Perhaps it's time to throw in some personal stuff into the blog, and I thought, why not just describe watching the three films for the first time back in the days, something I did with other movie classics on different blogs I write for.
Not to sound like an old guy, but viewing movies back in the 80's and 90's was completely different because there was a mystique about them. You didn't have Making Of clips, you didn't know everything about the actors or the director, or the design of the film. You opened that clamshell VHS box, and there was a journey awaiting you. You didn't know how effects were done most of the time, and you had no spoilers other than publicity pics in magazines and basic plot details (Unless you read novelizations), and whatever was on the back cover of that VHS tape.
RoboCop (1987)
I must have seen RoboCop, the first movie, either in early 1990 or shortly prior, as a very young kid. My unsuspecting father rented it for me thinking it's going to be some kind of silly superhero movie, and that the character was something like the Robot from Duck Tales. And looking at the cover, I also thought it's going to be a guy dressed in robotic suit to fight crime. Of course, you can only imagine the surprise. To be honest I remember the day of the first viewing and watching the very beginning, but not much else, so I can't describe my reaction, other than feeling as if I witnessed a real murder.
But the very next day I told everyone I knew in school and in the neighborhood about the film. Some asked their parents to rent it and unfortunately for them, they watched it with them so my friends only got to see a couple of first minutes until their parents shut it off. But I did get to see the full movie, at least sort of, because my eyes were covered by my parents throughout most of it.
About 2 years later I stayed almost entire night to tape the first movie off a late showing on TV. Naturally, after I got it on tape, I came to know the movie by memory, and watched it whenever I had the chance. I remember being really taken by the seriousness of the film, despite the satiric angle. The violence and people in it were so real. I wished for the second film but it never aired. Of course as a youngster, you really wanted to have the one with the cool Monster Robot and bigger budget, especially after I already knew the original backwards and forwards after viewing it so many times on my VCR. Paul Verhoeven's name was deeply engraved in my mind, and he proved to be an amazing director soon after with Total Recall, another adult scifi which was just plain badass for the younger viewers.
Nowadays, as I view it from a perspective of a decades older guy who has wife and kids, my perspective on the first film is of course somewhat different. It's just as "cool" as it ever was, but as a kid I always thought of it as an appetizer for the second film (after I saw the second naturally), because it was more real, less scifi. Nowadays, I view those characteristics as positives. The movie is not only real with violence, but real with the portrayal of people. Look, the main villain isn't some supervillain with cool design, it's a balding short guy in glasses. And that makes him so real. He is one of the most terrifying villains in cinema, because he feels and looks like a real life crook, drug lord and a murderer. Clarence Boddicker channels lack of empathy and cruelty with an unnerving realism. The movie is so real and grounded that if you would take out the element of a robot/cyborg, and replaced it with someone who, let's say, barely survived and got back to form to avenge his would be killers, it would be the same movie nearly. The element of scifi is minimalistic. There is no future tech at all (other than the video home tour guide), no super computers, no futuristic cars. And what drives the movie is a person with no memory of who he was, going on a journey to discover his past and tracking down those who killed him. And Robocop was not just a robot/cyborg - he had all the emotional elements of a man - he was angry, he screamed in pain, he gritted his teeth during nightmares, he screamed in agony when hurt. That's what made him different. It was Murphy, just with new armor, and no memories of his past. Not a robot.
And I couldn't really think of the movie as low budget, because it felt like it showed and achieved what it meant to achieve. Other than the OCP tower, no environment was designed. They use real gritty places. Abandoned factories, warehouses, downtown urban decay. Even Robocop's lab was just a small area inside a battered old building with chipping paint, surrounded by chainlink fence. The look of the film is a concrete grey, and every day scene is shot in a groggy, murky day. It's hard to call this film a sci fi film because the scifi element is so minimalistic and everything else, from story to characters to environment is more real than what most non-scifi movies show.
RoboCop 2 (1990)
Going back to the early 90's, months after seeing the first movie for the first time, RoboCop 2 was hitting theaters. From my perspective, it had a pretty decent marketing and hype and everyone was talking about it, but my friends and I weren't even counting on seeing it. We knew there was no way. There was no way our parents would rent a new release for us that's a heavy R. By that point everyone knew what RoboCop was. But I did get to see a part of it before my peers did. I went over for a day to my cousin, who had a much older brother in his late teens - all pierced up, wearing mohawk, he came with his bad boy friends with a new NES RoboCop 2 game. We all sat around and watched them play it, listening how they couldn't wait to see the new movie, supposedly even bloodier than the first one. Stuff like that just makes you want to see the movie even more. Older kids drooling about it, the fact it's a forbidden film for youngsters. And then a week later I did stop by one late evening and lo and behold, my cousins were in the middle of watching RoboCop 2. And what a moment to start watching the movie - I joined in moment before the monstrous RoboCain massacred everyone in the warehouse. Right after Robocop arrived at the scene, I had to go home. But two days later my much older sisters rented it for themselves and yet again I was able to see it (although again mostly through covered eyes). All I remember from that viewing was that I thought the Robocop 2 monster was one of the coolest looking things ever. Hey, that is a normal takeaway from that movie for a kid. And the second movie became like a holy grail for me after some time, because for some reason it became unavailable in all the rental places, with the first and, in time, third, widely available everywhere. I tried to track the movie everywhere later on with no luck. All I could get my hands on was the novelization, which I passionately read.
In my late teens, when movies were available for purchase, R2 was still elusive but through some friends I managed to place a special order and finally get it. I was so eager to see because by that point I haven't seen it since being a kid. I loved it, I loved it as much as I did when I first saw it, but was surprised about how different it was from what I imagined (I remember next to nothing from my first viewing). I was also surprised about some new elements, like a new music composer, and how blue and shiny Robo is in this one, as if he's covered in epoxy. The other thing that surprised me was that the director was Irvin Kershner, known the most of course for The Empire Strikes Back. I loved that element of variety in the series, and at the time I thought R2 was so much like the first one.
Nowadays, I don't think that at all. First of all, as I already mentioned, the first movie is incredibly grounded. It feels very real, and the characters don't feel like movie characters. At all. In R2, it's the opposite. While I still very much love the movie for different reasons, it does feel like a big(gger) Hollywood action scifi, rather than a gritty, realistic human revenge story. Stylistically, the movie differs a lot as well. The original is very grey and has washed up colors throughout. Again, note that every scene in the original is either in the dark or on a groggy day. There is never a clear sky, never a sun. The second picture has very strong colors, and interestingly heavily highlights two colors, Robo's steel blue and crimson red colors. It looks great, and I love it, but it's very different look from the original. It's a graphic novel look. And the music sets it aside as well. However, the tone, the ultra violence, the lack of empathy and the humor are absolutely consistent with the original. The movie's flawed but still very interesting, and in some ways very weird. It's like a colorful but cruel and gory graphic novel, scored with a very classical music sounding score that would fit movies in the 50's. It's all very surreal. It's that weirdness, quirkiness of the film, the whole odd comic book look and feel with a classic soundtrack that makes this film one of a kind and just plain deliciously weird and very unique.
RoboCop 3 (1993)
in late '93 or early '94, among my peers Robocop was pretty much forgotten. One day the cousin that was my age stopped by on his way from a video rental place for quick hello, and showed me three new releases that his family was going to watch over the weekend. And to my shock, one of them was RoboCop 3! I was shocked because I assumed the fact that a third Robocop movie being made alone would have been a hot topic on everyone's tongues, nevermind it suddenly being out on VHS! Yet nobody ever mentioned it and nobody knew it existed. I rented it as soon as it was available, but this time it felt weird that there was no buzz about it, nobody cared about it, and it was out on VHS suddenly just like that. For the first time I watched a Robocop movie (for the first time) alone in my room, with no one else caring. The movie felt off, and at the time I didn't know it was the PG13 rating was one of the reasons it felt this way. It just felt off, and not at all like a sequel to the first two films. And something was very off with Robocop, but I couldn't tell what it is. Then when the credits began to roll, I realized what it was, but at the same time I was shocked Peter Weller isn't in it. Shocked. But I also didn't know it wasn't just the casting change. The movie felt like a low key VHS film, not unlike anything else that was out there, and such a step down from, what it felt like a big budget extravaganza and blockbuster that was the second film.
Today, if I look at this movie as a part of the trilogy, I sort of like it because it gives the trilogy a variety which I like very much. But at the same time, if it makes sense, the movie itself can be easily seen as a terrible sequel to the first two films. But while it's easy to point at the PG13 rating as the culprit, I don't think it's that at all. Sure, the first two RoboCop movies are known for their nasty R rated violence, but the amount of red liquid doesn't really determine a good story or a good sequel. And all things considered, R3 does continue the grim tone and violence of the series, just without the graphic details. Hey, Lewis dies, and so do many of the other main characters. Even Niko's parents are murdered! The movie IS bleak, and continues that somber tone. And the lack of empathy is also present heavily here, with McDagget being a worthy villain, even if a bit of a non-event after the first two films and their characters. So what is it? The little girl Niko? Well, I think there are two reasons why the movie does not work as a Robocop movie or a sequel, and they're both related to the title character. Number one: Robo is just a robot. The humanity in him, any characteristics, any character, is completely gone. He is monotone, stiff, and does not channel any humanity at all. He doesn't react to pain, talks like a robot, doesn't even get basic human behaviors, such as jokes. For some reason, which I believe to be just mishandling of the character, Robo is just a plain stiff police robot in R3.
Reason Two: for the first time, Robo is not the main character of the film. He is a sidekick, he is a gadget, a big toy that the good hearted resistance fighters and computer genius girl Niko try to fix to have help in fight for their cause. Robo is a device, and the main characters are Marie and Niko, while the supporting characters are the Resistance bunch. Robo isn't even the supporting character here. And true, the story, while feeling bleak and hopeless in many places, does feel like a VHS film geared towards a pre-teen to early teen audience first and foremost. Plus, the grounded realism of the original is completely shattered here, with Robo having gun arms and flying in the sky saving the day. And yes, if you have a good hearted kid, who is also an ethnic minority, and a computer genius, as a main character, you are gearing towards the younger audience.
R3 still feels the same way as it did back in the days - it feels like a much cheaper, straight to video sequel by a relative unknown, with no thrills. Even writing this, the ninja androids were so exciting that I almost forgot to mention them here. They were a non event, albeit I must admit, it is something of a fresh idea after Robo battled larger robots in the first two. The story is fine I think, and the movie does have some heart and a great score by the returning Basil Poledouris, and the cinematography is nice. The movie doesn't try to hide the fact it's trying to go back to roots in a way, and is trying to be a sequel to the original, but despite the similar color palette, music and certain other elements, it doesn't gel with the other movies at all.
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