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Speaker 1: Hey, Welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is Rob Lamb,

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Speaker 1: and today we are going to rerun our episode on

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty seven's RoboCop. Yes, the ultraviolent sci fi action

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Speaker 1: classic that is as deeply satirical as it is gratuitously violent.

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Speaker 1: Originally published twelve one, twenty three. Let's dive right in.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.

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Speaker 3: And this is Joe McCormick. And today we are going

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Speaker 3: to be featuring a movie that I feel like is

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Speaker 3: kind of a foundational text for my adult appreciation of cinema.

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Speaker 3: It is the nineteen eighty seven sci fi action satire

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Speaker 3: robo Cop, directed by Paul Verhoven. Rob I'm so excited

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Speaker 3: we're talking about RoboCop today. Did you come up? I

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Speaker 3: think I knew you came up with this topic because

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Speaker 3: you recently visited some of the original locations featured in

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Speaker 3: the movie.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I was on a family trip to Dallas over

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Speaker 1: Thanksgiving break. We'd never been before. We went there primarily

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Speaker 1: to go to Mao Wolf and then to check out

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Speaker 1: various things in the city, museums and you know, restaurants

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Speaker 1: and whatnot. And I had honestly kind of forgotten about

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Speaker 1: the RoboCop connection until we were there driving around, and

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Speaker 1: then I look out the window and I see the

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Speaker 1: Dallas City Hall, and then I remember, this is the

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Speaker 1: RoboCop building. This is OCP headquarters, or at least the

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Speaker 1: lower portion of it. They did a matte painting on

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Speaker 1: top of that to make it into this enormous skyscraper

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Speaker 1: that reaches up to the heavens. And yeah, and then

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Speaker 1: was just generally impressed by the architecture in Dallas. And

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Speaker 1: then once I got back, you know, we started looking

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Speaker 1: at RoboCop again and was reminded, like just how present

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Speaker 1: Dallas is in the background standing in for futuristic Detroit.

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Speaker 3: Right, So RoboCop is not actually set in Dallas. It's

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Speaker 3: set in near future Detroit at the time the movie

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Speaker 3: was made. But some of the architectural landmarks in Dallas

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Speaker 3: really communicate the feeling that they were going for in

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Speaker 3: the world of RoboCop.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's unmistakable even if you're not from Dallas.

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Speaker 1: Like there's a car chase earlier in early in the

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Speaker 1: film where you see Reunion Tower in the background, which

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Speaker 1: is very identifiable structure. It's this concrete pillar, you know,

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Speaker 1: jutting up into the sky, and there's a sphere up there.

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Speaker 1: It's not a perfect sphere, but you know, observation and

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Speaker 1: restaurant deck and my family actually went up there. But

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Speaker 1: it's pretty fun, has pretty pretty cool history, like a

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Speaker 1: lot of these buildings though, but yeah, it's there in

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Speaker 1: the background. Anybody who knows anything about Dallas, or even

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Speaker 1: seen the opening to the TV series Dallas, would have

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Speaker 1: been able to recognize that this is not Detroit. This

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Speaker 1: is Staus but you know, nice stand in lots of neat,

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Speaker 1: futuristic looking architecture.

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Speaker 3: So when did you first see RoboCop.

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Speaker 1: I saw it, like I think a lot of people

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Speaker 1: of my generation saw it way too young. I think

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Speaker 1: it was playing at a friend's house or kind of

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Speaker 1: like friends of the family at their house, and I

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Speaker 1: ended up watching part of it. And you know, there's

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Speaker 1: plenty there to bring in a young mind, to captivate

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Speaker 1: a young mind. You know, a robot fighting crime, firing

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Speaker 1: all sorts of crazy guns. But then you know, it's

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Speaker 1: kind of a notoriously violent film. It's got some really

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Speaker 1: grotesque moments in it, which we'll discuss. It was not

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Speaker 1: appropriate viewing at this at whatever age I was, but

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Speaker 1: you know, I still loved it, grew to love it,

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Speaker 1: and I think a lot of people have this experience.

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Speaker 1: Someone I was talking to in the last couple of

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Speaker 1: years said that their mom had rented this for them

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Speaker 1: at the store when they were young. They were just like, oh,

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Speaker 1: they need a film RoboCop. This looks fun. They didn't

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Speaker 1: like look at it closely enough to realize it was

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Speaker 1: rated R, and then you know, the violence just washes over.

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Speaker 3: Them, and probably a lot of the commentary sort of

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Speaker 3: went over their heads at that age too.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, all that ends up sticking with you

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Speaker 1: probably is like the cool robot stuff, and there is

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Speaker 1: some really cool robot stuff in this film, the violence

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Speaker 1: and probably the profanity.

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Speaker 3: So I did a little digging to figure out when

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Speaker 3: I first saw RoboCop, and I was able to peg

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Speaker 3: it to a year based on a rather a greasy marker,

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Speaker 3: so I knew that, and this is also a very

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Speaker 3: RoboCop sounding reason to be able to know when I

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Speaker 3: saw this. So I first saw it right around the

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Speaker 3: debut of The Windy's menu item the Baconator, which would

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Speaker 3: place this event in the year two thousand and seven,

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Speaker 3: so you know it's two thousand and seven. I was

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Speaker 3: I don't know how old I was. I was like

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Speaker 3: twenty or so. I was hanging out with some friends

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Speaker 3: and somehow it came up in Converse station that first

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Speaker 3: of all, I had never seen RoboCop, and second, I

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Speaker 3: had not yet had one of the new Bacon Eators,

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Speaker 3: and they were like, okay, we've got to fix both.

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Speaker 3: So we went to Windy's and then we watched this movie.

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Speaker 3: And sorry to the Wendy's fans out there, the bacon Eator,

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Speaker 3: at least this one at this time, was not good.

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Speaker 3: And I'm not trying to be a food snob. I

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Speaker 3: totally admit I can enjoy a greasy fast food sandwich.

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Speaker 3: But whatever I got that day was just not right.

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Speaker 3: It seemed like it had about eight slices of American

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Speaker 3: cheese and like thirty strips of bacon on it. Just

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Speaker 3: too much, too much bacon and cheese. Maybe those things

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Speaker 3: are different now, I don't know. But on the other hand,

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Speaker 3: RoboCop was amazing, and this memory I think sticks with

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Speaker 3: me because the bacon eator I had that day came

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Speaker 3: to seem like something that you would see an advertisement

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Speaker 3: for in RoboCop. It's like an in universe RoboCop food item.

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Speaker 3: It's something e Meal would be eating while he's like

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Speaker 3: pointing a gun at you and asking if you you

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Speaker 3: think you're smarter than a bullet.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, It's kind of the six thousand Sux of Burgers.

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Speaker 1: It sounds like.

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Speaker 3: It'll be hilarious if a Windy's ad runs on this episode.

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Speaker 3: By the way, So I was struck by how different

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Speaker 3: this movie was than I had always assumed because I'd

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Speaker 3: never seen RoboCop, but I was aware of it as

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Speaker 3: one of these eighties action movies, and I received it

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Speaker 3: the way it had been I think, generally culturally metabolized,

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Speaker 3: which was totally missing the point of it, shelving it

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Speaker 3: alongside these other gory, r rated eighties action movies, maybe

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Speaker 3: on the level of Commando starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. That's how

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Speaker 3: I thought of what RoboCop was.

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Speaker 1: And I think it can leave that kind of impression

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Speaker 1: in memory if you're far removed from especially in early

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Speaker 1: viewing of the film. I mean, the violence is so

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Speaker 1: violent that it kind of sticks with you, and you

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Speaker 1: might forget some of the other stuff. Like I was

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Speaker 1: talking to my wife about this when I was about

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Speaker 1: to rewatch it. She was very, very supporting of me

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Speaker 1: watching RoboCop, but did not want to watch it, and

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Speaker 1: I had to remind her say, oh no, there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of satire in it. There's more to it than

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Speaker 1: just the violence. Though the violence is there, and it's

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Speaker 1: sticking with you for a reason.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree, And at the risk of sounding like

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Speaker 3: a sucker, I think RoboCop has a quite genuine soul

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Speaker 3: and humanity to it, and amid everything else it is,

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Speaker 3: it is a hyper violent action movie, that's true. It

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Speaker 3: is a hair raising depiction of a world in the

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Speaker 3: hands of a moral egomaniacs. It is also a sort

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Speaker 3: of light light sci fi speculation about cybernetics. It is

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Speaker 3: definitely a hilarious fun house mirror to American culture. Amid

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Speaker 3: all those things, it's about the struggle to keep hold

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Speaker 3: of one's own humanity in a situation where there is

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Speaker 3: enormous pressure from every direction trying to transform you into

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Speaker 3: a soulless mash. So a lot of retrospective appreciation of

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Speaker 3: RoboCop mentions the satirical aspects of it. So I think

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Speaker 3: you absolutely could look at RoboCop as a satirical vision

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Speaker 3: of a dystopian near future from the time that it

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Speaker 3: was made, which you know, so the mid to late

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Speaker 3: nineteen eighties. And I think one of the main political

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Speaker 3: thrusts of the commentary in the movie is if you

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Speaker 3: ever heard people say, I wish the country could be

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Speaker 3: run like a business. The situational premise of RoboCop is

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Speaker 3: to say, Okay, let's see what that would be like.

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Speaker 3: So it depicts a kind of privatization nightmare where everything

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Speaker 3: that used to be thought of as a public interest

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Speaker 3: in a public good is sold off to corporations to

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Speaker 3: be run for profit. And though that seems to be

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Speaker 3: happening in pretty much all domains in the world of

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Speaker 3: the film, RoboCop especially focuses on the police department in

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Speaker 3: the city of Detroit, which has been bought out by

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Speaker 3: a corporation called Omni Consumer Products or OCP, and OCP

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Speaker 3: seems to be using it primarily in a couple of ways.

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Speaker 3: You get the sense they're looking at it as a

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Speaker 3: cost cutting center, so maybe they're taking the money for

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Speaker 3: the contract and then just cutting costs down to the

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Speaker 3: bone without regard for how this affects people, and then

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Speaker 3: keeping the difference. But they're also using it as a

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Speaker 3: playground to test out prototypes of new hardware that is

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Speaker 3: eventually destined for military use and thus big Pentagon contracts.

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Speaker 3: And the plot of RoboCop essentially arises as a conflict

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Speaker 3: between two rival OCP executives. You got Dick Jones and

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Speaker 3: Bob Morton who are squabbling to get their respective lethal

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Speaker 3: robot projects online at the police department so they can

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Speaker 3: eventually step them up, scale them up, and secure defense dollars.

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Speaker 3: So the things that are happening in the movie are

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Speaker 3: happening because of what's going on at the corporate board level.

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Speaker 3: These characters squabbling to get their own pros online and

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Speaker 3: make bank off of that. And meanwhile, the main good

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Speaker 3: characters are essentially just street level cops who are unknown

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Speaker 3: and unimportant to these power players, but whose fates are

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Speaker 3: controlled thereby.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, they're just struggling trying to do

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Speaker 1: their job. Also, you know, there's talk of unionization. There

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Speaker 1: are all these other additional elements that are in play

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Speaker 1: kind of at the street level, but OCP is not

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Speaker 1: at street level. They're they're they're halfway to heaven in

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Speaker 1: their enormous skyscraper, and yeah, that's where that's where a

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Speaker 1: lot of the plotting and a lot of and ultimately

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Speaker 1: a lot of the action goes down.

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Speaker 3: That's right. So I thought RoboCop was great when I

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Speaker 3: first watched it. I've seen it several times over the

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Speaker 3: year since then. I've long had an appreciation of it,

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Speaker 3: but most recently, when I watched it just this week,

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Speaker 3: I sort of think it's better than ever. And one

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Speaker 3: thing that struck me on the most recent viewing is that,

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Speaker 3: in a way, I think the sort of police criminal

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Speaker 3: justice themes are less essential to the spirit of the

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Speaker 3: movie then a lot of people would think, and certainly

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Speaker 3: than I once thought. So, Like, the characters are cops

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Speaker 3: and some of the villains are career criminals, but they

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Speaker 3: could be in any line of work of what used

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Speaker 3: to be public service sector jobs, and the spirit of

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Speaker 3: the movie would be similar, though I guess it would

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Speaker 3: be a lot less high octane if this was about

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Speaker 3: like librarians whose branch is bought out by OCP and

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Speaker 3: they want to replace all the books with advertisements for

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Speaker 3: the new six thousand SUX. But I think the deepest idea,

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Speaker 3: like what's at the heart of this movie is that

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Speaker 3: it's about people who are doing a job, whatever that

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Speaker 3: job is, where their bosses do not see them as

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Speaker 3: human beings. They are treated like inanimate tools or machines

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Speaker 3: just to be used to their maximum value, exhausted and discarded.

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Speaker 3: And this metaphor is literalized in the case of RoboCop himself,

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Speaker 3: and his redemption is in read discovering and reasserting that

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Speaker 3: he is a human being, not just a mechanism to

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Speaker 3: be used for profit by somebody else.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, his rediscovery of his humanity, that he is

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Speaker 1: a human and not a product. Yeah, I very much

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Speaker 1: agree with just the how good the movie is. Like basically,

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Speaker 1: RoboCop shouldn't be this good as I rewatch it in

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Speaker 1: my mid forties here, you know, because it's a film

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Speaker 1: that again terrified and enthralled me when I was at

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Speaker 1: a way too early age, entertained me later on, you know,

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Speaker 1: as a solid, you know, kind of dystopian action movie

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Speaker 1: with some laughs thrown in. But yeah, it absolutely delivers satirically,

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Speaker 1: It delivers with the action, and you know, it delivers emotionally,

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Speaker 1: like when the film really gets into its its own

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Speaker 1: emotional depth, I felt like those moments still hit pretty hard,

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Speaker 1: or I mean actually hit harder than they ever had

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Speaker 1: because you know, I, for instance, Murphy's son in the

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Speaker 1: film is about the age of my own, so it's

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Speaker 1: that resonated in a way that he just wasn't going

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Speaker 1: to resonate with me when I was a kid. And then,

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Speaker 1: of course all of this on top of the expected

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Speaker 1: nostalgia rush of watching a film like this that for

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Speaker 1: better or where she grew up with.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, totally, So I see all that, and at the

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Speaker 3: same time, I accept RoboCop is probably not for everybody.

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Speaker 3: This is, to be clear, a hard R rated, hyper

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Speaker 3: violent film, So you've got to be in the I

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Speaker 3: don't know, in the right headspace to accept it. But

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Speaker 3: if it is on a wavelength that is amenable to you,

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Speaker 3: I think it is excellent.

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Speaker 1: All right, Joe, what's your elevator pitch for RoboCop?

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Speaker 3: Then Omni Consumer Products has bought out the contract for

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Speaker 3: Old Detroit and wants to replace its human police force

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Speaker 3: with one of a selection of different gun wielding robots.

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Speaker 3: Beat Cop Alex Murphy is killed on the job, and

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Speaker 3: his body parts, including the remains of his damaged brain,

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Speaker 3: are used as scaffolding for one of these projects X.

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Speaker 3: A cyborg called RoboCop. Is he simply a tool now

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Speaker 3: controlled in full by his corporate masters or is there

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Speaker 3: still a human being inside who can act of his

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Speaker 3: own free will?

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Speaker 1: All right, let's listen to that Trailorati Old Detroit has

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Speaker 1: a cancer. Cancer is crime. We need a self sufficient

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Speaker 1: law enforcement robot. How long will it take?

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Speaker 3: We can go to prototype within ninety days. Where are

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Speaker 3: you from? Stroud?

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Hell.

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Speaker 3: Alive.

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Speaker 1: You're coming with me. You're gonna be a bad mothers.

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Speaker 3: Yes, man, this guy's really good machine. Robo cop? What

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Speaker 3: is he?

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Speaker 1: He's a cyborg?

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Speaker 3: You idiot? All hero?

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Speaker 1: What are your prime directors protect to innocent? Let the

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Speaker 1: woman go or there will be trouble.

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Speaker 3: Hold the law.

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Speaker 1: You are under arrest.

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Speaker 3: Justice gets an upgrade looking for me, your great RoboCop.

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Speaker 1: Thank you for your cooperation. Good night. All right. Well,

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Speaker 1: if you want to go out and watch RoboCop before

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Speaker 1: proceeding with the rest of the episode, go for it.

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Speaker 1: It's widely available as a physical or digital release. Joe,

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Speaker 1: you watched it on the older Criterion Collection DVD, which

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Speaker 1: I understand it's pretty awesome. I watched it on the

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Speaker 1: Aero Blu ray which I ran from Videodrome, which I

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Speaker 1: really loved. Both are loaded with extras.

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Speaker 3: I think I got to upgrade my disc because my

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Speaker 3: old DVD now is playing in a rectangle inside my

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Speaker 3: TV screen. But nevertheless, yeah, it was a great rewatch.

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Speaker 1: All right. Let's get into the people involved in this production,

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Speaker 1: starting at the top with the director. Paul Verhooven born

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirty eight, Dutch director, best known internationally for his

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Speaker 1: string of major Hollywood genre films of the eighties and nineties.

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Speaker 1: This is our first Rehoven film. He started out in

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Speaker 1: Dutch cinema and his first full length feature was the

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy one comedy Business Is Business, followed by seventy

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Speaker 1: three's Turkish Delight. That's his first collaboration with fellow Dutchman

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Speaker 1: Rutger Howard in his film debut. This was an erotic

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Speaker 1: drama and the film was a critical success and received

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Speaker 1: a Best Foreign Language Film nomination at the nineteen seventy

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Speaker 1: four Oscars. He did three additional Dutch films with Howard

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Speaker 1: and a nineteen eighty three thriller called The Fourth Man

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Speaker 1: with the Jerome Krabby, another Dutch actor of note that

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Speaker 1: he had frequently worked with, that went on to international success.

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Speaker 1: After this, he transitioned to Hollywood with the Rudger Howard

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Speaker 1: heilmed nineteen eighty five medieval action adventure film Flesh and

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Speaker 1: Blood or It's actually the title often looks like flesh plus.

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Speaker 3: Blood equals what.

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Speaker 1: Cinema I guess. And then then comes RoboCop, which was

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Speaker 1: a big enough hit, though at the time criticized for

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Speaker 1: his violence, certainly that He went on to direct Total

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Speaker 1: Recall in nineteen ninety, Basic Instinct in ninety two, Showgirls

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Speaker 1: in ninety five, Starship Troopers in ninety seven, and Hollow

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Speaker 1: Man in two thousand, which was apparently an unsatisfying film Forhoven.

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Speaker 1: It seems in interviews where he's like, well, this was

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Speaker 1: the first movie that I made that looking at it,

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Speaker 1: someone else could have made it. You know. He didn't

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Speaker 1: feel like his touch was there. So after this he

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Speaker 1: moved back to Dutch cinema with a string of pictures

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Speaker 1: that lean more historical in theme less sci fi and

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Speaker 1: so forth. But I believe he is set to return

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Speaker 1: to American cinema with a project called Young Sinner, which

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Speaker 1: is currently in development.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, regarding his other big Hollywood movies, it is a

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Speaker 3: weird string of films, though you can totally see the

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Speaker 3: as different as they are the creative threads that run

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Speaker 3: through them, and I would say the thing that they

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Speaker 3: all have in common is excess. He was a filmmaker

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Speaker 3: who was into depicting depicting a kind of carnal excess

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Speaker 3: in terms of sex and violence, but usually to make

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Speaker 3: a point of some kind. Whether he was successful or

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Speaker 3: not in all of these endeavors, that's questionable.

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Speaker 1: Though.

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Speaker 3: I think I would single out Starship Troopers in ninety

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Speaker 3: seven and as another movie that I think at the

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Speaker 3: time a lot of people really did not get it,

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Speaker 3: kind of like what happened with RoboCop. A lot of

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Speaker 3: people saw it as a kind of excessive, mindless, hyper

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Speaker 3: violent sci fi action movie that in retrospect a lot

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Speaker 3: of critics have looked back and said, this is actually

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Speaker 3: a quite sharp satire and works much better than we

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Speaker 3: originally realized.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I still need to go back and rewatch it,

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Speaker 1: because I watched it when I was when it first

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Speaker 1: came out. I just didn't pick up on all the satire,

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Speaker 1: and so the fascist themes in there that are there intentionally,

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Speaker 1: that are being satirized just ended up sitting with me

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Speaker 1: in a very weird way. I was like, I really

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Speaker 1: don't like the humans in this, and of course I

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Speaker 1: don't think you're supposed to like the humans at least

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Speaker 1: by the end of the film, so I need to

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Speaker 1: revisit it at some point. Now. Rahuvein was apparently I've

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Speaker 1: read slow to accept the RoboCop project, apparently because he

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Speaker 1: didn't really understand the satire at first. And I think

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Speaker 1: it's been said that his wife likes like like set

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Speaker 1: him down, was like, no, no, no, see this is what

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Speaker 1: it's don't you see what it's doing here? And then

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Speaker 1: he was like, Okay, yeah, I see now. And I

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Speaker 1: wonder how much of that has to do with the excess,

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Speaker 1: you know, because it's like he seems like a filmmaker,

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Speaker 1: you know, who is about pushing for the excessive violence

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Speaker 1: and or sexuality more the violence in this film, but

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Speaker 1: also pushing the satire, like making sure that everything's ramped

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Speaker 1: up enough that you can't miss it, that even at

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Speaker 1: least subconsciously, it's going to needle your brain and make

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Speaker 1: you realize something's not right here, or something's being said.

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Speaker 1: There's some additional way I'm supposed to interpret this.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, though, like I said, I mean, I think, especially

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Speaker 3: in the case of Starship Troopers, it seems like a

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Speaker 3: lot of people did miss it at the time and

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Speaker 3: only got it years later looking back.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, the writers on this we have. We have

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Speaker 1: two writers. There's Edward Neumeyer, American screenwriter, producer, and director.

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Speaker 1: This was his first big hit alongside Michael Minor, who

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Speaker 1: will get to in a second. He went on to

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Speaker 1: work on Starship Troopers, Starship Troopers two, and Starship Troopers three,

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Speaker 1: which he directed. He also co scripted Anaconda's The Hunt

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Speaker 1: for the Blood Orchid in two thousand and four, and

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Speaker 1: he's actually the writer of the upcoming Young Center project

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Speaker 1: that I referenced earlier.

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Speaker 3: I have not seen the Starship Troopers sequels, but ooh boy,

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Speaker 3: that just sounds like I don't know, reaching into a

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Speaker 3: snake hole in the woods. I don't know if that

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Speaker 3: was Maybe maybe they're great.

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Speaker 1: I haven't seen him now. As for Michael Minor, also

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Speaker 1: director and screenwriter of various projects, this was his first

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Speaker 1: big hit as well, which you followed up with with

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Speaker 1: script work on nineteen eighty nine's Deadly Weapon, which he

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Speaker 1: also directed lawnmower Man two, and also Anaconda's The Hunt

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Speaker 1: for the Blood Orchid. He also directed nineteen ninety nine's

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Speaker 1: The Book of Stars, which looks like I got some

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Speaker 1: good reviews. I think it's more of a drama. In

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Speaker 1: his career, he directed a number of music videos for

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Speaker 1: the rock band Y and T.

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Speaker 3: I don't think I know them.

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Speaker 1: I was not familiar. Look like some sort of a

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Speaker 1: rock band or metal band, but I just don't know. Now.

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Speaker 1: Our star of this is, of course, Peter Weller, playing

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Speaker 1: essentially a dual role Alex Murphy and then the RoboCop

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Speaker 1: that Murphy becomes, and then Robocop's attempts to reconnect with

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Speaker 1: the Alex Murphy he once was. Weller was born in

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Speaker 1: nineteen forty seven American actor and director who's acting work

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Speaker 1: goes back to the early seventies and he's still active today.

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Speaker 1: We previously discussed him in more depth in our episode

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Speaker 1: on panoscos Monto's The Viewing.

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Speaker 3: As we go on to discuss Weller in this role,

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Speaker 3: a point of comparison that I think is maybe worth

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Speaker 3: making is to the actors who play Batman, where there's

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Speaker 3: a dual role where there's like, you know, you have

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Speaker 3: your face revealed in one sense as Bruce Wayne, but

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Speaker 3: then also for part of the movie, you are just

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Speaker 3: a mouth and chin.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So you know, luckily Peter Weller has a very

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Speaker 1: handsome mouth and chin, very expressive. I think the other

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Speaker 1: interesting thing that that was surely intentional is that, especially

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Speaker 1: at the time, he was a very gaunt actor, you know,

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Speaker 1: a very thin man, which you know, you need a

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Speaker 1: skeleton to go at the in the middle of all

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Speaker 1: of that gear that he ends up wearing in the

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Speaker 1: RoboCop suit. So I think that that probably was a

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Speaker 1: huge factor as well. You need somebody that can literally

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Speaker 1: be the skeleton of this thing. Now. As Murphy, I

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Speaker 1: you know, he's basically just a likable good cop that

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Speaker 1: we don't really get to know all that much. We

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Speaker 1: learn more about him through RoboCop as he tries to

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Speaker 1: reconnect with his past, and this results in various moments

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Speaker 1: where RoboCop the cyborg is trying to connect with the

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Speaker 1: remnants of his own humanity, you know, and his memories

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Speaker 1: of his family, and I think Weller does a really

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Speaker 1: great job in those moments, like they I kind of

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Speaker 1: weld some tears up in those moments myself, and and

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Speaker 1: and then also just as in terms of you know,

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Speaker 1: the action scenes, I think it's a very nice physical performance.

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Speaker 1: So there are certainly times where the robot movements look silly,

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Speaker 1: you know, walking around as RoboCop, and I think maybe

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Speaker 1: they're supposed to, but there are also some great flourishes

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Speaker 1: that really bring this metallic hulk to life. I think

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Speaker 1: about the way that he positions his hands when he's

433
00:24:16,480 --> 00:24:19,600
Speaker 1: firing that enormous pistol of his I don't know if

434
00:24:20,040 --> 00:24:24,840
Speaker 1: this is something that actually makes sense in the use

435
00:24:24,880 --> 00:24:27,600
Speaker 1: of a pistol, but it looks really good when RoboCop

436
00:24:27,680 --> 00:24:27,960
Speaker 1: does it.

437
00:24:28,400 --> 00:24:31,240
Speaker 3: Well, there's a strange kind of ballet to the way

438
00:24:31,240 --> 00:24:34,000
Speaker 3: that he moves, Like he doesn't just raise his arm

439
00:24:34,080 --> 00:24:38,040
Speaker 3: to shoot his RoboCop gun, if you know what I mean.

440
00:24:38,119 --> 00:24:40,040
Speaker 3: Rob there are some shots where he can almost kind

441
00:24:40,040 --> 00:24:42,760
Speaker 3: of like he raises both arms, like he raises his

442
00:24:42,880 --> 00:24:45,119
Speaker 3: other arm as a kind of counterbalance. Is that what

443
00:24:45,160 --> 00:24:45,919
Speaker 3: you're talking about?

444
00:24:46,119 --> 00:24:48,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, it does feel very mechanical like this, like

445
00:24:49,040 --> 00:24:52,600
Speaker 1: his upper torso is the turret of a tank, you know.

446
00:24:52,720 --> 00:24:56,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, but also so I see, Yeah, it is mechanical

447
00:24:56,560 --> 00:24:59,560
Speaker 3: and it almost looks like he's doing a counterweight or counterbalance,

448
00:24:59,600 --> 00:25:01,639
Speaker 3: but it all so kind of looks like a dance,

449
00:25:01,800 --> 00:25:04,400
Speaker 3: like it like ballet or something where the arms both

450
00:25:04,440 --> 00:25:04,840
Speaker 3: go out.

451
00:25:05,440 --> 00:25:07,800
Speaker 1: Yeah. If they had not done those things, I think

452
00:25:07,920 --> 00:25:12,240
Speaker 1: RoboCop the character would have been a lot more just

453
00:25:12,359 --> 00:25:16,399
Speaker 1: visually unappealing. So I was noticing a lot of that

454
00:25:16,480 --> 00:25:19,320
Speaker 1: and rewatching the film. Now. Weller came back to play

455
00:25:19,960 --> 00:25:24,280
Speaker 1: RoboCop again in the sequel RoboCop two, but by RoboCop three,

456
00:25:24,320 --> 00:25:26,600
Speaker 1: he was played by a different actor, Robert John Burke

457
00:25:26,840 --> 00:25:31,160
Speaker 1: of best known probably for Thinner and Dust Devil. I'm

458
00:25:31,160 --> 00:25:33,800
Speaker 1: to understand that Weller was unavailable because he was filming

459
00:25:33,840 --> 00:25:35,720
Speaker 1: Cronenberg's Naked Lunch at that point.

460
00:25:36,680 --> 00:25:41,119
Speaker 3: You know, I've never so RoboCop two is interesting. It

461
00:25:41,400 --> 00:25:44,440
Speaker 3: I think it is quite good, but it's very different

462
00:25:44,560 --> 00:25:48,560
Speaker 3: than the first RoboCop and has a different kind of mindset.

463
00:25:48,840 --> 00:25:52,199
Speaker 3: RoboCop three I've never seen, but it's on paper seems

464
00:25:52,240 --> 00:25:54,640
Speaker 3: like it could be hilarious, so I kind of want

465
00:25:54,680 --> 00:25:55,800
Speaker 3: to get into it.

466
00:25:55,800 --> 00:25:58,800
Speaker 1: It has a great cast, and it's and it's interesting

467
00:25:58,840 --> 00:26:01,840
Speaker 1: too in that by three they're like, you know, kids

468
00:26:01,880 --> 00:26:06,639
Speaker 1: love RoboCop, let's maybe let's make one that's not rated R.

469
00:26:07,680 --> 00:26:09,640
Speaker 1: And so that's what they did. But yeah, I've never

470
00:26:09,760 --> 00:26:12,359
Speaker 1: I've never seen it, but I would like to love

471
00:26:12,440 --> 00:26:16,439
Speaker 1: RoboCup too. It really ups the ante, especially on the

472
00:26:16,560 --> 00:26:17,920
Speaker 1: stop motion violence.

473
00:26:18,240 --> 00:26:21,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, so three has. What I know about it is

474
00:26:21,240 --> 00:26:24,960
Speaker 3: that I think it has rocket ninjas and it is no,

475
00:26:25,560 --> 00:26:27,159
Speaker 3: its reputation is quite terrible.

476
00:26:27,600 --> 00:26:29,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it has Stephen Root in it. So it's

477
00:26:29,920 --> 00:26:32,800
Speaker 1: kind of got to apply to Stephen Root rule. How

478
00:26:32,840 --> 00:26:35,040
Speaker 1: bad could it be if Stephen Root isn't it. I

479
00:26:35,040 --> 00:26:38,800
Speaker 1: should also note that Weller has returned to voice RoboCop

480
00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:41,880
Speaker 1: in recent years. I believe they put the character into

481
00:26:41,880 --> 00:26:44,400
Speaker 1: one of the Mortal Kombat games. And there's a new

482
00:26:44,800 --> 00:26:49,240
Speaker 1: RoboCop video game that I am not technologically equipped to play,

483
00:26:49,800 --> 00:26:52,000
Speaker 1: but I've read some interesting things about it. Sounds like

484
00:26:52,040 --> 00:26:54,280
Speaker 1: it does an interesting job of sort of drawing from

485
00:26:54,280 --> 00:26:58,920
Speaker 1: all three films to create a like a fourth narrative

486
00:26:58,960 --> 00:27:01,919
Speaker 1: that you can play through. I don't know that the

487
00:27:02,000 --> 00:27:05,240
Speaker 1: satire is there. So if you've played this new RoboCop

488
00:27:05,320 --> 00:27:08,800
Speaker 1: game right in and tell us what you think, all right.

489
00:27:09,440 --> 00:27:13,119
Speaker 1: The next actor of note is Nancy Allen, playing the cop.

490
00:27:13,280 --> 00:27:17,399
Speaker 1: Anne Lewis born nineteen fifty American actress who kicked off

491
00:27:17,440 --> 00:27:20,280
Speaker 1: her film career in nineteen seventy three is the last detail.

492
00:27:20,880 --> 00:27:23,040
Speaker 1: She followed this up with supporting roles in a string

493
00:27:23,080 --> 00:27:26,760
Speaker 1: of horror movies, including seventy six Is Carrie, then a

494
00:27:26,760 --> 00:27:28,880
Speaker 1: string of roles in films of the films of Brian

495
00:27:28,960 --> 00:27:32,119
Speaker 1: de Palma, seventy nine's Home Movies, nineteen eighties, Dressed to

496
00:27:32,200 --> 00:27:36,320
Speaker 1: Kill and eighty one's Blowout. After RoboCop, she appeared in

497
00:27:36,400 --> 00:27:39,840
Speaker 1: both robo sequels. She was in Poltergeist three in eighty eight,

498
00:27:40,119 --> 00:27:41,920
Speaker 1: she was in nineteen ninety eight s Out of Sight,

499
00:27:42,760 --> 00:27:45,000
Speaker 1: She was in Children of the Corn six six six,

500
00:27:45,080 --> 00:27:48,639
Speaker 1: Isaac's Return in nineteen ninety nine, and her last acting

501
00:27:48,680 --> 00:27:51,760
Speaker 1: credit was in two thousand and eight, So it sounds

502
00:27:51,760 --> 00:27:55,360
Speaker 1: like maybe she sort of quietly retired from cinema.

503
00:27:55,520 --> 00:27:58,040
Speaker 3: Is Children of the Corn six six six, the six

504
00:27:58,119 --> 00:28:00,679
Speaker 3: hundred and sixty six movie in that series.

505
00:28:02,760 --> 00:28:04,680
Speaker 1: It might be I feel like there are that many

506
00:28:04,720 --> 00:28:07,600
Speaker 1: of them. I've attempted to look. I don't think I've

507
00:28:07,640 --> 00:28:11,119
Speaker 1: ever seen one I love Stephen King's original short story.

508
00:28:11,119 --> 00:28:14,359
Speaker 1: It's very creepy, but it's hard to figure out where

509
00:28:14,359 --> 00:28:18,040
Speaker 1: to even contemplate. Beginning with the Children of the Corn movies.

510
00:28:18,160 --> 00:28:21,560
Speaker 3: Why would it take Isaac that long to return, I

511
00:28:21,600 --> 00:28:21,919
Speaker 3: don't know.

512
00:28:21,960 --> 00:28:23,640
Speaker 1: I think maybe he was out for a movie or two.

513
00:28:23,760 --> 00:28:24,159
Speaker 1: I don't know.

514
00:28:24,200 --> 00:28:29,879
Speaker 3: Okay, So I really really love Nancy Allen as Lewis

515
00:28:29,880 --> 00:28:33,240
Speaker 3: and RoboCop. Maybe my all time favorite buddy cop partner

516
00:28:33,760 --> 00:28:38,080
Speaker 3: in a buddy cop movie. So the movie shows kind

517
00:28:38,080 --> 00:28:41,080
Speaker 3: of multiple ways that the police characters react to the

518
00:28:41,960 --> 00:28:45,600
Speaker 3: pressures that they're under in this plot. You know, some

519
00:28:45,760 --> 00:28:49,440
Speaker 3: of the cops in the movie just become unthinking functionaries

520
00:28:49,440 --> 00:28:52,800
Speaker 3: of OCP, Like they just keep their heads down, do

521
00:28:52,880 --> 00:28:55,120
Speaker 3: what the boss says. They don't ask questions, even when

522
00:28:55,160 --> 00:28:58,640
Speaker 3: they are essentially ordered to assassinate RoboCop later in the movie.

523
00:28:59,120 --> 00:29:02,120
Speaker 3: Others are showing how emotional crises, like there's one guy

524
00:29:02,200 --> 00:29:05,040
Speaker 3: who just always in every scene seems to be freaking out.

525
00:29:06,240 --> 00:29:10,240
Speaker 3: Lewis is an interesting like she she keeps cool under pressure,

526
00:29:10,320 --> 00:29:13,640
Speaker 3: and she thinks for herself and she uses compassion. She's

527
00:29:13,680 --> 00:29:16,400
Speaker 3: the one who's able to understand what's going on to

528
00:29:16,440 --> 00:29:20,640
Speaker 3: see that RoboCop is actually Murphy when she gets in

529
00:29:20,680 --> 00:29:24,440
Speaker 3: his face and says, it's you Murphy. Yeah, and to

530
00:29:24,520 --> 00:29:26,800
Speaker 3: see that there's some part of him that is still human,

531
00:29:26,840 --> 00:29:28,880
Speaker 3: and to save his life when Dick Jones is trying

532
00:29:28,920 --> 00:29:31,320
Speaker 3: to have him destroyed in the in the third act

533
00:29:31,400 --> 00:29:33,440
Speaker 3: or second or third, I don't know, later on in

534
00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:36,480
Speaker 3: the movie. And I think Nancy Allen does a great

535
00:29:36,680 --> 00:29:40,160
Speaker 3: job with this role. She's she's tough, down to earth,

536
00:29:40,600 --> 00:29:43,680
Speaker 3: plays it smart human. I really like her in this role.

537
00:29:44,200 --> 00:29:47,560
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, she's really the heart and soul of this

538
00:29:47,680 --> 00:29:50,040
Speaker 1: movie in many ways, in a very real sense and

539
00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:53,120
Speaker 1: an intentional sense, you know. And she's and it's also

540
00:29:53,120 --> 00:29:56,000
Speaker 1: great that she's she's not written as a love interest. Yeah,

541
00:29:56,040 --> 00:29:58,040
Speaker 1: you know, she's a capable action hero in her own

542
00:29:58,160 --> 00:30:01,640
Speaker 1: right in an action movie, but her compassion is really

543
00:30:01,640 --> 00:30:04,720
Speaker 1: her main strength. And that's and without her, if you

544
00:30:04,760 --> 00:30:08,040
Speaker 1: take her character out of this, you don't get any

545
00:30:08,120 --> 00:30:10,760
Speaker 1: kind of a positive resolution for the characters in the setting.

546
00:30:11,160 --> 00:30:11,600
Speaker 1: I agree.

547
00:30:11,640 --> 00:30:13,640
Speaker 3: I think a lesser movie would have tried to have

548
00:30:13,680 --> 00:30:16,440
Speaker 3: some kind of romantic relationship between the two and it

549
00:30:16,600 --> 00:30:19,440
Speaker 3: just that's not what this relationship is about. And I'm

550
00:30:19,440 --> 00:30:20,719
Speaker 3: glad they didn't go that direction.

551
00:30:21,680 --> 00:30:26,600
Speaker 1: I watched a featurette on the Arrow Blu Ray where

552
00:30:26,600 --> 00:30:30,720
Speaker 1: they're interviewing her about this role, and Nancy Allen does

553
00:30:30,760 --> 00:30:33,000
Speaker 1: point out it's very interesting how she ended up getting

554
00:30:33,160 --> 00:30:35,640
Speaker 1: the part, and you know, the sort of callback experience

555
00:30:35,640 --> 00:30:37,920
Speaker 1: and so forth. But she said she showed up in

556
00:30:38,040 --> 00:30:40,120
Speaker 1: Dallas and they were like, how about a shorter haircut,

557
00:30:40,200 --> 00:30:42,440
Speaker 1: and because she had longer hair, and she's like, Okay,

558
00:30:42,840 --> 00:30:44,760
Speaker 1: goes out gets her haircut, and then she's like, oh

559
00:30:44,800 --> 00:30:47,680
Speaker 1: my god, I got my haircut way too short. I've

560
00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:50,120
Speaker 1: got a terrible haircut for this movie. I don't think

561
00:30:50,120 --> 00:30:53,600
Speaker 1: it looks terrible, but it is very short. So it's

562
00:30:53,640 --> 00:30:56,880
Speaker 1: interesting to think about that. Looking at the character, I

563
00:30:56,920 --> 00:30:59,880
Speaker 1: think it ultimately works really well for the character. But

564
00:31:00,040 --> 00:31:01,760
Speaker 1: at the time I think she was a little horrified.

565
00:31:01,800 --> 00:31:03,240
Speaker 1: She was like, I think I've gone too far.

566
00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:05,640
Speaker 3: I think this was the first movie I saw Nancy

567
00:31:05,680 --> 00:31:07,600
Speaker 3: Allen in, so I just think of this as her

568
00:31:07,680 --> 00:31:09,760
Speaker 3: natural haircuts. When I see her in other stuff with

569
00:31:09,800 --> 00:31:11,640
Speaker 3: longer hair, I'm like, oh, here she has long hair.

570
00:31:11,680 --> 00:31:15,000
Speaker 1: Now, all right, let's get into some of the corporate

571
00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:17,360
Speaker 1: characters here. We'll also come back to a few cops.

572
00:31:17,960 --> 00:31:20,880
Speaker 1: This is. We've talked about this actor before, but Dan

573
00:31:20,960 --> 00:31:23,160
Speaker 1: o'hurlehey plays the Old Man.

574
00:31:24,440 --> 00:31:27,880
Speaker 3: Oh boy, the villain from Halloween three shows up as

575
00:31:27,920 --> 00:31:30,600
Speaker 3: a I don't know, is he a villain? And yeah,

576
00:31:30,840 --> 00:31:34,040
Speaker 3: he's a sort of unwitting villain in this movie. You

577
00:31:34,080 --> 00:31:37,920
Speaker 3: don't see him. He's not as direct of a schemer

578
00:31:37,960 --> 00:31:40,120
Speaker 3: as some of the other corporate villains. He's more just

579
00:31:40,200 --> 00:31:42,880
Speaker 3: kind of like sitting there presiding over all of the

580
00:31:42,920 --> 00:31:45,560
Speaker 3: wickedness that goes on, mostly oblivious to it.

581
00:31:46,240 --> 00:31:48,520
Speaker 1: I you know, going into this, and perhaps the character

582
00:31:48,600 --> 00:31:51,360
Speaker 1: changes a bit in the sequels, I don't remember. I've

583
00:31:51,360 --> 00:31:53,280
Speaker 1: probably seen Rebel Coop two more than I've seen any

584
00:31:53,320 --> 00:31:55,480
Speaker 1: of them, so maybe he's more of a villain in too.

585
00:31:55,560 --> 00:31:58,640
Speaker 1: But in this one, I feel like he is essentially

586
00:31:59,480 --> 00:32:03,920
Speaker 1: God or perhaps Zeus. You know, he's The corporate meeting

587
00:32:03,960 --> 00:32:07,400
Speaker 1: rooms of OCP are in a place where skyscrapers touch

588
00:32:07,480 --> 00:32:10,719
Speaker 1: the heavens, and his appearance at a meeting is spoken

589
00:32:10,760 --> 00:32:13,280
Speaker 1: of in terms of a holy visitation, and we never

590
00:32:13,280 --> 00:32:15,960
Speaker 1: hear his name. He's just the old Man. It really

591
00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:19,680
Speaker 1: does feel like he actually comes down for these meetings

592
00:32:19,680 --> 00:32:23,160
Speaker 1: from heaven or from Mount Olympus, carrying with him the

593
00:32:23,200 --> 00:32:26,560
Speaker 1: aloofness and distance of a divine father who wants the

594
00:32:26,560 --> 00:32:29,200
Speaker 1: best for his creations. He wants to create Delta City.

595
00:32:29,280 --> 00:32:33,360
Speaker 1: Remember he's the idea man. All this robot cop stuff

596
00:32:33,680 --> 00:32:36,600
Speaker 1: is just in service to this grand dream that is

597
00:32:36,600 --> 00:32:39,080
Speaker 1: going to make the world better at least for some people.

598
00:32:40,440 --> 00:32:42,760
Speaker 1: He wants to fix his creation, but he doesn't really

599
00:32:42,840 --> 00:32:44,600
Speaker 1: understand mortal existence all that.

600
00:32:44,640 --> 00:32:48,040
Speaker 3: Well, you're right, and I think the comparison does Zeus

601
00:32:48,200 --> 00:32:50,320
Speaker 3: is apt because in some ways he is kind of

602
00:32:50,360 --> 00:32:55,600
Speaker 3: an arbidure of justice or a moral authority in some way,

603
00:32:55,640 --> 00:32:58,080
Speaker 3: but he doesn't really seem to have much understanding of

604
00:32:58,160 --> 00:33:01,120
Speaker 3: morality at all. It's like he he's like an a

605
00:33:01,440 --> 00:33:03,200
Speaker 3: moral arbiter of justice.

606
00:33:03,960 --> 00:33:06,880
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So it's an interesting role to look at again,

607
00:33:06,960 --> 00:33:09,160
Speaker 1: thinking of it's easy to go in and think about

608
00:33:09,200 --> 00:33:11,480
Speaker 1: his role in Halloween three, you know, where he is

609
00:33:12,120 --> 00:33:15,880
Speaker 1: this evil corporate guy, and we also talked about him

610
00:33:15,880 --> 00:33:18,240
Speaker 1: in the last Starfighter episode we did. He plays he

611
00:33:18,280 --> 00:33:20,920
Speaker 1: plays a good guy in that he's covered in alien makeup.

612
00:33:21,960 --> 00:33:24,200
Speaker 3: In this I guess I would say he is functionally

613
00:33:24,280 --> 00:33:27,440
Speaker 3: a bad guy in terms of the effects of his behavior,

614
00:33:27,560 --> 00:33:31,760
Speaker 3: but he doesn't have bad guy energy on screen. He's

615
00:33:31,800 --> 00:33:35,160
Speaker 3: just sort of like an oblivious god who's bumbling around

616
00:33:35,280 --> 00:33:37,840
Speaker 3: destroying people without really realizing it.

617
00:33:38,280 --> 00:33:41,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, and ultimately he's not a power to be overcome

618
00:33:41,160 --> 00:33:44,880
Speaker 1: by our heroes, but to be appealed to. So we'll

619
00:33:44,880 --> 00:33:48,000
Speaker 1: talk about that when we talk about the climax. But yeah,

620
00:33:48,120 --> 00:33:51,080
Speaker 1: Dan O'Hurley great actor of stage and screen. He lived

621
00:33:51,160 --> 00:33:54,080
Speaker 1: nineteen nineteen through two thousand and five. Ah, but then

622
00:33:54,120 --> 00:33:56,840
Speaker 1: we are true villain. Are one of our true villains

623
00:33:56,840 --> 00:33:59,920
Speaker 1: on the corporate end of things, here is the character

624
00:34:00,120 --> 00:34:02,520
Speaker 1: Dick Jones played by Ronnie Cox.

625
00:34:02,800 --> 00:34:05,680
Speaker 3: Dick Jones is one of my all time favorite movie villains.

626
00:34:05,800 --> 00:34:08,920
Speaker 3: I love him, and I love all the corporate villains

627
00:34:08,960 --> 00:34:12,000
Speaker 3: in this movie, but Dick Jones is great and Ronnie

628
00:34:12,040 --> 00:34:15,480
Speaker 3: Cox in this role. Ronnie Cox was simply born to

629
00:34:15,560 --> 00:34:19,880
Speaker 3: play business creeps in Paul Verhoven films. One of my

630
00:34:19,960 --> 00:34:23,319
Speaker 3: other favorites is his role as Coohagan, the villain who

631
00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:26,360
Speaker 3: runs the for profit in Mars Colony in Total Recall.

632
00:34:27,320 --> 00:34:30,200
Speaker 3: And this is a spoiler for Total Recall though if

633
00:34:30,200 --> 00:34:32,799
Speaker 3: you don't want it spoiled, closeure ears for a second.

634
00:34:32,840 --> 00:34:36,040
Speaker 3: But in that movie, if you'll recall he wants to

635
00:34:36,160 --> 00:34:39,040
Speaker 3: prevent the use of an alien device that will make

636
00:34:39,120 --> 00:34:42,520
Speaker 3: the atmosphere of Mars breathable because he wants to protect

637
00:34:42,560 --> 00:34:45,200
Speaker 3: his racket selling oxygen to the Mars colonists.

638
00:34:45,560 --> 00:34:49,480
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, what a scoundrel. Though it's interesting. I was

639
00:34:49,719 --> 00:34:53,840
Speaker 1: digging into it and this movie is you know, you

640
00:34:53,920 --> 00:34:57,000
Speaker 1: now think of Ronnie Cox, you think of characters like Jones,

641
00:34:57,040 --> 00:35:00,319
Speaker 1: but apparently he was playing somewhat against type on this one.

642
00:35:00,520 --> 00:35:04,200
Speaker 1: He'd been mostly known for playing pleasant, white collar type characters.

643
00:35:04,880 --> 00:35:08,359
Speaker 1: He made his screen debut in nineteen seventy two John

644
00:35:08,400 --> 00:35:12,120
Speaker 1: Borman thriller Deliverance. We see him playing the guitar, and

645
00:35:12,160 --> 00:35:14,920
Speaker 1: he's actually playing the guitar in that dueling banjo scene

646
00:35:14,960 --> 00:35:16,600
Speaker 1: because he's also a singer songwriter.

647
00:35:17,239 --> 00:35:19,719
Speaker 3: He is the character in Deliverance who has like the

648
00:35:19,800 --> 00:35:23,560
Speaker 3: strongest moral compass. The others are are more like ruthless

649
00:35:23,600 --> 00:35:26,160
Speaker 3: and practical. And he's like, no, we've got to go

650
00:35:26,200 --> 00:35:28,759
Speaker 3: to the authorities and explain what happened and admit what

651
00:35:28,800 --> 00:35:31,720
Speaker 3: we did and all that, and you know, Bert Reynolds

652
00:35:31,760 --> 00:35:33,680
Speaker 3: has to argue with him and say, no, we got

653
00:35:33,680 --> 00:35:38,480
Speaker 3: to cover it up, which again, yes, I guess seems

654
00:35:38,560 --> 00:35:41,799
Speaker 3: against type to me because I was more familiar with

655
00:35:41,880 --> 00:35:44,200
Speaker 3: him playing characters like Dick Jones. But yeah, I guess

656
00:35:44,239 --> 00:35:45,879
Speaker 3: you could look at it the other way around as well.

657
00:35:46,520 --> 00:35:50,160
Speaker 1: Yeah. The same year, seventy two, he also pops up

658
00:35:50,200 --> 00:35:52,839
Speaker 1: in The Mind Snatchers, a sci fi film that has

659
00:35:52,880 --> 00:35:57,000
Speaker 1: a cast that includes Christopher Walken, Joss Ackland, and Tom Aldridge.

660
00:35:57,560 --> 00:35:59,680
Speaker 1: So some interesting names in there. I've never seen it.

661
00:36:00,040 --> 00:36:02,040
Speaker 1: A fair amount of TV work followed, but he popped

662
00:36:02,080 --> 00:36:03,920
Speaker 1: up in seventy nine Is the Onion Field, eighty two

663
00:36:03,960 --> 00:36:07,560
Speaker 1: is The Beast within eighty four's Beverly Hills Cop, it's sequel,

664
00:36:07,880 --> 00:36:11,239
Speaker 1: and then he did RoboCop. Subsequent credits include not only

665
00:36:11,320 --> 00:36:15,480
Speaker 1: Total Recall, but the nineteen ninety Captain America film, the

666
00:36:15,520 --> 00:36:19,239
Speaker 1: TV series Cop Rock Star Trek the Next Generation, and

667
00:36:19,520 --> 00:36:21,839
Speaker 1: I don't remember this, but apparently has an uncredited role

668
00:36:21,840 --> 00:36:22,680
Speaker 1: in Deep Blue Sea.

669
00:36:23,160 --> 00:36:25,799
Speaker 3: Is he basically playing Dick Jones in that, like he's

670
00:36:25,800 --> 00:36:28,759
Speaker 3: a corporate silver lord? Yeah?

671
00:36:29,080 --> 00:36:32,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, because it's kind of like post RoboCop. That's one

672
00:36:32,080 --> 00:36:34,400
Speaker 1: of the main reasons you're thinking about casting him. I'm like,

673
00:36:34,480 --> 00:36:36,960
Speaker 1: I'm guessing, and you know, basically probably printed money there

674
00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:37,520
Speaker 1: for a while.

675
00:36:37,840 --> 00:36:41,560
Speaker 3: You can imagine the deep Blue Sea is just in

676
00:36:41,719 --> 00:36:45,440
Speaker 3: the RoboCop universe, like they're making smart sharks. That just

677
00:36:45,480 --> 00:36:47,160
Speaker 3: seems like another thing OCP would do.

678
00:36:48,080 --> 00:36:51,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think I said his birthday. He was

679
00:36:51,960 --> 00:36:54,160
Speaker 1: born in nineteen thirty eight, and he's still out there.

680
00:36:54,160 --> 00:36:57,560
Speaker 1: I think he still performs as a musician as a musician,

681
00:36:57,600 --> 00:36:59,560
Speaker 1: and I think he may still be active as an actor.

682
00:36:59,560 --> 00:37:02,280
Speaker 1: I don't recall off han Ah. But we have another

683
00:37:02,320 --> 00:37:06,040
Speaker 1: corporate character to talk about here, the character Bob Morton

684
00:37:06,480 --> 00:37:09,920
Speaker 1: played by Miguel Ferrer, who lived nineteen fifty five through

685
00:37:09,960 --> 00:37:13,040
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen American actor and son of Jose Ferrer and

686
00:37:13,160 --> 00:37:16,360
Speaker 1: Rosemary Clooney, which of course made him George Clooney's cousin.

687
00:37:17,480 --> 00:37:19,680
Speaker 1: George Clooney apparently showed up with him to a lot

688
00:37:19,719 --> 00:37:22,439
Speaker 1: of these auditions back in the day they were oh

689
00:37:22,960 --> 00:37:23,560
Speaker 1: living together.

690
00:37:23,680 --> 00:37:26,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, what if a young George Clooney had been in

691
00:37:26,520 --> 00:37:30,560
Speaker 3: RoboCop Farrer.

692
00:37:30,920 --> 00:37:34,000
Speaker 1: He had a real knack for playing scoundrels. Started off

693
00:37:34,040 --> 00:37:37,600
Speaker 1: in early eighties television and some forgettable films. Pops up

694
00:37:37,600 --> 00:37:40,879
Speaker 1: as a first officer in Star Trek three. After Robocopy

695
00:37:40,920 --> 00:37:43,799
Speaker 1: appeared in nineteen eighty nine's Deep Star six, one of

696
00:37:43,840 --> 00:37:46,560
Speaker 1: the many underwater horror films of eighty nine.

697
00:37:46,880 --> 00:37:50,960
Speaker 3: I think he undergoes a harrowing, explosive decompression in that film.

698
00:37:51,440 --> 00:37:54,480
Speaker 1: Oh man, that's probably right. He was in nineteen nineties

699
00:37:54,520 --> 00:37:56,920
Speaker 1: The Guardian, ninety two's Twin Peaks, fire Walk with Me

700
00:37:57,040 --> 00:38:00,439
Speaker 1: ninety four is The Stand the mini series this did

701
00:38:00,520 --> 00:38:03,440
Speaker 1: three episodes of Tales from the Crypt. I think that's commendable.

702
00:38:03,440 --> 00:38:07,400
Speaker 1: I'm not sure who else did that many. He was

703
00:38:07,400 --> 00:38:10,400
Speaker 1: also in ninety six is Project Alf ninety seven is

704
00:38:10,440 --> 00:38:14,040
Speaker 1: the Night Flyer Mulan. In nineteen ninety eight he did

705
00:38:14,160 --> 00:38:16,080
Speaker 1: the voice of the main villain. He was in two

706
00:38:16,080 --> 00:38:18,919
Speaker 1: Thousands Traffic, and he pops up in Iron Man three

707
00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:21,319
Speaker 1: and twenty thirteen. He did a lot of voice work

708
00:38:21,360 --> 00:38:23,840
Speaker 1: late in his career, and appeared in the twenty seventeen

709
00:38:23,920 --> 00:38:24,960
Speaker 1: Twin Peaks revival.

710
00:38:25,400 --> 00:38:28,239
Speaker 3: Miguel Ferrer is also great in this movie. Like I said,

711
00:38:28,239 --> 00:38:30,640
Speaker 3: I love all the corporate villains. He's a perfect foil

712
00:38:30,719 --> 00:38:35,080
Speaker 3: to Dick Jones. So Ronnie Cox is older, colder, more calculating,

713
00:38:35,480 --> 00:38:39,360
Speaker 3: and Miguel Ferrera's character Bob Morton is a young hotshot

714
00:38:39,400 --> 00:38:43,520
Speaker 3: who thinks he's the next big thing, and they play

715
00:38:43,520 --> 00:38:46,520
Speaker 3: off of each other well, but they're like both so detestable.

716
00:38:47,200 --> 00:38:51,879
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, Like Morton comes off as more likable in

717
00:38:51,920 --> 00:38:55,319
Speaker 1: some regards, but it's because he's less directly awful and

718
00:38:55,440 --> 00:38:59,920
Speaker 1: also doesn't resort to direct murder though is the all

719
00:39:00,320 --> 00:39:03,799
Speaker 1: is very culpable for human deaths. So it's like they

720
00:39:03,800 --> 00:39:07,160
Speaker 1: are both horrible, but they're different shades and degrees of

721
00:39:07,200 --> 00:39:10,880
Speaker 1: the same awfulness. Yeah, Morton's this ambitious, coked up business

722
00:39:10,880 --> 00:39:13,200
Speaker 1: bro who's definitely going to high five you in the

723
00:39:13,200 --> 00:39:16,399
Speaker 1: men's room, but you know, at the end of the day,

724
00:39:16,520 --> 00:39:19,360
Speaker 1: he's totally going to sign off on civilian or police

725
00:39:19,400 --> 00:39:23,520
Speaker 1: deaths if it lets him advance up the corporate ladder. Yeah,

726
00:39:23,840 --> 00:39:26,000
Speaker 1: these are two corporate characters, one more villainous than the other.

727
00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:27,360
Speaker 1: Both of them both I think you could think of

728
00:39:27,400 --> 00:39:32,680
Speaker 1: his villains, but they're essentially both lawful evil to a

729
00:39:32,680 --> 00:39:35,760
Speaker 1: certain degree. We also have to have a little chaotic

730
00:39:35,840 --> 00:39:37,840
Speaker 1: evil in this, and that's where we have the character

731
00:39:37,960 --> 00:39:40,760
Speaker 1: Clarence Bodiker played by kurtwood Smith.

732
00:39:41,480 --> 00:39:45,360
Speaker 3: Yeah. This raises another interesting theme of RoboCop, which is

733
00:39:45,400 --> 00:39:48,799
Speaker 3: it depicts a world of an alliance between sort of

734
00:39:48,840 --> 00:39:52,960
Speaker 3: big capital and big crime, like the criminal bosses and

735
00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:57,240
Speaker 3: the corporate bosses essentially are working together against everybody else.

736
00:39:58,160 --> 00:40:01,560
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, other antagonists than the film though, or

737
00:40:01,680 --> 00:40:03,799
Speaker 1: very much part of the corporate machine. You know, it's

738
00:40:03,880 --> 00:40:07,520
Speaker 1: like they're to large degrees they can just be like,

739
00:40:07,560 --> 00:40:09,719
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to climb up the corporate ladder here,

740
00:40:09,760 --> 00:40:12,279
Speaker 1: I'm just doing what i have to do. I am

741
00:40:12,360 --> 00:40:15,279
Speaker 1: part of this company. I'm part of OCP. But yeah,

742
00:40:15,320 --> 00:40:18,680
Speaker 1: Clarence bodiker Is is very much all of the criminal

743
00:40:18,719 --> 00:40:22,920
Speaker 1: world and is just evil. Just doesn't seem to love

744
00:40:22,960 --> 00:40:25,640
Speaker 1: anything in life. It's just full of hate and violence.

745
00:40:26,160 --> 00:40:28,600
Speaker 1: Even his cronies are not safe.

746
00:40:29,120 --> 00:40:32,080
Speaker 3: He does seem to genuinely love crime like he loves

747
00:40:32,120 --> 00:40:32,600
Speaker 3: his work.

748
00:40:33,080 --> 00:40:37,520
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. Now. Kurtwood Smith born nineteen forty three is

749
00:40:37,560 --> 00:40:40,440
Speaker 1: an American actor of stage, screen, and TV that may

750
00:40:40,480 --> 00:40:42,560
Speaker 1: be best known to many for his role as the

751
00:40:42,640 --> 00:40:46,240
Speaker 1: dad on That seventies show, but this was his big

752
00:40:46,280 --> 00:40:49,840
Speaker 1: breakout film role. And this was another case where, according

753
00:40:49,840 --> 00:40:51,319
Speaker 1: to some of the extras I was looking at, you know,

754
00:40:51,600 --> 00:40:54,480
Speaker 1: was very much against against type. This is not a

755
00:40:54,520 --> 00:40:57,120
Speaker 1: guy who'd done a bunch of villain roles. They were

756
00:40:57,120 --> 00:41:01,480
Speaker 1: thinking about other sort of established villainous actors like Michael Ironside,

757
00:41:02,080 --> 00:41:07,400
Speaker 1: but they ended up liking kurtwood Smith, apparently because Verhoven

758
00:41:08,200 --> 00:41:12,200
Speaker 1: liked how he kind of looked like Heinrich Himmler in

759
00:41:12,520 --> 00:41:15,279
Speaker 1: The Little Glasses. He liked the idea of this being

760
00:41:15,360 --> 00:41:18,560
Speaker 1: like a more of a cerebral villain to be the

761
00:41:19,280 --> 00:41:22,280
Speaker 1: to be the adversary of RoboCop, who obviously nobody's gonna

762
00:41:22,640 --> 00:41:26,400
Speaker 1: gonna best RoboCop physically, no human is anyway, as we'll see,

763
00:41:26,600 --> 00:41:29,160
Speaker 1: So you need somebody who's more scheming, someone who's more

764
00:41:29,160 --> 00:41:29,920
Speaker 1: of a hyena.

765
00:41:30,440 --> 00:41:33,640
Speaker 3: I can see how this movie would have been again

766
00:41:33,719 --> 00:41:36,000
Speaker 3: diminished if it had gone in a different direction, if you

767
00:41:36,040 --> 00:41:39,040
Speaker 3: had the standard boxy, tough guy in the heavy role.

768
00:41:39,840 --> 00:41:43,160
Speaker 3: Not to diss Michael Ironside, I mean, I love Michael Ironside,

769
00:41:43,160 --> 00:41:46,720
Speaker 3: but the casting of a slightly nerdy looking but still

770
00:41:46,760 --> 00:41:51,160
Speaker 3: imposing actor like Smith here is really inspired for this role,

771
00:41:51,200 --> 00:41:53,640
Speaker 3: and it makes the character as memorable as he is

772
00:41:53,719 --> 00:41:57,720
Speaker 3: instead of just another violent Hinchman. The Himmler image does

773
00:41:57,800 --> 00:42:01,800
Speaker 3: come through. There seems to be something not just brutal

774
00:42:01,920 --> 00:42:05,640
Speaker 3: but kind of transcendentally evil about the Bodicker we got,

775
00:42:05,960 --> 00:42:08,080
Speaker 3: and it's also there in his name. He's not like

776
00:42:08,239 --> 00:42:12,320
Speaker 3: you know, Biff Drago, He's Clarence Bodiker.

777
00:42:13,239 --> 00:42:17,400
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's a great performance. He's just so so nasty,

778
00:42:17,480 --> 00:42:22,560
Speaker 1: so sadistic, and like the scene where he's eventually apprehended

779
00:42:22,560 --> 00:42:25,560
Speaker 1: by RoboCop, roughed up and brought in and he's like spitting,

780
00:42:25,719 --> 00:42:30,400
Speaker 1: he spits blood onto the police desk. Just just a

781
00:42:30,480 --> 00:42:34,360
Speaker 1: wonderful performance. He followed up RoboCop with Roles in nineteen

782
00:42:34,400 --> 00:42:37,600
Speaker 1: eighty eight, Rambo three, Dead Poet Society in eighty nine,

783
00:42:37,680 --> 00:42:41,479
Speaker 1: Star Trek The Undiscovered Country, ninety two's Fortress, ninety three's

784
00:42:41,520 --> 00:42:45,440
Speaker 1: Boxing Helena, and ninety five's Under Siege Too Dark Territory,

785
00:42:45,480 --> 00:42:46,480
Speaker 1: plus lots more.

786
00:42:46,880 --> 00:42:50,719
Speaker 3: Under Siege, Too Dark Territory. That's a movie with hacking

787
00:42:50,960 --> 00:42:54,720
Speaker 3: in it. Yes, if you ever seen it, it's about hacking,

788
00:42:55,480 --> 00:42:55,759
Speaker 3: all right.

789
00:42:55,760 --> 00:42:57,759
Speaker 1: Getting back into the cop characters a bit. We have

790
00:42:57,840 --> 00:43:01,520
Speaker 1: Robert Dukey in this playing Sergeant re With nineteen thirty

791
00:43:01,520 --> 00:43:04,480
Speaker 1: four through two thousand and eight, another mainstay of all

792
00:43:04,480 --> 00:43:07,520
Speaker 1: three RoboCop movies. His acting credits go all the way

793
00:43:07,560 --> 00:43:10,200
Speaker 1: back to the original Outer limits. In the sixties, he

794
00:43:10,280 --> 00:43:12,200
Speaker 1: worked a lot in TV and film. He did one

795
00:43:12,200 --> 00:43:15,840
Speaker 1: of the voices on the nineteen sixties Harlem Globe Trotter's cartoon,

796
00:43:16,440 --> 00:43:18,560
Speaker 1: and he had a memorable turn as the villain in

797
00:43:18,560 --> 00:43:22,359
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventy three black exploitation film Coffee, which starred

798
00:43:22,400 --> 00:43:25,720
Speaker 1: Pam Greer. He acted in three Robert Altman movies, seventy

799
00:43:25,800 --> 00:43:29,080
Speaker 1: five's Nashville, seventy six is Buffalo Bill and the Indians,

800
00:43:29,160 --> 00:43:32,640
Speaker 1: or Setting Bull's History Lesson and nineteen ninety three shortcuts.

801
00:43:33,160 --> 00:43:35,240
Speaker 3: In this he plays the police sergeant who is putting

802
00:43:35,320 --> 00:43:39,319
Speaker 3: up with impossible pressures imposed by OCP as they've come

803
00:43:39,360 --> 00:43:40,200
Speaker 3: in and taken over.

804
00:43:40,760 --> 00:43:43,560
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's a pretty standard role, but a notable actor,

805
00:43:43,880 --> 00:43:46,239
Speaker 1: all right. Getting back into the criminal world. Here we

806
00:43:46,280 --> 00:43:50,279
Speaker 1: have Ray Wise playing Leon Nash. This is one of

807
00:43:50,320 --> 00:43:54,879
Speaker 1: the criminal henchmen to Botiker. Born nineteen forty seven. Wise

808
00:43:55,000 --> 00:43:57,240
Speaker 1: is probably best known for his role of Leland Palmer

809
00:43:57,280 --> 00:43:59,879
Speaker 1: and Twin Peaks, but he also played the doom Doctor

810
00:44:00,040 --> 00:44:03,560
Speaker 1: Alex Holland and Wes Craven's Swamp Thing from nineteen eighty two.

811
00:44:04,080 --> 00:44:07,279
Speaker 1: Other credits include eighty two's Cat People Cheevers Creepers two

812
00:44:07,320 --> 00:44:09,920
Speaker 1: from two thousand and three, X Men First Class from

813
00:44:09,960 --> 00:44:13,920
Speaker 1: twenty eleven, and Wrong Cops from twenty thirteen. Like a

814
00:44:13,960 --> 00:44:15,759
Speaker 1: lot of these actors, he was apparently going in a

815
00:44:15,760 --> 00:44:20,040
Speaker 1: somewhat different direction here, a little bit against type in

816
00:44:20,080 --> 00:44:21,280
Speaker 1: the casting of this movie.

817
00:44:21,480 --> 00:44:23,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, he also has a kind of weird energy as

818
00:44:23,640 --> 00:44:25,080
Speaker 3: a henchman that works.

819
00:44:25,480 --> 00:44:28,760
Speaker 1: Yeah. We also have to mention we mentioned Emil already.

820
00:44:28,840 --> 00:44:31,680
Speaker 1: This is one of the other violent members of the gang.

821
00:44:32,400 --> 00:44:35,120
Speaker 1: Has more of a anarchist vibe to him. You know,

822
00:44:35,160 --> 00:44:38,239
Speaker 1: he's got the punk haircut and so forth. He is

823
00:44:38,280 --> 00:44:41,240
Speaker 1: also a spoiler alert, he's the guy who gets melted

824
00:44:41,280 --> 00:44:43,040
Speaker 1: by toxic waste.

825
00:44:43,640 --> 00:44:46,160
Speaker 3: The extent to which RoboCop is a melt movie is

826
00:44:46,760 --> 00:44:50,080
Speaker 3: non zero. There is a melting scene, and Emil is

827
00:44:50,120 --> 00:44:52,080
Speaker 3: the poor soul who melts.

828
00:44:52,320 --> 00:44:56,200
Speaker 1: Yeah. Played by Paul mccrane born nineteen sixty one. He

829
00:44:56,239 --> 00:44:59,000
Speaker 1: made a big splash, you know, unintended because he does

830
00:44:59,080 --> 00:45:02,160
Speaker 1: splash in this movie. But he made a big splash

831
00:45:02,160 --> 00:45:04,640
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty's Fame, and he was also a lot

832
00:45:04,719 --> 00:45:08,200
Speaker 1: later a long time cast member on Er. He doesn't

833
00:45:08,200 --> 00:45:10,560
Speaker 1: melt in either of those films, but he did follow

834
00:45:10,640 --> 00:45:14,000
Speaker 1: up RoboCop with nineteen eighty eight's The Blob, So maybe

835
00:45:14,040 --> 00:45:16,560
Speaker 1: he hadn't had quite enough melting yet at this point

836
00:45:16,600 --> 00:45:18,880
Speaker 1: in his career. I did see in some of the

837
00:45:18,880 --> 00:45:20,520
Speaker 1: exits they were like, oh, he was really down for

838
00:45:20,600 --> 00:45:22,720
Speaker 1: all this makeup. He was down for this melt scene.

839
00:45:22,760 --> 00:45:27,279
Speaker 3: So he both melts and splashes in the same role.

840
00:45:27,480 --> 00:45:31,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's weird rewatching this film knowing how horrible this

841
00:45:31,880 --> 00:45:35,040
Speaker 1: character's fate is, and even as we'd shown how horrible

842
00:45:35,080 --> 00:45:37,080
Speaker 1: this character is, like he is not a nice guy,

843
00:45:37,760 --> 00:45:41,480
Speaker 1: but his fate is so disgusting that you can't help

844
00:45:41,520 --> 00:45:43,239
Speaker 1: but feel a little bad for him and see him

845
00:45:43,280 --> 00:45:45,239
Speaker 1: at least as some sort of a tragic character. You

846
00:45:45,280 --> 00:45:47,040
Speaker 1: want to be like, oh, dude, you're making all these

847
00:45:47,120 --> 00:45:49,520
Speaker 1: terrible choices in life, and we know where they are

848
00:45:49,600 --> 00:45:50,040
Speaker 1: leading you.

849
00:45:50,360 --> 00:45:52,719
Speaker 3: Well, his friends are like Bodiker in the gang, and

850
00:45:52,760 --> 00:45:56,239
Speaker 3: they don't It just shows how unloyal they are to

851
00:45:56,320 --> 00:45:58,560
Speaker 3: each other when the way they react to him, like

852
00:45:58,600 --> 00:46:01,000
Speaker 3: he's melting and he runs up on ray Wise, and

853
00:46:01,120 --> 00:46:04,160
Speaker 3: ray Wise is he goes like help be and ray

854
00:46:04,160 --> 00:46:05,920
Speaker 3: Wise is just like, don't touch me.

855
00:46:06,200 --> 00:46:11,640
Speaker 1: Man. Yeah. Now, going back into the corporate world in

856
00:46:11,680 --> 00:46:13,359
Speaker 1: the midst of all of these villains and all it's

857
00:46:13,360 --> 00:46:15,239
Speaker 1: easy to miss some of how great some of these

858
00:46:15,280 --> 00:46:19,160
Speaker 1: other small performances are. Like, you have this character, Donald Johnson,

859
00:46:20,680 --> 00:46:23,719
Speaker 1: who's this kind of I guess a corporate o CP

860
00:46:23,960 --> 00:46:28,040
Speaker 1: yes man and also just sort of a business goblin.

861
00:46:28,200 --> 00:46:30,879
Speaker 1: I don't know. He's he's always there in these scenes.

862
00:46:30,880 --> 00:46:33,480
Speaker 1: He's never the the he's never the you know, the

863
00:46:33,520 --> 00:46:35,960
Speaker 1: central point of the scene. But he's he's there. He's

864
00:46:35,960 --> 00:46:40,200
Speaker 1: attending all these business meetings and he's he makes every

865
00:46:40,239 --> 00:46:40,800
Speaker 1: scene better.

866
00:46:40,960 --> 00:46:43,279
Speaker 3: Yeah, he smiles a lot. He just brings a real

867
00:46:43,400 --> 00:46:47,480
Speaker 3: positive energy to these board meetings where robots murder his colleagues.

868
00:46:48,000 --> 00:46:51,560
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and he's largely unfazed by it. He's like business,

869
00:46:51,600 --> 00:46:52,799
Speaker 1: business has got to keep moving.

870
00:46:53,000 --> 00:46:55,560
Speaker 3: Looks like we hit a snag, but yeah we'll uh well,

871
00:46:55,880 --> 00:46:58,040
Speaker 3: we'll do better next time. Yeah.

872
00:46:58,200 --> 00:47:00,919
Speaker 1: Yeah. This character is played by fel Milton Perry born

873
00:47:01,000 --> 00:47:04,840
Speaker 1: nineteen forty five. He was also in nineteen seventy three's

874
00:47:04,880 --> 00:47:07,200
Speaker 1: Magnum Force. He did a lot of TV, played a

875
00:47:07,200 --> 00:47:10,200
Speaker 1: lot of detectives, and with a cast member on the

876
00:47:10,280 --> 00:47:12,800
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty series The Greatest American Hero.

877
00:47:21,719 --> 00:47:25,080
Speaker 3: Now. RoboCop has a lot of great special effects and

878
00:47:25,360 --> 00:47:29,160
Speaker 3: one notably terrible but in a lovable way special effects.

879
00:47:29,200 --> 00:47:30,520
Speaker 3: So I feel like we got to talk about the

880
00:47:30,800 --> 00:47:31,480
Speaker 3: effects a bit.

881
00:47:32,239 --> 00:47:35,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, And as always, we can't mention everybody like this

882
00:47:35,960 --> 00:47:37,960
Speaker 1: especially is a film where you had a whole crew

883
00:47:38,000 --> 00:47:41,600
Speaker 1: of very talented artists in different fields and we can't

884
00:47:41,640 --> 00:47:43,640
Speaker 1: possibly cover them all. So we're just going to cover

885
00:47:43,840 --> 00:47:47,360
Speaker 1: I think like three main names that should be mentioned. First,

886
00:47:47,840 --> 00:47:51,359
Speaker 1: we've already mentioned the melting and the makeup involved there.

887
00:47:51,880 --> 00:47:56,080
Speaker 1: Rob Botein has special makeup effects creded on this. Born

888
00:47:56,160 --> 00:48:00,359
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty nine, a true cinematic gore master. I think

889
00:48:00,360 --> 00:48:02,160
Speaker 1: this is the first film we've looked at on Weird

890
00:48:02,160 --> 00:48:06,200
Speaker 1: House that has directly involved him. His makeup credits include

891
00:48:06,320 --> 00:48:09,440
Speaker 1: So Many Great Things, Squirm from seventy six, The Original

892
00:48:09,480 --> 00:48:12,600
Speaker 1: Star Wars from seventy seven, The Howling from eighty one,

893
00:48:12,680 --> 00:48:16,479
Speaker 1: John Carpenter's The Thing from eighty two, Legend from eighty five,

894
00:48:16,640 --> 00:48:20,400
Speaker 1: Total Recall from nineteen ninety. He also did creature designs

895
00:48:20,560 --> 00:48:24,280
Speaker 1: on nineteen eighties Humanoids from the Deep, That's a Fishman Movie,

896
00:48:24,480 --> 00:48:27,800
Speaker 1: ninety seven's Mimic in nineteen ninety eight's Deep Rising.

897
00:48:28,239 --> 00:48:30,480
Speaker 3: His work on the thing is especially iconic.

898
00:48:30,719 --> 00:48:33,239
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean, this is just a master of

899
00:48:33,920 --> 00:48:38,360
Speaker 1: practical makeup effects. You know, these are things that you

900
00:48:38,960 --> 00:48:41,600
Speaker 1: got to throw him into the same conversation with names

901
00:48:41,680 --> 00:48:45,280
Speaker 1: like screaming Mad George. You know, just an absolute master.

902
00:48:45,760 --> 00:48:47,880
Speaker 1: He doesn't seem to have worked much in the twenty

903
00:48:47,920 --> 00:48:49,839
Speaker 1: first century at all, though, at least in terms of

904
00:48:50,120 --> 00:48:52,440
Speaker 1: being credited on things. And I have to realize, I

905
00:48:52,440 --> 00:48:54,600
Speaker 1: don't know, we always stress this, but it's my understanding

906
00:48:54,600 --> 00:48:57,640
Speaker 1: that sometimes affects people's names don't actually make it into

907
00:48:57,680 --> 00:48:59,839
Speaker 1: the final credits on things. So I don't know. Maybe

908
00:48:59,840 --> 00:49:03,480
Speaker 1: he's working in other capacities behind the scenes, but according

909
00:49:03,520 --> 00:49:05,880
Speaker 1: to you know, like the databases outside of a working

910
00:49:05,880 --> 00:49:09,360
Speaker 1: on an episode of Game of Thrones, yea, his his

911
00:49:09,360 --> 00:49:11,880
Speaker 1: his work in recent decades has been sparse.

912
00:49:12,360 --> 00:49:15,920
Speaker 3: Do we do we know or just assume that Beteen

913
00:49:16,080 --> 00:49:19,760
Speaker 3: is largely responsible for the emial melting scene.

914
00:49:20,680 --> 00:49:22,839
Speaker 1: I didn't double check it. It's probably there's so many

915
00:49:22,880 --> 00:49:26,279
Speaker 1: extras the ARO release, I didn't get to watch them all,

916
00:49:26,320 --> 00:49:28,840
Speaker 1: but I assume he had to be have played a

917
00:49:28,880 --> 00:49:31,120
Speaker 1: pivotal role in that. It's just too disgusting looking.

918
00:49:31,520 --> 00:49:34,920
Speaker 3: Okay, but another main effect. So there are a lot

919
00:49:34,960 --> 00:49:37,279
Speaker 3: of great special makeup effects in the movie. Also, there

920
00:49:37,320 --> 00:49:42,480
Speaker 3: are interesting makeup effects clearly involved in realizing the the

921
00:49:42,680 --> 00:49:46,000
Speaker 3: unmasked RoboCop effect when he takes his visor off and

922
00:49:46,040 --> 00:49:49,000
Speaker 3: you can see Peter Weller's face jutting out of this

923
00:49:49,120 --> 00:49:52,760
Speaker 3: robot exoskeleton. I'm sure that took a lot of effects

924
00:49:52,760 --> 00:49:54,720
Speaker 3: work to make it look as good as it does.

925
00:49:55,200 --> 00:49:57,440
Speaker 3: But there is another big thing in the movie, which

926
00:49:57,640 --> 00:50:03,080
Speaker 3: is the rival project to the RoboCop project ED two nine,

927
00:50:03,160 --> 00:50:06,719
Speaker 3: one of my favorite aspects of RoboCop, which is achieved

928
00:50:06,960 --> 00:50:10,239
Speaker 3: largely with the help of stop motion effects that look

929
00:50:10,400 --> 00:50:14,680
Speaker 3: great and are some of the funniest special effects I

930
00:50:14,719 --> 00:50:15,840
Speaker 3: can think of seeing.

931
00:50:16,239 --> 00:50:20,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is such a great creation. ED two o

932
00:50:20,160 --> 00:50:23,200
Speaker 1: nine sometimes referred to in the credits as ED two thousand,

933
00:50:23,280 --> 00:50:25,440
Speaker 1: so I guess maybe at some point in production they

934
00:50:25,440 --> 00:50:28,120
Speaker 1: called him D two thousand. I don't know. ED two

935
00:50:28,120 --> 00:50:30,359
Speaker 1: o nine is better Eed two o nine, if you will.

936
00:50:31,040 --> 00:50:36,120
Speaker 1: But Craig Hayes is credited as ads creator and designer

937
00:50:36,840 --> 00:50:41,360
Speaker 1: and also designer and constructor of the large prop for

938
00:50:41,520 --> 00:50:43,040
Speaker 1: ED two nine, So when we see ED two o

939
00:50:43,160 --> 00:50:46,319
Speaker 1: nine in the film, he's either standing there as a

940
00:50:46,360 --> 00:50:50,080
Speaker 1: physical practical robot that's I think actually made out of

941
00:50:50,320 --> 00:50:54,239
Speaker 1: out of wood and other materials, you know, and he

942
00:50:54,239 --> 00:50:57,040
Speaker 1: doesn't move around much like just basically the top half

943
00:50:57,200 --> 00:50:59,560
Speaker 1: rotates to point guns at you that sort of thing.

944
00:51:00,200 --> 00:51:02,480
Speaker 1: But and then the rest of the time, as we'll discuss,

945
00:51:02,640 --> 00:51:06,560
Speaker 1: he's a stop motion effect. But Hayes was involved in

946
00:51:06,600 --> 00:51:11,360
Speaker 1: designing it apparently, you know, looked to various things like

947
00:51:11,400 --> 00:51:14,600
Speaker 1: looked at trains a little bit and and other mechanical

948
00:51:15,840 --> 00:51:18,919
Speaker 1: vehicles and robots to sort of design it, but also

949
00:51:18,960 --> 00:51:22,439
Speaker 1: looked at the Orca that the head of ED Tone

950
00:51:22,520 --> 00:51:24,839
Speaker 1: two nine is apparently partially based on the Orca.

951
00:51:25,160 --> 00:51:25,799
Speaker 3: I can see that.

952
00:51:26,360 --> 00:51:29,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, So Hayes did visual effects work on other notable

953
00:51:29,800 --> 00:51:32,000
Speaker 1: films that he worked on Jurassic Park as part of

954
00:51:32,040 --> 00:51:35,800
Speaker 1: Tippet Studio. He also worked on Hollowman, Blade two and

955
00:51:35,840 --> 00:51:38,960
Speaker 1: two thousand and three is the Matrix Revolutions. Now I

956
00:51:39,040 --> 00:51:44,600
Speaker 1: mentioned Tippett Studio. Yes, Phil Tippett is the is credited

957
00:51:44,880 --> 00:51:48,040
Speaker 1: as the creator of the ED two nine sequences, more

958
00:51:48,080 --> 00:51:52,120
Speaker 1: specifically the stop motion sequences. If you're not familiar with

959
00:51:52,120 --> 00:51:54,920
Speaker 1: Phil Tippet born nineteen fifty one, he is one of

960
00:51:55,120 --> 00:51:58,640
Speaker 1: if not the best known living masters of stop motion

961
00:51:58,800 --> 00:52:03,960
Speaker 1: and monster special Effet. Somehow, this is our first Tippet film,

962
00:52:04,000 --> 00:52:06,360
Speaker 1: I believe on Weird House Cinema. We've mentioned him in

963
00:52:06,400 --> 00:52:12,040
Speaker 1: passing you know, connections on other films, but I don't

964
00:52:12,040 --> 00:52:15,000
Speaker 1: think we've talked about him in depth before. You know.

965
00:52:15,200 --> 00:52:17,040
Speaker 1: This is another situation where we can't list all the

966
00:52:17,080 --> 00:52:19,960
Speaker 1: classics that he was involved in, but his creations have

967
00:52:20,000 --> 00:52:22,200
Speaker 1: come to life in such films as some of the

968
00:52:22,239 --> 00:52:25,240
Speaker 1: Star Wars movies. Nineteen eighty six is Howard the Duck

969
00:52:25,760 --> 00:52:29,320
Speaker 1: as a notable stop motion monster at the end nineteen

970
00:52:29,320 --> 00:52:33,719
Speaker 1: eighty eight Willow both RoboCop sequels, Jurassic Park in ninety three,

971
00:52:33,800 --> 00:52:37,960
Speaker 1: Starship Troopers, and of course his own project, which was

972
00:52:37,960 --> 00:52:39,920
Speaker 1: made over many years. I haven't seen it yet, but

973
00:52:40,480 --> 00:52:43,440
Speaker 1: finally released in twenty twenty one, Mad God.

974
00:52:44,080 --> 00:52:47,239
Speaker 3: Really good stop motion in this film.

975
00:52:46,800 --> 00:52:48,360
Speaker 1: And we'll come back to talk a little bit more

976
00:52:48,400 --> 00:52:51,080
Speaker 1: about ED two nine later on and just how incredibly looks.

977
00:52:51,080 --> 00:52:55,839
Speaker 1: But finally, the music here is by Basil Polodorus, who

978
00:52:55,920 --> 00:52:59,720
Speaker 1: lived nineteen forty five through two thousand and six, American composer,

979
00:52:59,760 --> 00:53:02,800
Speaker 1: best known in film for his work with John Millius,

980
00:53:03,320 --> 00:53:06,719
Speaker 1: who he met at USC studying filmmaking and composing. He

981
00:53:06,760 --> 00:53:09,799
Speaker 1: also worked several times with Paul Verhooven. He worked with

982
00:53:09,960 --> 00:53:13,200
Speaker 1: Millius as early as nineteen seventy on a student film

983
00:53:13,480 --> 00:53:17,600
Speaker 1: and then later on seventy eight's Big Wednesday nineteen eighty

984
00:53:17,600 --> 00:53:21,480
Speaker 1: two's Conan the Barbarian of course, that, in my opinion,

985
00:53:21,560 --> 00:53:25,040
Speaker 1: is his master work, like that is such an incredible

986
00:53:25,320 --> 00:53:28,959
Speaker 1: and just perfect score for that movie. But he also

987
00:53:28,960 --> 00:53:31,440
Speaker 1: worked with Millius on Red Dawn from eighty four, Farewell

988
00:53:31,480 --> 00:53:33,239
Speaker 1: to the King in eighty nine, in Flight of the

989
00:53:33,239 --> 00:53:37,520
Speaker 1: Intruder in ninety one. With Verhoven, he worked with him

990
00:53:37,520 --> 00:53:40,560
Speaker 1: for the first time on Plus Blood from eighty five,

991
00:53:40,960 --> 00:53:44,320
Speaker 1: followed this up with RoboCop and Starship Troopers in ninety seven.

992
00:53:44,960 --> 00:53:49,799
Speaker 1: Other scores of note include Renee Cardona Junior's Tinterera from

993
00:53:50,080 --> 00:53:53,439
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four, The Shark Movie or a Shark Movie,

994
00:53:53,480 --> 00:53:57,840
Speaker 1: we should say the Shark Movie in any respect, also

995
00:53:57,920 --> 00:54:01,040
Speaker 1: the Michael Crichton scripted Extreme Close Up in seventy three,

996
00:54:01,440 --> 00:54:03,960
Speaker 1: The Blue Lagoon in nineteen eighty, Cherry two thousand and

997
00:54:04,080 --> 00:54:06,640
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight. In the nineteen eighty nine mini series

998
00:54:06,680 --> 00:54:09,960
Speaker 1: a lonesome dove. So for this movie, you know, solid

999
00:54:10,040 --> 00:54:14,320
Speaker 1: catchy and sweeping score. I think a highly effective score.

1000
00:54:14,360 --> 00:54:18,359
Speaker 1: You know, it has the right bombosity for RoboCop.

1001
00:54:18,640 --> 00:54:21,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love the RoboCop theme. I think it's perfect

1002
00:54:21,040 --> 00:54:24,640
Speaker 3: for the film, and it sonically evokes exactly the feeling

1003
00:54:24,719 --> 00:54:27,640
Speaker 3: of the world and the plot, like it sounds like

1004
00:54:27,680 --> 00:54:31,280
Speaker 3: a doomed attempt at heroism in a bleak world ruled

1005
00:54:31,320 --> 00:54:34,920
Speaker 3: by bad men. Yeah, all right, you want to talk

1006
00:54:34,920 --> 00:54:37,719
Speaker 3: a bit about the plot. Yeah, let's let's dive right

1007
00:54:37,760 --> 00:54:40,160
Speaker 3: in now. This is one of those where I think

1008
00:54:40,160 --> 00:54:42,719
Speaker 3: it does not make sense to do a full scene

1009
00:54:42,760 --> 00:54:46,279
Speaker 3: by scene recap of the movie, but rather in this case,

1010
00:54:46,320 --> 00:54:48,600
Speaker 3: we're going to discuss a bit about the broad outline

1011
00:54:49,040 --> 00:54:52,359
Speaker 3: and some themes and highlights from the movie. One thing

1012
00:54:52,480 --> 00:54:56,320
Speaker 3: we've got to talk about is the are the media

1013
00:54:56,440 --> 00:55:03,560
Speaker 3: segments in RoboCop. RoboCop repeatedly breaks the action with news reports, commercials,

1014
00:55:03,600 --> 00:55:07,319
Speaker 3: and clips of TV shows from in universe, as if

1015
00:55:07,360 --> 00:55:11,000
Speaker 3: we were characters in the world of RoboCop watching the

1016
00:55:11,040 --> 00:55:12,359
Speaker 3: same TV they do.

1017
00:55:13,400 --> 00:55:16,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, and these are extended sequences. I'd forgotten just how

1018
00:55:16,320 --> 00:55:20,520
Speaker 1: long they are, Like you're watching RoboCop world television for

1019
00:55:20,760 --> 00:55:24,040
Speaker 1: minutes on end, including right at the top of the film,

1020
00:55:24,320 --> 00:55:26,799
Speaker 1: and it does a great job of positioning you within

1021
00:55:26,840 --> 00:55:28,560
Speaker 1: the world of the movie, of course, giving you a

1022
00:55:28,560 --> 00:55:31,640
Speaker 1: little backdrop for what's going on elsewhere in the world,

1023
00:55:31,719 --> 00:55:35,000
Speaker 1: what's going on in culture and media, but at the

1024
00:55:35,040 --> 00:55:38,680
Speaker 1: same time, in some ways counterbalancing the violence that we

1025
00:55:38,719 --> 00:55:43,120
Speaker 1: see on screen, but also driving home the satire and

1026
00:55:43,200 --> 00:55:47,359
Speaker 1: like keeping satire on your radar as you are interacting

1027
00:55:47,520 --> 00:55:49,520
Speaker 1: with the gritty details of the plot.

1028
00:55:49,680 --> 00:55:51,320
Speaker 3: There's a way that like when you see the news

1029
00:55:51,400 --> 00:55:54,280
Speaker 3: reports in the media segments sort of just lightly gloss

1030
00:55:54,280 --> 00:55:58,279
Speaker 3: over what sound like actually horrific events that sort of

1031
00:55:58,320 --> 00:56:01,600
Speaker 3: makes you see the event of the violent events of

1032
00:56:01,640 --> 00:56:02,800
Speaker 3: the plot differently.

1033
00:56:03,360 --> 00:56:05,440
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, but anyways.

1034
00:56:05,000 --> 00:56:06,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, but a big part of what they do, especially

1035
00:56:06,800 --> 00:56:09,560
Speaker 3: at the beginning of the film is just world setting,

1036
00:56:09,640 --> 00:56:12,160
Speaker 3: you know, establishing what kind of world is this taking

1037
00:56:12,200 --> 00:56:16,040
Speaker 3: place in? And I would say the news segments from

1038
00:56:16,120 --> 00:56:19,879
Speaker 3: the world of RoboCop depict a kind of hyper Reaganite

1039
00:56:19,920 --> 00:56:23,680
Speaker 3: near future. So there is an idea that there's escalation

1040
00:56:23,800 --> 00:56:26,960
Speaker 3: of the Cold War, massive military build up, a lot

1041
00:56:26,960 --> 00:56:30,799
Speaker 3: of focus on weapons technology, and a supply side free

1042
00:56:30,800 --> 00:56:33,840
Speaker 3: for all where everything is run by for profit corporations

1043
00:56:33,880 --> 00:56:37,040
Speaker 3: and cash is king. And the first thing we see

1044
00:56:37,080 --> 00:56:39,000
Speaker 3: in the movie after like a sweep over the city

1045
00:56:39,040 --> 00:56:42,080
Speaker 3: and the title is a news segment, and so to

1046
00:56:42,480 --> 00:56:45,719
Speaker 3: set the scene of this world, it mentions before there's

1047
00:56:45,719 --> 00:56:48,880
Speaker 3: a segment about how the remaining enclave of the apartheid

1048
00:56:48,920 --> 00:56:52,440
Speaker 3: government in South Africa has unveiled their possession of a

1049
00:56:52,480 --> 00:56:55,920
Speaker 3: French made neutron bomb and has announced their willingness to

1050
00:56:56,000 --> 00:56:59,400
Speaker 3: use it against the people to protect white minority rule.

1051
00:57:00,040 --> 00:57:03,800
Speaker 3: There is another report from the new quote star Wars

1052
00:57:03,960 --> 00:57:07,560
Speaker 3: Orbiting peace Platform, and this appears to be a play

1053
00:57:07,600 --> 00:57:11,320
Speaker 3: on the so called Star Wars missile defense initiative, except

1054
00:57:11,360 --> 00:57:15,080
Speaker 3: in the movie the quote peace platform seems to be

1055
00:57:15,200 --> 00:57:19,160
Speaker 3: just some kind of like general orbital weapons system which

1056
00:57:19,200 --> 00:57:21,640
Speaker 3: they call a peace platform. And then in a later

1057
00:57:21,720 --> 00:57:23,760
Speaker 3: news segment in the movie, we find out that it

1058
00:57:24,040 --> 00:57:28,320
Speaker 3: quote accidentally fired a laser barrage at Santa Barbara, California

1059
00:57:28,560 --> 00:57:31,280
Speaker 3: during a test, and that kills hundreds of people, including

1060
00:57:31,320 --> 00:57:34,200
Speaker 3: two former presidents who are not named. And then the

1061
00:57:34,240 --> 00:57:37,040
Speaker 3: anchors just say the nation mourns for Santa Barbara, and

1062
00:57:37,040 --> 00:57:38,600
Speaker 3: then they move on to something else.

1063
00:57:38,840 --> 00:57:43,000
Speaker 1: And I mean it's implied that that's Ronald Reagan. Yeah,

1064
00:57:43,040 --> 00:57:46,040
Speaker 1: we see Ronald Reagan's body there on the ground. So

1065
00:57:47,120 --> 00:57:50,040
Speaker 1: the satire is at times pretty grim.

1066
00:57:50,240 --> 00:57:54,120
Speaker 3: But then it cuts straight from these horrific reports to commercials,

1067
00:57:54,680 --> 00:57:57,440
Speaker 3: and the commercials are for things. One is for the

1068
00:57:57,440 --> 00:58:00,440
Speaker 3: Family Heart Center, which is a clinic folk using on

1069
00:58:00,480 --> 00:58:05,040
Speaker 3: heart transplants with new mechanical artificial hearts. But the doctor

1070
00:58:05,120 --> 00:58:07,120
Speaker 3: in the commercial, at first he's like, you know, oh,

1071
00:58:07,160 --> 00:58:10,240
Speaker 3: it's time for a heart transplant, and then he transitions

1072
00:58:10,240 --> 00:58:13,520
Speaker 3: into sounding like he's pitching a customer on jet skis.

1073
00:58:13,880 --> 00:58:17,760
Speaker 3: He's like the series seven sports Heart by Jensen Yamaha,

1074
00:58:17,920 --> 00:58:18,720
Speaker 3: you pick the.

1075
00:58:18,760 --> 00:58:23,360
Speaker 1: Heart, which I guess also positions where we are in,

1076
00:58:23,520 --> 00:58:24,840
Speaker 1: like the cybernetic world.

1077
00:58:25,280 --> 00:58:28,720
Speaker 3: Yeah. Then there is an ad for a family board

1078
00:58:28,840 --> 00:58:31,840
Speaker 3: game called New Coom, a game that looks kind of

1079
00:58:31,880 --> 00:58:35,120
Speaker 3: like Battleship, except it's for four players, and it seems

1080
00:58:35,200 --> 00:58:36,840
Speaker 3: like the way you win the game is if you

1081
00:58:36,880 --> 00:58:40,200
Speaker 3: are the first player to use nuclear weapons. The tagline

1082
00:58:40,200 --> 00:58:44,080
Speaker 3: of the game is get them before they get you, Graham, Graham.

1083
00:58:44,920 --> 00:58:47,680
Speaker 3: Then there are ads for a car. This car has

1084
00:58:47,720 --> 00:58:50,200
Speaker 3: a big footprint in the movie. It is called the

1085
00:58:50,280 --> 00:58:54,240
Speaker 3: six thousand SUX. So that's kind of low hanging fruit joke,

1086
00:58:54,400 --> 00:58:59,800
Speaker 3: but you know, I wouldn't change it. This is apparently

1087
00:58:59,840 --> 00:59:02,120
Speaker 3: the hottest new car in the world now. It is

1088
00:59:02,200 --> 00:59:05,680
Speaker 3: extremely ugly, it gets eight miles per gallon, but it's new,

1089
00:59:05,960 --> 00:59:08,800
Speaker 3: it's huge. You've got to have one. The commercial makes

1090
00:59:08,800 --> 00:59:10,840
Speaker 3: the point that the car is bigger than Godzilla.

1091
00:59:11,800 --> 00:59:14,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have this nice commercial that has the stop

1092
00:59:14,120 --> 00:59:16,440
Speaker 1: motion monster in it, like very much in the Harry

1093
00:59:16,440 --> 00:59:20,640
Speaker 1: Housen style obviously created by Phil Tippett here, which is

1094
00:59:20,680 --> 00:59:23,360
Speaker 1: a nice nod to those movies that are in a

1095
00:59:23,440 --> 00:59:25,680
Speaker 1: very large way and inspiration for the creation of N

1096
00:59:25,720 --> 00:59:26,360
Speaker 1: two nine.

1097
00:59:26,480 --> 00:59:30,320
Speaker 3: But then also we see the TV content TV shows.

1098
00:59:30,680 --> 00:59:33,240
Speaker 3: The most popular TV show in the world of RoboCop,

1099
00:59:33,240 --> 00:59:37,000
Speaker 3: which we see multiple times, involves a man with glasses

1100
00:59:37,000 --> 00:59:40,560
Speaker 3: and a mustache ogling women in bikinis and then turning

1101
00:59:40,600 --> 00:59:45,400
Speaker 3: directly to the camera to utter his beloved catchphrase I'd

1102
00:59:45,440 --> 00:59:49,920
Speaker 3: buy that for a dollar. So, according to an article

1103
00:59:49,960 --> 00:59:52,080
Speaker 3: that I turned up, though it is not mentioned in

1104
00:59:52,120 --> 00:59:56,000
Speaker 3: the movie, the name of this TV sitcom is It's

1105
00:59:56,080 --> 01:00:00,880
Speaker 3: not my problem exclamation point and it's interesting. So the

1106
01:00:00,920 --> 01:00:07,040
Speaker 3: show is portrayed as just uh, insipid trash, But multiple

1107
01:00:07,080 --> 01:00:10,800
Speaker 3: times we see characters watching this show, such as there's

1108
01:00:10,880 --> 01:00:16,040
Speaker 3: one moment where this sadistic murderer Emil is watching the

1109
01:00:16,040 --> 01:00:18,800
Speaker 3: show on a TV through a shop window and he's

1110
01:00:19,040 --> 01:00:21,040
Speaker 3: I think he's like sitting in his car watching it,

1111
01:00:21,520 --> 01:00:23,919
Speaker 3: drinking a liquor bottle or something. He seems to find

1112
01:00:23,960 --> 01:00:26,840
Speaker 3: it marvelously entertaining, and then he ends up breaking the

1113
01:00:26,840 --> 01:00:28,920
Speaker 3: glass in the window so he can turn the TV

1114
01:00:29,040 --> 01:00:32,200
Speaker 3: up louder and laugh along with the laugh track. So

1115
01:00:32,760 --> 01:00:36,360
Speaker 3: something's interesting about the way RoboCop depicts this world of cruel,

1116
01:00:36,480 --> 01:00:39,600
Speaker 3: sadistic men who kill without a thought and then in

1117
01:00:39,640 --> 01:00:44,320
Speaker 3: their downtime are sedated and entertained by mindless, repetitive sitcoms

1118
01:00:44,600 --> 01:00:46,720
Speaker 3: that just seem to be looping the same scene and

1119
01:00:46,800 --> 01:00:48,120
Speaker 3: catchphrase over and over.

1120
01:00:48,760 --> 01:00:52,080
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, that and Neil scene especially is interesting, you know,

1121
01:00:52,120 --> 01:00:57,120
Speaker 1: because they intentionally took time to show you his enjoyment

1122
01:00:57,160 --> 01:01:00,440
Speaker 1: of this show, that that this this bttom of the

1123
01:01:00,440 --> 01:01:05,120
Speaker 1: barrel misogynistic comedy that seems to be everybody's favorite, and

1124
01:01:05,160 --> 01:01:07,960
Speaker 1: I guess it also I'd buy that for a dollar

1125
01:01:08,040 --> 01:01:11,080
Speaker 1: like it just it also kind of ties into the

1126
01:01:11,120 --> 01:01:16,160
Speaker 1: overall capitalist, corporate world of RoboCop. Everything can be bought

1127
01:01:16,160 --> 01:01:17,440
Speaker 1: for a dollar, right.

1128
01:01:18,040 --> 01:01:21,480
Speaker 3: It's almost like a mantra delivering the hidden message that

1129
01:01:21,520 --> 01:01:25,000
Speaker 3: my trust and allegiance is cheap. Just give me the cash.

1130
01:01:25,320 --> 01:01:37,439
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, Well let's talk more about the setting here.

1131
01:01:38,360 --> 01:01:40,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the media segments are used to establish a

1132
01:01:40,960 --> 01:01:44,480
Speaker 3: lot about the broader world. The specific setting of the

1133
01:01:44,480 --> 01:01:47,640
Speaker 3: movie is the city of Detroit in Michigan, where it

1134
01:01:47,680 --> 01:01:52,520
Speaker 3: seems the situation is there's some overlap with reality that

1135
01:01:52,560 --> 01:01:56,400
Speaker 3: the city was a thriving metropolis, but it has suffered

1136
01:01:56,440 --> 01:01:59,280
Speaker 3: a lot because a lot of the industry that used

1137
01:01:59,280 --> 01:02:02,000
Speaker 3: to be based there has moved offshore or shuttered in

1138
01:02:02,080 --> 01:02:05,120
Speaker 3: some way. So the film is just full of abandoned,

1139
01:02:05,240 --> 01:02:11,160
Speaker 3: empty factory buildings that continually visually communicate this theme of

1140
01:02:11,200 --> 01:02:15,520
Speaker 3: just like the loss of former prosperity and so forth.

1141
01:02:16,080 --> 01:02:18,560
Speaker 3: So huge portions of the city have been left out

1142
01:02:18,560 --> 01:02:22,040
Speaker 3: of work, impoverished, and desperate, and the city is essentially

1143
01:02:22,080 --> 01:02:25,880
Speaker 3: on the brink of collapse. So the job of running

1144
01:02:25,920 --> 01:02:30,320
Speaker 3: the local police department has been outsourced to OCP Omni

1145
01:02:30,360 --> 01:02:34,360
Speaker 3: Consumer Products. But OCP has set its sites higher than

1146
01:02:34,440 --> 01:02:37,520
Speaker 3: just running the police. Essentially, they have a plan to

1147
01:02:37,600 --> 01:02:41,360
Speaker 3: demolish the existing Detroit and replace it with a new,

1148
01:02:41,720 --> 01:02:45,440
Speaker 3: completely privately owned settlement called Delta City, where they will

1149
01:02:45,520 --> 01:02:48,880
Speaker 3: run everything. So in a way, you can see how

1150
01:02:48,880 --> 01:02:51,880
Speaker 3: it is in OCP's interest for things in Detroit to

1151
01:02:51,960 --> 01:02:54,680
Speaker 3: get as bad as they possibly can be so that

1152
01:02:54,720 --> 01:02:57,360
Speaker 3: they can buy up all the property cheap and privatize

1153
01:02:57,400 --> 01:02:58,440
Speaker 3: all the local government.

1154
01:02:59,080 --> 01:03:01,600
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, but at the same time they need a

1155
01:03:01,600 --> 01:03:04,560
Speaker 1: little bit of muscle. And also they are, as we're

1156
01:03:04,560 --> 01:03:07,600
Speaker 1: told at one point, they basically are the military, so

1157
01:03:07,640 --> 01:03:10,880
Speaker 1: they're working on all of these various military projects.

1158
01:03:10,480 --> 01:03:13,400
Speaker 3: As well, right, And so amidst this backdrop, we see

1159
01:03:13,440 --> 01:03:17,600
Speaker 3: the OCP headquarters, which is this strange looking building that

1160
01:03:17,640 --> 01:03:21,720
Speaker 3: has a kind of inverted triangle architecture near the bottom,

1161
01:03:21,800 --> 01:03:24,080
Speaker 3: but then it just goes straight up from there, and

1162
01:03:24,120 --> 01:03:28,080
Speaker 3: so it's a very weird looking skyscraper architecture. But it

1163
01:03:28,120 --> 01:03:30,560
Speaker 3: does seem on theme somehow because it's like all of

1164
01:03:30,600 --> 01:03:34,160
Speaker 3: this concrete that comes down to a point near where

1165
01:03:34,200 --> 01:03:36,040
Speaker 3: it meets the ground. So it's the idea of like

1166
01:03:36,120 --> 01:03:39,160
Speaker 3: this corporation just like crushing the people on the ground.

1167
01:03:39,720 --> 01:03:42,280
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. Again, the bottom part of this is Dallas

1168
01:03:42,280 --> 01:03:45,600
Speaker 1: City Hall, but by creating this map painting of it

1169
01:03:45,800 --> 01:03:47,480
Speaker 1: rising the rest of the way up into the sky.

1170
01:03:48,560 --> 01:03:51,640
Speaker 1: It's like it's stabbing into the earth, like it's a

1171
01:03:51,760 --> 01:03:55,240
Speaker 1: sword come down from the heavens. And we eventually see

1172
01:03:55,560 --> 01:03:57,920
Speaker 1: multiple shots at different points in the film of people

1173
01:03:58,080 --> 01:04:01,760
Speaker 1: ascending or descending elevators and some sort of you know,

1174
01:04:01,960 --> 01:04:05,720
Speaker 1: vast atriums of this building. And these are also created

1175
01:04:05,720 --> 01:04:08,720
Speaker 1: with Matt paintings. And in the extras on the Arrow

1176
01:04:08,760 --> 01:04:11,480
Speaker 1: Blu Ray they mentioned that Forbidden Planet was one of

1177
01:04:11,520 --> 01:04:15,880
Speaker 1: the influences here in creating this kind of vast interior space.

1178
01:04:16,120 --> 01:04:19,400
Speaker 3: I never would have made that connection, but that's really good. Yeah,

1179
01:04:19,560 --> 01:04:21,920
Speaker 3: But anyway, Okay, so here at OCP headquarters, we come

1180
01:04:21,920 --> 01:04:24,640
Speaker 3: in this corporate board meeting, which is a great scene.

1181
01:04:24,640 --> 01:04:28,160
Speaker 3: We've got OCP Vice President Dick Jones played by Ronnie Cox.

1182
01:04:28,800 --> 01:04:32,080
Speaker 3: He is showing off his plan to move on to

1183
01:04:32,160 --> 01:04:35,440
Speaker 3: the next stage in their control of the Detroit Police Force.

1184
01:04:35,800 --> 01:04:39,600
Speaker 3: He wants to essentially replace the remaining human police force

1185
01:04:39,920 --> 01:04:43,800
Speaker 3: with a violent police robot called ED two nine. He

1186
01:04:43,880 --> 01:04:47,120
Speaker 3: brings ED two O nine out for a demonstration that

1187
01:04:47,320 --> 01:04:50,000
Speaker 3: turns horrific robot. I don't know if you want to

1188
01:04:50,040 --> 01:04:53,560
Speaker 3: describe this scene. It's it's an iconic scene from the film,

1189
01:04:53,600 --> 01:04:56,360
Speaker 3: maybe the most remembered part of all of RoboCop.

1190
01:04:56,920 --> 01:04:58,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean for starters, it has we have to

1191
01:04:59,000 --> 01:05:00,840
Speaker 1: mention that that ed to A nine And if you

1192
01:05:00,840 --> 01:05:02,720
Speaker 1: don't know what ed to nine looks, two nine looks

1193
01:05:02,760 --> 01:05:05,360
Speaker 1: like do do do yourself a favor and find an

1194
01:05:05,360 --> 01:05:09,360
Speaker 1: image surch or or video clip because it does not

1195
01:05:09,400 --> 01:05:12,640
Speaker 1: look like a policeman, looks like a weapons platform is

1196
01:05:12,760 --> 01:05:14,640
Speaker 1: and that is not what an illinoid and ship. Yeah,

1197
01:05:14,640 --> 01:05:18,240
Speaker 1: it's just a weapons platform that they're clearly eyeing for

1198
01:05:18,720 --> 01:05:23,360
Speaker 1: a larger military market. It was not created expressly with

1199
01:05:23,480 --> 01:05:29,720
Speaker 1: police work in mind. It is a frightening bestial machine.

1200
01:05:30,320 --> 01:05:32,720
Speaker 3: So Dick Jones is setting up the demonstration. He gets

1201
01:05:32,720 --> 01:05:35,480
Speaker 3: one of the one of his colleagues from the boardroom

1202
01:05:35,520 --> 01:05:39,120
Speaker 3: here to uh to point a gun at ED two

1203
01:05:39,160 --> 01:05:41,240
Speaker 3: o nine for the demonstration. And there's a little detail.

1204
01:05:41,240 --> 01:05:43,200
Speaker 3: A lot of people notice that he hands a gun

1205
01:05:43,200 --> 01:05:44,880
Speaker 3: to this guy. He's like, all right, let's see if

1206
01:05:44,920 --> 01:05:47,040
Speaker 3: we can make him do his job. And so the

1207
01:05:47,080 --> 01:05:50,120
Speaker 3: other guy points the gun at Dick Jones and ED

1208
01:05:50,160 --> 01:05:52,640
Speaker 3: two o nine does not react to this like of

1209
01:05:52,720 --> 01:05:55,800
Speaker 3: like people threatening each other, but then Dick Jones is like, no, no,

1210
01:05:55,960 --> 01:05:58,200
Speaker 3: pointed at ED two o nine. And so then when

1211
01:05:58,280 --> 01:06:01,480
Speaker 3: he when he threatens the herd, where then ED two

1212
01:06:01,520 --> 01:06:04,560
Speaker 3: o nine comes online and like points his turrets at

1213
01:06:04,640 --> 01:06:06,840
Speaker 3: him and says, you drop the weapon. You have twenty

1214
01:06:06,880 --> 01:06:10,440
Speaker 3: seconds to comply. So the guy he said, you know,

1215
01:06:10,760 --> 01:06:13,080
Speaker 3: he is goaged on by Dick Jones. He says, better

1216
01:06:13,120 --> 01:06:16,000
Speaker 3: do as you're told. So the guy drops the weapon,

1217
01:06:16,520 --> 01:06:19,720
Speaker 3: and then ED two o nine says, you now have

1218
01:06:19,840 --> 01:06:23,880
Speaker 3: fifteen seconds to comply. It clearly has not registered the

1219
01:06:23,960 --> 01:06:27,200
Speaker 3: loss of the weapon. So in a horrifically violent turn

1220
01:06:27,240 --> 01:06:30,520
Speaker 3: of events, the robot malfunctions and then ends up just

1221
01:06:31,240 --> 01:06:34,280
Speaker 3: liquefying this guy. It shoots him like hundreds of times.

1222
01:06:34,720 --> 01:06:38,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, just notoriously graphic scene, and some cuts of the

1223
01:06:38,400 --> 01:06:42,920
Speaker 1: film have the extended goification of this this poor dimmed individual.

1224
01:06:43,480 --> 01:06:46,080
Speaker 1: But yeah, and it's a frantic affair. He's trying to,

1225
01:06:46,120 --> 01:06:48,840
Speaker 1: like hi, run to for cover, and they're pushing him

1226
01:06:48,880 --> 01:06:50,240
Speaker 1: back in the way because no one else wants to

1227
01:06:50,280 --> 01:06:53,800
Speaker 1: get shot and caught the crossfire. And yeah, and then

1228
01:06:53,880 --> 01:06:57,800
Speaker 1: finally an utter failure of the program here, So.

1229
01:06:57,800 --> 01:06:59,680
Speaker 3: The old man looks at Dick Jones, it says, I'm

1230
01:06:59,800 --> 01:07:03,040
Speaker 3: very disappointed and you, Dick, and Dick Jones says, sure,

1231
01:07:03,040 --> 01:07:09,120
Speaker 3: it's only a glitch, like completely unconcerned with the threat

1232
01:07:09,160 --> 01:07:11,680
Speaker 3: this would pose to people. Is just kind of like, ah, yeah,

1233
01:07:11,720 --> 01:07:14,520
Speaker 3: we'll figure it out, don't worry about it. But this

1234
01:07:14,600 --> 01:07:17,800
Speaker 3: does seem like a pretty catastrophic failure to the old Man.

1235
01:07:18,040 --> 01:07:20,920
Speaker 3: And right there next to him, waiting in the wings

1236
01:07:21,040 --> 01:07:24,120
Speaker 3: is Bob Morton played by Miguel Ferrer, who steps in

1237
01:07:24,160 --> 01:07:27,400
Speaker 3: with his rival project. He's like, clearly ed two nine

1238
01:07:27,480 --> 01:07:30,000
Speaker 3: is not ready for prime time. We've got something ready

1239
01:07:30,000 --> 01:07:33,080
Speaker 3: to go, the RoboCop program, And he tells the old

1240
01:07:33,120 --> 01:07:35,360
Speaker 3: Man about it. It's ready to go as Plan B.

1241
01:07:35,560 --> 01:07:37,960
Speaker 3: All they need is a donor, and he thinks they

1242
01:07:37,960 --> 01:07:40,440
Speaker 3: should have one pretty soon. What does that mean, We're

1243
01:07:40,440 --> 01:07:41,160
Speaker 3: about to find.

1244
01:07:41,000 --> 01:07:43,760
Speaker 1: Out, Yeah, it may not be here. Maybe it's a

1245
01:07:43,760 --> 01:07:46,880
Speaker 1: little later that we learned that, Yeah, not only are

1246
01:07:46,920 --> 01:07:49,640
Speaker 1: they eyeing donors, but they are making sure that prime

1247
01:07:49,880 --> 01:07:54,640
Speaker 1: police candidates are being reassigned to dangerous zones so that

1248
01:07:54,640 --> 01:07:57,120
Speaker 1: they're going to be more likely to encounter some sort

1249
01:07:57,160 --> 01:07:59,800
Speaker 1: of fatal injury that would deliver their bodies.

1250
01:08:00,240 --> 01:08:02,480
Speaker 3: The RoboCop program, Yeah, they do they do like a

1251
01:08:02,480 --> 01:08:04,840
Speaker 3: physical and they're like, okay, Peter Weller, he would be

1252
01:08:04,880 --> 01:08:07,040
Speaker 3: a good candidate to go in the RoboCop suit, So

1253
01:08:07,040 --> 01:08:09,680
Speaker 3: we're gonna send him after Clarence Bodiker and deny him

1254
01:08:09,680 --> 01:08:13,160
Speaker 3: back up. Yeah, So here we meet our hero Alex

1255
01:08:13,240 --> 01:08:16,559
Speaker 3: Murphy and Peter Weller. After OCP transfers him to a

1256
01:08:16,600 --> 01:08:19,880
Speaker 3: new Metro division, he gets paired with his new partner Lewis.

1257
01:08:19,920 --> 01:08:22,439
Speaker 3: That's Nancy Allen. They get to know each other. They

1258
01:08:22,479 --> 01:08:24,840
Speaker 3: have some nice friendly banter, but early on maybe it's

1259
01:08:24,840 --> 01:08:27,719
Speaker 3: his first day at the new division, not exactly clear.

1260
01:08:28,000 --> 01:08:30,519
Speaker 3: They respond to a bank robbery in progress and it's

1261
01:08:30,520 --> 01:08:34,200
Speaker 3: Clarence Bodiker's gang and Botaker is just the nastiest, meanest

1262
01:08:34,240 --> 01:08:38,760
Speaker 3: criminal on earth. While Murphy and Lewis are chasing them,

1263
01:08:38,800 --> 01:08:42,519
Speaker 3: there's this one part where you see Bodiker just like

1264
01:08:42,560 --> 01:08:45,559
Speaker 3: the gang, has no friendship or loyalty even to each

1265
01:08:45,600 --> 01:08:48,840
Speaker 3: other of their One of the gang is injured during

1266
01:08:48,880 --> 01:08:52,960
Speaker 3: the shootout when they're in a chase, and Bodiker just

1267
01:08:53,000 --> 01:08:55,760
Speaker 3: like grabs him and goes can you fly Bobby and

1268
01:08:55,920 --> 01:08:58,519
Speaker 3: throws him out of the van into the police car,

1269
01:08:58,640 --> 01:09:03,760
Speaker 3: which briefly delay them and eventually Murphy and Lewis pursue

1270
01:09:03,840 --> 01:09:07,080
Speaker 3: the gang all the way to an abandoned foundry, and

1271
01:09:07,200 --> 01:09:10,320
Speaker 3: while attempting to make an arrest, again no backup is available.

1272
01:09:10,320 --> 01:09:14,639
Speaker 3: As usual, Murphy is caught and then brutally executed by

1273
01:09:14,680 --> 01:09:19,360
Speaker 3: the gang, an awful, horrifically violent scene. His body is

1274
01:09:19,520 --> 01:09:22,599
Speaker 3: recovered taken to a hospital, but he can't be revived.

1275
01:09:22,640 --> 01:09:23,240
Speaker 3: He is dead.

1276
01:09:24,080 --> 01:09:28,439
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think shotgun dismemberment is worth mentioning in terms

1277
01:09:28,439 --> 01:09:31,880
Speaker 1: of Murphy's death because, you know, because it's like, it's

1278
01:09:31,960 --> 01:09:35,160
Speaker 1: that extreme like that. It's another example of the violence

1279
01:09:35,320 --> 01:09:38,599
Speaker 1: just ratcheted up to an unbelow to a degree where

1280
01:09:38,640 --> 01:09:41,120
Speaker 1: it almost takes some of the punch out of it

1281
01:09:41,160 --> 01:09:44,200
Speaker 1: because it becomes an obvious Hollywood gore fest. I don't know,

1282
01:09:44,400 --> 01:09:46,720
Speaker 1: everyone's mileage is going to vary on this sort of thing.

1283
01:09:47,400 --> 01:09:51,519
Speaker 3: Now, next, we get a really interesting sequence in the movie,

1284
01:09:51,520 --> 01:09:54,840
Speaker 3: which is we have Murphy's death, but from here we

1285
01:09:54,880 --> 01:09:59,200
Speaker 3: start seeing something from some point of view through a

1286
01:09:59,280 --> 01:10:04,320
Speaker 3: kind of grain any almost computer or CRT image. We

1287
01:10:04,360 --> 01:10:09,120
Speaker 3: see these views of scientists messing with somebody from their

1288
01:10:09,160 --> 01:10:11,920
Speaker 3: point of view, like drilling around on their head and

1289
01:10:11,960 --> 01:10:16,080
Speaker 3: adjusting his vision. So we're seeing Robocop's point of view,

1290
01:10:16,120 --> 01:10:19,760
Speaker 3: and this is the project run by Bob Morton. Rob

1291
01:10:19,800 --> 01:10:22,160
Speaker 3: do you anything you want to identify about these scenes

1292
01:10:22,160 --> 01:10:27,400
Speaker 3: where we're like watching Murphy's physical remains become become able

1293
01:10:27,479 --> 01:10:29,600
Speaker 3: to see as they are becoming RoboCop.

1294
01:10:30,120 --> 01:10:32,479
Speaker 1: I mean, it's almost like he's being he is being

1295
01:10:32,520 --> 01:10:36,559
Speaker 1: born again. You know, it's like early memories, childhood memories almost.

1296
01:10:36,600 --> 01:10:38,879
Speaker 1: That's some sort of sense as he's watching the scientists

1297
01:10:38,920 --> 01:10:42,320
Speaker 1: work on him, as he's eventually seeing you know, there's

1298
01:10:42,320 --> 01:10:46,160
Speaker 1: like an office party, a Christmas party or something that's underway,

1299
01:10:46,520 --> 01:10:49,479
Speaker 1: and they're interacting with him a little bit. But also

1300
01:10:49,560 --> 01:10:51,800
Speaker 1: there are bits of dialogue though on the other hand

1301
01:10:51,840 --> 01:10:54,160
Speaker 1: that far from discussing him as a child. I think

1302
01:10:54,200 --> 01:10:57,000
Speaker 1: Morton in particular is like he's dead now. We can

1303
01:10:57,040 --> 01:10:59,120
Speaker 1: do whatever we want with him, Like he's no longer

1304
01:10:59,160 --> 01:11:00,919
Speaker 1: a human. He is a product.

1305
01:11:01,360 --> 01:11:05,439
Speaker 3: Yeah, he signed the rights to his remains away. That

1306
01:11:05,520 --> 01:11:07,960
Speaker 3: was part of his contract to be a cop, and

1307
01:11:08,000 --> 01:11:09,840
Speaker 3: we can do whatever we want with them. He's not

1308
01:11:10,000 --> 01:11:10,639
Speaker 3: him anymore.

1309
01:11:11,240 --> 01:11:11,800
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1310
01:11:12,120 --> 01:11:16,840
Speaker 3: Also in these scenes, we learn about robocops three prime directives.

1311
01:11:16,880 --> 01:11:19,720
Speaker 3: They say, you know, he's guided by the directives to

1312
01:11:19,880 --> 01:11:22,679
Speaker 3: serve the public trust, to protect the innocent, and uphold

1313
01:11:22,720 --> 01:11:25,240
Speaker 3: the law. And then there is a fourth directive that

1314
01:11:25,360 --> 01:11:27,840
Speaker 3: is not spelled out. It just says it's classified, but

1315
01:11:27,920 --> 01:11:30,800
Speaker 3: it does flash on the screen. They say nothing about

1316
01:11:30,800 --> 01:11:33,519
Speaker 3: that out loud. It's just something that RoboCop sees on

1317
01:11:33,560 --> 01:11:34,879
Speaker 3: his own heads up display.

1318
01:11:35,400 --> 01:11:37,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, this will become important later on.

1319
01:11:37,960 --> 01:11:40,599
Speaker 3: So after this RoboCop is unveiled, they put him out

1320
01:11:40,600 --> 01:11:41,880
Speaker 3: on the beat, and there are just a bunch of

1321
01:11:41,880 --> 01:11:45,120
Speaker 3: scenes of RoboCop out on patrol, intervening when crimes are

1322
01:11:45,160 --> 01:11:47,920
Speaker 3: in progress. We see him stop an armed robbery at

1323
01:11:47,960 --> 01:11:50,960
Speaker 3: a convenience store, he intervenes when two men are attacking

1324
01:11:50,960 --> 01:11:54,479
Speaker 3: a woman in an abandoned lot, He resolves a hostage

1325
01:11:54,520 --> 01:11:57,479
Speaker 3: situation at city hall. And in all of these scenes,

1326
01:11:57,600 --> 01:12:00,600
Speaker 3: RoboCop is shown to be in some ways highly effective

1327
01:12:00,800 --> 01:12:05,000
Speaker 3: in other ways not like he is successful at stopping

1328
01:12:05,040 --> 01:12:08,519
Speaker 3: the crimes, but he does so via the application of

1329
01:12:08,640 --> 01:12:11,439
Speaker 3: brutal violence in every case, and he has shown to

1330
01:12:11,479 --> 01:12:15,200
Speaker 3: be cold and mechanical in his relations to victims.

1331
01:12:15,840 --> 01:12:19,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, we see the media segments of him being celebrated,

1332
01:12:19,200 --> 01:12:22,080
Speaker 1: but also, yeah, at the same time, he's not really

1333
01:12:22,160 --> 01:12:25,680
Speaker 1: doing the ideal version of police work here. He's just

1334
01:12:25,840 --> 01:12:29,240
Speaker 1: like a blunt instrument that reaches through walls to grab

1335
01:12:30,439 --> 01:12:31,639
Speaker 1: criminals and so forth.

1336
01:12:31,920 --> 01:12:35,120
Speaker 3: There's one part where I think they're asking, like there's

1337
01:12:35,160 --> 01:12:38,920
Speaker 3: like school children clearly being terrified by RoboCop during some

1338
01:12:39,000 --> 01:12:41,479
Speaker 3: kind of outreach program, and they're like, do you have

1339
01:12:41,479 --> 01:12:44,040
Speaker 3: any message for the children, and he says, stay out

1340
01:12:44,080 --> 01:12:50,719
Speaker 3: of trouble. But all of this builds up to a realization. Lewis,

1341
01:12:50,960 --> 01:12:54,559
Speaker 3: Murphy's old partner, sees through the machine mask. She sees

1342
01:12:54,600 --> 01:12:59,280
Speaker 3: that it's Murphy underneath, noticing little ticks, little sayings and

1343
01:12:59,360 --> 01:13:02,639
Speaker 3: movements that mirror things Murphy did. One giveaway is that

1344
01:13:03,000 --> 01:13:06,600
Speaker 3: Murphy was practicing this kind of, you know, a cowboy

1345
01:13:06,840 --> 01:13:10,120
Speaker 3: gun holster move that was from a TV show that

1346
01:13:10,200 --> 01:13:13,000
Speaker 3: his son liked, called TJ Laser, And then she sees

1347
01:13:13,120 --> 01:13:16,920
Speaker 3: RoboCop do the same move, so she realizes who it is.

1348
01:13:16,960 --> 01:13:19,040
Speaker 3: She's like, that's Murphy in there, and she goes up

1349
01:13:19,040 --> 01:13:20,760
Speaker 3: to him. At one point she like approaches him in

1350
01:13:20,760 --> 01:13:24,879
Speaker 3: a hallway and says, Murphy, it's you, and this causes

1351
01:13:24,920 --> 01:13:28,440
Speaker 3: a crisis. RoboCop is not supposed to have a personality

1352
01:13:28,600 --> 01:13:31,720
Speaker 3: or any memories. Bob Morton again. He explains that like,

1353
01:13:31,760 --> 01:13:35,120
Speaker 3: it's just physical scaffolding. They just need some brain tissue.

1354
01:13:35,520 --> 01:13:39,080
Speaker 3: Murphy no longer exists, it's just brain tissue owned by OCP.

1355
01:13:39,640 --> 01:13:44,040
Speaker 3: That's not a person, it's a machine. But nevertheless, RoboCop

1356
01:13:44,080 --> 01:13:50,040
Speaker 3: begins to malfunction by having memories and dreams and glitches,

1357
01:13:50,960 --> 01:13:52,839
Speaker 3: and this leads up to a scene where he visits

1358
01:13:52,880 --> 01:13:55,719
Speaker 3: his former home that he shared with his family, which

1359
01:13:55,760 --> 01:13:58,639
Speaker 3: is now empty and for sale. There's like a robotic

1360
01:13:59,360 --> 01:14:02,320
Speaker 3: salesman who starts talking when he comes in the door, like, oh,

1361
01:14:02,360 --> 01:14:04,880
Speaker 3: this could be your new dream home. And I think

1362
01:14:04,920 --> 01:14:07,240
Speaker 3: some critics at the time might have sneered at these

1363
01:14:07,640 --> 01:14:11,160
Speaker 3: sequences of him, you know, this machine with these strange

1364
01:14:11,400 --> 01:14:15,799
Speaker 3: robotic motions, trying to reclaim his past life and remember

1365
01:14:15,840 --> 01:14:18,520
Speaker 3: what it was. They might have seen that as ridiculous.

1366
01:14:18,560 --> 01:14:20,479
Speaker 3: But I found this stuff quite moving.

1367
01:14:20,920 --> 01:14:23,320
Speaker 1: To each their own, I guess, yeah, yeah, this is

1368
01:14:23,360 --> 01:14:25,879
Speaker 1: one of the segments that really hit me in the fields.

1369
01:14:26,439 --> 01:14:28,400
Speaker 1: I liked it. I thought it worked.

1370
01:14:28,600 --> 01:14:31,799
Speaker 3: Also, somewhere in here there's a scene where Dick Jones

1371
01:14:32,000 --> 01:14:34,599
Speaker 3: sends Clarence Bodiker, who works for him by the way

1372
01:14:34,920 --> 01:14:38,400
Speaker 3: to Bob Morton's house to kill him. He's just like, Okay,

1373
01:14:38,439 --> 01:14:39,280
Speaker 3: I'm done with Morton.

1374
01:14:40,040 --> 01:14:42,960
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, Like Morton really didn't know what he was

1375
01:14:43,040 --> 01:14:46,519
Speaker 1: messing with it clearly didn't really think that Dick Jones

1376
01:14:46,520 --> 01:14:49,840
Speaker 1: would send a goon to his house to murder him

1377
01:14:49,840 --> 01:14:51,839
Speaker 1: in cold blood, and that's exactly what happens.

1378
01:14:52,240 --> 01:14:55,439
Speaker 3: Then there's an interesting middle section of the movie in

1379
01:14:55,479 --> 01:15:01,360
Speaker 3: which RoboCop, in this process of redis discovering that he

1380
01:15:01,439 --> 01:15:03,479
Speaker 3: might have been a person at one point and who

1381
01:15:03,520 --> 01:15:09,439
Speaker 3: that person was. He starts to systematically solve Murphy's own murder.

1382
01:15:09,800 --> 01:15:13,840
Speaker 3: So he like encounters Emil, one of Clarence Bodaker's gang

1383
01:15:14,680 --> 01:15:17,840
Speaker 3: in the middle of like robbing a gas station, and

1384
01:15:17,960 --> 01:15:20,640
Speaker 3: he encounters him, and from him he traces him to

1385
01:15:20,800 --> 01:15:24,640
Speaker 3: other members of Botacker's gang and eventually to Botaker himself.

1386
01:15:25,080 --> 01:15:28,160
Speaker 3: And when he when he captures Bodiker, Bodeker claims that

1387
01:15:28,240 --> 01:15:30,839
Speaker 3: he can't be arrested because he has a protection agreement

1388
01:15:30,880 --> 01:15:34,160
Speaker 3: he works for Dick Jones, and Dick Jones runs the police.

1389
01:15:34,640 --> 01:15:38,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, this whole solving Zone murder series of sequences is great.

1390
01:15:39,040 --> 01:15:40,679
Speaker 1: Like there's a scene where he goes to the nightclub

1391
01:15:40,720 --> 01:15:43,800
Speaker 1: to collect Ray Wise's character Yeah, that one's a lot

1392
01:15:43,840 --> 01:15:48,680
Speaker 1: of fun. Yeah. It builds nicely until he's yeah, he's

1393
01:15:48,720 --> 01:15:52,520
Speaker 1: already found Botaker that Bodika. This is where there's a

1394
01:15:52,600 --> 01:15:56,479
Speaker 1: He roughs him up quite a bit and drags a bloody,

1395
01:15:56,560 --> 01:15:59,000
Speaker 1: snarling Boticker into police headquarters.

1396
01:15:59,439 --> 01:16:03,120
Speaker 3: But so now he has evidence that Dick Jones is

1397
01:16:03,120 --> 01:16:05,120
Speaker 3: behind it all. So he tries to go up the

1398
01:16:05,200 --> 01:16:07,720
Speaker 3: chain to arrest Dick Jones and it doesn't work out

1399
01:16:07,720 --> 01:16:11,160
Speaker 3: so well. He walks into the office Ronnie Cox is

1400
01:16:11,160 --> 01:16:14,160
Speaker 3: sitting there, and Ronnie Cox like holds out his hands.

1401
01:16:14,200 --> 01:16:17,000
Speaker 3: He says, sounds pretty serious, you better arrest me. But

1402
01:16:17,120 --> 01:16:22,400
Speaker 3: RoboCop is somehow unable to act. Something is preventing him,

1403
01:16:22,680 --> 01:16:25,920
Speaker 3: and here we see the activation of Directive four, his

1404
01:16:26,080 --> 01:16:29,679
Speaker 3: secret guiding principle, which is that he cannot act against

1405
01:16:29,720 --> 01:16:33,479
Speaker 3: the interests of OCP, so he cannot will himself to

1406
01:16:33,680 --> 01:16:35,320
Speaker 3: arrest one of its officers.

1407
01:16:36,160 --> 01:16:38,280
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and then this is where Dick Jones, with

1408
01:16:38,720 --> 01:16:42,040
Speaker 1: villainous charm, brings out ED two O nine. He's like,

1409
01:16:42,120 --> 01:16:43,719
Speaker 1: I going to introduce you to a friend of mine.

1410
01:16:44,520 --> 01:16:49,120
Speaker 1: Boardroom doors open and out comes this glorious stop motion creation.

1411
01:16:50,000 --> 01:16:52,560
Speaker 1: ED two O nine is here to finish off RoboCop.

1412
01:16:52,800 --> 01:16:55,719
Speaker 3: So yeah, for a bit, there's this fight, the struggle

1413
01:16:55,720 --> 01:16:58,719
Speaker 3: where RoboCop is sort of immobilized. It's these two killer

1414
01:16:58,800 --> 01:17:02,000
Speaker 3: robots versus each other, but one of them still has

1415
01:17:02,120 --> 01:17:05,240
Speaker 3: a shred of humanity inside it and it manages to

1416
01:17:05,479 --> 01:17:08,519
Speaker 3: barely escape ED two O nine. And then there is

1417
01:17:08,560 --> 01:17:11,000
Speaker 3: a detail in this fight that I've always loved since

1418
01:17:11,000 --> 01:17:13,519
Speaker 3: the first time I saw the movie. What how is

1419
01:17:13,680 --> 01:17:17,160
Speaker 3: ED to O nine defeated In this confrontation by stairs?

1420
01:17:17,439 --> 01:17:21,000
Speaker 3: ED two O nine gets to the stairwell and RoboCop

1421
01:17:21,080 --> 01:17:23,439
Speaker 3: runs down it and ED to O nine clearly this

1422
01:17:23,560 --> 01:17:25,960
Speaker 3: is a contingency that the designers of ED two O

1423
01:17:26,040 --> 01:17:28,479
Speaker 3: nine had never thought of, and it is unable to

1424
01:17:28,600 --> 01:17:32,360
Speaker 3: navigate going down a staircase and ends up turned on

1425
01:17:32,400 --> 01:17:36,720
Speaker 3: its back and unable to get up. And it's hilarious.

1426
01:17:37,160 --> 01:17:41,000
Speaker 3: It feels so right, and it's the best possible conclusion

1427
01:17:41,080 --> 01:17:41,639
Speaker 3: to this fight.

1428
01:17:42,200 --> 01:17:44,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it hits all the right notes, and in

1429
01:17:44,760 --> 01:17:47,120
Speaker 1: a sense like it does get into this again sort

1430
01:17:47,120 --> 01:17:50,800
Speaker 1: of light sci fi about cybernetics and robotics. The idea

1431
01:17:50,840 --> 01:17:54,320
Speaker 1: that ED two nine is a military application that is

1432
01:17:54,360 --> 01:17:56,840
Speaker 1: clearly clearly was not designed for police work. It was

1433
01:17:56,880 --> 01:18:00,120
Speaker 1: not designed to interact in a human world, and an

1434
01:18:00,120 --> 01:18:03,000
Speaker 1: important part of police work is interacting in a human world.

1435
01:18:03,439 --> 01:18:06,960
Speaker 1: That involves obviously things like stairs, as well as other

1436
01:18:07,120 --> 01:18:10,200
Speaker 1: nuances like being able to tell the difference between a

1437
01:18:11,400 --> 01:18:14,439
Speaker 1: perpetrator who is an active threat and someone who has

1438
01:18:14,479 --> 01:18:16,080
Speaker 1: already surrendered and so forth.

1439
01:18:16,320 --> 01:18:18,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so I think that I think part of

1440
01:18:18,640 --> 01:18:20,800
Speaker 3: the vision of ED two nine is that it is

1441
01:18:20,840 --> 01:18:24,280
Speaker 3: a very dangerous lethal robot, but in many ways it

1442
01:18:24,320 --> 01:18:28,840
Speaker 3: is poorly designed. So it's like it is designed to

1443
01:18:29,360 --> 01:18:33,760
Speaker 3: appeal to the people who award defense contracts more than

1444
01:18:33,800 --> 01:18:35,639
Speaker 3: to like actually be good at its job.

1445
01:18:36,240 --> 01:18:41,040
Speaker 1: Right. But again, great great finish to this initial combat

1446
01:18:41,080 --> 01:18:43,120
Speaker 1: between RoboCop and ED two to nine.

1447
01:18:43,280 --> 01:18:45,800
Speaker 3: But at this point, so RoboCop is he's able to

1448
01:18:45,840 --> 01:18:48,320
Speaker 3: get down the stairs. But at this point the OCP

1449
01:18:48,479 --> 01:18:51,200
Speaker 3: controlled police Force arrives and they have been ordered to

1450
01:18:51,280 --> 01:18:55,320
Speaker 3: destroy RoboCop, and so they try, but Lewis saves him.

1451
01:18:55,400 --> 01:18:57,640
Speaker 3: She comes to the rescue. She takes him off to

1452
01:18:57,800 --> 01:19:01,640
Speaker 3: the abandoned foundry we saw earlier and helps him rediscover

1453
01:19:01,720 --> 01:19:04,360
Speaker 3: who he is. And this sequence, his mask comes off,

1454
01:19:04,400 --> 01:19:07,240
Speaker 3: like he removes the bolts and takes off his visor

1455
01:19:07,560 --> 01:19:11,880
Speaker 3: and reveals that Murphy's face is still underneath there to

1456
01:19:11,880 --> 01:19:15,599
Speaker 3: some extent. His brain still is Murphy's brain, though it's

1457
01:19:15,680 --> 01:19:18,599
Speaker 3: different and there, I don't know. There's like a really

1458
01:19:18,600 --> 01:19:22,240
Speaker 3: tender scene where she helps him recalibrate his aim and

1459
01:19:22,320 --> 01:19:25,200
Speaker 3: it just kind of gives him encouragement. He doesn't know

1460
01:19:25,240 --> 01:19:27,639
Speaker 3: what he is, but whatever he is, she's there to help.

1461
01:19:28,280 --> 01:19:31,960
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I really liked this part. Also, the part

1462
01:19:32,000 --> 01:19:33,599
Speaker 1: where after the mask has come off and he has

1463
01:19:33,600 --> 01:19:37,400
Speaker 1: to be left alone. You know, it's it's a tender moment.

1464
01:19:37,479 --> 01:19:40,720
Speaker 1: That is, it's well acted by both actors involved here,

1465
01:19:40,800 --> 01:19:43,000
Speaker 1: and you know, I totally totally buy into it, and

1466
01:19:43,680 --> 01:19:45,519
Speaker 1: it made me tear up just a little bit.

1467
01:19:46,120 --> 01:19:49,640
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, Dick Jones hooks Bodiker's gang up with some kind

1468
01:19:49,680 --> 01:19:52,160
Speaker 3: of military grade weapons that they are going to need

1469
01:19:52,200 --> 01:19:56,040
Speaker 3: to destroy RoboCop. Jones of course wants RoboCop dead for

1470
01:19:56,120 --> 01:19:59,759
Speaker 3: two reasons. First of all, RoboCop has evidence against Jones

1471
01:19:59,760 --> 01:20:02,560
Speaker 3: and his memory banks, and he doesn't want to be implicated.

1472
01:20:02,600 --> 01:20:05,680
Speaker 3: But the second thing is, of course, if RoboCop is eliminated,

1473
01:20:05,680 --> 01:20:09,240
Speaker 3: that'll put ed to nine that project back front and center.

1474
01:20:09,800 --> 01:20:12,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, he's promising to have an ED two o nine,

1475
01:20:12,360 --> 01:20:14,360
Speaker 1: like on every street corner. So there are already a

1476
01:20:14,439 --> 01:20:16,800
Speaker 1: lot of these in stories just ready to roll out

1477
01:20:16,800 --> 01:20:18,000
Speaker 1: into the city in force.

1478
01:20:18,680 --> 01:20:21,280
Speaker 3: So Botaker and the gang now armed with these, with

1479
01:20:21,320 --> 01:20:24,519
Speaker 3: this heavy artillery, they come to hunt down RoboCop at

1480
01:20:24,560 --> 01:20:27,920
Speaker 3: the foundry. But there and this leads to a bunch

1481
01:20:27,960 --> 01:20:30,280
Speaker 3: of great action scenes. There's like a car chase and

1482
01:20:30,320 --> 01:20:33,519
Speaker 3: there are these shootouts and all that together RoboCop and

1483
01:20:33,600 --> 01:20:37,600
Speaker 3: Lewis managed to defeat Bodiker and his gang. This is

1484
01:20:37,640 --> 01:20:41,160
Speaker 3: the sequence that includes Emil getting doused with toxic waste

1485
01:20:41,160 --> 01:20:46,519
Speaker 3: and eventually melting. So it's incredibly gory action scenes. We've

1486
01:20:46,560 --> 01:20:49,160
Speaker 3: said that a million times now, but like you be warned,

1487
01:20:49,240 --> 01:20:52,719
Speaker 3: this is an incredibly bloody, violent movie. But as action scenes,

1488
01:20:52,720 --> 01:20:53,880
Speaker 3: they work pretty great.

1489
01:20:54,520 --> 01:20:57,479
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I mean I've seen my shareff Gorfest and

1490
01:20:57,479 --> 01:21:00,240
Speaker 1: I've seen this film before obviously, but yeah, when I

1491
01:21:00,320 --> 01:21:03,479
Speaker 1: was rewatching the emeal melting sequence, it's just like like

1492
01:21:03,520 --> 01:21:08,120
Speaker 1: I had a just like a grimace fixed into my

1493
01:21:08,200 --> 01:21:12,160
Speaker 1: face for like a good solid five minutes because it's

1494
01:21:12,160 --> 01:21:14,360
Speaker 1: so grim and it's so gross, and it seems to

1495
01:21:14,439 --> 01:21:18,439
Speaker 1: go on forever until he's finally hit by a car

1496
01:21:18,880 --> 01:21:22,120
Speaker 1: by a boticker's car and just explodes in a splash

1497
01:21:22,160 --> 01:21:23,839
Speaker 1: of slime. It's awful.

1498
01:21:24,240 --> 01:21:29,200
Speaker 3: Yeah. So after all this, RoboCop goes to arrest Dick

1499
01:21:29,280 --> 01:21:32,799
Speaker 3: Jones because you know OCP is behind it all, working

1500
01:21:32,800 --> 01:21:36,080
Speaker 3: on Dick Jones's orders. So RoboCop comes into a board

1501
01:21:36,120 --> 01:21:39,880
Speaker 3: meeting and he turns the old Man against him by

1502
01:21:39,880 --> 01:21:42,559
Speaker 3: playing a tape of Dick Jones admitting the murder of

1503
01:21:42,600 --> 01:21:46,000
Speaker 3: Bob Morton. Now you know, OCP may not be very

1504
01:21:46,360 --> 01:21:50,320
Speaker 3: sensitive to the harm they caused to regular people, but

1505
01:21:50,520 --> 01:21:53,480
Speaker 3: this is the murder of one of these corporate guys themselves,

1506
01:21:53,479 --> 01:21:56,800
Speaker 3: and I think they're unsettled by that. So so now

1507
01:21:56,880 --> 01:22:00,240
Speaker 3: Dick Jones actually feels afraid. He tries to take the

1508
01:22:00,280 --> 01:22:04,519
Speaker 3: old Man hostage to flee the scene. And here there's

1509
01:22:04,520 --> 01:22:08,160
Speaker 3: an interesting conflict because RoboCop is still bound by Directive four,

1510
01:22:08,280 --> 01:22:11,519
Speaker 3: so he cannot act against OCP. He can't act against Jones.

1511
01:22:12,080 --> 01:22:16,040
Speaker 3: But then he he essentially hints to the old Man

1512
01:22:16,120 --> 01:22:20,360
Speaker 3: what the problem is, and the old Man then announces

1513
01:22:20,400 --> 01:22:24,120
Speaker 3: that Jones is fired from his position. So RoboCop immediately

1514
01:22:24,120 --> 01:22:28,479
Speaker 3: shoots him out of the skyscraper window. So that's an

1515
01:22:28,520 --> 01:22:30,960
Speaker 3: interesting twist, and then there is a special effect. Well,

1516
01:22:30,960 --> 01:22:34,400
Speaker 3: the special effects generally in this movie are fantastic. There

1517
01:22:34,479 --> 01:22:37,240
Speaker 3: is a famously bad one as Jones falls out of

1518
01:22:37,280 --> 01:22:39,280
Speaker 3: the window and it looks like he has really long

1519
01:22:39,479 --> 01:22:40,879
Speaker 3: arms for some reason.

1520
01:22:41,680 --> 01:22:44,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a stop motion effect. They use a

1521
01:22:44,479 --> 01:22:48,760
Speaker 1: stop motion model of Dick Jones, which I mean basically,

1522
01:22:49,920 --> 01:22:51,760
Speaker 1: I guess you have to think about about stop motion

1523
01:22:51,880 --> 01:22:54,120
Speaker 1: a lot with this film, Like stop motion is here

1524
01:22:55,040 --> 01:22:57,479
Speaker 1: and used in this film, not so much because it

1525
01:22:57,560 --> 01:23:01,160
Speaker 1: is loving and well Craft did and is like an

1526
01:23:01,240 --> 01:23:03,800
Speaker 1: art form all its own. It was the best way

1527
01:23:03,840 --> 01:23:08,559
Speaker 1: of delivering this particular effect at the time. And so

1528
01:23:08,840 --> 01:23:10,719
Speaker 1: with Dick, even with Dick Jones falling out the window,

1529
01:23:10,800 --> 01:23:12,880
Speaker 1: like what are your choices? You either don't show it,

1530
01:23:13,479 --> 01:23:16,600
Speaker 1: or you use like a Dick Jones lying on a

1531
01:23:17,040 --> 01:23:19,040
Speaker 1: blue mat and do like a green scaring kind of

1532
01:23:19,080 --> 01:23:21,320
Speaker 1: a thing where he's like, ah, you know, like Mortal

1533
01:23:21,400 --> 01:23:25,280
Speaker 1: Kombat too falling into the pit, which can also look

1534
01:23:25,320 --> 01:23:28,080
Speaker 1: pretty bad. Or you go first stop motion, and in

1535
01:23:28,120 --> 01:23:31,040
Speaker 1: this case it didn't quite work, like they were trying

1536
01:23:31,040 --> 01:23:33,679
Speaker 1: to create something that was too lifelike. But I wouldn't

1537
01:23:33,760 --> 01:23:36,559
Speaker 1: change it. Yeah, I wouldn't change it still admired.

1538
01:23:36,880 --> 01:23:39,920
Speaker 3: I love the long arms that it gives me a

1539
01:23:39,960 --> 01:23:40,840
Speaker 3: tickle every time.

1540
01:23:42,360 --> 01:23:44,599
Speaker 1: This was a time period too where like that sort

1541
01:23:44,640 --> 01:23:46,840
Speaker 1: of shot, I feel like happened a lot. You had

1542
01:23:46,880 --> 01:23:48,960
Speaker 1: a lot of bad guys falling to their death, Like

1543
01:23:49,000 --> 01:23:52,519
Speaker 1: didn't the Joker go down the same way? Maybe a

1544
01:23:52,560 --> 01:23:57,600
Speaker 1: slightly more convincing effect. I don't recall, yeah, falling off skyscrapers.

1545
01:23:57,600 --> 01:23:59,160
Speaker 1: They'll do it well anyway.

1546
01:23:59,280 --> 01:24:03,760
Speaker 3: So after this, the old man says, he says something

1547
01:24:03,760 --> 01:24:07,160
Speaker 3: like nice shooting, son. What's your name? And RoboCop does

1548
01:24:07,200 --> 01:24:11,320
Speaker 3: not say RoboCop. He says Murphy. And that's the end

1549
01:24:11,320 --> 01:24:15,839
Speaker 3: of the film. And it's an interesting ending because Murphy

1550
01:24:16,000 --> 01:24:22,120
Speaker 3: has somewhat reclaimed his humanity, Like he has acted against

1551
01:24:22,439 --> 01:24:26,080
Speaker 3: the direct interests of his one of his bosses in

1552
01:24:26,080 --> 01:24:29,160
Speaker 3: this case, so he has somewhat done the right thing

1553
01:24:29,280 --> 01:24:32,519
Speaker 3: despite what he's being told to do by the by

1554
01:24:32,520 --> 01:24:35,799
Speaker 3: the organization that controls him. He has to some degree

1555
01:24:35,880 --> 01:24:39,400
Speaker 3: recovered part of himself in that like he you know,

1556
01:24:39,439 --> 01:24:42,720
Speaker 3: he remembers his family, he remembers his life. Even though

1557
01:24:42,760 --> 01:24:46,680
Speaker 3: he's not fully the Murphy he was, he realizes some

1558
01:24:46,760 --> 01:24:50,360
Speaker 3: part of him is Murphy, but he's still not completely free,

1559
01:24:50,439 --> 01:24:52,840
Speaker 3: and I think that makes the ending more interesting and

1560
01:24:52,880 --> 01:24:56,080
Speaker 3: bittersweet than if he just had like a total victory

1561
01:24:56,160 --> 01:24:58,599
Speaker 3: over the bad guys. He's still not fully free because

1562
01:24:58,600 --> 01:25:01,400
Speaker 3: he's not able to remove direc he just has to,

1563
01:25:01,680 --> 01:25:04,200
Speaker 3: like outsmart it, find a way around it by getting

1564
01:25:04,439 --> 01:25:07,000
Speaker 3: the old Man to fire Dick Jones so he can act.

1565
01:25:07,240 --> 01:25:09,840
Speaker 1: But again, thinking of Dick Jones as kind of a

1566
01:25:09,880 --> 01:25:13,599
Speaker 1: god or Zeus figure, it's like he has he has

1567
01:25:13,640 --> 01:25:16,560
Speaker 1: scaled at the top of Mount Olympus once more, and

1568
01:25:16,880 --> 01:25:19,519
Speaker 1: I guess we also have a Satanic figure literally falling

1569
01:25:20,439 --> 01:25:25,200
Speaker 1: from the heights here. But then the old Man has

1570
01:25:25,240 --> 01:25:27,559
Speaker 1: to acknowledge him, and in asking him his name, there

1571
01:25:27,600 --> 01:25:29,880
Speaker 1: is kind of like a power there. It's like like,

1572
01:25:30,040 --> 01:25:33,920
Speaker 1: this is your chance to reclaim some portion of humanity

1573
01:25:33,960 --> 01:25:36,559
Speaker 1: that we took from you. And he does reclaim at

1574
01:25:36,640 --> 01:25:37,360
Speaker 1: least part of it.

1575
01:25:37,760 --> 01:25:40,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, but like we said, it's not a complete victory,

1576
01:25:40,479 --> 01:25:43,160
Speaker 3: you know, It's not like OCP is completely defeated and

1577
01:25:43,760 --> 01:25:45,880
Speaker 3: the world has changed for the better. I mean, it's

1578
01:25:45,920 --> 01:25:49,000
Speaker 3: a small, limited victory, but at least it is that

1579
01:25:49,080 --> 01:25:51,719
Speaker 3: in this otherwise bleak and horrible world.

1580
01:25:52,160 --> 01:25:54,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's so many great little moments, like

1581
01:25:55,160 --> 01:25:57,719
Speaker 1: the final showdown with Bodiker, of course, where he stabs

1582
01:25:57,800 --> 01:26:00,240
Speaker 1: him in the neck, which apparently they wanted to do

1583
01:26:00,320 --> 01:26:03,960
Speaker 1: something grizzlier, and this was the this was thing, the

1584
01:26:04,040 --> 01:26:06,160
Speaker 1: less grizzly version, you know. And I guess you don't

1585
01:26:06,160 --> 01:26:09,840
Speaker 1: actually see him stab him in the neck. You just see,

1586
01:26:09,840 --> 01:26:13,200
Speaker 1: like way too his blood splashed unto Robocop's chest and

1587
01:26:13,200 --> 01:26:17,040
Speaker 1: then you see Bodiker stumbling away with blood gushing out

1588
01:26:17,040 --> 01:26:20,840
Speaker 1: of his Neck's still incredibly violent, but I'd forgotten that

1589
01:26:20,840 --> 01:26:24,160
Speaker 1: you don't actually see it going into his neck.

1590
01:26:24,760 --> 01:26:27,160
Speaker 3: The spike that he uses to kill Bodiker there is

1591
01:26:27,200 --> 01:26:29,320
Speaker 3: not actually meant to be a weapon. It is the

1592
01:26:29,479 --> 01:26:32,320
Speaker 3: jack that he uses to interface with the police computer.

1593
01:26:32,960 --> 01:26:35,439
Speaker 1: Yeah, and when he busts it out again to load

1594
01:26:35,479 --> 01:26:39,280
Speaker 1: the incriminating evidence, it's still bloody with Botaker's blood. But

1595
01:26:39,800 --> 01:26:43,360
Speaker 1: shortly after that there's that scene where Lewis is all

1596
01:26:43,479 --> 01:26:46,360
Speaker 1: is shot up and you know they've they've defeated the

1597
01:26:46,400 --> 01:26:49,080
Speaker 1: bad guys there, and this is at the industrial site

1598
01:26:49,439 --> 01:26:52,800
Speaker 1: and RoboCop says to her it's like, don't worry, they'll

1599
01:26:52,840 --> 01:26:55,040
Speaker 1: fix you up. They always do, or something to those.

1600
01:26:54,920 --> 01:26:56,759
Speaker 3: Effects which they fix everything.

1601
01:26:57,000 --> 01:27:00,439
Speaker 1: They fix everything, which which ties into this feeling of yeah,

1602
01:27:00,479 --> 01:27:04,040
Speaker 1: the sort of the the partial victory, like the powers

1603
01:27:04,040 --> 01:27:07,040
Speaker 1: that the are still very much in charge and are

1604
01:27:07,120 --> 01:27:09,960
Speaker 1: very much the deciders of life and death and resurrection,

1605
01:27:11,200 --> 01:27:15,040
Speaker 1: but some monicum of victory, some some shred of humanity

1606
01:27:15,040 --> 01:27:15,960
Speaker 1: has been reclaimed.

1607
01:27:16,400 --> 01:27:19,439
Speaker 3: So that's RoboCop. Would you buy that for a dollar?

1608
01:27:20,680 --> 01:27:23,759
Speaker 1: Yes, I would. I would buy it for thirty plus

1609
01:27:23,760 --> 01:27:27,640
Speaker 1: dollars whatever the going rate for the Blu Ray is,

1610
01:27:28,479 --> 01:27:31,599
Speaker 1: you know, or you know, rent it digitally or physically

1611
01:27:31,640 --> 01:27:33,360
Speaker 1: for somewhere in the neighborhood of four or five dollars.

1612
01:27:33,520 --> 01:27:34,920
Speaker 1: Well worth it, well worth the time.

1613
01:27:35,320 --> 01:27:36,479
Speaker 3: Okay, that's all I've got.

1614
01:27:36,800 --> 01:27:38,439
Speaker 1: All Right, We're going to go ahead and close out

1615
01:27:38,479 --> 01:27:40,719
Speaker 1: this episode. I think we have one more episode before

1616
01:27:40,800 --> 01:27:44,719
Speaker 1: our Christmas selection, so you know, keep your eyes open

1617
01:27:44,720 --> 01:27:46,519
Speaker 1: to see what we're going to be covering. You can

1618
01:27:46,600 --> 01:27:49,879
Speaker 1: follow the films that we cover on Weird House Cinema

1619
01:27:49,880 --> 01:27:52,240
Speaker 1: by going to letterbox dot com. That's l E T

1620
01:27:52,240 --> 01:27:54,360
Speaker 1: T E R b o x D dot com. Our

1621
01:27:54,560 --> 01:27:56,519
Speaker 1: username there is weird House, and we have a nice

1622
01:27:56,560 --> 01:27:58,680
Speaker 1: list of all the movies we've covered so far and

1623
01:27:58,760 --> 01:28:02,519
Speaker 1: sometimes a sneak peek at what's coming up at least

1624
01:28:02,520 --> 01:28:06,040
Speaker 1: in the week to follow. We're primarily a science podcast here,

1625
01:28:06,040 --> 01:28:08,360
Speaker 1: it's Stuff to Blow Your Mind with core episodes on

1626
01:28:08,400 --> 01:28:11,040
Speaker 1: Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays we set aside most

1627
01:28:11,040 --> 01:28:13,679
Speaker 1: serious concerns to just talk about a weird film film

1628
01:28:13,680 --> 01:28:16,439
Speaker 1: here on Weird House Cinema. Follow us on social media

1629
01:28:16,720 --> 01:28:20,720
Speaker 1: if you use social media. On Instagram, we are STBYM

1630
01:28:20,800 --> 01:28:23,880
Speaker 1: podcast and I have to say that the social media

1631
01:28:23,920 --> 01:28:27,080
Speaker 1: team has been putting up some cool like trailer audio

1632
01:28:27,160 --> 01:28:30,240
Speaker 1: visual trailer samples of the films covered on Weird House,

1633
01:28:30,240 --> 01:28:32,240
Speaker 1: so that's another place where you can get a little

1634
01:28:32,280 --> 01:28:34,639
Speaker 1: taste of the movie we're talking about each week.

1635
01:28:34,960 --> 01:28:38,559
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

1636
01:28:38,880 --> 01:28:40,439
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

1637
01:28:40,439 --> 01:28:42,960
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

1638
01:28:42,960 --> 01:28:44,920
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

1639
01:28:45,000 --> 01:28:47,559
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow

1640
01:28:47,600 --> 01:28:55,360
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.

1641
01:28:55,520 --> 01:28:58,439
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

1642
01:28:58,520 --> 01:29:01,320
Speaker 2: more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1643
01:29:01,479 --> 01:29:04,240
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.