Full RoboCop Comic-Con Panel Reveals A Different Direction

By Rudie Obias | Updated

This article is more than 2 years old

San Diego Comic-Con may be over, but geeks and genre fans are still excited about all the big announcements unveiled at the pop culture and comic book convention. From The Walking Dead to Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, this year’s gathering showcased some of the biggest geek and sci-fi franchises and properties in all the world. José Padilha’s remake of RoboCop is one film that received some notice as its panel featured new footage, as well as interviews with the cast. Watch the whole thing and see if they can answer the big question, why does a RoboCop remake need to exist?

The good people at Geek Tyrant recorded the RoboCop panel for your viewing pleasure. Brazilian director Padilha (Elite Squad) has some big shoes to fill if he hopes that his new film will live up to Paul Verhoeven’s original classic. But honestly, it’s not necessary for the filmmakers to prove why it’s being remade. Remakes, sequels, and reboots exist because there’s an audience waiting to watch them.

Much of RoboCop’s panel features Padilha explaining the social implications of technology and how it can serve mankind, as well as cast members Joel Kinnaman (Alex Murphy/RoboCop), Samuel L. Jackson (Pat Novak), Abbie Cornish (Clara Murphy), and Michael Keaton (Raymond Sellars). The video is relatively short (only 13 minutes) compared to most other Comic-Con panels, but it’s full of insight from the cast and crew.

During the Q&A portion of the program, most of the fan questions brought up comparisons to the original film. Whether those questions were fair still remains to be seen, but Samuel L. Jackson handled the them like a true pro. He pointed to the video they showed during the panel, and asked if the Comic-Con crowd liked it or not. If you liked the footage, see the movie, was all he said. It was a pointed, but honest answer that was surprisingly refreshing to watch, especially considering that he’s at Comic-Con to sell you on watching his movie.

Another takeaway from the panel was the close connection between the characters Alex Murphy and his wife Clara. It’s interesting to see the new RoboCop go in this direction. The original film only shows bits and pieces of Alex Murphy’s old life, and, in fact, has no real romantic element to it. If nothing else, at least the remake is trying to do something different and interesting with the source material.

Set in the year 2028, multinational conglomerate OmniCorp is at the center of robot technology. OmniCorp drones are winning wars around the world, and now they want to bring that technology to our cities. Alex Murphy (Kinnaman) is an honest new cop doing his best to fight crime and corruption in the city of Detroit. After he is critically injured while on duty, OmniCorp utilizes their technology to save his life, and Murphy is re-born as RoboCop.

RoboCop also stars Gary Oldman, Michael K. Williams, Jay Baruchel, Jennifer Ehle, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, and Jackie Earle Haley, and hits theaters everywhere February 7, 2014.