OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Right so.. about that singularity.. **spoilers ahead.. maybe**
"It’s not a classic like Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 original, but it is an excellent, intelligent SF drama" (from wikipedia)
How isn’t this a classic?!
As an 80’s kid these fucking reboots are getting on my nerves. That’s how I went into this movie given the travesty that was Total Recall.
The original RoboCop trilogy and movies of that period were so self serious, they had an impact, it had a deep impact on my childhood and the beginning of this movie, I only assume, had the intention of kicking that memory in the face.
Regardless they had to do something because the original is such an important movie.. for its political message to be refreshed in a different world with a much different audience, and everything else it had brought to the table which was all in need of a refresh.
This movie is far from unwanted and assuming it is the beginning of a new trilogy.. it is a good start. But it can’t be taken seriously despite all the effort that went into the tone of the movie and visuals.
If you either ignore the first 10-20 minutes and last 5 minutes.. like just come in late (I just made it with 45 second to curtain) get up and walk out, you might take more away from this impressive movie.
This movie is somewhat far removed from the original almost comically off target original, but there are questions that are very relevant that carry from the original movie and to eventual debates in many topics that are dealt with fairly well imo.
One is the question in having remote control over a puppet and who pulls the strings. As there are many more recent films and shows that have tried this topic.. and some being comically horrible like Surrogates, this one almost glosses over the details even though it spends so much time on the RoboCop program and the vestigial Murphy within it.
In many ways this movie is so bad that it makes Almost Human almost look like a truer reboot, minus the man inside the machine aspect.
"What kind of Suit is this?" "Get me out of this thing.." etc is almost as horrendous as the love scene between Murphy and his wife that I was just begging to be interrupted (how often does that even happen).
"Wanna touch it?" "What is it (made of)?" ..SOOOOO hard to watch it isn’t even funny. Like please cry for this little boy who knows his father is dead and this thing is just wearing a skin mask.. it is so poignantly cruel yet impossible to care because the kid knows his daddy is dead and the adults just won’t admit it.
His wife doesn’t question it. But at the public press conference the kid is obviously hurt, but it is difficult to tell if it is pain that he’s biting back or if he’s just rolling his eyes.
I’ll derail my post here and ask.. Why the hell, ignoring the tone of the movie and entire premise, didn’t they have time to build Murphy a human body? Not just a RoboCop body but objectively speaking as a movie aimed at the economics of the RoboCop program.. and they even go so far as saying it is essentially a full body prosthesis which they didn’t even bother keeping, or rather CUT off basically everything that was left of Murphy after his convenient Splosion Man incident..
OmniCorp comes off as not simply evil but just fundamentally stupid for ignoring the market for full-body SOFT prosthetics so wives can have their husbands back. In the sense that they make the body modular.. and that there’s so little of Murphy left… that he could be Nicholas Brody minus the PTSD and return to his wife in a form that she can live with and their son can still see as this thing is still his father.. but moreover that he can still be a plain clothes detective. I’m not intentionally trying to say I Robot did it better.. but..
And there’s the American Made.. but the lab is in China?
So..
When there’s a question of there no longer being a puppet and puppetmaster but still a distance between the source of control for a robot or person.. because the public is being told Murphy is in control of all of this power he’s been given, and you then remove one from the other leaving the person in the machine or vice versa (the question of the rampaging robot at the end **spoilers**, and alternatively but not addressed in this movie, a human being stuck in a computer system had they uploaded Murphy’s consciousness and had the machine been oe of many Surrogates, where he could optionally have any type of body) if it IS really a problem for the software to take over either RoboCop or one of the drones… had that gone public which I believe it would have had to in Norton’s revelations, what then? If it wasn’t rampaging as suggested but just if that happened.. what then.
An insane machine undermines Omnicorp worse than a human that is in control of a machine body that has civil justice programmed into it.
Arguably the RoboCop program should be just above S.W.A.T. like the Spartan program. Tasked with stuff that is too dangerous for regular cops to deal with which is essentially what the software ultimately focuses on. My question is why does it seem like the software was doing so much of the thinking. Not to mention that high level stuff like that should be on a police computer.. So it can’t think at such a high level. It makes RoboCop a walking precinct who shouldn’t be under the command of a single person but effectively the city itself.
As far as the movie goes and Almost Human on Fox ignoring Dorian, even the robots in Elysium, specifically MX androids *though there have been hints* they don’t think. Underlined.
We don’t want them to think. Anything that thinks is inherently bad because it needs to be controlled.. it can make such high level decisions which opens up a gray area of best interest.
We have decision making robots and programs in our lives already just as we have people in the world appointed to positions of authority that are supposed to think and make decisions for the greater good that do a shit job at the task.. the world will still turn and out lives aren’t getting any longer or some would argue better.
From 1987 though to today.. they damn well have and again, that’s reflected in the movie. It is somewhat jarring to see that part of the film but it allows it to breathe, even though we don’t get a sense of the criminal threat and that the city is really in peril. It lives in what seems to be present times well.
But again.. what’s the real problem? Thinking Machines that are in position of authority.. that was ‘incorruptible’ as the movie puts it.. or that a human element will always be required.. like self driving cars that are on some roads today.. or that we need drones that are self aware and can carry out missions on their own?
Or that machines are cold and unthinking and won’t have PTSD and won’t require counselling or months off on paid leave because they accidentally kill an innocent person in the line of duty. Or as soldiers can get psychologically damaged beyond repair if they weren’t already before going over seas in into intense combat situations otherwise.
That point is also cut off but really didn’t need to be. Sadly the movie is what it is because the focus is on OmniCorp and how corrupt Sellers is but that’s not even apparent until later. We don’t see anyone breathing down his neck, but that’s what sequels are for.
Between the end of this movie and the next it would be SOOO awesome for there to be a TV show, besides the near moronic Almost Human, to address a city with mega-corporations running the show while the criminal threat is massive and real.. and the citizens understand and are begging for a solution and are willing to champion RoboCop as that solution.. soft bodied or not.