Sometimes it's kind of funny being as young as I am, compared to the rest of the world. When RoboCop was released in theatres, I was barely even a year old. Kind of a daunting truth to accept. Alas, that is the plight a self-confessed, proud movie-geek must bear: to be eternally behind the times. The list of classic movies that I've missed out on, or never even heard of, is probably as great as the list of movies I've managed to find and watch.
It's therefore become a small hobby of mine: to educate myself on the classics of cinema, or, for that matter, old movies in general. More often than I believe mainstream culture would like to admit, the nigh-pathetic failures of cinema can affect popular culture as much or more than the vaunted classics. A grand epic like Gone With The Wind, might be world renowned, but a phrase like, "You've got to ask yourself one question: do I feel lucky? Well, do you punk?" is remembered and repeated by more people than have ever heard of either Gone With The Wind OR Dirty Harry. (Of course, the phrase is terribly misquoted every time. I believe the repeated version is, "Do you feel lucky, punk? Well, do ya?")
And in today's world, when internet memes can spring up and then die in a single week, or even as little as a day, it pays to have fleshed out your Reference Handbook as much as possible.
I even feel as though I owe the creators of these cultural icons the respect they deserve, both for the sake of their work, and so as not to be a horrible hypocrite--when I eventually produce a work of literary, cinematic, or interactive art, I'd prefer if people set aside a part of their day to truly appreciate my efforts.
So. RoboCop. It's one of those movies and characters that everyone knows about. If you're any kind of geek, or, hell, if you watched any movies, TV, read any comics, or browsed the internet for even twenty minutes since the year 1987, the chances of you at least hearing the name RoboCop is fairly high. My first introduction to the character was via the NES game, which I played long before I knew RoboCop's true place in modern culture.
Then, very recently, I was alerted to this very funny and interesting story. Sold. No more excuses. It was time for me to finally watch RoboCop. Now that I have, I can't help but say: Frak. I've been missing out!
I was very surprised! Hot damn was RoboCop a good movie. I'd always assumed it was one of those 80's movies that was built out of about 60-80% cheese and 20% film-making; the kind of movie that teenage boys wearing neon-green shirts, black, patterned pants, and high-top Nike runners would flock to for a Saturday matinee, all of them skate-boarding to the theatre on those old boards with big, rubber wheels, or on BMX bikes ala RAD, white wheels and colored rims and all.
Not so. It's a hard-R movie, that, according to the Wiki article, actually received 11 X-ratings. That means they re-cut the original eleven times, trying to get the MPAA to downgrade their rating to an R. Yes, RoboCop, that movie I thought was for kids, that spawned animated TV series, action figures, and Nintendo games, is a Hard-R film, replete with blood, guts, gore, cursing, and even nudity.
Did I mention that it's set in a dystopian future where a mega-corporation is contracted by the city to run the Detroit police force; where the crime rate is so high that the underpaid, overworked cops are practically fodder for the drug-lords and criminal syndicates; and where the MegaCorp, Omni Consumer Products, is intentionally underpaying and undersupplying the police so that they can replace the human police force with an automated, robotic force that they control, all so that they can build the City of the Future? Did I also mention that the movie is filled--almost over-filled--with black humor and sharp social and political satire of American and Corporate culture?
Oh, oh! And it's directed by Paul Verhoeven, whose other contributions to geek-lore and cinema are Total Recall, Starship Troopers, Basic Instinct, and even Showgirls.
I highly recommend finding a copy of this movie and watching it--that is, if you haven't all ready.
Supplemental thought: don't watch either of the sequels. The second was ok, but nothing to write about, and the third was your typical, Hollywood abortion; a ruinous exercise in treachery and heresy; the blundered death of a brand.
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