it was unnecessary and it had one of the best films ever made to be compared to. So pretty much lose-lose.
Peter Weller said that they developed RoboCop's classic walking and movements because he is to be a golem. I don't think it's supposed to be literal but the sort of mindset for the actor.
I remember hearing, way back when the film first came out, that they originally planned for him to have a very graceful and detailed movement style, for which Weller practiced intensively. Then they put the suit on and discovered that it was impossible to perform them properly, so they had to switch to the simple clunky mechanistic style you see in the film.
Can you fly Bobby?
No Clarence No!!
DUDES THEY JUST MADE HIM A DLC CHARACTER IN MORTAL KOMBAT 11!🤘 GO! ROBO!
I remember watching this in the theater. And what affected me the most is when RoboCop came in, and the way they had the sound set, and with each step, the theater shook.
Robocop 2014 should have been called "Drone"
Robofob : its either US or Them.
DetectoDrone
I read somewhere that Verhoeven's wife is what convinced him to give the script another look.
who Kitty?
You guys weren't wrong about the wife. It's #17.
screenrant.com/robocop-1987-original-secrets-facts-trivia/
"The studio, undeterred, sent a second copy of the script to Verhoeven and urged him to read it for subtext. Still unconvinced, Verhoeven instead decided to have his wife, Martine Tours, read it and give him her thoughts. When she recommended it, Verhoeven re-read it and realized there was more to the story than first met the eye. He signed on soon after."
I am so glad he reconsidered. That really gave substance to the movie.
And I heard, that Stephen King took its first draft of Carrie out of the garbage convinced by his wife too.. i see a pattern here...
Verhoeven said it himself at the documentary - ruclips.net/video/p980PaZjKng/видео.html
I love how he's self aware of the damn lava lamp, putting it in the intro >.
The Wayfarer we all just sub for the lava lamp. You watch the podcast! He's got 2 going! Next level shit! Haha!
dollface Rosenberg that sound great
You mean he’s AWARE of the lava lamp taking up 1/3 of the screen in just about every single shot? No way!
I love the whole 80s technology going on forever look (Robocop, Aliens) is such a look that's timeless and dated at the same time. Big monitors and big computers from the future
I grew up with Robocop, Saw the film as a kid, I remember renting it on VHS in the early '90s, Loving the film for the action and being scared the violence, but overall as years went by saw the movie for what it is was.
Robocop 2 come along and again loved it but it lacked something the original had but it was still a fun movie, they increased the violence but it still had the same elements as the first.
Now, this is where I got disappointed.
Robocop 3 was released, I remember watching this and thinking why as Robocop got a stupid multi-weapon attachment, silly names like splatter punks, the script was crap and the tone down in the violence and satire and rehashing the story was cheap cash in on the name. I do give Robert John Burke credit for manage to perform in the suit, other than Peter Weller (which the suit was made for) he actually managed to get the robocop movements even though the suit didn't fit him.
Robocop was never meant to be made for TV but they tried in 1994 and wow how bad was that, I saw the pilot and thought oh yeah it's written by the original movie writers so maybe the story might be it's saving grace, Being this was the mid 90's this was going to be rubbish and wow was I right, the actor they got to play murphy was awful, the voice didn't fit.
But I watched the pilot and how bad did they ruined the character, yet again a cheap cash-in for the name.
Now the next attempt at a TV mini-series which was extremely low budget was Robocop prime directives in 2001. They got an actor who was a midget, He didn't in fit the suit, at times you saw the chin guard didn't even fit him and he walked like Frankenstein! oh yeah, they made Robocable, They switched the tone to be more violent but again miss the point of the first movie.
The 2014 movie, I gave high hopes for but I felt let down by it, the film came across like a typical Hollywood superhero movie, the suit looked like a generic superhero costume, the fact he knew who he was, in the original movie he lost his family and they moved on with there lives and that fueled his need for revenge. But in this one, the family was present but felt misplaced. I get they wanted to go in a different direction to the first one but the essences of Robocop was about regaining who he was, the scene where he was shown he was just a hand, lung and head would have been too much for anyone to deal with and actually Robocop 2 dealt with that when they tried to build cyborgs who couldn't cope and they went berserk.
.
Welp, they are making a new RoboCop movie, but the good news is that they chose Neill Blomkamp to direct, and he's confirmed it will be rated R, which gives me hopes for it
I hope it's more satirical than "serious" just like the first Robocop. His film "Drive" was good in its own way. At least, it was different than what Hollywood these days have been putting out.
And where has your hope gone now?
The problem with the remake wasn't the director, but the producers. When you are not investing your own money you aren't really directing the movie.
I suddenly feel a great concern for The Predator.
Also, Robocop 2014's design looks like every wannabe concept artist's sleek-but-blurry photoshop-sketch portfolio, these days. Iconic designs have gone the way of iconic films.
That's one idea for the movie that I actually found good. There it actually seemed as if the movie was being aware of itself, but unfortunately the rest of the movie didn't match tone.
Looks like a wet suit
Like Wes said, The Predator is a forgettable piece of sh... fiction.
Had planned on seeing The Predator in the cinema, but after watching this & seeing who wrote it, I'm gratefully relieved to have saved some ££.
I always refer to the 2014 remake as "Alexcop." Aside from Samuel L. Jackson's character, I don't recall anyone calling the protagonist "Robocop" even once.
I think Lewis calls him Robocop when he and Murphy are confronting the corrupt detectives
@@DangerSquad I kind of want to rewatch it to double-check, but that would mean rewatching it...
@@Nymphonomicon No need, I found the clip:
ruclips.net/video/sTbJQwezQZY/видео.html
@@DangerSquad you're a life saver
I call it "RobertCop" even though I quite like it.
I laughed when you said “At the end of Robocop 3, he says this” and the Ad immediately plays and it was Raid Shadow Legends
OCP is DARPA. Original Robocop is a eulogy to transhumanism. It would be interesting to see the scores swapped for Robocop and Starship toopers, to see how the aesthetics are affected. Or put 'Cop in a western haha.
Alright I’m confused now, what the actual hell are you talking about
Serve the public trust, Protect the innocent, Uphold the law.
directive 4.Classified
or i believe I've seen it in the series as "never oppose an ocp officer"
or employee
I think that KRS One is a pretty good choice. :D
Euan Smith whoop whoop the sound of the police
THEY SAY I'M SELLIN CRACK BUT U B DOIN THAT!
It's hard to ignore the massive Judge Dredd influence on the Robocop character, lines etc.
It's rumored that Judge Dredd was the original idea of what the movie would be.
simontmn I'm rather disappointed that Georg didn't mention this in his introduction.
Yup, verhoeven was reading 2000ad before production, several catchphrases are straight up lifted from the comic, even his look is strikingly similar.
Pat Mills certainly thinks they ripped Dredd off, there's a bit near the end of the 2000AD documentary where he has a bit of a rant about it.
Yes but Robocop turned out so good that all that didnt matter att all. Like it was ment to be that way, only Dredd showed up before it.
In Germany was also a "Robocop 4" movie for rental. Edited with scenes from the TV series (which was not shown on tv) and only those segments were dubbed,
People say Robocop is fascist... Because it has a positive authority figure.
Is that all it takes to be fascism now? a good guy who's got a government job?
Edit: I don't know why so many people are suddenly responding here a year later, or why a bunch seem to lack reading comprehension, but:
I am not saying this movie is fascist. Literally the exact opposite.
I am quoting this very video (11:15) when I mention that people claim this movie is fascist.
To anyone who responds to this comment with further instances of "You're stupid, that thing you think is true!" I will just tell you to learn to fucking read.
Who says that? I haven't heard anyone say that, ever.
@@Erik-vp5bm
My message is over a year old, so you'll forgive me if I can't remember the examples I had seen at the time.
But as of This message, we have people declaring "All Cops Are Bad.", So I doubt they'd approve of anything glorifying a policeman...
Edit: 11:15 in this very video claims it.
@@calemr pardon me if you've in fact gotten up to speed with the discourse, but i think the idea of him being fascistic is bcs of the government institutions he is doing bidding for
@@calemr You're just projecting bud, no one says that. Robo-cop is a commentary on the rich and powerful being corrupt, and Robo-cop's character arc is fighting with disobeying corrupt orders. Robo-cop is the ideal of what cops /should/ be. He upholds the law, he holds everyone to the law equally, and unlike other cop fetish figures, he believes that punishment must fit the crime aka not murdering someone for a petty crime like real cops do. The way he does things all badass isn't mean to be idealized either, it's like the Punisher and Judge Dredd. They are not heroes, they are anti-heroes. So anyone that blindly cheers them on is stupid anyway.
@@TheLinkandmarioshow
Well, take up your issues with the video creator. 11:15.
Also, why am I getting so many responses to an over year old response to a two year old video?
I always thought robocop was originally a toy, that ended up adapted into animated series and movie(s). I only found the movie by accident when going through my dad's ripped VHS collection an even then it didn't click that such gory movie was probably not an adaptation for a toy but the actual source material... My brain just kind of accepted that movie as "the 80's / early 90's" :-D
Great video. The first robocop is an all time classic, definitely in my top 10 movies ever.
The "remake" gives me the same off-putting feeling that Jurassic World did, a sense that this movie was made for corporations instead of human beings. I think it was attempting some kind of pro-robot subtext, didn't work though, too desperate. It also wants to be The Dark Knight, I swear in a few decades people are going to be baffled by this trend of movies that are the cinematic equivalent of an idiot trying to seem intelligent by feigning an English accent.
At least the remake puts in some effort to examine the question of whether being policed by robots might be a good thing. It seemed to have been made by people who think the concept of RoboCop raises some interesting philosophical questions and they did their best to fill the movie with those questions. These people apparently didn't see the concept of RoboCop as being fundamentally ridiculous the way Georg does, and therefore saw no need to make the movie light-hearted and silly. Perhaps they will be proven right if someday we get the technology to create real-life robocops and are forced to confront these questions as serious issues.
It probably won't turn out as prophetic as the original, but that's probably an unfair comparison since RoboCop somehow turned out to be one of the most strangely prophetic movies ever made.
I believe that boiling it down to these movies (RoboCop 2014 and Jurassic World) lacks quality because of taking themselves too serious, being corporate made etc. is only a half truth. What makes them lack quality is a lack of story. Fx most MCU movies doesn't take themself serious yet we shouldn't accept them, when they clearly have bland story telling, the same goes with Fast Furious, but we do accept them, we accept bad story telling, bland story telling, because it's wrapped in something that wants to be fun/funny. If we don't accept bland storytelling in serious movies, why should we accept bland story telling in unserious movies? Movies shouldn't be forgiven because they don't take themself too serious, they however will be forgotten and rightfully so. The original RoboCop movie knew when to take itself serious and when to take its audience serious (when it didn't take itself serious it took the audience serious = use of satire) and how to actually tell a compelling and interesting story.
I wouldn't say the F&F movies have bland storytelling. I _would_ say that the last few in the franchise had basically _no_ storytelling.
True that. Though I must admit I stopped watching them after the one with the ridiculous long runway scene.
This was such a well thought out and entertaining video. I found myself giggling out loud in parts. Subscribed. Keep up the great work.
"Miscast and underused." Like the Woody Allen line, "The restaurant's food was terrible. And, in such small portions."
I think the first movie posses another question of "are we turning into androids and are we being programed by corporation"? That is the whole point of the advertisements and the questionable news on the military(are they using news to program us towards more war).
I want another new video now from George, you have 10 seconds to comply. My friends call me 'Dave Dogge' ......... you call me 'Sir'.
Dave Dogge haha! Yes, he is one of those hard to find good RUclips channel. I will not be happy until he reenacts the "are you not entertained!" scene from gladiator. Call me Maximus.
Three films and a remake? George, what are you talking about? There are two films, _and only two films._
Redgrave192
Yup. The original. And the underrated remake.
No shitty sequels. No shitty TV shows and cartoons. No shitty comics. Etc.
Redgrave192 you can read my thoughts xD
Robocop 1 & 2
Redgrave192 There's only one film. If they did make a Robocop 2 it would have been disgracefully bad.
Marcos Recio There is no Robocop 2.
The first one is so good. I actually saw it at a Drive-In theatre when it came out in 1987. I was 7 almost 8 years old, and i don't remember a whole lot from that time, but i distinctly remember seeing it.
Your choice of music over the end credits has made me love Robocop all over again:)
One of the things I found distractingly bad about the RoboCop remake was how it seemed like they would introduce the central theme of the movie and then immediately resolve it. At least half a dozen times I thought "Oh, that is what they are going to make this movie about; no wait, they just tied that up"
The net result is that it ended up being a poorly made stupid action movie that wasn't very entertaining. If it at least says something it could have been enjoyable, but it didn't.
Always love your smartass humor in these
Blomkamp doing the new film set as a sequel to the first Robocop sounds so gooood
Yessss!!!!!
I actually liked the remake and it was interesting to see how the story would be different in an age of terrorism, the war on terror and early cybernetics and i enjoyed the action scenes.
How have I only just discovered this channel?? Your breakdown is really insightful and engaging. Thank you!
The most ironic is how Robocop 2 changed for Robocop 3... on the second he fights against control, to be himself, to not conform for "the man"... on the 3rd, he is a kid friendly movie... total letdown :(
Raimar Lunardi There is no Robocop 2 or 3.
JohnnyZenith Yes there are.Gladly they never remade it
@@utoresa5193 No there is no robocop 2 or 3.
Yo George, I want to thank you for introducing me to Terry Gilliam movies
Don Quixote coming up!!! (barring legal problems)
Robocop was a movie, but everything after that was just taking advantage of the fact that the robot cop looked so damn cool. Subbtext schmubtext, brap brap! You have 15 seconds to comply! Dead or alive you coming with me. etc
A great review of the greatest thing to happen to man=kind. As a man who treasures these films I must say that you were pretty much saying all the things that I was thinking. I love the first, I like the second, the third was okay, and the remake doesn't exist. I don't know how you got that footage for something that doesn't exist. Great work man, great work.
Robocop 1 and Terminator 2 will always be the greatest cyborg sci-fi robot movies ever made. They set a standard inspiration for every other movie to follow.
I agree that the first film is really the only one that matters, I honestly couldn't remember anything about the next 2 until your summary here, and never even bothered with the predictably shit remake. One thing I remember about seeing the original in 1987 was that it was supposed to be notable that future Detroit cops all had to wear body armor on patrol. This was supposed to be a kind of joke about how crappy the future would get. And now here we are with most American cops wearing some kind of armor and every small town and rural county has a SWAT team and a ridiculous arsenal of military weapons and equipment, which they justify by kicking in doors to serve warrants for even minor crimes.
The last two of the four films for me are unwatchable for a second time - but I DID like this miniseries from the late 90's : 'Robocop: Prime Directives'.
There's a fan edit of this miniseries on youtube. If you liked the first two - it's worth a look.
That KRS switch up was 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
(My submission is The Clash "Police and Thieves")
In the 3rd movie he says "you can call me robocop" is him accepting his robot half just as he regained his human half in the 1st.. It is a significant change from making machines seem like a tool for evil instead of just a tool that can be good or evil depending on the User.. in this case Murphy
An element I think that was REALLY missed in 2014 was that Robocop was also an allegory about the human spirit
Especially with all the Jesus imagery
Murphy's humanity overcomes robocop's program, overcomes OCP's corruption, it even overcomes death. Robocop isn't a sad depressing film, it's about how you can literally torture a man. Mutilate him beyond recognition.
But you cannot kill his innate sense of humanity. And that spirit will triumph over everything.