I actually think "The Future of Law Enforcement" (the Neumeier-written pilot episode of the 1994 TV series) does a pretty decent job of telling a "sequel" story to the first movie. The "Murphy rediscovers his humanity" of R2 is there, but integrated into a decent detective story that also develops the first film's universe. It follows a similar pattern to the first film where it is gradually revealed that the street-level stuff and the corporate intrigue are tightly intertwined. Sadly, the budget wasn't there. A version of "The Future of Law Enforcement" with Robo 2's budget and bracing nastiness would have been a solid follow-up to the original. There were a few other episodes of the series that might have worked as a follow-up movie too. There was one episode based on a famous story in the RoboCop comic book, where Robo goes on trial for a murder apparently committed with his own gun. It's similar to an old Outer Limits episode or I Robot. The TV series was full of good ideas that they just didn't have the means or skill to execute.
RoboCop 2 is full of great ideas, and most of them are developed enough in my book. I'm glad that Miller did not betray the spirit and the concept of the first movie. RoboCop is not Alex Murphy. He is a cyborg, a machine, just using half of Murphy's brain to function. Having SOME "human feelings" popping up in his own system here and there, as an anomaly, doesn't make him truly "Murphy". However, that's the quite poetic message of both the first 2 RoboCop movies (especially, and above all, RoboCop 1): everyone can be "human", if he/she feels something and he/she believes so. Humanity and identity are choices that you can conquer. Granted, RoboCop is a monster, but he also developed some "twisted version" of humanity. That's quite revolutionary.
The first Robocop had an all-time great villain in Boddicker. Tough for any sequel to try and match that. I think that's why you have a trifecta in part two with the kid, the Old Man & Cain (not to mention the entire society set up around this movie). For me that works, especially with all the machinations within OCP. Robocop 1 & 2, Die Hard 1 & 2 and Predator 1 & 2 (throw the first two Alien and Terminator movies in there as well) are the best action movie-sequel pairings I can think of. Predator 2 suffers from some really sad Jamaican stereotypes which make it hard to get into but the action around that is good. I've also read where technically the first Alien and Terminator movies are more horror than action and that works too. The satire in the Robocop movies is top-notch. The two Die Hards have this too, but it's more subtle.
He was so good and memorable as the villain in that movie it was hard for me to see him as anything else in other roles he had later.
I interviewed Kurtwood Smith like 12 years ago... and never posted it on my site. I have no idea why. I need to finally run that review! Of course, we discussed "RoboCop" some... but I actually wanted to talk more about "Quick Change"!
Give it a look - it's hilarious! I think it's Bill Murray's best movie! Just came out on Blu-ray, too! Quick Change [Blu-Ray] (1990)
A lot of the credit has to go to Walon Green. He's the one who imbued the movie with some kind of through-line and logic and humanity. If you read the Frank Miller comic based on his unexpurgated script, you'll see a ton of stuff that completely betrays what the first movie is about, up to and including a denouement where Robo makes out with Lewis. So a lot of the off-the-wall ideas that make Robo 2 interesting did come from Miller, as did most of the humor I think, but Orion wasn't wrong when they said his script was a disaster. Mind you, had Corporate Wars been filmed instead, fans of the first film would probably have been completely up in arms. Robo has a romance in that one too, which takes up about a third of his 10 minutes of screen time -- and the whole thing is narrated by a rapper on the moon! IMO Robo 2 would have been a lot better if they dumped the entire "re-programming" subplot, with its very ham-handed "political correctness" jokes that are way dumber than anything else in the series. It grinds the movie to a halt and doesn't amount to anything since Robo solves the problem himself a couple of scenes later with the self-electrocution, and then it's never mentioned again. As I said, it's like a (funny) episode of a RoboCop TV series, rather than a movie act. That being said, Rob Bottin's cut-up Robo animatronic is truly amazing and disturbing. I would also suggest that the "war on drugs" stuff is so specific to the Reagan era that it dates the movie a bit in a way that the first one hasn't dated. Particularly since it's played relatively straight.
Well, "political correctness" is always dumb and insane, so they depicted that very "REALISTICALLY" IMHO. The electrocution was a suicide. That shows that RoboCop is aware of its true nature (a cyborg), and he's willing to die if he fails to work correctly. I think his "human feelings" drove him to do so. It was a stunning sequence. I also think that the re-programming sequence was important, because it showed us that: 1) RoboCop is simply machine in the hands of humans; 2) RoboCop is vulnerable; 3) "Political correctness" is an empty concept when you deal with criminals. That said, there are two tiny sequences that I remember that, at the time, pissed me off, but probably my memory is 100% wrong on them: (MAGGIE, let me know about these) 1- Children throwing popcorns to RoboCop was unnecessary, even if it proved that RoboCop cannot behave badly towards children (and children know that). 2- During the chase scene, when RoboCop hits the pole, that was a bit too comical for my tastes. Was it deliberate? Did it look comical or not?
What channel was this 1994 series on? If I knew about it at the time, I didn't watch it. A reviewer of the show on IMDB: "staring at a dogs butt is more exciting than this". That's why the 80's (and on into about 1991 & T2) are probably the top decade for action movies, and possibly for horror and action/horror as well. So many classics.
The RoboCop live-action TV series was a Canadian production and heavily promoted here. At the time, it was actually the most expensive TV series in Canadian history. This was at a time when several big-budget sci-fi series were being experimented with in Canada -- the others included TekWar, Total Recall 2070, and The Outer Limits. Only the latter was successful, because (IIRC) it was on Showtime in the US. They were all interesting, though, at least in concept. Its distribution in the US and elsewhere was spotty. It was distributed in syndication like Xena and Hercules so it didn't have a proper network spot. As for being less exciting than a dog's butt, well, that's hard to dispute overall. It's designed to be kid-friendly, which was one major mistake (in particular, it really softens the corporate-evil thread of the first movie), the pace is often slow, and it's largely set at night (perhaps for FX reasons) so it looks rather drab and unappealing, a la Deep Space 9. However, it had two things going for it: 1) they used the original suit from the first movie; and 2) they got Ed Neumeier to write the pilot. A small handful of the episodes were quite good. And Blu Mankuma made a good police captain.
Thanks—looks like the whole 1994 series is on YouTube, but I don’t know about the quality of the upload. Wouldn’t mind checking out some of that and the Prime Directives series which I’ve never seen, all while keeping my expectations in check naturally.
IMHO Prime Directives is much worse than the 1994 TV series. In fact I'd say it's far and away the worst RoboCop TV series or movie, and that includes the cartoon. I know the people who made it meant well and wanted to pay tribute to the original, but it's a complete disaster and almost unwatchable. Basically a fan film. You've been warned! The undervalued Canadian actor Maurice Dean Wint chews the scenery amusingly as Cable but every other actor is cringe from start to finish. Surprisingly, it uses a bunch of stock footage from the '94 TV series, I guess for budget reasons.
Too bad they couldn't manage to transfer the original 35mm films on HD, because there's only a SDBD set for this. Hopefully, they didn't shot/edited the series on video... that would be atrocious to know. That said, it was aired on Italia Uno (one of the best and most famous Italian TV channels), here in my country.
There's a fair number of what look like Video Toaster stock effects in Prime Directives, so I think it's quite likely it was cut together on video.
I just read the comic adaptation of Miller's Robocop 2 script, which was put out by Avatar Comics back in like 2003. 9 issues. Got to say, there are some very totally Miller ideas bursting out of this story: the talking media heads of The Dark Knight Returns, the hopped-up psycho merc who becomes Robocop 2 here and who reminded me of the villain Nuke of Daredevil: Born Again. It's also very faithful to the spirit of the first film, with the sadistic crime in the city and the subversive commercials. I had a hard time following Juan Jose Ryp's art at times--which is grossly textured in a Geoff Darrow-esque kind of way. Good art though! I can see why the movie studio didn't go with Miller's script outside of an outline. It's particularly nasty and unpleasant. There was no kid criminal in this comic, I wonder how that element found its way into the film.
Very interesting. I'll do that for sure, too. Just tell me... what about Robo's development on Miller's comic book?
Miller’s take on Murphy is..interesting. I can’t talk about specifics without giving too much away. I’d say Miller overall does right by him save for a few questionable moments (Miller also seems to inherently get the nihilism and cynicism of the story world).
It dawns on me that I misunderstood your post about whether the 1994 Robo TV series was edited on video. To be clear, it definitely was, and the series only exists in SD video as a result, even though it was indeed shot in 35mm. There is a prominent credit for Video Toaster (an early digital video nonlinear editing system) in the 1994 TV series.
Found this in-deep essay on RoboCop 2 and the psychology of RoboCop in the movie: How Robocop 2 Overlooks the Psychological Canon of Modern Cinema Loved it.
