Through all the madness of Comic Con, reviewing movies, and other stories I have been working on, I realized I have yet to touch on the re-boot of Robocop. The original ROBOCOP is a fucking masterpiece! Paul Verhoeven is an amazing director and the Criterion Collection version of ROBOCOP is one of my favorite movies of all time! It is everything you want in a movie, hard, gritty, violent, and still really delivered on message, when is a person no longer human? 
Peter Weller was so cool as Murphy/Robocop to me as a kid, and he still is just as kick-ass! My biggest dilema with a re-boot or re-invision of Robocop, is the first film still holds up. It stands the test of time. Sure it has alot of old stop motion animation, but it all still looks real good. Nothing seems cheesy to me, like when I watch Clash of the Titans (imagine how cool that could be now, without puppets!), there is stuff that is laughable, Robocop is different. Everything throughout the film works on every level. I will have a hard time adjusting to a new Robocop when the original has such high marks!
I can understand why producer Mike Medavoy wants to bring Robocop back to the theaters. Alot of themes from the original film are still very prevelant even more so in some regards in our society. I completely agree with Medavoy when he told MTV News, "The themes of machines and technology, for instance, that's certainly become even more prevalent today in terms of man giving up certain things to his creations and his technology and his reliance to that. It's pretty provocative stuff," he said.
"You've got people today with all kinds of different implants and mechanical implants. Where does that person become no longer human? After the first one? After 50 percent of the brain gets replaced? A lot of the themes that we dealt with in the original are still very interesting to us." Medavoy's lip-service is appealing, he has hit on the main themes that I really enjoyed (along with the violence) in Robocop! 
The fact that he and Brad Fischer went out and hired Darren Aronofsky to direct the re-boot makes me believe they are indeed trying to put out the best film they can. Like what Platnium Dunes has done with a few horror franchises or WB with Batman, Medavoy & Fischer look to rebuild the franchise. The two have been very mum on just what the script will entail, all they've said is, "All will be revealed...it will be guided to the big-screen by Aronofsky, the director of "Requiem for a Dream" and "Pi," whom is one of the brightest and most intelligent filmmakers around." Aronofsky is a great director (although, I hated the Fountain) and I am very interested to see what he does with the Robocop franchise.
Why question is remains, can they make a better version of Robocop? What the producers talk about re-booting was covered so well by Verhoeven and doesn't need re-telling. 
It will be interesting to see updated CG ED-209 (if that is even in the film). My biggest fear is that they use CG for the actual suit of Robocop. I hope that they will follow Marvel's pattern from Iron Man and build a fully functional suit for whoever plays Robocop to wear. The filmakers have made a point to say that the film will be in the same vein as the original with the rating. They are making the film for a hard R rating, not a PG13. That is also pleasing news but again, the hard R was done perfectly by the original, so why tamper with it? Robocop is still in very early stages of production, but is slated to release sometime 2010! Below is the first one-sheet for the film.
What are your thoughts on a re-boot of Robocop? Is it neccessary?
0 comments :
Post a Comment