So Robocop is my favorite sci-fi movie of all time and has been since I first saw it as a kid. This is definitely a movie that shouldn’t be remade. With that said…
I still LOVE the original costume and I think it has held up incredibly well over the last 25 years. This costume doesn’t look quite as bad as I imagined, though I’m not sure how I feel about the all black Batmanesque style of this one. I like the angles and the visor (which I heard they were going to ditch, Bad idea). I don’t understand the one ungloved hand but we’ll see. I’m guessing there will be some serious CGI and sound effects to go with this thing.
Anyway, are there any other Robocop fans on board? How do you feel about the costume? The remake in general?
Big fan of the original. I think new suit is fine – IMO it was never about the suit.
As to the one “natural” hand – IIRC, in the original they had saved one arm but the asshole exec had them cut it off. Perhaps this time they let him keep it.
Also, it’s his right arm – presumably his gun hand. Maybe this is some weird way of showing that he is a “natural” marksman? Though I think that’s a pretty stretched explanation.
The new costume is hideous - I hope they’re going to CGI over it or have him get an “upgrade” at some point. As long as they don’t have Robocop sprinting through the streets and doing parkour a la Yoda in Episode II, i’ll watch it.
I was pleasantly surprised by the 1987 original. When I first saw the ads for it I thought it was a joke, it looked like an idea for a really bad TV-movie. But when I finally saw it on HBO I was amazed that it was actually really good.
However, the reason it was good was because it was made for adults. It was rated R, had realistic, unflinching violence along with genuine drama and tragedy. Every single movie made today is either a remake, a video game, or a fucking comic book. IOW they’re all PG-13 tweens & teens friendly crap. I can’t see a Robocop remake being any different. In fact, it’s tailor-made for this kind of godawful treatment.
Well, it could be just incidental to the scene, it might be that for the close ups having a hand uncovered was not deemed important and actors, specially if the scenes are late in the day, can feel the need to peel off their suits and get permission for it when the scenes do not call for a full view of the suit.
When Robo’s partner was injured at the end of the original, he said something like “they’ll fit you. They fix everything.” I always thought that was a hint of a possible female Robocop sequel. That might have been interesting…
I’m thinking more of Robocop’s prosthetics being built using slave labor, him being fitted with torture implants to keep him under control, him being forced to hunt down and kill escaping slaves because they are breaking the law, and it turning out that one of the slaves he kills is his wife, sold as a slave by the company after his “death” to clear up loose ends. As for a child prostitute, it could be his own kid being raped by the head of the company, with Robocop forced to haul him back to the CEO when he tries to escape. That’s “gritty”.
I just shot a short film of my own. In every shot where you can’t see my lead actress’s feet, she is not wearing the boots, as they were new and pinched her toes.
*goes off to read about the origins of the couple hundred + movies I’ve seen this year that I could have SWORN were not remakes, from video games or fucking comic books.
Which would be funny, as in the original, Murphy seemed to be a pretty lousy marksman. The gun-twirling was cool, but the one time he tried to shoot anyone pre-robo, he was lucky to hit the van at all. I could see him keeping the hand and the gun-twirling being a sort of muscle-memory glitch.
Ok, so maybe I exaggerated a tad. I meant that most of the big, tent-pole, blockbuster movies today are all based on comic books. And except for the Nolan Batman reboot, they’re all silly kid’s stuff! *The Avengers *is the third highest grossing film of all time already! Bleeech!
I thought The Avengers was a fantastic movie. Since my favorite movies of the year rarely get within spitting distance of the highest grossing list, I don’t mind seeing something I like get there. I feel the same way about The Hunger Games, a good movie that deserves its success.
People just don’t go to, aren’t allowed, or can’t see films like Moonrise Kingdom, Bernie, Cosmopolis, Ruby Sparks, The Do-Deca-Pentathlon, Safety Not Guaranteed, Your Sister’s Sister, Lost Bohemia, The Intouchables*, Damsels In Distress, and so many others, so of course they can’t become hits.
in America, anyway. Around the world it’s a huge blockbuster hit, making over $355 million dollars, while in the US it’s made a paltry $8 million because it’s considered an “art house” film.
About Robocop, to get back onto topic. I liked the original a lot. I’ll see the new one. I’ll see it for the cast (Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, Samuel L. Jackson, Clive Owen, Jay Baruchel, Abbie Cornish, Jennifer Ehle, Marianne Jean-Baptiste for starters) and I’ll see it because the director Jose Padilha, directed a frickin’ amazing movie called Elite Squad: The Enemy Within, that was so good I walked out of the theater in a daze. It was a sequel but I didn’t know it was a sequel until after I’d seen it. I still need to see the Elite Squad.
