Indeed. The removal of the helmet was a strong moment in Robocop, reminiscent of frankenstein's monster looking at its reflection in the water. The scene in the empty house with the direct memories feedback (in "clear", without scanline) is very strong. The whole process of triggered memory reactivation and identity quest will be lacking, and it was a major theme of the original. The whole movie was a machine's quest for stolen humanity, a (re)awakening consciousness, and the realisation of being deprived of something unsuspected. There is no room for this in that trailer. No meaning for any "murphy, it's you ?".

That being said, I had also discarded the sequels for the same reason. Once there is a murphy, there is no robocop left. Starting robocop2 (or a series, or whatever) from the end of robocop1 is absurd in my eyes. There is no synthesis to be made between "murphy" and "robocop", no way to put the helmet back and "play robocop" after the events of the frst movie.

Not to mention that "they'll fix you" loses all of its impact if it's true, doesn't come at the cost of a stolen soul, or isn't tributary to arbitrary corporate agendas.

I rant. I liked the movie. I hated the sequels. And the remake is dumb. Yet, I'm happy about that : at least it's -finally- not a remake at all, and the original movie stays its own story. This is to robocop what frankenstein junior was to Mary Shelley's. Not the same story, not the same themes and characters. Possibly not the same public.

I'm less concerned about the personal struggle of the Murphy/Robocop character in the remake, I think that they will kinda manage to handle it in a modern way which will be worse than in the original but still there. I'm rather worried about the social commentary. I bet it will only be present "by accident" by imitating the original movie, not because the new film's creators are really aware of that stuff. I bet the new crew would be hopelessly confused if someone told them that Verhoeven referred to the original Robocop character as "American Jesus".

That's exactly how I feel about the sequels, I never even really bothered watching those. And truth be told, trying to continue Robocop 1 was even stupider than remaking it.

I absolutely HATE how they have taken away Robocop's "robotic" movement.

The new robocop is going to move like a "human" and sleek, etc.

Which makes no sense because he's supposed to be mainly robotic (leg/arm, etc. I doubt we will have such technology by 2028 (when the movie is set), hell it's been over 20+ years since Robocop and robots that we have today are still very "robotic" when it comes to movement. Robocop from the original movie is still ahead of the technology we have today.

I remember seeing a interview with Weller a little while back talking about the movement and such.


When they first got the suit (already part way into filming before they got it) it didn't work so well. it didn't fit too well and it took an absurd amount of time to get into (like 10 hours to get into the full suit).

The movie almost fell apart because of this

They brought in Moni Yakim who doesigned the suit (he was head of movement at Juliyard) and he fixed the suit on set and then helped Peter with moving in it.

At first they wanted an elusive/human movement with sleek movements (like in the new one) but Moni told him not to, to instead slow it down, do big movements, the suit would never move organically and shouldn't.

Then Robocop came out and the movements of Weller in the suit became Iconic.


This movie just comes off as a generic action-movie with CGI robots/black black black everything.

It's supposed to be sleek. Robocop was a parody of 80's corporate culture, but corporations have changed, so the parody must change with it. Now it's about the Apple type, internet age, style over substance "can you make it more tactical?", "sleek" companies. Just look at the difference between the classical Wall Street shark of Dick Jones in the original and the casual, sweater wearing character Michael Keaton has in this.

I couldn't put my finger on it, but you've summed it up there! From the bits I saw, the new Robocop is still Alex Murphy, just mostly made of metal. The original one, he almost completely lost his identity upon being turned into Robocop. The old Robocop wouldn't have gone "What kind of suit is this?" upon being switched on, because he didn't have enough of a concept of self to question his appearance like that.

I do quite like the idea that they've tried to give him the illusion of free will (to make him think that he's decided to do what they've actually programmed him to do).

That's the most appealing concept of the film to me as well, especially after reports we've been seeing the news of late on scientific examinations about how what we consider to be free will is nothing more than a series of chemical reactions, so what we perceive to be a decision made of our own volition is simply X chemical seeping into Y cell at Z time by chance. It's an interesting topic to examine.

Other than that, there's not a lot to take away from the trailer. The dialogue sounds kinda stilted, and the editing seems to be designed for the lowest common denominator of film-goer, focusing on action and simple Hollywood binary dilemmas like man vs. machine, good vs. evil (there's a noticeable cut in Gary Oldman's "free will" monologue, which suggests that he may talk about that in more detail in the film itself). I don't think we can really say at this point whether the film will be good or bad, because the trailer itself was cut very amateurishly as if it were made by some fanboy on the internet. Also, the 1987 trailer also similarly focused on a simple storyline and action.

If anything, the one thing that really bothers me about the trailer is that the film has very TV-esque production values, and it feels more like a TV series than it does a film.

You said it, at first they wanted sleek movement but weren't able to pull it off because of the suit's design and *Weller's* movements became iconic. If it works with the new suit and the new actor is able to pull it off, then why shouldn't they do it? IMHO the movement looks fine in the trailer.

Because he's not supposed to be a man "wearing" a suit.

He's part machine and the movements should reflect that, it drives home that point everytime you see Robocop moving in the original one, it gives the sense with the movement + The sound of his movements (the robotic sounds he made when he moved were just as iconic) that he was a machine and not just a guy wearing a suit.

But he's not just a robot either and already there's robots that move more organically than the original RoboCop (just look at and [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5PplUmtEvA]HiBot). What's the most appropriate movement for a human/robot hybrid is a creative decision up to the people making the movie and if it had only been a creative decision without any technical boundaries we might have already gotten very organic movement in the original film. I mean, they had already started filming before they came up with the movement that we know from the original film and they came up with it because of the circumstances, not because they considered it the one and only way to go all along. I do love and respect all the little decisions made by the original crew but I wouldn't ever consider some of the new ideas wrong *just* because they are different than in the original film, at least not before I've seen the whole film and can tell for sure that they've just not known what they've been doing.

But the mechanical movements in Robocop also conveyed the machine aspect, as a reductive thing and not an enhancing thing. It was illustrating a loss of body, of organic life, as if Murphy had been turned into an object, merged with a truck or a washing machine. Having to be nourished through ducts (which translates to being spoon-fed baby food). Robocop wasn't Steve Austin at all, and now he is.

It's basically Iron Man accidentally stuck in the armor ("lol, ah well, gotta drill a hole to go to the toilet", and that's all). The stiff movements used to evoke automatons, cybermen, and deshumanisation - a fear that is gone from this now superhero character.

I think you are wrong here. In the 80s, being a cyborg seemed as a handicap since technology wasn't as advanced as it is today. But by today's standards, any futuristic cyborg would be seen as an improvement or upgrade. Of course, no sane human would be willing to sacrifice any of his limbs or organs to make them mechanic, however, the future we see now is like that, maybe in the future we will see people replacing their human limbs for better robotic ones which will be better (stronger or more versatile) than the human counterpart.

I just saw Robocop yesterday and it was funny to see the "TVs" of the future, still CRT and no flat panels. I mean, the future we saw in those days is not the same as we see in these days.

If you watch recent futuristic films, most robots have sleek or human movements (I Robot, Total Recall Remake, Prometheus, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, The Day the Earth Stood Still Remake, etc.)

So, in the end, I guess it is a matter of opinion.