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 easily accessible 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.
VHS Screens
I must have seen RoboCop, the first movie, either in early 1990 or shortly prior, as a youngster. 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 I did get to see the full movie, at least sort of, because my eyes were covered by my parents throughout most of it. They were into the movie so much themselves that they didn't want to turn it off, and knowing it would be kind of unfair to tell me I can't watch the movie that was rented for me and then watching it themselves, they let me stay but covered my eyes in nearly every scene
So at first I missed all those R rated goodies...
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. I wonder which scene they got to. Did they even get past the dialogue in Clarence's van?
2 years later, after I already saw the 2nd movie, I stayed almost entire night to tape the first movie off of a very late showing on TV on New Year's Eve when my parents were out. By that point it was the longest I stayed up at night. Naturally, after I got it on tape, I got to know the movie by memory, and watched it whenever I had the chance (which was about once a week). I remember being really taken by the seriousness of the film, despite the satiric angle (which, in my young age, I did not get). The violence and people in it were just so real. Paul Verhoeven's name was deeply engraved in my mind, and he proved to be an amazing director in my eyes after I saw Total Recall - another adult scifi which was just plain badass for the younger viewers and adults alike.
I've seen many R rated movies before (Not that I was allowed to, but I always took a peek at whatever my parents were watching as much as I could), so it wasn't traumatizing. As a youngster I just took it as a world of this particular film, with really bad people in it, but like in any other story, the good defeats/destroys evil, so I think in kid's eyes, that's the most important constant. It's interesting that the older you get, the more it gets to you and more violent and disturbing it becomes for you. Kids don't see it the way adults think they do, which explains why back in the days many kids were fine consistently watching R rated movies like Rambo, Terminator 2 or Predator. As long as the hero wins and the bad guys are defeated, it's fine. However, the murder scene of Murphy I believe is indeed too much for young kids, even the generation of that time. I'm glad I haven't seen it originally, but those two years later - a time that did make a difference. It's not even the violence of it, but the sadism throughout the scene that's unnerving.
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 than it was when I was a young boy. 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, and it isn't a skilled soldier or muscled guy. 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 absolutely minimalistic. There is nearly no future tech at all (other than some very minimalistic and gritty stuff sprinkled here and there), no super computers, no futuristic cars. Even the few scifi elements/sets are very grounded, they're very retro-future style, like the original Alien. Take a look at Robo's lab and the Police Data center for example
And the only "futuristic" weapons, Cobra Assault Cannons, are actually simply existing Barrett M82 long-range .50 BMG rifles fitted with fictional scopes. Sure, there's ED-209, but he is basically a walking turret with preprogrammed sentences
And the villains in this scifi movie use mostly an old, battered 1968 Chevrolet!
All this makes the movie much more real and identifiable. Also adds a specific texture and look to it. The environments are mostly crumbled downtown streets and rusted abandoned industrial areas. And that is an example of how back in the days, the lack of CGI and budget helped. Originally, it was suppose to be all futuristic world in the vein of Blade Runner. RoboCop had his own supercar. But budget didn't allow it because the suit took most of it. And thanks to that, we have a very real, nitty gritty scifi thriller
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 moaned 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 that makes ALL the difference. This is why we can emphatise with him. We feel for him. He's basically a Frankenstein monster, not knowing who, what he is, not understanding his feelings, or what is happening to him.
Had he been just a robot, I really don't think it would work. But there's a human being in that prosthetic body. And not only it makes him more relatable, it adds to the pathos
As far as the cope of the film, I never really thought of the movie as low budget, because I 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 very desaturated, and day scenes are shot on groggy, murky days. There's always a gray sky in the movie, it's never sunny.
Even the silver Robocop is so murky in colors that he doesn't really stand out color-wise. Look how he blends with every environment. It looks like a charcoal sketch
It's almost 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.
My favorite part is Robo's rediscovery of his past. His search for his identity, who he was, who killed him. Where he lived. That for me is phenomenally well done and I think it's the main hook of the story
The soundtrack, done by Basil Poledouris of Conan Fame, matches the movie perfectly. It's not your typical action orchestral score. It's primal with heaviness to it. It's still in Conan's style for the most part, but with some action synth sounds of the 1980's. That mix of the powerful "Prehistoric might' in the score and the 1980's action elements make it a fairly unique but very strong and fitting soundtrack for the movie
Now let's go back to the early 1990's. Months after seeing the first movie for the first time, RoboCop 2 was hitting theaters. From my perspective, it had a pretty good 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 an expensive 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 to my cousin one evening, who had a much older brother in his late teens - all pierced up, with mohawk, he came with his Punk 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, and the fact it's a forbidden film for youngsters.
And then a week later I did stop by again one evening and lo and behold, my cousins were in the middle of watching RoboCop 2. And what a moment to join 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 teenage sisters rented it for themselves and 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. The second movie was basically Godzilla vs King Kong. You know it's gonna go down and the movie builds up for it.
How did I react to Hob? Again, like with the first movie, as a kid you just take it for what it is. From the TV News I knew there are some bad kids and bad stuff in the world, I saw footage of some kids holding machine guns in some third world countries, and combined with a fact that I knew it's a movie it just didn't phase me like adults would think it would a kid.
The second movie became like a holy grail for me shortly after seeing it for the first time because for some reason it became unavailable in all the rental places, with the first and, years later, third, widely available everywhere. I tried to track the movie everywhere later on with no luck. After a long time all I could get my hands on was the novelization, which I passionately read because by that point my memory of it was very faint. It was the first R rated book I've ever read.
The first movie was occasionally on TV, but never the second one. 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 scale, especially after I already knew the original backwards and forwards after viewing it so many times on my VCR. But that unavailability added tremendously to my desire to see it again. I couldn't even find an image from the movie (my edition of the novelization had an artwork based on a photo from the first movie). I finally found one image from it years later in a magazine that I dug out and it was all I had. Man was I excited to even find that one image.
About 3 or 4 years later, when I was in my mid/late teens, movies were available for purchase, but RoboCop 2 was still elusive! By then I knew the 1st and 3rd as if I had made them, but the second one was still like a Holy Grail. Through a friend that knew a distributor in a major city 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. Once that Orion logo started forming, my heart was racing. And man 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 the new music composer, and how blue and shiny Robo is in this one, as if he's covered in layers of epoxy.
(If you're thinking that he is not as blue on your bluray, you're probably right. The screenshots above are from RoboCop Triple Feature dvd, but Shout Factory Bluray toned down the color substantially. Example HERE)
The other thing that surprised me was that the director was Irvin Kershner, known the most of course for The Empire Strikes Back, and that the writer is Frank Miller of The Dark Knight Returns Comic Book fame!
I loved that element of variety in the series, and at the time I thought RoboCop 2 was so much like the first one, as if the first movie continued past credits.
Nowadays, I don't think that at all, and I'm chuckling at that opinion. 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 RoboCop 2, it's the opposite. The characters are very unique and very movie/Comic-book like. There's Cain the Nuke Cult guru, murderous kid Hob, Elvis-looking guy Catzo, character called Gilette
and Angie, who at one point sports a comic book-like costume and at one time uses futuristic weapon against RoboCop
While I still very much love the movie for very different reasons, it does feel like a big(gger) Hollywood action scifi, rather than a gritty, realistic human revenge story. Stylistically, the movie differs radically as well. The original is very gray 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 is the complete opposite of that visual style. Days are bright and blue
It's got very strong colors and a color theme - interestingly, heavily highlights two colors - Robo's steely blue and crimson red of Nuke, which are found everywhere throughout the film, if not on those two elements.
There are blue trucks, suits, Hob's machine guns and more, and there are crimson drapes, banners, hats etc. When mixed together they create a colorful, stylized graphic novel look. Examples:
Look how this color theme is cleverly scattered throughout the film. Sometimes Dr Faxx has blue suit and red lipstick. The model from the Sunblock commercial wears a red hat and then smears herself blue
Even the cars form the color scheme, and RoboCain's digital face. There's plenty of that in the movie
The cinematographer, Mark Irwin, who worked a lot with David Cronenberg, did a great stylized work here. It looks great, and I love it, but it's a very different look from the original. It's a comic book look. And I really find that juxtaposition interesting - the movie is insanely violent and nasty, yet it's very colorful and bright.
The sci-fi element is on full display here as oppose to the original where it was toned down, with some very sci-fi looking labs,
Also, the tone, the ultra violence, the lack of empathy and the humor are absolutely consistent with the original to a point. What do I mean by that? For years I've heard Nancy Allen and others say that the movie is cruel and mean, and it puzzled me for a while because the original was violent and sadistic. It took me a while to see the difference. In the original, the ultra violence serves a purpose within a story. Murphy's "crucifixion" is so violent and disturbing to create a strong sympathy for a character that has only been onscreen for few minutes before that. The executive's death in the board room is meant to be comical by being over the top. The guy gets chopped to pieces like in video games and then someone calls for paramedic which is absurd to the point of being intentionally funny. The violence in RoboCop 2 however is pure sadism and cruelty with no point. I get it now
And while some things were a nailbiter from the start, I’m far more disturbed by the cruelty in the movie than I ever was before. Some things make my stomach sick. And it’s not even the gore itself. Sure, things like murder by surgery without anesthesia is horrific, but what makes the scene disturbing is a young boy being forced to watch it. Robocop is being murdered once again, and this time not only do they mutilate him first, they spray him with his own blood and ask how does it taste. That is truly sick and there are a lot of moments like that in the movie. Innocent people are being killed on a whim throughout the movie. There's an infant taken as a hostage with a machine gun pointed at his head. Dr Faxx is staring with curiosity at the man she just denied oxygen gasping for air until he dies. The movie is mean and nasty
The gore is turned up from the original as well. This time we see skulls cut open and people being shot in the eye with automatic pistol.
What is also consistent is the portrayal of RoboCop. What I mean by that is that he's a human being in an armor, not a monotone robot. He feels pain and anger, just like in the first picture
The movie's flawed but still very interesting, and in many ways very weird. The music sets it aside as well. This film's like a colorful, yet cruel and gory graphic novel, scored with a very classical orchestral music that would fit movies in the 1950's, along with some jazz thrown in, tubas and angelic choir. Talk about juxtaposition and surrealism. The composer, Leonard Rosenman, was a composer who scored the classic Rebel Without a Cause in 1955.
It's all very surreal (the boss villain is a drug addicted robot!). It's that weirdness, quirkiness of the film, the whole bizarre comic book look and feel with a 50's soundtrack that makes this film one of a kind and just deliciously weird and very unique.
In late 1993 or early 1994, among my peers Robocop was pretty much forgotten. We expected a sequel because of the open ending of the 2nd one, but after few years we forgot about it.
One evening, my cousin who was my age stopped by on her way from a video rental place for quick hello, and showed me three new releases that her family was going to watch over the weekend. And to my shock, one of them was RoboCop 3! I was shocked because I, like everyone else, had no idea it existed. I assumed that the fact that a third Robocop movie was 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 because there was no buzz about it, nobody cared about it (Everyone was into Jurassic Park), and it was out on VHS suddenly just like that. For the first time I watched a Robocop movie alone in my room, with no one else giving a crap about it.
The movie felt off, and at the time I didn't know why. 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 and 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. Or perhaps that's not the budget drop. Today I think it's the movie's sharp tonal shift back to the real world that made me feel this way.
And it didn't feel like a RoboCop movie at all, it felt like an unrelated movie with RoboCop in it. I think it was a combination of lack of Peter Weller, Dan O'Herlihy, change of tone and the fact that RoboCop is downgraded to secondary character. And all the kids stuff like jetpack and gunarm. For some reasoon the movie reminded me immediately of the awful Meteor Man from the same year (1993)
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. And it creates an interesting sandwich effect, since the third movie is going back to the style of the original. Director Fred Dekker, who directed low budget films and some Tales From The Crypt episodes, was a big fan of the first movie but didn't hide his dislike for the second:
Fred Dekker: "The first picture ends on the perfect note, where the Old Man turns to RoboCop and says 'Nice Shooting son. What's your name?' and he says 'Murphy'. That's the theme that was toyed with in Robocop 2 and ultimately thrown away in favor of doing a Ray Harryhausen movie."(Starlog #181)
The music, the color palette, RoboCop's suit color, and many other elements of the original movie make a comeback
So while I kind of like it as a third movie in a trilogy, 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, RoboCop 3 does continue the grim tone and violence of the series, just without the graphic details. After all, Lewis dies, and so do many of the other main characters. Even Niko's parents are murdered (offscreen but still)!
The movie IS bleak, and continues that classic RoboCop 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. With villains, the movie does return to more everyday people, rather than the flashy characters of the previous film. McDagget is this movie's version of Dick Jones
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 RoboCop 3. I don't blame it on Robert Burke, I blame it on the direction. Up this page when reviewing the original film I mentioned that the fact that he's a human being with anger, fear and pain is what made the character work. RoboCop 3 introduced, and popularized, the idea that RoboCop is only a robot with some human tissue. He shows no emotion whatsoever, and most of his dialogue is this: "A vehicle is approaching", "Scanning", "My Efficiency rate is 94%". When he gets his arm destroyed in the previous film, he snarls at his enemies saying "I will kill you!". In this movie when his arm is chopped off, he looks at it blankly and says to the culprit that he is under arrest for destroying police property...
His expression or voice tone never changes throughout the movie, never shows any emotions or humanity. He doesn’t even do his signature gun twirl!
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 natured resistance fighters and computer genius kid Niko try to fix to have help in fight for their cause. Robo is a background 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. He's broken throughout most of the movie and Louis is killed off: both characters are swept aside for new characters. He's just a background while the actual main characters have their scenes
That is something confirmed by the director Fred Dekker. In Audio Commentary for Shout Bluray edition, Dekker indeed questions whether it’s a Robocop movie and admits he was more interested in the Resistance characters, Niko and Marie than Robocop, and that’s why Robocop is immobilized for most of the film to make room for the characters that had taken over in this installment. And that’s one of the reasons why Louis was killed off early on, to make room for new characters. Before you light your torches, it’s not that Dekker didn’t like Robocop, just the opposite, he was a huge fan of the original. But he thought that Robo’s arc has been done and completed in the first film and there’s nothing interesting to do with him after that. And didn’t think Louis fit anywhere within the new story. So Robocop is basically shoehorned in this movie. Think about it: the main characters of the film and it’s main plot is the Resistance group fighting Rehabs for their homes. It’s Bertha and her squatters, with former OCP scientist Marie and the little orphan Niko, who the movie is about and who are the leads. It’s their cause, it’s their fight for their homes and freedom from oppression. It’s a fairly good stories, they’re good characters played by very good actors, “but is it a Robocop movie?”, like Dekker asked himself? Robocop is basically forced into this story. None of those characters, good or bad, were even in the previous movies. But to play devil’s advocate, what do you do so it’s not just “yet another” sequel. You have to change the formula and come up with something new without being way off, and to be fair, I think he did it well. New characters and new war is introduced, and Robo is a renegade outlaw. At the end, Sgt Reed fights for citizen’s homes which gives the character a nice spotlight, even if the whole idea is cheesy.
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.
RoboCop 3 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. But amazingly, while it was $10 million cheaper than its big predecessor, RoboCop 3 was not cheap - it was double the budget of the original! So why does it feel low budget? Is it the mere fact that it had no push and wasn't highly anticipated? Or was it Dekker not being able to present a story in an epic way, since he only had experience in TV and low budget flicks?
Even writing this, the ninja androids were so exciting (sarcasm) 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. I mean, what else you can do? It does seem like an agile, fast, human looking cyborg is the way to go. It's the approach of T2 a little bit here - don't go bigger, go leaner. But while I was the biggest cyborg fan you can be, Otomo was a massive disappointment. I was a fan of hardware and robotics, and naturally a huge fan of Terminator, but Otomo didn't have any reveal, didn't have any cool mechanics underneath that I was looking forward to. What you saw is what you got, and if damaged, Otomo would crack like a porcelain doll. Nowadays I think it's actually the right approach. You don't want to just copy Terminator like all those exploitation B movies, and creating a visual of a fractured Japanese doll is indeed a good unique way of presenting such villain.
Dekker was puzzled on the audio commentary why fans hates the inclusion of Ninjas. Let me just say this: imagine ninjas with swords in the first film. Enough said. Even thought the second movie went into the comic book territory, it stayed beyond the boundaries of the original film. Ninjas just don’t fit that universe, especially since Dekker was returning to the realistic world of the first. Along with the jetpack and PG13 rating, it steers the movie into the action figure commercial. Ninjas, robocop with detachable arms, rocket launcher and jet pack?
The story is fine I think, and the movie does have some heart and of course, a great score by the returning Basil Poledouris. The cinematography is pretty good as well and is definitely worth a mention. The movie makes a great use of shadows, it's really quite a nice piece of work visually as far as the cinematography. The color palette goes back to the bleak colors of the original movie.
The night cinematography is often very impressive as well. Cinematographer Gary Kibbe, who worked a lot with John Carpenter, uses different shades of darkness which he likes to sprinkle with contrasting light, like burning fires or lightbulbs. He uses gray to paint over the darkness, which goes back to the original movie where deep dark was highlighted with concrete gray colors. Really nice work. The movie does return to the color theme of the original, which is browns and gray, although the colors are much stronger and the overall look is cleaner.
The day scenes are bright and blue however, so they didn't go for the fully desaturated, gloomy look.
Perhaps nothing says "back to the real streets" other than the vans from the obligatory Robocop Trilogy Van Chases (this time there's two). Other than markings on the OCP van, there aren't any futuristic or unusual designs for the cars in this film
The futuristic sets aren't exactly as gritty as in the original, but they're still somewhere in the middle between realism and scifi, and they certainly aren't overly futuristic
The movie does also go back to the more real world of the original, however, completely devoid of drugs and not as violent and crime ridden - after all, in the original film, Murphy and Lewis could not get a backup because all units were busy engaging. In RoboCop 3 Lewis and other cops waited for the backup while all the cops were in the Donut shop. Detroit is consistently portrayed as a crumbling city in this movie as well, and the OCP tower design isn't consistent again but isn't over the top either. It's interesting to note it's the only RoboCop movie which (briefly) moves outside Detroit, and outside US
The movie doesn't try to hide the fact it's trying to go back to the roots 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 two movies at all. As I said, I like it as a part of the Trilogy, but as a separate movie in its own right, if it wasn't part of the trilogy, I doubt I would ever come back to it.
Comments
Post a Comment