I love novelizations. Just love them. It's basically reading your favorite movies as a book, and it's nothing like a transcript. It's a novel. There are movies based on novels, and there are novels based on early scripts of movies - novelizations. Novelizations went into each character's head, explained all the minutia stuff a movie didn't have time or didn't need to explain. And I just love to read books, so the marriage of books and films is a perfect mix for me. Often novelizations differ drastically from the finished movie, but sometimes they are barely different than the movie. So which one is it with RoboCop?
The novelization for the first movie was written by Ed Naha, who wrote such movies as Honey, I Shrunk The Kids, Dolls and Troll, among others. The novelization of the first film up until the climax differ very little from the finished film which was a surprise for me because I thought Verhoeven changed the script more drastically. But other than the omitted beginning (which is great and horror-like in a novel form), there's very little that's different. It's very interesting to see what's actually going on in Robo's head when he's starting his discovery about his past. It's very interesting to see how this machine, which doesn't know what it is, takes it all in step by step. It's thoughts, it's confusion, it's reaction to it all.
The original climax is terrible thought. Extremely convoluted and crowded, with repetitive gags, too many lucky coincidences and the action that is loud but not tense. There are even Doberman dogs thrown in which save the day at one point.
The novelization of the second film is also written by Ed Naha, which brings a nice consistency. I would say that most often than not, the original author returns for the sequels. So how's the second novelization? RoboCop 2 had a rushed and problematic production, and was constantly being rewritten even on the set! So as you might have guessed, the script that the novelization was based off was radically different. Basic plot points are the same, but no scene is the same as in the movie, the chronological order of them is vastly different (for example, to give you a general idea: in the novel, the meeting of RoboCop and his wife happens almost right before the climax), and many major scenes that are in the movie are not in the novel (example: The scene in which Dr. Faxx convinces Robo to allow himself to be reprogrammed never happens in the novel). Even more scenes that are in the novel never made it to the film. Example: did you know Lewis actually met with Dr. Faxx in her office, offering her money from the Officers to fix RoboCop? Or that RoboCop visited junkyard, thinking of committing suicide?
And even the scenes that appear in both the movie and novelization are radically different. For example, in the novelization, the Old Man and Faxx have nothing to do with unleashing RoboCain on the Mayor trying to make a deal with Hob. It's all Johnson, who feared that he's gonna be blamed if the city pays. Another example: in the novel, it's Lewis who gets the location of Cain's hideout from Officer Duffy, by beating him up in the restroom at the Police Station.
Most cruel bits are not in the novel, which means they had to be in the latter rewrites demanded by Kershner. For example, Hob isn't even present during Duffy's torture, and the eerie dialogue, "You said you were gonna scare him" isn't there either.
The novel also explains some things that may not be clear in the movie, like for example, why is Cain's hardcore mafia listening to Hob? It's because the police raid destroyed the scientist producing Nuke (Frank) and the only other person who knew the formula - Cain. It turns out Hob memorized the formula and is the only person who can make Nuke in the world.
I personally picked UK version of the novelization because it had the great early poster artwork of the film as the cover. The image was also used in most European VHS releases. US had a terrible BTS shot as the cover instead
RoboCop 3 did not have novelization
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