Robocop Reboot (Pre-release)

[octaviousRex]

LINK: RoboCop May Have a Director

This is exciting. I was watching the original Robocop the other day and found it a little campy, but I remember watching it in the theaters as a kid and being struck by how hard-core the violence was. Ammo that appeared unlimited. 80s hairstyles.... and a unisex shower/locker room, just like Starship Troopers (which Veerhoeven also directed). But despite the flaws, it was a great film even for today.

Sad that Robocop 2 didn't follow Frank Miller's vision of the script but it was still fun to watch.

Robocop 3 against the Japanese robot with the samurai sword was just plain silly. The movie was more about "Robocop, now with a jetpack accessory, now available at your local toy store!"

So here's the the Robocop reboot. :cheers Anyone think the costume needs a redesign or is it good enough for our time?

Long live Murphy! :thumbsup

EDIT: Hey, found some concept art at: Robocop Reboot Concept Art By Jason Hazelroth

Looks like they're playing with a cyber ninja (Metal Gear Solid) influence there. Some TRON influence too.....

More pics! Now these look much more clear, but they look like a person in a suit rather than a cyborg.

http://comicbookmovie.com/images/users/uploads/28542/r_4.JPG

I think we are are in agreement that the japanese smiling bob cyborgs were one of the worst things to come out of Robocop 3...or robocop in general. what in the world would possess someone to give him flexibility and a sword thus brining back memories of that horrible...horrible sequel?

I get that we will never see the old robo. I get that Ed-209 is to look like micheal bay threw up on an ink blot. but if this was to be a shot for shot remake...how is ed going to fit inside a building when he (or she you never know) is the size of a building!

I am an 80's kid. I grew up on and love robocop and don't fully get the hate for robocop 2 as it felt much like the first one..where as three felt nothing like the first two. but I digress. I was excited up till they started talking redesigns. I was open minded and tried to be optimistic. but if these end up being the designs then I will pass. I never ever try to prejudge...but I gave bay 3 transformers before I finally gave up on reboots of my old favorites. this looks to be no different then the trends that I dislike out of hollywood these days.

call me what you will be at least I admit when I have had my limit. I gave hollywood a chance. and this is how they repay my fandom and support.

 

[3jack]

At least if the do this it'll save them money, they can just use the Iron Man molds. In my opinion it looks WAY to similar to a repainted Iron Man costume.

 

[Monster Dave]

Saw this and its Robocop related AND awesome!

That is awesome!!!

 

[Krull]

I've watched the "OmniCorp" video and I like it.

While I'm sure a new copy of the old suit would be nice you have to admit the thing is twenty plus years old and could probably be made better now or just CG'd in-Weller did have a hell of a time using it I remember.
plus Iron Man is hot so the concept reflects that,I doubt the actual one in the new film will look like that.

And face it the original was "80's future" and nowadays looks kinda..well cheesy,we can stand a new version while keeping the old in our hearts.

 

[3jack]

I'm all for a reboot of Robocop. Don't get me wrong the original is one of my favourite films but it is time to reboot it, with todays technologies it should turn out to be an amazing film. I just hope the do something original with the suit, it should be iconic (like the original I just don't want it to look too much like Iron Man.

 

[Krull]

True,true-I think the main thing is (for me anyway) that the original suit looks...a bit....stiff? I know a lot of folks just went ga-ga for Weller's "robotic movements" but,hell,I doubt the guy could do any better because the thing was like being strapped to a 2X4.
robots don't need to move slow,they can in fact be faster and more precise then a human,so having Robocop move around quick would make sense,more so since he's a cop,but like has been said no friggin' ninja bots please.

One thing that may blow a few minds is the fact that looking back on it Robocop's color scheme is a bit odd,black and silver? I would expect black and white or even some kind of blue and white since he's supposed to be a police unit....yes that's :confused for sure but worth a thought.

And the whole spike in his hand to access a computer~duh we didn't know just what we'd be doing with computers no so that HAS to go.

Also we didn't know about things like tazers and OC spray,which now you expect a cop to have (but having a full auto pistol in the holster is still weird-for now :lol)

So up his mobility and add a few things and I'd say we have a worthy remake,keep the old one as the classic to judge by.

And we got a little peek of the new RC in the video,just a bit of his arm but I like it,the whole ad was like a new take on the old film :thumbsup

 

[Kroenen77]

The original Robocop is so awesome and well made.It don´t need a remake...the original only needs a new good bluray version!

 

[stabyd]

i liked the original robocop movies so i think that rebooting them would be pretty friggin awesome

 

[Metallijosh]

I always thought that the guy who plays Quinn on Dexter would be good as Alex Murphy/robocop in a remake...

 

[rodneyfaile]

I love the original Robocop, but he did move slow and stiff. He was like a heavily armored C3PO. I don't think the new Robocop will have his movements look so robotic. The expectations of what technology can go have come a long was since then. The new Robocop will likely be fast and fluid.

 

[Rotwang]

it's part of the "reboot" ethic.
"hey let's reboot this old film! people loved it, it's got a hardcore fanbase we can appeal to and people love x,y and z about it."
"ok! money in the bank! so how will we reboot it?"
"tell you what, we'll change x. and y. and we'll add in a and b which will kinda negate z"
"so, we reboot to appeal to a fanbase, then remove the stuff the fanbase loves? got it."

Don't forget ego, some of the "creative" people out there would rather stab their own eyes out than having to work with somebody else's original creation. The urge to redesign is massive.

That's where we get the proliferation of over-designed props and costumes. Because somebody is going to have to top the recent Spider-Man and Superman costumes with even more detail and even more advanced techniques.

 

[Solo4114]

I've said this before and I'll say it again, this is nothing new, Hollywood has been doing this for forever. It's not about being lazy as much as it's about playing it safe with their money by investing in something with name recognition and with a potentially built in fan base.

Yes. And that's a bad thing, in my opinion.

With the cost of a lot movies in the hundreds of millions these days studios have become a lot choosier about what projects they green light in order to minimize their risk. Movie studios aren't in it to make movies, at the end of the day they're just like any business and their business is about making money.

Superduper. At the end of the day, I honestly don't care what their problems are. They make crappy movies that I usually don't bother to watch anymore. I certainly don't pay ticket prices for them. At most, I Netflix 'em. Once in a blue moon, I buy them on DVD/Blu-ray. But even that's becoming increasingly rare for me.

And I know that just leads Hollywood to say "Woe unto us! You're FORCING us to play it safe! It's because you won't pay to see our sh**ty movies that we keep having to make sh**ty movies!"

Bull. Make a decent movie, and I will go see it. Make a movie that stands on its own without relying on cheap parlor tricks and branding. If your movie is good, if you're really that f-ing creative, you don't need to tinker with someone else's work. You can do your own.

The other thing about remakes is that it can be looked at bringing an old(er) franchise or title to a new generation who might not appreciate or were aware of the original. Not every great movie is necessarily a classic that shouldn't be messed with and remade, there are plenty of great movies that could stand a remake if only to make it modern because certain aspects of it didn't really age well.

I'm not saying you can't do a fresh take on an older film. For example, I think Stagecoach would make an AWESOME remake as a sci-fi. Actually, come to think of it, I tend to think the "western-to-scifi" transfer can work in many cases.

That said, the notion of "But we have to bring this to the kids!" just doesn't fly for me. I watched old movies as a kid in their original form and enjoyed them fine. I was the generation that grew up with Star Wars, but I still dug The Big Sleep and 1960s Bond films. Jeez, the first time I saw Goldfinger, I was probably 11 and thought it was the most amazing thing I'd seen to date. That would've been around, oh, 1989 or so? Long after the f/x revolution ushered in by Star Wars.



Anyway, I recognize that some remakes can be good or at least entertaining. But the branding thing...it's just lazy, crassly manipulative, and frankly insulting. I take it as the studio saying "You troglodytes will see our crapfest of a film simply because we called the robots in it "Transformers". We know you'd reject this film as dreck otherwise, but once we do this, you're so stupid that you'll eat it up. That's what we think of you."

 

[CB2001]

Actually, they're not lazy. In fact, there are already answers for those (and they come straight from my producing class:

If your movie is good enough to stand on its own, if it has an interesting enough concept behind it, a good enough story, and good actors, a solid script, etc....


....then why do you need to make it a remake at all? Wouldn't your movie be good enough without all the pre-existing intellectual property?

To exploit the pre-existing fanbase. That's why there's adaptations of comic books, novels, TV shows and remakes of movies: because Hollywood knows that there's fans of those movies and they're going to watch the film. Basically, doing an adaptation or a remake, Hollywood knows that people are going to see it out of their love for the original source material. Long story short: they know they're going to get some money back, whereas doing a film not based on a previous work and is "original" so to speak, there's no guarantee that you'll get any money back.

And if your movie is NOT good enough to stand on its own...then why the hell are you making it in the first place?

Because someone believed in it enough to make it, even though it was a bad idea. Don't believe me? I cite Bonfire of the Vanities. Everyone knew that it was a bad idea to make it (even Morgan Freeman stated that the actors knew it was a bad idea when they were filming it), but everyone was there because they were hired to do it because the producer had faith in the project.

 

[Solo4114]

Not the point. I know to THEM the point is "make money." To me, the point is "entertain me" and they regularly FAIL to do that...so I've stopped going.

Hollywood wonders why their gimmicks keep failing to bring in the viewers. 3D isn't working out...optioning every 80s board game franchise or whatever isn't working out...big name stars don't guarantee return....amazingly enough, there just doesn't seem to be a perfect formula for getting people into the theaters.

Maybe they should try making movies that don't suck?

 

[Riceball]

Maybe they should try making movies that don't suck?

If they knew exactly how to make a movie that wouldn't suck then don't you think they'd be doing that already? The problem is what makes one movie good and what makes one bad is often elusive and very subjective. One man's film of the century is another's piece of drek so they try to make movies that they think will appeal to as many people as possible. Unfortunately, sometimes when you try to please too many people at once you end up pleasing no one.

Another problem with Hollywood and why they do remakes, reboots, sequels & prequels so often is that the studios are run by money who, for the most part, don't have a single creative bone in their body. Too often it seems that the big studios try to do everything by the numbers with their demographic studies and what not which is why movies that end up sucking are greenlit, it's because it looks good on paper. On paper the movie should be a box-office success because their research that audiences from X - Y like Z and therefor if the movie has Z in it it will be a success. Of course, that doesn't always work out but I guess that's what we have indie studios for.

 

[franz bolo]

They should save some money on concept art and just repaint an iron man costume. behave

FB

 

[CB2001]

If they knew exactly how to make a movie that wouldn't suck then don't you think they'd be doing that already?

That's actually true. In the documentary, Boffo! Tinseltown's Bombs and Blockbusters, there was someone who said something almost exactly the same as this question. The answer is simple: Basically, no one in Hollywood knows what is going to be a hit and what is going to be a miss. If they did, then every movie made by Hollywood would be hits and there'd never be any misses.

So, basically, it's a gamble. More often these days, Hollywood is betting with familiar works to draw in an audience, hoping that the visual gimmicks will hide it. Basically, they are playing roulette and putting their chips on numbers they know will get some money back. More often than not, those numbers aren't really good enough to win the whole pot back. No one else gets that.

 

[Solo4114]

Well, here's my point. They sit around and wonder why attendance in theaters is dwindling, and the solution appears to be "Go bigger", "More of the same", and "Add more f/x and 3D." On, and "MARKETING." And when it doesn't solve the problem, what do they do? Pretty much the same stuff.

What I think they may not get is that their solutions are short-term solutions. The marketing thing? That's got a shelf-life. Audiences will eventually get bored with the same stuff, and will start catching on that, hey, wait a second, maybe slapping a familiar brand name on a film DOESN'T mean it's gonna be good. See also, Battleship.


I see similar stuff happening in other avenues of entertainment where big studios dump big bucks in to big steaming piles of movies. Meanwhile, their market shrinks or stagnates at best.

Take video gaming. EA and Activision have a stranglehold on the industry, and tend to produce big-budget games. Trouble is, some of their bigger ventures lately have fallen flat. Star Wars: The Old Republic is a good example. Big name, big budget, big disappointment.

Meanwhile, Kickstarter projects are popping up all over, focusing on developing indie content, free of studio interference, where the artists are allowed to indulge their vision. Maybe Tim Schafer's new game will be a turd as well, but at least it'll be a turd that wasn't dreamed up in a boardroom by a bunch of suits and was mismanaged by committee. Maybe the next Tex Murphy game will remind us that you can't go home again, but at least it'll do so honestly rather than as a "reboot" of the "beloved franchise" which simultaneously guts everything beloved about the franchise except the logo.

What I see among entertainment CONSUMERS is a desire for change. They don't know how to get it, and the studios aren't responding to them, preferring the "safe and crappy" bet instead. So, what you're seeing is a gradual shift towards decentralized development of projects. Maybe these will be flops, too. Nobody knows for sure. But at least it's a shot at getting something different.

And, more importantly, to me it shows a level of dissatisfaction with the industry(s) in question. Consumers aren't getting what they want and, at the end of the day, that's what matters because these industries are -- or will have to become -- consumer-driven. Piracy suggests the same thing to me. People don't want to pay for some piece of-sh** film, but they're mildly curious. so, yeah, the marketing is working...sort of. It makes people mildly curious, then they say "Man. Glad I didn't pay for THAT turd."

And the solution? Make more turds! Well, that and "Fool people into believing this turd is actually gold." It's not working, and I think it's going to produce a backlash over time. Home theaters are getting better. The theater experience is getting less relevant, especially when the films themselves might as well be straight-to-video quality stuff. Maybe not in terms of f/x and budget, but in terms of audience enjoyment. So, why bother with this mediocre crap? That's ultimately where I come out now. I'll go to the theater maybe once or twice every couple of years. There just isn't enough out there that makes me want to go pay $10-12 to sit in a room with a bunch of rude yahoos when I can eventually watch the thing at home through Netflix.

 

[Solo4114]

Another problem with Hollywood and why they do remakes, reboots, sequels & prequels so often is that the studios are run by money who, for the most part, don't have a single creative bone in their body. Too often it seems that the big studios try to do everything by the numbers with their demographic studies and what not which is why movies that end up sucking are greenlit, it's because it looks good on paper. On paper the movie should be a box-office success because their research that audiences from X - Y like Z and therefor if the movie has Z in it it will be a success. Of course, that doesn't always work out but I guess that's what we have indie studios for.

This.

This, in my opinion, is the problem. It's an attempt to make the ephemeral into the quantifiable. And it doesn't work. It is also, as I mentioned, a losing game in the long run. It's decreasing the value of the theater experience. I think it also contributes to piracy, but of course, no suit in Hollywood would EVER admit that.


But, whatever. In the end, the consumer wins. Studios can pump out whatever raw sewage they want. Doesn't mean I have to watch it. >shrug< Someone will "get it" eventually. And if they don't, well, I guess I'll do more reading.

 

[CB2001]

Well, here's my point. They sit around and wonder why attendance in theaters is dwindling, and the solution appears to be "Go bigger", "More of the same", and "Add more f/x and 3D." On, and "MARKETING." And when it doesn't solve the problem, what do they do? Pretty much the same stuff.

And I agree with you. To me, I refer to most Hollywood films nowadays as "twinkees", because they are all filler and no substance. What made films of the past more interesting was sold storytelling, not visual style. In fact, I believe where we are at right now in Hollywood is exactly where Hollywood at was at at the start of 1968, just before Easy Rider. The Hollywood System now is right back at how the Hollywood system was at before: the studios thinking they know what the audiences want, producing films that no one is wanting to watch anymore. I've been saying this for a while now, but this is what I truly think: "We need a second Counter Culture Revolution in film." Because if Speilberg and Lucas were starting out in this version of Hollywood today, with Spielberg doing an adaptation of Duel and Lucas pitching Star Wars to Fox, Spielberg would be fired after two days of being over schedule and replaced by someone else and Lucas would have been laughed out of the office for pitching Star Wars. And the reason why they succeeded originally was because they proved themselves to be reliable filmmakers.