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This is being talked about a lot in the trailer thread as well as the greenlighted thread, so to avoid derailing those threads further and to keep all the chat in one place, here's a thread about the upcoming remake of Paul Verhoeven's classic 1987 dystopian sci-fi satire film, Robocop, a remake which looks to maintain some of the plot points / themes of the original while completely abandoning others. The first official trailer was released yesterday, and the original video has already gotten over 4 million views on YouTube, so obviously this is a hot topic. Here's the trailer in question, but this one has a 720p option unlike the original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymMNEPfcO5M So here's some stuff that we know so far and can infer about this remake based on this trailer: Director: Jose Padilha - A relatively inexperienced Brazilian director who up until now has only directed a couple documentaries and 2 movies that he wrote himself, Elite Squad and its sequel Elite Squad: The Enemy Within. I've never seen any of his movies, personally, so I don't know how skilled of a director he is. Being relatively inexperienced, this could go either way. Either he'll really rock his first big feature film like Fede Alvarez did with his remake of Evil Dead from earlier this year, or it'll be alright but forgettable. I doubt his direction will be outright bad, because the internet would be up in arms by now if those who have seen his previous efforts thought he was totally incompetent. Cast Joel Kinnaman - Alex Murphy/Robocop Gary Oldman - Dr. Dennett Norton (doctor who turns Alex Murphy into Robocop) Michael Keaton - Raymond Sellars (CEO of OCP and the villain of this remake) Samuel L. Jackson - Pat Novak (possibly the head of PR for OCP?) Abbie Cornish - Clara Murphy (Alex Murphy's wife) Jay Baruchel - Pope (designer of the Robocop suit) Jackie Earle Haley - Maddox (military dude who trains Robocop) John Paul Ruttan - David Murphy (Alex Murphy's son) - Rated PG-13, so that means no gore and not a lot of swearing. - This was filmed entirely in Canada and made to look like Detroit. - This looks to be more CG-heavy rather than relying on practical effects. - "When crime is out of control / The only solution / Isn't human" in addition to shots of people looting makes it seem like the dystopian feel of Detroit/underenforcement of the law is there. - Instead of being shot to death at point blank range by criminals like in the original, Alex Murphy is injured by a car bomb, not killed. He suffers 4th degree burns over 80% of his body, and if he survives, he'll be paralyzed from the waist down and confined to a wheelchair. So OCP isn't reviving a dead cop for the Robocop project this time around. - Clara Murphy knows everything that's being done to her husband and has contact with him after he becomes Robocop, but she says "You need to speak to your son", so maybe he's trying to distance himself from his family because he feels like he's a monster and they deserve better. - Alex Murphy knows who he is after becoming Robocop, so his memory has not been erased in the process of transforming into Robocop. Unlike the original, more than just limited human parts are used in the creation of Robocop. Rather, it seems like his body is intact yet augmented by the suit, compared to the original where the suit virtually replaced the human body he lost. As one poster in either the trailer or greenlighted thread said it best, this looks more like Bionic Commando than the Robocop we all know. - The Robocop suit is that silver blue color we're all familiar with at first, but then it's turned black with an illuminated red HUD in the visor later on, possibly in an attempt to make him look more menacing in the face of criminals. The line from the trailer is "Make him more tactical. Make him look...uhh...let's go with black." - The suit sends signals to Alex's brain making him think he's in control of situations, an "illusion of free will". But eventually he overrides the system and thinks for himself. - OCP building is the tallest in the Detroit skyline by a narrow margin.......aside from the GM building, of course. Doesn't look like they've got full control of the city. Now, I'm a huge fan of the original and I didn't think it needed to be remade because it still holds up extremely well even to this day. But if the remake had been interesting, I would have been on board with it. For example, Darren Aronofsky was originally rumored to be directing this. Now that would have been cool. However, this trailer makes it look like more of a straight up action flick with none of the satire of the original, which leaves me feeling pretty uninterested. It looks like a bland retelling of the original with all the awesome parts stripped out or changed. It is just the first trailer for a movie that doesn't come out for another year, though, and I'll still go see it because there's a chance that it might be alright. Still, even if it ends up being alright, I don't think it'll even come close to being as good as the original. If you're gonna remake a classic film loved by tons of people, at least make it look like it'll do the original justice, which this trailer didn't seem to in my mind. If it doesn't do the original justice, then why even remake it at all? Just because that's the in thing to do in Hollywood nowadays? Anyway, what are your thoughts on this? Are you hopeful that it'll turn out okay, or do you think it's gonna be another mediocre remake like this year's Total Recall? Do you think the changes that are being made to the original's formula are interesting, or is this going to make Robocop 3 look better by comparison? Share your opinions! Also, here's Rich Evans from RedLetterMedia watching the trailer (you don't have to be an RLM fan to appreciate this): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE-YWGuOlas Rageaholic fucked around with this message at 07:38 on Sep 7, 2013 |
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Sep 7, 2013 06:48
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Rageaholic Monkey posted:Also, here's Rich Evans from RedLetterMedia watching the trailer (you don't have to be an RLM fan to appreciate this): Yeah this about sums it up for me. e: thread title is perfect Alfred P. Pseudonym fucked around with this message at 07:38 on Sep 7, 2013 |
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Sep 7, 2013 07:30
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Wasn't there already a RoboCop remake thread?
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Sep 7, 2013 07:45
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The idea of calling Jose Padhila a Hollywood director is really funny.
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Sep 7, 2013 07:45
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I'll just collect some of the things I said in the other thread. This is a PG-13 focus-group tested slickified 'safe bet' remake of a popular franchise from the past loaded with nostalgia that pretty much ensures the exclusion of: A) Any form of intellectual exercise, including difficult questions on the nature of identity and the process of death, the machinations of corporatism and subsumation of the individual, or the quintessential struggle for humanity to separate the self from technology. B) Any visceral or 'gory' visuals that would shock the viewer into a state of mental/emotional vulnerability that would allow for penetrating observations or reflections on a number of topics or that would add a sense of realism to ground the fantastic elements. In short, the film promises to be sterile and impotent both visually and intellectually - the exact opposite of Cronenberg, who has always sought to push the limits of the essential question; Who am I? Either by questioning the boundaries of the body and its uselessness as a border of self, or the mental/emotional aspect of identity which is even more malleable and less reliable than flesh, Cronenberg would seem to be the antithesis of the presented film in scope and depth. davidspackage posted:I'm trying not to judge the Robocop remake by comparison to its original, but what hits me immediately about the trailer is that Robo just looks like a guy in a fancy suit, not a ruined man grafted onto a metal construction.  This is an idiot in a plastic open-face balaclava. Notice how he looks like a dude at a costume party.  This is the remains of a human corpse wedged into a cradle of silicon and steel, a dead man's face mockingly affixed to its front. Notice how this closely resembles more a golem than a man and highlights the nightmarish waking death that has befallen the souless shade of Peter Murphy. (Really, the makeup effect they used in the original made it look as though OCP literally harvested his face and strapped it on as something close to an afterthought. It really struck me, and still does, as representing the thin veneer of false humanity they wished to slap on for the sake of some PR intern.)
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Sep 7, 2013 07:46
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The 'too slow' moment in the trailer with his wife is definitely going to be said again when he's Robocop to some bad guy in a massively clever callback. Also, I just realized he probably won't twirl his gun. Give me my Revolver Ocelot Robocop.
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Sep 7, 2013 07:51
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Oh man, I am so bummed that the remake of a movie that spawned a toy line and an cartoon for kids is going to be rated PG13. That's totally out of line.
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Sep 7, 2013 07:57
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Young Freud posted:Wasn't there already a RoboCop remake thread? LeJackal posted:(Really, the makeup effect they used in the original made it look as though OCP literally harvested his face and strapped it on as something close to an afterthought. It really struck me, and still does, as representing the thin veneer of false humanity they wished to slap on for the sake of some PR intern.) It's not like OCP straps his face to this shell to make the other cops on the force feel more at ease about a walking trial run of a machine that could replace them all if produced correctly, because the other cops never see his face (except for his partner, Officer Lewis). It's always hidden under the visor.
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Sep 7, 2013 07:59
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TheBigBudgetSequel posted:Oh man, I am so bummed that the remake of a movie that spawned a toy line and an cartoon for kids is going to be rated PG13. That's totally out of line. I'm pretty disappointed too that a movie that was pretty brilliant and subversive for its time about how we commoditize violence and sell it to people has been itself commoditized to sell violence- including a new remake of the movie that will do just that while pretending to have anything really to say about the original message. Oh you meant that ironically welp.
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Sep 7, 2013 08:04
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LeJackal posted:I'll just collect some of the things I said in the other thread. I don't know why you keep referencing Cronenberg since uh.. Paul Verhoeven directed the original Robocop and the original was Jesus Robot and a distinct send up of the 1980s and American Consumerism. Cronenberg deals with some Body Horror stuff but really his main focus is about the inherent alieness aspects of our psyche that are part of our inherent nature and society at large.
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Sep 7, 2013 08:08
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TheBigBudgetSequel posted:Oh man, I am so bummed that the remake of a movie that spawned a toy line and an cartoon for kids is going to be rated PG13. That's totally out of line. Lots of 80s poo poo that wasn't appropriate for kids had a toy line/video games. Should an Aliens remake be PG-13?
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Sep 7, 2013 08:10
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Yeah I mean they had Rambo action figures although that may have been to do with the cartoon, but yeah all rated R movies that were scifi usually had some sort of toy tie in.
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Sep 7, 2013 08:11
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Hollis posted:I don't know why you keep referencing Cronenberg since uh.. Paul Verhoeven directed the original Robocop and the original was Jesus Robot and a distinct send up of the 1980s and American Consumerism. Somebody else was suggesting how the remake could (somehow) have a Cronenberg aspect to it, LeJackal was responding to them.
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Sep 7, 2013 08:13
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On the topic of Robocop and kids: Robocop 2 shows a 10 year old boy rising to the top of the drug empire in Detroit, and it also shows a Little League baseball team robbing an electronics store and beating the poo poo out of the shopkeeper  Also, every time I think about Robocop 2, I think about these two scenes and I laugh and I laugh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdHA0_MXVoA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8xI3GznxbM Rageaholic fucked around with this message at 08:18 on Sep 7, 2013 |
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Sep 7, 2013 08:15
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zVxTeflon posted:Should an Aliens remake be PG-13? Given that next to nothing would have to be taken out of Aliens for it to get a modern-day PG-13, that's kind of a bad example.
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Sep 7, 2013 08:17
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Hollis posted:I don't know why you keep referencing Cronenberg since uh.. Paul Verhoeven directed the original Robocop and the original was Jesus Robot and a distinct send up of the 1980s and American Consumerism. Yeah, he was mentioned in the other thread (by another poster) from which these posts originate. Rageaholic Monkey posted:Maybe a while back, but not a live one. All the posting about it that was going on since the trailer came out was going on in various other threads. Then why have the face at all? They clearly separated it from his skull in the process of dumping his brain in a titanium armor bucket, and it serves no purpose. They could have used speakers for audio output and Cain got by with cameras just fine so the question goes back to 'why have a face at all?'. Aside from Alex Murphy being manipulated into his death (OCP arranged for him to be put in high risk situations, it was no wrong place/wrong time) the questions remains for Joe Blurphy, why have the face?
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Sep 7, 2013 08:19
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Rageaholic Monkey posted:On the topic of Robocop and kids: Robocop 2 shows a 10 year old boy rising to the top of the drug empire in Detroit, and it also shows a Little League baseball team robbing an electronics store and beating the poo poo out of the shopkeeper If only all of Robocop 2 was nearly as entertaining.
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Sep 7, 2013 08:23
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:If only all of Robocop 2 was nearly as entertaining. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfPyUracc5o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4irHW-FY-0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSBVlL89QHk I never understand why people poo poo on Robocop 2. It's not as good as the original, but it's still pretty drat good 
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Sep 7, 2013 08:29
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SALT CURES HAM posted:Given that next to nothing would have to be taken out of Aliens for it to get a modern-day PG-13, that's kind of a bad example. Whatever. So loving pick Alien, Terminator, Predator or any other example.
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Sep 7, 2013 08:34
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To rehash something I said in the Greenlight thread- I don't buy the "they're doing their own thing" argument as being very strong. From the trailer they haven't changed much to the original structure of the movie. Murphy is still there and a good guy cop with a family. OCP is still there as a big evil company. Murphy dies and is made Robocop against his will. OCP is in control of Robocop. Murphy struggles to return to himself. There's some action. You can't think it's not a Robocop film! So what do we know has changed? -Murphy's wife and kid are characters throughout the story -Murphy is far more cognizant and "himself" after the surgery than last time -There may or may not be a central Kirkwood Smith type bad guy -The climax may very well be Robocop versus OCP based on some of the scenes -They've slightly updated the message to 'drones are bad'...which drat don't cut yourself on that bleeding edge issue! -There are a bunch of Robocops! All those things humanize Robocop into just being Murphy, streamline the conflict down, point towards an ending that doesn't betray the hollowness of the genre, and raise the action/visual stakes. So it's doing it's own thing...by taking even fewer risks than the original? The satire and message in the story worked in part because Verhoeven also subverted elements of the genre, character and conflict common to an '80s cop/action film. That he did that without sacrificing the narrative cohesion or pace of the film was impressive.
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Sep 7, 2013 08:36
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DeclaredYuppie posted:-There may or may not be a central Kirkwood Smith type bad guy  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvi8Ehdt5XI
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Sep 7, 2013 08:39
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zVxTeflon posted:Whatever. So loving pick Alien, Terminator, Predator or any other example. Yeah, we already saw what happened when they started making PG-13 Terminator films - they became rubbish.
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Sep 7, 2013 08:43
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Looking back on the trailer and just focusing on Keaton, Jackson and Oldman. Keaton, like I mentioned in the other threads, looks like the only person having any fun in this. Also with the feng-shui office and relaxed biz-casual clothing, it seems like they're going for a slight Steve Jobs riff? Definitely fits the "let's go with black" line. I really like that update, shifting away from the power-suits of "The Old Man" and Dick Jones, and clearly targeting silicon valley types as being just as big pieces of poo poo as any conglomerate CEO. Jackson and Oldman seem capped though in this trailer. All we really see is them delivering exposition, but Jackson doesn't look/sound as dead as Mace Windu, and I feel like you can hear the edge of a mad scientist in Oldman's "Emotions and fear will always interfere with the program!" Obviously both have great resumes as scenery-chewers, and I would hope each gets a shot to really let it all out. I feel like if those three can work their magic, then I'll give this film (as otherwise presented in the trailer) a chance.
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Sep 7, 2013 09:34
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Rageaholic Monkey posted:Oh but it is! Has it been a while since you've seen it?  I too appreciate Robocop 2 as a decent movie (and vividly remember being a kid eating orange pudding while Robocop was smashing Cain's brain into the street). It's a very different movie, but so is Aliens to its first one. Sure, this remake may surprise folks, but for now I'm seeing nothing stimulating or challenging about it (as LeJackal said, in different words). Stuff like Robocop fighting multiple full-robot Robocops is so hackneyed. The thing just has big shoes to fill. You can say "well, do you just want a shot-for-shot remake of the original then?" but no, I don't want that - if you're going to do a retread of Robocop, I want you do to something interesting with the premise, and this doesn't look like it. 1987 Robocop could so easily have been a forgettable piece of poo poo. Just look at the stupid title. But because it got the right director, starring actor, and writing, we got something interesting.
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Sep 7, 2013 10:27
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I read a little something from the director on CNN which makes me a little more hopeful.quote:"I actually had a take ... which is we’re in the future, and drones have been replaced by robots and are being used all over the world for foreign policy and war," Padilha explained. "Kind of like instead of sending soldiers to Iraq, you send robots to Tehran." I have to admit, that's an interesting idea in itself, and would make kind of a neat movie on its own.
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Sep 7, 2013 10:42
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The difference between something like this and the recent Evil Dead is that Evil Dead directly tried to recreate the ambiance of an entire decade and genre of film, and did so while consciously trying to make the film relevant to modern times. The director of this film essentially stated he won't even try to do the former, so what's the point? The reason these remakes exist is because a lot of people not only just want some sort of nostalgic callback, but because the film making in each and every decade has been decidedly different in its flavor and approach. So, to put it in a nutshell creating a remake of an 80s action film, a decade that was known for its over the top hyperviolence and super stylized antics, and then reducing it down to a PG-13 formula, is the absolute antithesis of what makes a suitable remake in this case. It's not about being shot for shot, it's not about even being faithful to the plot construction of the original, it's about the feeling, about the voice of the film. You don't have to recreate Verhoeven, you simply have to recreate, or at least establish a facsimile, of that same atmosphere, the same voice that films from the decade possessed. Watch Evil Dead, watch The House of the Devil, most importantly, watch Beyond the Black Rainbow for examples of films that all did it right. This is just uninspired, by the numbers junk. There's nothing here about tapping into the flavor and feelings of an era, it's about transplanting a name and image into the 2010's without carrying over any of the personality. It's soulless.
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Sep 7, 2013 11:24
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Yeah, I don't know. From the trailer apart (<-note this), it seems like a movie that has Robocop. The first one was a movie around Robocop. I don't know how to really phrase it, but I'm getting serious Total Recall remake vibes from this. Ed: Skeptical but Hopeful would be a proper way to put it, I guess. ubergnu fucked around with this message at 01:45 on Sep 8, 2013 |
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Sep 7, 2013 12:16
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As someone younger than Robocop and was never that attached to it, this looks better than the paparazzi shots and leaks implied. I hope everyone older than 25 doesn't just automatically poo poo on it and try to justify it by coming up with some bullshit barometer of success designed for it to fail to prove they're right.
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Sep 7, 2013 12:54
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Noxville posted:Yeah, we already saw what happened when they started making PG-13 Terminator films - they became rubbish. Terminator 3 was rated R, and has been poo poo on probably more than any film barring its sequel. Szmitten posted:As someone younger than Robocop and was never that attached to it, this looks better than the paparazzi shots and leaks implied. I hope everyone older than 25 doesn't just automatically poo poo on it and try to justify it by coming up with some bullshit barometer of success designed for it to fail to prove they're right. Yeah, this sounds like a bunch of preemptive whining from the "MY DEAD FRANCHISE" who want to sound right if it turns out the film is actually bad.
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Sep 7, 2013 13:09
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It looks bland. That's my problem. It doesn't look gritty or ugly enough to be Robocop. edit: When you're making a remake you have to realize if you do a worse job than the original people are going to poo poo on it. That has always been.
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Sep 7, 2013 13:23
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From having seen the lead in a few Swedish movies I know he can act, at least. Between him, oldman, keaton and jackson they have a lot of fun actors involved. Hopefully the director can tap into that potential
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Sep 7, 2013 13:42
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I don't know why it bothers me more than anything else, but having Robocop be all agile and jumping from building to building like Spiderman just doesn't work.
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Sep 7, 2013 15:49
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A lot of you have already articulated most of my feelings towards this already, so I'm just going to point out that the music in this doesn't sound like it's even trying. The Basil Poledouris track was a large part of what made the original such a great film. If this trailer is any indication (and why the hell wouldn't it be), the remake's soundtrack is going to be bland, generic, and uninspired.
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Sep 7, 2013 15:58
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Command Ant posted:If this trailer is any indication (and why the hell wouldn't it be), the remake I went ahead and correct your statement for accuracy. You're welcome.
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Sep 7, 2013 16:02
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I for one can't understand why a trailer would present a movie about a Robot Cop as a generic action movie instead of focusing on any deeper themes. This is the same asinine "Not my Robocop" whining that's been happening since the first pictures leaked.
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Sep 7, 2013 16:10
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Command Ant posted:A lot of you have already articulated most of my feelings towards this already, so I'm just going to point out that the music in this doesn't sound like it's even trying. The Basil Poledouris track was a large part of what made the original such a great film. If this trailer is any indication (and why the hell wouldn't it be), the remake's soundtrack is going to be bland, generic, and uninspired. Trailer tend to use temp music since the score isn't always finished until late in the process. Though that is the big thing that puts me off the film, how generic everything about it looks. The original Robocop is a really kind of strange film in a lot of ways, and there really wasn't anything like it at the time it came out. Whereas this version looks exactly like everything else.
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Sep 7, 2013 16:10
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Noxville posted:Trailer tend to use temp music since the score isn't always finished until late in the process. Then perhaps it's because that subject matter is covered fairly extensively these days? I mean we've had quite a few films that covered Robocop's themes in just the past few years - Elysium and Dredd specifically.
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Sep 7, 2013 16:12
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Szmitten posted:As someone younger than Robocop and was never that attached to it, this looks better than the paparazzi shots and leaks implied. I hope everyone older than 25 doesn't just automatically poo poo on it and try to justify it by coming up with some bullshit barometer of success designed for it to fail to prove they're right. computer parts posted:Yeah, this sounds like a bunch of preemptive whining from the "MY DEAD FRANCHISE" who want to sound right if it turns out the film is actually bad. JebanyPedal posted:The difference between something like this and the recent Evil Dead is that Evil Dead directly tried to recreate the ambiance of an entire decade and genre of film, and did so while consciously trying to make the film relevant to modern times. The director of this film essentially stated he won't even try to do the former, so what's the point? The reason these remakes exist is because a lot of people not only just want some sort of nostalgic callback, but because the film making in each and every decade has been decidedly different in its flavor and approach.
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Sep 7, 2013 16:21
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Except that post is doing the exact same thing, whining about how it's not True To Robocop based on some pictures and ninety seconds of scenes that are arranged in a different order adn context from the final movie. Glad that's all it takes to deem a movie "soulless" these days.
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Sep 7, 2013 16:24
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Dickeye posted:I for one can't understand why a trailer would present a movie about a Robot Cop as a generic action movie instead of focusing on any deeper themes. This is the same asinine "Not my Robocop" whining that's been happening since the first pictures leaked. Seriously. People need to go back and watch the trailer for the original film. I did it while discussing this on facebook, and the original Robocop trailer doesn't make it look like anything special. No political subtext, no complex internal struggle, just a cop who gets turned into a cyborg. With that in mind, I can't just write off the remake based on the trailer.
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Sep 7, 2013 16:26
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