RoboCop (1987)

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Overview

Starring Peter Weller as the titular hero, RoboCop is a sci-fi police film released in 1987; directed by Paul Verhoeven. The film was followed by two sequels-RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3 and a reboot of the same name was made by Jose Padhila.

Creation

The primary inspiration for RoboCop

The character of RoboCop was originallu conceived by writer Edward Neumeier after he passed by a poster of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. He asked his friend what the film was about and the friend replied "it's about a cop hunting robots". With that in mind, Neumeier came up with the idea of a robot policeman.

Neumeier took influence from the character of Judge Dredd and based RoboCop off of him. Allegedly the two writers of the film-Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner were stranded in an airport terminal with a high ranking movie studio executive and the two successfully pitched the film to him.

Plot Summary

Alex Murphy's first day after being transferred to a new precinct doesn't go well. The massive corporation Omni Consumer Products, have privatized the Police and have been making cuts which are causing cops to die. Murphy is introduced to his new partner Anne Lewis. While out on their first patrol, they are called to an armed robbery, chasing them to an abandoned steel mill. Splitting up, Lewis is knocked out by one of the criminals and Murphy gets shot several times with shotguns at point blank range, leaving him for dead. Murphy is rushed to the hospital but dies on the operating table.

The next thing we see is a monitor or camera switching on showing scientists working round about it. Different robotic parts are attached and RoboCop is born. RoboCop is programmed with four main prime directives: serve the public trust, protect the innocent, uphold the law and an unknown last directive. Quickly being put on patrol he stops an armed robbery, a woman getting raped and ends a hostage situation on his first night.

After this first shift as RoboCop, Murphy is haunted by visions of his death and memories of his family. Eventually Lewis recognizes him to be his deceased partner, setting RoboCop off on a mission to find and get revenge on the gang who haf killed him. Capturing the Leader Clarence Boddicker, he learns that OCP vice president Dick Jones is the one running the crime wave. RoboCop proceeds to confront him but is unable to act due to the forth directive stopping him arresting a senior OCP employee. This disables RoboCop slightly as Jones brings in a ED-209 to kill RoboCop. After outsmarting it by using a set of stairs, RoboCop is met by the police force summoned by Jones, opening fire on him. Haven suffered heavy damage, RoboCop escapes with the help of Lewis.

With Jones freeing Boddicker, he then orders him to kill RoboCop. Because the cops are on strike, a crime wave is in progress as Boddicker rounds up the old gang. Tracing RoboCop to the disused Steel Mill; they are all killed by him and Lewis. He goes after Jones again this time destroying the ED-209 before showing The Old Man what he has done. This causes The Old Man to fire Jones allowing RoboCop to kill Jones.

The Old Man thankfully asks RoboCop what his name is, in which he simply replies, "Murphy."

Reception

Upon release, RoboCop garnered extremely positive reviews and many critics even placed the film in their top ten lists for 1987. On review aggregate, Rotten Tomatoes the film holds and 88% approval rate from critics out of 42 reviews with the general consensus being "While over-the-top and gory, Robocop is also a surprisingly smart sci-fi flick that uses ultraviolence to disguise its satire of American culture." From audiences, the film only has a 71% approval rate out of 197,487 ratings. Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert awarded the film 3/4 stars saying "Most thriller and special-effects movies come right off the assembly line...RoboCop is a thriller with a difference."

Filmmaker Ken Russell was also highly complimentary of the film saying in 1987 that RoboCop was the best science fiction film since Fritz Lang's Metropolis. The film was also inducted into the legendary Criterion Collection. The film's two sequels though did not receive the same comparisons and received mixed reviews for RoboCop 2 and extremely negative reviews for the PG-13 third entry in the series- RoboCop 3.

Marketing

To tie into the movie, Orion had video game developer Data East make a video game based on the film. RoboCop was essentially a side scrolling "shoot 'em up". The game was released on all of the major systems of the era including: the Game Boy, Atari ST, Amiga, Commodore 64, Apple II, MSX, NES, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, TRS-80 CoCo, and an arcade version was also developed. The game received critical acclaim at the time of its release and even readers of Youth Sinclair magazine voted it the greatest game of all time in 1993. CRASH Magazine which was a magazine devoted to the ZX Spectrum awarded the game the Crash Smash award.

The game sold incredibly well for the ZX Spectrum becoming one of the best selling titles for that system. The game proved popular enough to spawn three sequels including games for both of the film's sequels: RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3, and even an adaptation of Frank Miller's comic RoboCop versus The Terminator.

The film also received a tie in comic adaptation titled RoboCop: The Future of Law Enforcement. The comic was written by Bob Harras and had art done by Javier Saltares.

Music

To score the composer Basil Poledouris was chosen. At the time, Poledouris was already becoming a well known composer for his "powerfully epic style". His score to 1982's Conan The Barbarian was extremely well received and considered by many today and many at the time to be one of the finest film scores ever written. Poledouris used both synthesized music and orchestrated music in the film to reflect theme of the man versus machine in the film. The original release contained only 15 tracks though in 2004, the soundtrack was reissued with four unreleased tracks added onto the soundtrack.