RoboCop
RoboCop is a 1987 American science fiction action film directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner. The film stars Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Daniel O'Herlihy, Ronny Cox, Kurtwood Smith, and Miguel Ferrer. Set in a crime-ridden Detroit in the near future, RoboCop centers on police officer Alex Murphy who is murdered by a gang of criminals and revived by the megacorporation Omni Consumer Products as the cyborg law enforcer RoboCop. Unaware of his former life, RoboCop executes a campaign against crime while coming to terms with the lingering fragments of his humanity.
The film was conceived by Neumeier while working on the set of Blade Runner, and he developed the idea with Miner. Their script was purchased in early 1985 by producer Jon Davison on behalf of Orion Pictures. Finding a director proved difficult; Verhoeven dismissed the script twice because he did not understand its satirical content, until he was convinced of its value by his wife. Filming took place between August and October 1986, mainly in Dallas, Texas with additional filming in Las Colinas and Pittsburgh. Rob Bottin led the special-effects team in creating practical effects, violent gore and the RoboCop costume.
Verhoeven emphasized violence throughout the film, making it so outlandish that it became comical. Censorship boards believed that it was too extreme and several scenes were shortened or modified to receive an acceptable theatrical rating. RoboCop was a financial success upon its release in July 1987, earning $53.4million. Reviewers praised it as a clever action film with deeper philosophical messages and satire, but were conflicted about its extreme violence. The film was nominated for several awards, and won an Academy Award and a number of Saturn Awards.
RoboCop has been critically reevaluated since its release, and it has been hailed as one of the best films of the 1980s and one of the greatest science fiction and action films ever made. The film has been praised for its depiction of a robot affected by the loss of humanity, in contrast to the stoic and emotionless robotic characters of that era. RoboCop has continued to be analyzed for its themes such as the nature of humanity, personal identity, corporate greed and corruption, and is seen as a rebuke of the era's Reaganomics policies. Its success created a franchise: the sequels RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3, children's animated series, live-action television shows, video games, comic books, toys, clothing and other merchandise. A remake was released in 2014.
Plot
In a near-future dystopia, Detroit is on the brink of social and financial collapse. Overwhelmed by crime and dwindling resources, the city grants the mega-corporation Omni Consumer Products control of the Detroit Police Department. OCP senior president Dick Jones demonstrates ED-209, a law-enforcement droid designed to supplant the police. ED-209 malfunctions and brutally kills a volunteer, allowing ambitious junior executive Bob Morton to introduce OCP's chairman to his own project: RoboCop.Meanwhile, police officer Alex Murphy is transferred to the Metro West precinct. Murphy and his new partner, Anne Lewis, pursue notorious criminal Clarence Boddicker and his gang: Emil Antonowsky, Leon Nash, Joe Cox, and Steve Minh. Lewis is incapacitated while the gang ambushes and tortures Murphy until Boddicker fatally shoots him. Morton has Murphy's corpse converted into RoboCop, a heavily armored cyborg with no memory of his former life. RoboCop is programmed with three prime directives: serve the public trust, protect the innocent, and uphold the law. A fourth prime directive, Directive 4, is classified.
Assigned to Metro West, RoboCop is hailed by the media for his brutally efficient campaign against crime. Lewis suspects that he is Murphy, recognizing the unique way he holsters his gun. After experiencing a nightmare of Murphy's death during maintenance, RoboCop encounters Lewis, who addresses him as Murphy. While on patrol, RoboCop arrests Antonowsky, who recognizes Murphy's mannerisms, furthering RoboCop's recall. RoboCop then uses the police database to identify Antonowsky's associates and review Murphy's police record. He recalls further memories while exploring Murphy's former home, his wife and son having moved away after his death. Elsewhere, Jones gets Boddicker to murder Morton as revenge for Morton's attempt to usurp his position at OCP.
RoboCop tracks Boddicker's gang to a cocaine factory. After a shootout which kills Minh, RoboCop arrests and brutally interrogates Boddicker until he admits to working for Jones. RoboCop attempts to kill Boddicker until his programming directs him to uphold the law. RoboCop attempts to arrest Jones at the OCP Tower, but Directive 4 is activated: a fail-safe measure to neutralize RoboCop when he acts against an OCP executive. Jones admits his culpability in Morton's death and releases an ED-209 to destroy RoboCop. Although he escapes, RoboCop is attacked by the police force on OCP's order and is badly damaged. He is rescued by Lewis, who brings him to an abandoned steel mill to repair himself.
Angered by OCP's underfunding and short-staffing, the police force goes on strike, causing Detroit to descend into violent anarchy. Jones frees Boddicker and his remaining gang, arming them with high-powered weaponry to destroy RoboCop. The gang are quickly eliminated at the steel mill, but Lewis is badly injured in the shootout. RoboCop confronts Jones at the OCP Tower during a board meeting, revealing the truth behind Morton's murder. Jones takes the Old Man hostage, who responds by firing him, nullifying Directive 4. RoboCop shoots Jones, causing him to crash through a window to his death. The Old Man compliments RoboCop's shooting and asks his name. He replies, "Murphy."
Cast
- Peter Weller as Alex Murphy / RoboCop: A Detroit police officer murdered in the line of duty and revived as a cyborg
- Nancy Allen as Anne Lewis: A tough and loyal police officer
- Daniel O'Herlihy as "The Old Man": The chief executive of OCP
- Ronny Cox as Dick Jones: The Senior President of OCP
- Kurtwood Smith as Clarence Boddicker: A crime lord in league with Dick Jones
- Miguel Ferrer as Bob Morton: An ambitious OCP junior executive responsible for the "RoboCop" project
Mario Machado and Leeza Gibbons play news hosts Casey Wong and Jess Perkins, respectively, and television-show host Bixby Snyder is played by S. D. Nemeth. Angie Bolling and Jason Levine appear as Murphy's wife and son. RoboCop director Paul Verhoeven makes a cameo appearance as a dancing nightclub patron, producer Jon Davison provides the voice of ED-209, and director John Landis appears in an in-film advertisement. Smith's partner, Joan Pirkle, appears as Dick Jones's secretary.
Production
Conception and writing
RoboCop was conceived in the early 1980s by Universal Pictures junior story executive and aspiring screenwriter Edward Neumeier. A fan of robot-themed science-fiction films, Star Wars, and action films, Neumeier had developed an interest in mature comic books while researching them for potential adaptation. The 1982 science-fiction film Blade Runner was filming on the Warner Bros. lot behind Neumeier's office, and he unofficially joined the production to learn about filmmaking. His work there gave him the idea for RoboCop: "I had this vision of a far-distant, Blade Runner–type world where there was an all-mechanical cop coming to a sense of real human intelligence". He spent the next few nights writing a 40-page outline.While researching story submissions for Universal, Neumeier came across a student video by aspiring director Michael Miner. The pair met and discussed their similar concepts: Neumeier's RoboCop and Miner's robot-themed rock music video. In a 2014 interview, Miner said that he also had an idea called SuperCop. They formed a working partnership and spent about two months discussing the idea and two to three months writing together at night and over weekends, in addition to their regular jobs. Their collaboration was initially difficult because they did not know each other well, and had to learn how to constructively criticize each other.
Neumeier was influenced to kill off his main character early by the psychological horror film Psycho, whose main character is killed early in the film. Inspired by comic books and his experience with corporate culture, Neumeier wanted to satirize 1980s business culture. He noted the increasing aggression of American financial services in response to growing Japanese influence and the popularity on Wall Street of The Book of Five Rings, a 17th-century book about how to kill more effectively. Neumeier also believed that Detroit's declining automobile industry was due to increased bureaucracy. ED-209's malfunction in the OCP boardroom was based on Neumeier's office daydreams about a robot bursting into a meeting and killing everyone. Miner described the film as "comic relief for a cynical time" during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, when economist "Milton Friedman and the Chicago Boys ransacked the world, enabled by Reagan and the Central Intelligence Agency. So when you have this cop who works for a corporation that insists 'I own you,' and he still does the right thing—that's the core of the film." Neumeier and Miner conceived the in-universe news and advertisement "Media Breaks" that appear throughout RoboCop, and a spec script was completed by December 1984.