http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INmtQXUXez8
It seems to be a Hollywood trend now-a-days to resurrect and remake 80’s movies. Heck, even Judge Dredd and Total Recall were remade no more than a year ago.
Now RoboCop is the one that’s going to get the modern-era Hollywood makeover, and will be hitting theaters on February 7, 2014.
The story follows Alex Murphy, a Detroit police officer who practically dies at the hands of a group of cruel criminals, and is resurrected by the ominous corporation OmniCorp. Originally in the 1987 version he’s killed by a gang lead by Red (Kurtwood Smith) from That 70’s Show. The murder scene back then was so graphic that it had to be cut down and edited in order to avoid a potential X-rating. In the new movie, Murphy is blown up by a car bomb, and lives. The blast leaves him suffering from permanent paralysis from the waist down, and he is given an option to undergo a taboo operation that would make him completely mobile, but turns him into, you guessed it, a cyborg police officer.
Part of the appeal of RoboCop back then was not seeing a killer cyborg dish out street justice by executing criminals every two seconds, but the fact that he was still a human. The man that was Alex Murphy had a wife and kids, and every now and then we would get to see his emotional traumas materialized in angry expressions as he goes romping around remembering important life moments from his past.
After the first RoboCop movie in 1987, the world changed forever.
RoboCop was so cool and popular back then that he got two movie sequels (RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3), seven video games (RoboCop vs. Terminator, anyone?), a cartoon adaptation, multiple comic books, bed-sheets, a TV series, toys, coffee mugs; RoboCop was so marketable that he’s still selling big time almost three decades later – and the movie is testimony to that.
I mean, did you ever see the Terminator eating fried chicken and lifting refrigerators in Korea?
Or how about that time when he rescued World Wrestling Entertainment star Sting from a cage during a live match?
Hell, RoboCop is so culturally significant that Kick Starter managed to raise the funds to erect a $50,000 statue in Detroit:
(image) (Credit: AV Club)As for the reboot, fans reactions have been mixed after seeing the trailer.
Here’s hoping that RoboCop never dies, and that the new movie further complements the franchise without Hollywood messing it up.
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