• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Robocop

M

Mighty_Emperor

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Aug 18, 2002
Messages
19,407
I'm saddened to have to start a Robocop thread with this news so perhaps I should start on a high note:

The first Robocop film was great and worked nicely on a number of levels - including corporate greed and privatisation as well as the plight of the cyborg. With more than a little dash of Judge Dredd ;)

-------------
Anyway - it sounds like it may be about to be remade for no good reason (othr than I suppose Robocop 4 would be doomed):

"Robocop" Gets The Remake Treatment

Posted: Friday November 11th, 2005 6:17pm
Source: CHUD
Author: Garth Franklin

Three films, some cable TV shows and a short lived series aren't enough to keep Paul Verhoeven's cybernetic creation down, now word comes from CHUD that a remake of the science fiction classic is in the works.

According to that lovable site of booze, boobs and tasteful bisexuality (is there any other kind?), their "source is usually quite reliable with intel, as unfortunate as that may be in this case... producer Michael De Luca and Sony have apparently decided to dismantle the scrap and solder it back together for a 21st century version of the heavy-steppin' police weapon... Word is that original Robocop director Paul Verhoeven wisely wants nothing to do with it."

Set in a crime-ridden futuristic Detroit, the original film told of a mortally wounded law officer becomes part of a corporate experiment in which his remains are encased in a robotic suit and unleashed on the city's felons.
Click to expand...

www.darkhorizons.com/news05/051111h.php

This is such a bad idea I don't know where to start and must surely mark then end of the remake frenzy as Holywood slowly consumes itself. Surely.

------------
Hmm just some quick checking but Robocop 4 was the working title for the mini-series:

www.imdb.com/title/tt0220008/

Anyway IMDB for:

RoboCop (1987)
www.imdb.com/title/tt0093870/

RoboCop 2 (1990)
www.imdb.com/title/tt0100502/

RoboCop 3 (1993)
www.imdb.com/title/tt0107978/
 
Why, FFS?

If there was something seriously wrong with the original, then maybe I could see the reasoning, but the Verhoeven one is great. I saw it a few months ago, and it hasn't dated at all, unlike many "near-future" sci fi flicks.

Where's all this going to end? Hopefully Emps is right, and Hollywood starts to wake up and leave perfectly good films well alone.
 
stuneville said:
Why, FFS?

If there was something seriously wrong with the original, then maybe I could see the reasoning, but the Verhoeven one is great. I saw it a few months ago, and it hasn't dated at all, unlike many "near-future" sci fi flicks.
Click to expand...

The stop-motion animation probably doesn't look 'real' enough for today's f*ckwit audiences... :roll:
 
So why not do what Lucas did, and just CG the images that allegedly look naff in stop motion (though as I said, I didn't even notice when seeing it again recently)?
 
Lucas' CGI meddling rarely does his films any favours - you can usually spot it a mile off...

I don't think the stop-motion in 'Robocop' is 'naff' necessarily, but it's probably not considered 'good' enough for the 'hyper-reality' demanding viewer of today.
 
Perhaps, it's less to do with the clunky stop-motion and more to do with Verhoeven's savage and darkly satiric, sense of humour?

Maybe, they want to make a gung-ho kid's film out of it, like they did with the animated series of 'StarShip Troopers'?
 
They're taking the piss. What a total waste of time, RoboCop is a classic. And the stop-motion rocks.

I have only one thing to say to them: Bitches, leave!
 
Surely only a matter of time before some prick decides to murder 2001: A Space Odyssey....

"Saddened But Not Entirely Surprised" of Strangetown
 
hokum6 said:
They're taking the piss. What a total waste of time, RoboCop is a classic. And the stop-motion rocks.

I have only one thing to say to them: Bitches, leave!
Click to expand...

Yeah the stop-motion is still impresive and is also aprt of its charm. No one is going to sit Ray Harryhausen down and go "Look your films are good and all but we are going to redo them because we now have fancy computers."

I assume they are going to CGI Robocop so it is less of a man in a suit and is lighter and sleeker but apart from some cocaine snorting execs who thinks that is what is needed. What was needed was them to not make Robocop 3 and they clearly haven't learned to stop tinkering ;)

What really gets me is that this is a clear sign of a lack of imagination which is a product of the vast budgets they throw at films. They have to guarantee a hit which means redoing some formula that worked (hence all the foreign film remakes, the comic books and computer adaptations - often not as works faithful to the originals but just as more movie fodder). It then all gets into a vicious cycle. If they split the budget 10-20 ways and handed it to smaller filmmaker with new and intresting ideas some of them may be flops but they will surely make the same amount of money back?

Time to start boycotting such films.
 
Love that robot in the third one but forget his name.

robot_ed.jpg
 
There are also rumours of a Predator remake.


It's funny that recently Hollywood suits have been moaning that nobody goes to the actual cinema to see movies anymore. It doesn't seem to have occurred to their tiny, money grabbing little weasel minds that it could be because we've all seen the supposedly 'new' films already.
 
What really gets me is that this is a clear sign of a lack of imagination which is a product of the vast budgets they throw at films. They have to guarantee a hit which means redoing some formula that worked (hence all the foreign film remakes, the comic books and computer adaptations - often not as works faithful to the originals but just as more movie fodder). It then all gets into a vicious cycle. If they split the budget 10-20 ways and handed it to smaller filmmaker with new and intresting ideas some of them may be flops but they will surely make the same amount of money back?
Click to expand...

<Nods>

I have friends who are big fans of a cartoon that they want to go live action (shudders at whole cartoon to live genre...) They are constantly making fantasy lists of actors......

I told them that these days the viewer is empowered and that why dont they get out `and make their own` like the Star Wars fans are doing????
 
river_styx said:
There are also rumours of a Predator remake.
Click to expand...

Oh fuck......

Here are some links:

http://www.moviehole.net/news/whats_thi ... g_pre.html

http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=21680

As far as I can tell from the foregoing, all this comes back to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, which carries the story that WWE star John Cena has been offered the lead. Assuming it isn't all bollocks, I guess that means this project is currently not very far advanced, and may yet come to nothing.

Or is that too much to hope?

PB
 
Personally, I rather like the stop-motion of the first two films. The Robocops are, after all, big, clunky mechanical things, which probably would look a little 'jerky' in real life.

I bet they rewrite the role of Officer Lewis to make her a wise-cracking kung-fu-ing police babe. Probably played by Milla Jovovich. (And maybe Christopher Walken as the 'Old Man'?)
 
It's a very bad idea.

RoboCop is a product of the late 80s. Late Reagan-era, late Thatcherism. Everything was being privatised. The media pursued the marketing dollar by sinking lower and lower into the gutter.

So what's changed? Everything that was predicted by RoboCop has happened. If anything, TV's gotten sillier. Public services have been outsourced to companies that have shut down crucial parts of the operation because there's no money in it. There's nothing for it to show us that we can't see by turning on the television.

One of my favourite parts of the film is its heavy borrowing from the work of Howard Chaykin, particularly American Flagg! which was still in publication at the time. I suspect in a remake, all of that will be lost, and replaced with stuff that is "funnier".
 
Predator and Robocop aren't that old, so one wonders what sort of time limit the industry imagines is long enough before a film is remade. What next? Remaking films from the 1990s? Starship Troopers, perhaps? (Although IMHO the book still needs to be made into a film)... Four Weddings And A Funeral?

I agree that neither need remaking. It's not even as if they look embarrasingly cheap and nasty nowadays, or actually need some reworking as far as their action is concerned. They still work in both senses.
 
The sad fact is that there are films out there that had some good ideas but were given to either the wrong kind of director or were completely fucked up by executive producers. Those are the ones that would benefit from being remade.

Unfortunately most of them are sequels and so would probably never see the light of day again in any form.

Perhaps they'll make Murphy a woman and Lewis a man, leading to all kinds of 'radical' ideas about cyborg femininity, sexuality and child birth.

"Does my bum look big in this titanium casing?"

"Directive 5: Prepare a nutritional meal and uphold the law"

"Please put the toilet seat down. You have 20 seconds to comply!"

Because those are the only things that concern modern women in Hollywood.
 
river_styx said:
...

Because those are the only things that concern modern women in Hollywood.
Click to expand...
You've gleaned that from watching the movies, haven't you?
 
I've gleaned it from knowing most Hollywood execs' have their heads shoved so far up their own arses they have to snort their coke up through their belly buttons.
 
Mighty_Emperor said:
No one is going to sit Ray Harryhausen down and go "Look your films are good and all but we are going to redo them because we now have fancy computers."
Click to expand...

Keep it down, will ya? You don't want to give 'em any ideas... :(
 
Bad idea.Robocop is a classic film and virtually flawless as a satire on it's times and America.

I can imagine it now.Watered down violence, no political satire, lots of big CGI effects and Matt Damon as Robocop.
 
I reckon the current glut of gratuitous, low-quality remakes is part of some wider drive on the part of the MPAA to stamp out DVD piracy and illegal downloading.

i.e. Produce movies so fucking wretched that no one in their right mind wants to watch them in the first place, let alone pirate them.

PB (still fuming about the 'Wicker Man' remake)
 
"Please put the toilet seat down. You have 20 seconds to comply!"
Click to expand...

But this `is` important

And that is an interesting theory, Brown forever
 
Anome_ said:
It's a very bad idea.

RoboCop is a product of the late 80s. Late Reagan-era, late Thatcherism. Everything was being privatised. The media pursued the marketing dollar by sinking lower and lower into the gutter.

So what's changed? Everything that was predicted by RoboCop has happened. If anything, TV's gotten sillier. Public services have been outsourced to companies that have shut down crucial parts of the operation because there's no money in it. There's nothing for it to show us that we can't see by turning on the television.

One of my favourite parts of the film is its heavy borrowing from the work of Howard Chaykin, particularly American Flagg! which was still in publication at the time. I suspect in a remake, all of that will be lost, and replaced with stuff that is "funnier".
Click to expand...

I agree completely.

Apart from the lack of robotic policemen, most of Robocop's become true.

Ironically, the media/corporate machine that was being satirised in Robocop is what's causing it to be remade - pumping out crap for money. It's like some weird postmodern snake eating its own tail.
 
BlackRiverFalls said:
I can imagine it now.Watered down violence, no political satire, lots of big CGI effects and Matt Damon as Robocop.
Click to expand...

AFAIK we've more or less been there already with Robocop:The Series and Prime Directives, both apparently very dire indeed.
Click to expand...

I remember Prime Directives being hyped up as a return to the cynical and satirical roots of the franchise and so gave it the benefit of the doubt. I actually made it through a whole 20 minutes before wishing I had a Cobra Assault rifle to blow my telly out of the corner of the living room.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top