Will The New RoboCop Be A Transformer?

Date: Aug 13, 2012 | Author: Rudie Obias | Category: Sci-Fi

Director Len Wiseman’s Total Recall took a stab at remaking Paul Verhoeven’s 1990 film and fell completely flat on its face. RoboCop, another Verhoeven film, also has a remake in the works, and many fans of the 1987 original film are asking “Why?” HitFix Blogger Drew McWeeny got a chance to read the script for Jose Padilha’s version of RoboCop and shared his thoughts on Twitter.

Please read with caution, possible spoilers ahead.

McWeeny starts with a tweet questioning the need for a RoboCop remake:

I will try this again once my blood pressure’s gone down. But, seriously, folks, ‘RoboCop’ was already perfect.

The script updates the story by giving RoboCop 1.0 an overhaul. Apparently, OCP puts the original 1987 RoboCop suit through focus group testing where the participants called the suit “a toy from the ’80s.” This leads the company to make a “meaner” RoboCop 2.0 suit, while they outsource its construction to China.

Once they’ve gone through more updates, OCP field-tests RoboCop 3.0 in an Al Queda training camp. As a line from the script says, “He should be programmed to incapacitate in all scenarios.” “Agreed. Let’s keep him PG-13, Dr. Norton.” Dr. Norton is played by Gary Oldman and is a scientist who invents the technology to make RoboCop possible. McWeeny finally tweets about RoboCop 4.0:

By page 54, they are already onto RoboCop 4.0, who looks like a ‘cop on steroids painted metallic blue.’ Oh, god… oh dear god… RoboCop is a Transformer. He goes from ‘social mode’ to ‘combat mode’ and back. Full transformation.

It’s unclear if this would be the final iteration of the RoboCop suit, but it seems out of place if the new RoboCop is more machine than man. In the script, OCP takes advantage of RoboCop’s celebrity by selling action figures of the cyborg cop. As McWeeny tweets:

Someone shows Pope, head of the OCP project, some mock-ups for RoboCop action figures. ‘Are you kidding? I wouldn’t buy that for a dollar!’

Based on McWeeny’s Twitter commentary, the RoboCop remake sounds a lot like the Total Recall remake: a lifeless movie that “winks” too much at the original source material while not having a personality of its own. Jose Padilha is a fantastic director so you’d think the film would be in good hands, but these tweets don’t inspire confidence.

Comments

http://www.facebook.com/robert.shepard.96 Robert Shepard

Screw this im done, Hollywood is killing the movie industry.
http://twitter.com/Crookedtimber31 William Stradford

this does sound like bad news..
Red Rob

I winced the moment I saw this in our listings at work (Odeon). The originals (bar RC3) were brilliant! Anything they do now will just ruin it.
Echelon

so these movies that were cheesy to begin with are being remade? you would think remaking cheesy 80′s flicks would not be that difficult… i read an article recently on video games and how the author thought that big budget, super awesome, crazy realistic graphics may be harmfull in producing a game in that they spent all the cash on effects and none on plot, good acting, so on and so forth. seems the same thing could hold true for movies, example “Total Recall”
- JT
  
  Robocop was not cheesy. It was a gritty, hard-R, sci-fi action movie.
  - Mr_Katanga
    
    It was also a biting satire and a brilliant dark comedy.
    I can just about see the case for remaking Total Recall, there is a darker, more interesting tale to tell then the Arnie version, but not Robocop – I agree with McWeeny, it’s pretty much a perfect movie.
    - Echelon
      
      The sad thing is though, with Total Recall, from what I’ve read, they didn’t take the chance to make a more interesting tale. They made an eye-candy sci-fi movie, heavy on cool futuristic look, but light on any plot. Should we really care if they remake Robo the same way? Also, I doubt that it would be R. You just know they’ll slap this thing with PG-13, which means the crooks will be super intimidating.
    - JT
      
      I’m not sure I’d go so far as to even call it a dark comedy. It’s not FUNNY exactly and it’s not really trying to be… at least not the original movie. Sometimes people confuse the tone of the sequels with the original, which was far more deadly serious. It did have satirical elements though, so I’m with you there. Satirical social commentary.
      
      But it’s definitely not cheesy or campy or whatever. That’s PR spin the movie studio making the remake has been trying to put on the original to justify remaking what’s basically a perfect movie.
  - Echelon
    
    i admit that Robo shooting a dude in the junk through a ladies skirt, is gritty… maybe it was the satire portion that in my mind lent itself to some aspects of seeming cheesy…
Mr_Katanga

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