RoboCop (1987)
Directed by Paul Verhoeven
In a violent, near-apocalyptic Detroit, evil corporation Omni Consumer Products wins a contract from the city government to privatize the police force. To test their crime-eradicating cyborgs, the company leads street cop Alex Murphy into an armed confrontation with crime lord Boddicker so they can use his body to support their untested RoboCop prototype. But when RoboCop learns of the company's nefarious plans, he turns on his masters.
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This is very informative and we learn that Neumeier was slightly inspired by working as an uncredited member of the art department on the Ridley Scott film Blade Runner (1982).
The character was conceived from Blade Runner (man hunting robots) and a combination of Marvel Comics’ alien humanoid robot hunter Rom and Judge Dredd.
Neumeier, inspired by Blade Runner and Judge Dredd, wrote the first treatment in 1981 about a robot cop becoming increasingly human, but it was rejected by many studios as it seemed incomplete.
Slightly more deserving of your attention are the wonderful Blade Runner and Will Smith's under-rated sci-fi action film I, Robot which has a bit more action to it than Ridley Scott's sci-fi masterpiece.
Like "Blade Runner," ''Brazil" and, for that matter, "1984," it is set in a not terribly distant future in which things have universally gotten worse.
Neither Verhoeven nor screenwriters Michael Miner and Edward Neumeier are particularly didactic in their social commentary; mainly, they wanted to make a movie that looked and felt as cool as Blade Runner , but with some more verisimilitude and a few laughs.
This is evidenced at bulk in the film: RoboCop removes his helmet and observes himself, for the first time, in a broken piece of a mirror; Frankensteins monster first sees his horrible visage in the calm water of a pool (this occurs in the 1931 version).
Using the classic Frankenstein (1931) premise as a backbone and mixing in elements as disparate as Fritz Lang‘s Metropolis (1926), Judge Dredd comics and the media-saturated sensationalism of the Reagan eighties, RoboCop is a techno-satire that deserves to stand alongside such anti-establishment science fiction classics as Doctor Strangelove (1964) and Escape From New York (1981).
I'm not saying that Verhoeven and Peckinpah are in the same league (really, will they be watching "Total Recall" instead of "The Wild Bunch" in film schools anytime soon?), but this is probably a good way to describe Verhoeven's films.
Using the classic Frankenstein (1931) premise as a backbone and mixing in elements as disparate as Fritz Lang‘s Metropolis (1926), Judge Dredd comics and the media-saturated sensationalism of the Reagan eighties, RoboCop is a techno-satire that deserves to stand alongside such anti-establishment science fiction classics as Doctor Strangelove (1964) and Escape From New York (1981).
Verhoeven is a student of film as well, building upon the world envisioned 50 years prior, in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, which also contains elements of politics, including the fascist nature of capitalism, the monolithic industrial environs, and the sleek but strong design of RoboCop himself.
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Looks can often be deceiving, as RoboCop is, underneath the junk cinema exterior, one of the more intelligent and savvy thrillers of the science fiction genre, perhaps only bested by The Terminator in terms of blending intelligent, complex sci-fi with all-out supercharged action.
Weller takes the best turn since Arnold Schwarzenegger in "The Terminator," adding chivalry and vulnerability to a limiting part.
If the music for the first trailer sounds familiar, it's from "The Terminator", another film that Orion backed in the 80s before they went to the wall.
Made in the late eighties and coming in shortly after the success of The Terminator (1984), RoboCop had a modest run in cinemas but failed to capture the mainstream imagination in the way The Terminator did.
You had the rise of the buddy-cop subgenre with Lethal Weapon , the introduction of a super action star with Arnold Schwarzenegger starring in Predator (which spawned a volatile franchise) and The Terminator (which has become a volatile franchise as well) and bringing up the rear is RoboCop .
Before then came Gort in The Day the Earth Stood Still, B-9 in the television series Lost in Space, and, only a short few years prior to Verhoeven’s picture, The Terminator.
Where The Day the Earth Stood Still and Don Siegel's Invasion of the Body Snatchers dealt with the Red Menace and the threat of looming, mutual, nuclear Armageddon, RoboCop deals with Reagan's mad vision of a bellicose, secretive consumer wonderland as the City on the Hill.
The film was also directed by none other than Irvin Kershner best known for The Empire Strikes Back , so he has the chops to direct but the script fails for him.
So, accordingly, a sequel was released in 1990, under the stewardship of The Empire Strikes Back director Irvin Kershner, with a script by comic scribe Frank Miller that was deemed unfilmable and thus put in the hands of Waldo Green for rehabilitation.
Irvin Kershner, probably best known for his glorious efforts on The Empire Strikes Back, was eventually signed to direct, but not before a falling out between the studio and previous candidate Tim Hunter.
Regardless, the film still holds up with its stunning make-up effects by Rob Bottin (“The Thing”) and Phil Tippett (“The Empire Strikes Back”).
I mean come on people, every Buddy-Cop Movie should have had Robert DoQui as Sergeant Reed! Shit, he was in Cloak and Dagger !
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Where The Day the Earth Stood Still and Don Siegel's Invasion of the Body Snatchers dealt with the Red Menace and the threat of looming, mutual, nuclear Armageddon, RoboCop deals with Reagan's mad vision of a bellicose, secretive consumer wonderland as the City on the Hill.
Cowriters Edward Neumeier, also coproducer, and Michael Miner, who developed "Repo Man" with Alex Cox, see little difference between the mores in the streets and those in the glass boxes.
From then on, the film grabs armfuls of "Terminator," "Repo Man," "Blade Runner" and "Frankenstein" (and a fistful of "Miami Vice") and runs.