Agreed. Why must they remake the classics?
Because cinematic vision and technology improve with each age, giving new directors the tools to squeeze one… more… mu’fuckin’… drop of blood… out.
Remakes of classics are always good fun. I’m still hoping for a Back to the Future remake with Justin Bieber as young George.
A BttF remake/sequel focusing on Marty & Jennifer’s kids and ending with Marty in a wheelchair could be good.
Classic stories have been retold since the beginning of stories. I never understand the chest-clutching.
I disagree. I think Verehoeven proved himself to be a hack later (I made a bad movie with bad actors, on purpose! See its art!) but it works here. I went into the first movie knowing nothing about it. Saw it in the theater on its first run. It can be watched as a fun mindless action movie. It can be watched as a satire. It can be watched as both. Its not exactly Citizen Kane but it does what it does very well.
Your privilege, good sir.
I get it, I get it… but the “satire” seemed to be pretty crude, blunt meat-axe stuff for an audience not used to the more thinly sliced kind. Cf Darkman, for example, a very similar movie in some ways whose dark satire was so subtle it escaped about half of the original critics.
I might be thinking more of the evolution of the “humor” in the sequels, too. Really, *Robocop *went off the rails for me with the scene where they blow Murphy’s hand to hamburger in grisly, gristly detail; it was just too much in context of the rest of the movie’s tone.
I still love Weller’s makeup in the original. Specifically the way the skin in front of his ears overlapped the cybernetics on the back and side of his head just a little bit. Fantastic little detail.
RoboCop is a classic? Don’t get me wrong, the movie is fantastic, but calling it a classic is a stretch. Hell, calling it a satire is a stretch…
“I know, let’s satirize ultra-violent movies by making the ultra-violentest mainstream movie ever!” Verhoven has made some decent movies, but if RoboCop had been filmed exactly the same way by Renny “I Was Michael Bay Before Michael Bay Was Michael Bay” Harlin, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
That said, the greatness of the first movie is definitely down to its great ensemble and as much as I love Sam Jackson and tolerate Michael Keaton, I’m not sure they’re up to it. Miguel Ferrer is such a perfect weasel that I don’t think you could ever recreate that.
The LA times take on the trailer:
Oh, a February release, like if that does not broadcast that even the studio dreads it.
Duplicate post.
It was nice to catch a glimpse of Michael Keaton in there. It was less nice to catch Samuel Jackson trying on… is that Colonel Sanders’ old hairdo, or Richard Dawson’s?
I think it shows promise, and to those who are worried about the classic being diminished, I’d like to point out that there’s no way that this remake can do it anywhere near as badly as another film already did. I refer of course to Robocop 2.
I mean, that’s one of the most unpleasant movies I’ve ever watched. I put it in the same category as Natural Born Killers - screenplays which were probably written to be darkly comical but were filmed semi-literally, with sickening results.
As an aside, I’m near-certain that the new film will have a scene of the redesigned ED-209 easily walking down some stairs…or maybe crushing some stairs without slowing down. They can’t make it threatening without getting that out of the way.
Ooh, Sam Jackson as Richard Dawson. That gives me an idea for a flamboyantly-cast remake that I’d really like to see.
“Who loves you and who do you love, motherfuckas?”
I see your Robocop 2…and I raise you one Robocop 3.
Robocop never made any sense to me. If you don’t want your mindless automaton to developing human traits, don’t graft a human onto a robot (even if they apparently just used Murphy’s jaw).
This reminds me of the Total Recall remake. More CGI, bigger cast and better production values. But just sort of there. No wit, charm or humor of the original.
And lots of them are better than the original. For example John Carpenter’s The Thing.
And Zach Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead.
That’s right, you read what you read.
That’s… not what “Robocop” was satirizing.
I’m not particularly invested in the series - hell, I only actually watched the movie the whole way through for the first time last year - but it’s pretty obviously satirizing the corporate culture of the 80s. It’s not subtle about it, either, but I suspect that’s why it worked so well when it came out. “Robocop” is less a jab in the back at Soulless Corporate America and more a big, punk rock, “fuck you” poke in the eye. And it’s a hell of a lot smarter about doing so than most “action movies with a point.”
Trailers are occasionally at odds with the tone of a movie. Just because the trailer is grim and humorless doesn’t necessarily mean the same is true of the movie.
Having said that, the idea that a remake of Robocop is needed baffles me.
It looked pretty polished, but lacking in grit or spice. I imagine it will have taken The Committee many meetings and focus group analyses to come up with perfect trailer and movie, for the most bang for their sponsors’ bucks. IOW … it’ll be a pile of steaming dog turd.